James Ballantyne

Tag: thinking

  • Bestowing Your Gift Softly.

    Bestowing Your Gift Softly.

    One of the treasures within each and every one of us is our hearts. You have one, as do I, and yet so often in our day to day lives our hearts, and the desires of them play a silent role in our lives. Advertisers appeal to our minds, our desires , our discontent and our wallets, our thinking is so honed and shaped that its the reason behind entire education systems, create knowledge, and experiences, so that you can work. Religion is not far different, belief is highly attuned to ‘thought’ and less about feeling (in some places feelings are derided or discarded within religion, for the sake of holding beliefs that are about facts) and I’m not deriding the pursuit of depth of knowledge or curiosity – our minds are important…but they are not everything.

    But our minds can only do so much, even if our thinking wants to convince us that it can do everything – thats often the role we have given it, thats more our ego than our whole. But our mind knows things, it knows experiences, it knows, it calculates, it thinks, constantly, and that constant thinking, is often why the heart seems to be silent. Yet a life without heart, is a life on the move, an life on constancy, a life reacting to the speed of thought, where each curiously results in action, where layers of life build on each other.

    One of the treasures is our hearts. It is where there is pure love, where there are feelings of anger, desire, passion, love, and where the channel opens to the soul , a place that can’t be thought into, it can only be felt, and have soft loving hands open the doorway, to a space of consciousness beyond, a place where there is harmony, security and the soft stillness of the inner love voice.

    Where your heart is there will be your treasure. Your life is ‘wholer’ when you can feel, and be grateful for being able to and safe to (Michael Singer, Living Untethered) and yet so often we live a life afraid of, in denial of, or ashamed of feelings, and the experiences in our lives that caused them. Spirituality is the task of loving softness on the parts we’d rather hide. ‘Morality is often the enemy of growth’ writes John O Donohue ( Anam Cara) Morality is thoughts and shame put together, often in institutional cultures and behaviours. Spiritual growth requires deep inner love, requires hearts, requires anger, requires the softness of the love that comes from the depth and mystery of our heart itself.

    A heart that holds when life around us breaks into a million pieces. A heart that heals with tears. A heart that responds inside with softness. A heart that loves the world with bliss and connection. A heart that rests and the moment at the end of each breath. A heart that tells you ‘ I love you’, ‘Im proud of you’ , even if your thinking wants to tell you otherwise. Your heart will always be on your side. Your thinking has so often been placed there from other sources.

    And when you find your heart, your life will shine with beauty.

    And when you find the gift of your heart, it was your heart that found itself all alone. For it is love that carries you in love all along, to find that love that hides under that shadows of shame and pain, and guilt and perfection, until its gift is accepted, and its gentle hands are held, walking hand in hand in love.

    Part of the beauty of the act of discovery is the integrity of its desire for wholeness. Your soul will not want to avoid of neglect the regions of your heart that do not fit the expected. When you trust yourself enough to discover and integrate your strangeness, you bestow a gift to yourself.

    Rather than annulling a complex part of your heart which would continue to haunt you, you have thrown your arms around yourself to embrace who you are’

    (John O Donohue, Divine Beauty)

  • The Longest Journey to make the Shortest Distance

    Ive been on what I call ‘Project James’ for over 6 years now, and in that time to heal from 40 years of manipulative abuse since childhood, including recovering from unemployment and homelessness.

    Internally, breaking down behind the ‘I’m doing ok’ facade, pretend strength but hollow and hurting inside, that had been my survival strategy since childhood, one that I thought was normal, a lifetime of running, avoiding or soothing, in a variety of destructive ways, oh and hoping that Jesus would deal with it, fix it and that ‘church’ would be my saviour.

    And thats just a summary.

    In summary, then, the last six years has included

    • 4 different bouts of therapy, including trauma therapy
    • Pages of journalling, raging and writing
    • Reading an extensive amount of self help books that encompassed:
      • Undertstanding narcissim, psychopathy and emotionally immature parents
      • Codependency
      • Self Understanding on Enneagram
      • Self compassion
      • Inner child work
      • Trauma – including Edith Eger, Victor Frankl, The Body keeps the score etc… 
      • Spirituality, including Eckhart Tolle, John O Donohue and others. 
      • Personal freedom, such as The four/five agreements, and The Untethered Soul
    • Walking and taking on a number of ‘slow’ hobbies
    • Writing, including my blog here

    It’s been a lot. A lot to try and understand myself, alot to be able to become more and more safe for me on the inside to be able to feel emotions, to be able to regulate and to face the pains and damage from my abusers, and also how I internalised and survived it all, and at the same time, work, earn, live and exist. 

    Yet, when I think about it, it’s been a long journey, to make a small distance considerably more healthy and whole. 

    It has been a long journey, in thinking, feeling and experiencing.

    To build connections where there once was fracture.

    To heal the holes, brokenness and wounded-ness between my head, my heart, and my soul. 

    The distance from I to myself. 

    An extensive work to heal a small amount of space.

    A journey I was putting off taking for far too long

    A journey I invalidated and avoided

    My thoughts that I believed, told me that I was too broken, too beaten, too frightened, to guilty, to shameful, too small, too weak, to make, and the journey

    Too big, too exposing, too tiring, too massive, too encompassing, too hard, too challenging and was also too invalidated by those around me, or my own beliefs 
    ( I needed more of Jesus, and not anything of myself….) 

    And a journey that didnt promise any outcome. 

    Didnt shout its reward. 

    Didnt have a map, or compass

    Or sometimes any directions

    It just needed to start. 

    And it started from being broken, started from the place of nothing.

    ‘For when she had nothing to lose, then she was free’ (Paulo Coelho) 

    It started as I changed, slowly, trusting in a moment of vulnerability, 

    ‘I have no home, will you look after me’ 

    When for so long I couldnt articulate weakness, vulnerability or be anything other than ‘the strong one for others’ … 

    The longest journey of the smallest distance started with being broken. 

    Started as my mind had run out of resources. 

    Coping wasnt living, especially wasnt coping in survival mode. 

    The packaging of life hadn’t fulfilled its ‘James hoped for’ expectations.

    Because the landscape on the inside was a barren mine- filled land of fear, terror, a landscape I was afraid of, that was dominating every action, every moment. 

    What I was afraid of held power over me. 

    I couldnt go there. 

    And yet…. as soon as I started the walk….. the universe provided…. angels in the form of spare bedrooms, kind words, walks, safety… beyond anything… safety. 

    And slowly, slowly I began to tentatively see, feel, walk in the landscape. 

    It was and is the journey of a lifetime, for it has been a journey of life. 

    Maybe the longest journey is the shortest distance, and how this is navigated shapes so much of our lives. 

    There are times of deep searching, deep disconnection, emotions and fear, yet I have been open to the possibility of healing and growth within it all, for nearly all of the time, yes some resistance… but old habits change hard…. 

    It was only the gap of the thoughts, 

    It was only the gap between heart and soul, 

    No distance at all….. 

    Yet an ongoing journey of love, of life and gratitude

    Towards a place beyond.

    Tentatively.

    Where life is and was all along.

  • Realising; I am not my mind (but try telling my thoughts that!)

    I am really so so very grateful for my mind.

    Like extremely so.

    It’s a place of learning, a place of processing, a place of interpreting, a place to understand.

    It has also been my place of safety, or maybe more so my place of escape to.

    When emotions and feelings were unsafe, and love was absent, I could hide in my mind.

    Read books. Study. Play maths games. Keep thinking.

    And when I was cold, use my mind as a superpower to block the pain.

    And when I was about to be hurt, use my mind to numb the pain.

    Mind was a shield.

    I gave my mind too much to do…. yet actually it was a survival mechanism. I could get through things, because I didnt need to feel them, just think.

    Yet there’s also social conditioning, the mind has value, in academia, and religious life – learn, reflect, be curious…and I could just keep going, one more book to buy, one more hobby to try, one more thing to learn.

    Keep the mind busy, keep the time occupied, keep the demons at bay…

    And I sit here writing this in the local Waterstones cafe… a place of learning has been a safe place for me.

    And there’s words here too aren’t there.

    You are reading them.

    And I am thinking about what I might write next.

    Because I was afraid.

    I was afraid of what would happen….. if for the first time in 40 odd years I would stop thinking, or at least there be a gap in thoughts…

    My mind as a place of survival could only do so much of a job. It was incessant.

    But overthinking felt normal, overthinking to find strategies to reduce pain, soothe, to please, to soften the blows, or numb them.

    So I would negate anything that tried to interrupt this, dont give me the promise of silence, solitude, meditation or even quietly colouring in something, or even space to have someone ask me difficult questions. My mind couldn’t allow this. It was afraid of not being in charge. It was afraid of what it might expose.

    My mind wasnt negative or destructive, it was just doing its job in the way it had subconsciously been asked to do, and beyond its skill set.

    And there was no distinction for me, between my I and my mind.

    Spiritually/ Religiously I gave my mind a ‘gets off scot free’ card – because my heart usually got the blame, as did the self. There’s something else here too, my mind accepted the reality that what was inside me was too shameful to expose, the hurt and pain too great. Accepted because it had tried many moral ways of dealing with it, all failed, and the cycle of shame and self loathing continued.

    But also, my minds job was to numb, distract, run, avoid the pain, and protect myself. And it did a good job.

    It wasnt equipped to love. And its love that heals.

    As I began, forcibly, to start a journey inwards, my mind took on a new task. To learn about myself as if I am my own new hobby or project, as well as learn about the behaviours that I had been exposed to.

    This.. very accurate…

    So that library of self help books, from Enneagram, to Narcissism, to Spirituality, got bigger and bigger, as I understand myself though a number of thought lenses. All extremely useful.

    But it wasnt thinking that would heal.

    It wasnt thinking my feelings, or understanding myself that would heal.

    Ugh.

    I actually had to the exercises in the books, I had to participate in them. I had to feel.

    I look now and see quite how much i had given my mind to do, I was a disconnected, disintegrated body, with an overactive mind, with all the voices of protection, fear, self criticism, perfection.

    Healing my mind, required safety.

    Healing my mind, required love

    Healing my mind, required heart…and heart to be safe

    Healing my mind, meant seeing it and realising that I am not it

    Healing my mind, meant listening to it, loving it, carefully, gently…

    Being compassionate on my self critical, self loathing, self soothing parts, scared self..in my mind… and start to not believe these, even if they had been protecting me.

    Yet it can easily still want to take charge in situations, easily take me into its formerly welcome gaze, sometimes those thoughts come back, further opportunities to love them, and the wounded parts they stem from.

    One of the parts of my inner journey and healing has been to allow my mind to relax and know it doesn’t have to be responsible for everything in my psyche, that I have heart, soul, feelings, that there is space and consciousness. It’s a slow revealing, it’s a daily remembrance.

    My inner journey has been inside, beyond the cage of my mind, and letting the colours of the heart, and the soul to ignite, cleanse and transform.

    The realisation that I am not my mind, and am trying to keep telling my thoughts that…

  • I think I am, therefore I am.

    I think I am, therefore I am.

    I think I am, therefore I am.

    I was ‘playing’ this around in my mind the other day, and I started writing, just to myself.

    I often write on paper, even with pencil, just to get thoughts out, to see where they flow to.

    Free writing with a conceptual starting point if you will.

    And I began to construct that what ‘I think’ and who ‘I am’ have been on a journey.

    It could be ‘my ego’ and ‘my identity’ but I prefer to use ‘I think’ and ‘I am’ . I dont mean the ‘I am’ that self talks back the lies.. like ‘I am fat’ or ‘I am stupid’ .. I mean the ‘I am’ identity. The bit of me, the bit of you that is who you are.

    So here goes…

    I am, and I think are on a journey.

    Its one where ‘I think’ has led the way, I think.

    Historically.

    Led like a shiny steam engine.

    ‘I am’ has been just been pulled along for the ride,

    a set of carriages with passengers, scared inside.

    or going to the depot, after a fraught ride.

    I think, taking them away.

    I am, passive.

    At least thats how it was- I think

    I think, shiny at the front, shiny and bright, brass cleaned,

    numbered, fed, water and polished

    The Steam engine, attracting the polaroids and DSLRs, and notebooks.

    I think.. leading the way

    I think.. wanting the attention

    I think…racing away

    I think..in control

    I think…believing the hype

    I think..denying it needed anything

    I think…lies to get all this

    I am.. just a powerless carriage trailing behind

    hosting passengers, hosting scenes, hospitality

    Trying to please, making the best of chaos.

    Making the best of disconnection between I think, and I am.

    I am, pulled along and subject to the conditions of I think

    I am, second or third class, no power, just a shell.

    I think broke down.

    I think realised the race it was on, was to a finish line that never ended

    I think had gone too far, alone

    I think was never therefore I am

    I am wants more control of the action

    I am is feeling its way

    I am has been waiting, patiently

    Watching the chaos, overcoming the scares

    Hiding, now seizing the chance, the opportunity

    Realising that I think is in trouble.

    I think and I am not separate.

    I am with a voice on the journey

    I am letting I think know differently

    Its now a different journey, with I am the driver.

    I am has discovered, that it is

    I am has emerged from the shadows, the sidings

    I am can see the lies, pride and attention

    The temptations and weaknesses that tormented I think

    I am…. just knows

    I am..is softer, messier, truer

    Human, grease, smoke, heart and skin

    its not a carriage to the engine

    Alive.

    I am now sees the whole Train

    I am can see when I think plunges into darkness

    or tries to race to destinations, frustrated or impatient, or critical of the passengers for being slow, or ignoring the signals.

    I am can let I think know that it is loved.

    I am is the driver, who knows what I think actually needs.

    The brake. the coal, the water

    And rest.

    Attention from the inside of the boiler. Not just the outside.

    The driver knows.

    I am.

    I think wrestled at first and tried to do without I am.

    I feel intervenes now and then, the guard with the warning flags, messages from the back. I think knows its place..some of the time.

    I think used to completely ignore I feel. Disregarded at the back of the carriage.

    Guard in name only.

    I am takes more of the wheel

    I think can rest, its not on his own.

    It doesn’t have to hurry or win.

    I think trusts I am.

    I think surrenders, to the I am that drives, attends and controls, to the I am that feels and knows. To the I am that discovered itself, found its place and realises it has to stay.

    I am helps I think to doubt the lies it had to believe, and those it chose to

    I am can help I think to realise the importance of I feel.. the guard

    I am can speak softly to I think, and listen to what it needs and wants to say.

    Because I am is connected to all.

    I am knows. I am is.

    I am is the divine within.

    I think I am, therefore I am.

    Maybe this is helpful just to me, as I realise the journey that I have been on, one from which was dominated by my thoughts, my thinking part of me, and how every other part of me was hidden and disregarded, for reasons ive described in my story above. And now I feel, that I am, and I think is still around, but the journey, just feels and is different.

    What about you – what metaphor might you use for how your thoughts, feelings and identity have culminated in your life?

  • For Courage

    When the light around you lessens
    And your thoughts darken until
    Your body feels fear turn
    Cold as stone inside

    When you find yourself bereft 
    Of any belief in yourself
    And all you unknowingly 
    Leaned on has fallen

    When one voice commands
    Your whole heart
    And it is raven dark

    Steady yourself and see
    That it is your own thinking
    That darkens your world, 

    Search and you will find
    A diamond-thought of light

    Know that you are not alone
    And that this darkness has purpose
    Gradually it will school your eyes
    To find the one gift your life requires
    Hidden within this night-corner

    Invoke the learning
    Of every suffering
    You have suffered

    Close your eyes
    Gather all the kindling
    About your heart
    To create one spark
    That is all you need
    To nourish the flame
    That will cleanse the dark
    Of its weight of festered fear

    A New confidence will come alive
    To urge you to higher ground 
    Where your imagination 
    Will learn to engage difficulty
    As its most rewarding activity. 

    (For Courage – John O’Donohue)

  • Why you are more than Enough

    Hey there

    Yes you.

    The beautiful human thats reading this

    One of my readers.

    Thank you.

    Just thank you, not

    for reading this, or liking it

    not for what you’ve done.

    But just for being you.

    Thank you

    You are enough

    The World is a more beautiful place with you in it.

    You, yes you.

    So, thank you.

    Even if you don’t believe it, yet.

    It is true.

    But what about you, I wanted to have a chat with you

    Yes, you, you could be my beautiful fiancé in San Diego, the folks in Ireland who read my blogs first (usually), my readers in the UK, Canada or the Philippines. You could be my family, my friends or anyone…

    It doesn’t matter.

    Its you thats reading this right now, and I want to speak to you.

    Yes you

    I have something to ask you

    Are you ready to listen?

    I mean, really ready?

    I mean, turn off the TV, sit for a moment and prepare yourself listen?

    Dont be scared now, honestly

    You might think I’m crazy to ask you this, but thats just the thing, crazy is just the thing that is abnormal, and normal is crazier than we’d like to realise, thats another story.

    I hope you’re not scrolling quickly, to get to what it is I wanted to ask you,

    you’re taking your time.

    Time.

    Whats time anyway? And no thats not the question, its another tangent… but have you ever thought about time, and how weird it is? To think that that time is on a clock, but memories , thinking, actions and words, seem to exist in a past, present, future dimensions that all get mixed up and thats not on a clock is it, it’s just the now. The now.

    Im writing this in the now. Right now. But your now is now and my now that was now is past now, but you might share this and your now will one day be in the past now, but that thing about time – you thinking about in the future and it’ll come ‘back’ to you, but in the future. It’s to be discovered, but not ‘back’ – maybe ‘back’ is in the future after all. By the time I clicked publish, my now has already gone.

    Sorry, I got distracted with the whole time thing.

    On the subject of sorry. I realise that I forget you sometimes. You, the reader. If I was writing a book, id think I was writing for you, the reader a bit more, id talk to you, with you, and not ‘at you’ or use you like a cat uses a scratching post. Im itching and I write at times like I need you to be a collective therapist, or I want to write so that one day, one person might be helped by something I might say. But I’ve got to be honest, more often than not, its a splurge of mixed up emotional dumping. So, im sorry. Sometimes I do this, the crap dumping, so im sorry about that, I dont treat you very well at times, they say respect your readers, and often I dont even give you a thought. This is a blog not a book – and you haven’t paid £12 for this, but I would understand if you didn’t want to waste 20 mins of your time listening to me process the crap from my childhood, or something I read in another self help book, more keep being added to the resources list above, by the way, discovering myself is feeling like a life work.

    Discovering myself.

    Becoming aware, of who I am.

    Thats the question my friend.

    Who are you?

    Three words, three small words.

    Who

    are

    you?

    Stop and think about it a while

    Pause

    No really, who are you?

    Fellow human, Who is it that you are?

    I just wanted to ask you, as I am asking myself, Who am I?

    I used to ‘think’ that I could think myself into the answer.

    I am good at____ or clever at____, or think of myself in relation to others, I am a fiancé, Dad, friend… or I am a youth worker, I am in relation to a profession, or even a faith, I am a Christian.. …and some of these are still true.

    I could ‘think’ myself into an answer…

    Deep down – who am I? in myself?

    Me, myself and I

    Who am I when I notice myself?

    When I realise that there is a part of me thinking – but that part of me is able to notice who is the thinking?

    That there is space between the thoughts?

    Can I muster just one little space in amongst all the millions of thoughts every day and every moment, but what if I did, give myself time to notice my thoughts?

    Give myself time to notice my thoughts..

    hang on

    who is me, and who is my thoughts?

    is there two of us here?

    A thinker and a watcher? really?

    So who am I really? – Who are you?

    The thinker or the watcher?

    The dream or the dreamer?

    If I am the watcher of the thinker of my thoughts – then..who is the watcher? Who am I

    And..I am not just thoughts, my brain is not just thinking

    It…can… stop…

    Who am I then? Who are you?

    Did you notice… you?

    Who are you then?

    More beautiful that our thinking, perhaps

    Ive got a surprise for you.

    Its time.

    Its time, that now, you notice.

    That space between your thoughts is not to be afraid of, because thats you.

    Part of you waiting to be discovered, your consciousness waiting.

    A gap of no thinking, where joy can be.

    What did it feel like for you?

    Thats you.

    Did you feel it?

    You are that joy.

    It is there, in a gap.

    It is in a gap of you.

    WOW. Isnt that incredible?

    You are Joy.

    It was hiding all along.

    Did you smile when you felt it?

    Im smiling as I realised it too. Im smiling as I realise that one day you might read this and feel the same. Im smiling as you’ve received a gift of joy, a gift from the universe.

    I didnt think you’d mind, knowing this…actually feeling this.

    Free joy. Free space

    Thats all, I just wanted to talk to you, and ask you something, and on the way I discovered things too, and maybe you did too. You are a beautiful human being and the world is a better place because you are in it, you are more than enough, especially if you think otherwise, because..those thoughts are just thoughts…between them, is consciousness radiating with joy – and thats you.

    If you smiled, might someone else?

    James

  • On Intuition

    On Intuition

    I love this by Anne Lamott:

    You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind

    The rational mind doesn’t nourish you.

    You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships , but this is not true.

    Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.

    Sometimes intuition needs coaxing, because intuition is a little shy.

    But if you try not to crowd it, intuition often wafts up from the soul or subconscious, and then becomes a tiny fitful little flame.

    It will be blown about about by too much compulsion and manic attention, but will burn quietly when watched with gentle concentration

    Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird (1994)

    What has it meant to me, to let my soul speak?

    What does it mean to you

    That spark from the well of the soul

    Warmth, energy, power, from within

    Tentative

    What has it meant to me to hide my inner voice for so long, to have the rational mind needfully take over for my own survival. Rational mind to survive. Intuition and inner voice to nourish. Theres a big difference.

    What do you think? What do you feel? What colour is your intuition when it emerges from within?