I am not an anthropologist but I am fascinated by the way ancient people lived and developed cultures, some aspects of which are now, centuries later, part of us in are overall way of being. I suppose for many of us we would, or may imagine, such ancient people as being’cavemen’ , hunter gatherers who lived in caves and provided for their families by hunting animals, and learning to use what the earth provided.

One could also imagine that they developed means of communication, language, and generally ‘norms’ and ‘mores’ which still form the basis of our own living. I have already stated that I am not an anthropologist so my remarks and reflections are based on imagination, taking my mind to possibilities, being curious.

The use of imagination is a marvellous way of extending our capacity to see and develop choices when recovering from trauma and its consequences, of course in serious trauma culminating in PTSD it may not be available to us, or wise to let go of the sense of holding onto a safe place within us.

In the story of Aladdin the young man finds marvellous treasure in a cave which enables him to magically gain the love of a beautiful princess and keep her in luxury. This story is the stuff of fairy tales which , so often can help us to hold something difficult ,or enable us to consider our own internal treasures and capacities to deal with difficulties.

Fairy stories cleverly hid moral values, and in this one it brings out many of these including courage,honesty,self-confidence, and kindness. These values have real significance in reflecting on recovery and ‘a cave syndrome’.

In the ‘down of the ‘cave syndrome’ we are in a survival mode, fearful, ‘on guard’ and afraid simply struggling to survive paranoia and unable to think clearly, but when we come up into the light we begin to see that capacity you have can see in the dark, no I haven’t gone mad The light in the external world can engage with the darkness within and open our internal eyes to new possibilities.

If you have, in recent times, been struggling to walk in recovery but are healthy enough to use your imagination, engage in the story of Aladdin down in the corner of your internal cave find your courage to be honest and kind to and with yourself and begin to see your treasure to start a new life.

COME ON COME UP FOR AIR DON’T LET THE SABOTEUR WIN!

Have you noticed , that for a very long time now, we are encouraged in every walk of life to keep going forward, almost as though with each new day we were born anew and had no previous experience? It’s interesting too that this attitude to life, if you subscribe to it, makes you easy to con!

As I write I am feeling strange , as though I’m been flung forward with nothing behind my back to support me and a huge overwhelming fear of being dropped off the planet. It seems to me that such is the lack of holding, containment and decimation of trust in modern times is having a very strange affect on our lives.

Consider, with me, for a moment, how, with individual, or even the trauma within a small group it may be possible to support those effected, but with the whole word in chaos support is not so easy because there is so little behind our backs in the now. The ongoing fallout from this situation is horrendous.

In our lifetime we have become so accustomed to established society with working institutions which supported our lives and living that as they crumble away we are struggling some more successfully than others, to centre ourselves in a topsy turvey world. Imagine reaching out for a lovely slice of bread, when you are really hungry, and even though it’s spread with butter it disintegrates, just as you reach for it, you try again and all that’s left is a stack of crumbs on the floor.

The feeling of loss and subsequent rage is phenomenal, because there seems to be no way to find another piece, but hold on examine, when as this happened before? Now even thinking about this question allows us to remember our history and experience and the stories handed down the generations about coping in desperate situations, isn’t it interesting that one can almost feel the knowledge emerging from this history catapulting us forward but with a large harness on our backs supporting us as we go.

Looking back allows us to glean information on how to go forward, within the looking there is a rich source of information waiting, stored for our use, and we can put that information to use in our own way as we walk in recovery.

It is quite normal, in today’s world, to feel that you are doing well and getting over the whole chaotic experience of the last years and then sometime later to feel in an opposite mood fed up with the mess and needing and wanting to get out of it all. However walking in recovery means returning quietly in thought to the question what’s happening here?Allowing oneself to stop and consider what’s happening and to source from that historical bank of experience, a way forward.

Forward, and back in this reflection, is not designed to give you a headache, or to shuttle forward and back as a form of torture, but rather to go back and stop to think as mentioned above, and to gain strength and a way forward from the knowledge gained.

The little child creeps tries to stand, falls down, creeps again,stands holding on and eventually walks to safety at the parent’s knee.

KEEP USING YOUR SOURCES/RESOURCES!

IF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS SERIOUSLY EFFECTED OR YOU ARE ON MEDICATION ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR HEALTH PROFESSIONAL.

Walking in recovery can become very frustrating, and often causes feelings of rage and just total despair, but lets explore how and where we may find an answer to these feelings, which are almost like a ‘fallout’ of nuclear proportions ——–just my attempt to emphasis the level of hopelessness and powerlessness one can feel.

In almost every conversation I have had in recent times, with friends and acquaintances someone will say ”the world has changed” and in all propability will continue to talk of the chaos the world is in, and maybe continue to discuss climate change and the plight of the refugees, and the craziness of the whole desperate situations around us.

Often such discussions/conversations do nothing to increase our stability and leave us more unsettled within ourselves than before we engaged in them. It has long been part of understanding trauma to include the idea , that a person’s world view changes with trauma, but this does not necessarily mean ,with individual, and group trauma we should consider that the world has changed totally.

Fear in a world that has most certainly changed, and developed at such speed during the last 100 years or so is natural, and is hard to understand and tolerate. It knocks at the areas of safety which have been ingrained in us throughout our life time and at the norms and mores which whilst frustrating at times have a holding function , a sense and knowledge at the deepest level of what is normal.

However it is important to see that we can renew ourselves and maintain a personal world view with morals and values designed to keep us safe and allow us all to grow and develop in healthy ways, we can do this if we engage with our personal power, through our imagination.

I have talked of this before in previous blogs, and it is not easy if you feel suppressed by deep and negative feelings, maybe you are on medication or need further support,and to have the feelings and circumstances you are in heard and understood. I sometimes think it is like being lost and looking for a way out, one searches and searches even against all odds and eventually a small streak of light becomes visible and opens up possibilities for us.

If you can imagine you follow the light and it emerges into a beautiful river with areas which surge up and wash your feet and legs. Imagine the beautiful water coming up through your feet and travelling through all of your body with renewing power right up and through your head and down again you feel clean and deeply renewed, calm and relaxed you can think, with clarity. Now ask yourself what is going on? What am I going to do?

GO ON USE YOUR IMAGINATION STAND IN RECOVERY!

If you have serious mental health issues always consult your health professional!

The notion, of being ‘more than the sum of your parts’ has permeated society during my lifetime, whether in secular training, or in general layman’s expressions, used to encourage people to ‘perk up’, and see themselves in a more positive light.

The above expression has much to offer to the concept of being, or walking in recovery from the pandemic, and or the chaotic world we now live in, of course the pandemic is really a large contributor to the chaos in the world, and the fall in the economy.

As I write I have a sense of people crawling around clutching at straws like someone who thought he was dead and finds himself awake in a large barn hungry and ready to eat dirt.Such an idea has meaning for the desperate situations we find ourselves in each day, and draws both supreme loving kindness, and greed and utter rottenness from within the societies we live in, such is the fight for survival , that the wish to live is very often in conflict with the desire to die and be done with it.

The stress of the pandemic and the fall of economy has anot’her sister, who is like a wicked witch mixing nasty potions in a large black pot, no one , she thinks has any idea what she is putting in there , but she could be wrong there’s always someone she’s a bit like the climate change, isn’t she? We may like to think we don’t know whats happening, but we do we just need to deny it sometimes to try to have a ‘normal’ life.

All things, and functions of living or ‘more than’ they seem often we drop what we know about them into our unconscious just we can get on with things not live with the horror so to speak, but it’s amazing, if we contain ourselves, stop and reflect on things we can see the other side and glean the positive meaning with the idea of ‘more than’. What if the man in the barn was able to quiet his desperate hunger for a moment he may suddenly become aware that their is a wrapped parcel of food on the barn window sill, and so his need is met!

More than the sum of the parts of a human being can mean we are not just a machine which keeps us living, but a complex mixture of body mind and spirit, it is the mind and spirit which enpowers us to dig deeper look for answers keep up the struggle.

For some persons ‘more than’ can become more than they can stand and then it can feel to late to dig down into lives meaning and find reasons to go on so while you can push through, if this is the case I hope you will grasp onto the other side of things stop see that there is more than one way to cope dig deeper.

In Agatha Christie’s novel ‘The mirror cracked from side to side’ it seems one of the messages from that title is that it’s the position you stand in which allows you to see what really is going on.

DIG FOR MEANING FIND THE TREASURE.

You may be familiar with the idiom ‘as the crow flies’, this was used to describe what has been originally perceived as the crow flying in a straight line. It was an observation of these birds behaviour prior to today’s navigational devices, but has now become outdated as awareness of animal behaviour has become more clear, crows have been observed flying in different manners, not least, flying round and round above their nest. It is nevertheless useful to consider if , not throwing this saying away would be wise, but rather broadening it to cover the various way these creatures communicate to indicate various situations.

Those of us who have high standards for our behaviour often fall prey to the ingrained messages behind them, part of walking in recovery must surely be to reconsider not just the behaviours, but those messages which keep us bound to strict codes of behaviour which are black and white, and do not allow one to accept natural human failures, and cut ourselves some slack.

It may be considered that the crow is a rather ugly bird, and when they congregate in groups they oft times get shushed away and are also considered in various negative and positive ways by different cultures, some of these cultures tab crows as spiritual messengers from another world indicating signs such as death, often the perceived messages are related to the number of crows seen and so on. I’m sure you get the idea.

Things are not always as they seem and accordingly it is good to live in a reflective way, to stop, and ask, WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE? so often we have impossible standards and beat ourselves up when we fail, today add some new information to your personal mental computer, stop, reboot the old one and start anew.

Following COVID 19, and we are still suffering from it, we have to stop walking in that straight line, look how much one misses if you never update your knowledge, not only do you become outdated, but you become rigid and without any means of escape from personal torment and the negative demands you make of your self.

I’m tired! said the client to the challenging counsellor, and left the room banging the door for good measure. He/She will always be tired because they may not be able to challenge the straight line experience, so think of the sidelines and the stops circle around like the crow, and sort out those negative messages, they contain meat for growth, and when you fail start again with new information gained from that experience.

The journey of recovery from Insidious ongoing traumatic stress IOTS is continuous at the moment, allow yourself comfort and in your walk in recovery mode have a sit down!

Human beings are often scared, and perhaps more so now as the world has become a very scary place , and we tend to cope with it in different, and yet similar ways. Sometimes we lose the natural ways of coping and become either depressed or aggressive. It seems to me, that at base this is about losing the feelings of power in our lives or being able to motivate oneself to use it.Secondly it can be about using power in an aggressive way , and this is often about allowing hurt to fester within us until it becomes uncontrollable rage. Of course this is not definitive there are many more reasons why we behave as we do and some are even unique to individuals, and yet there are recognisable patterns in all of us.

Big Buster was a well made preadolescent boy who terrorised the school yard, yes you’ve got it! he was the school bully. The only child who wasn’t scared of him was a little boy with a limp Buster protected him and carried him around on his shoulders sometimes running with him until he laughed and giggled, then he would set him down, and walk off glumly.

Buster loved to tell stories and would on some occasions tell the child stories when he found a place to hide so he wouldn’t lose face with the herd. Significantly these stories had some loving and caring themes , but often they were by a big bully. One day the little boy with the limp, who incidentally, he never called by his name , climbed on his knee where they sat in a secluded corner of the schoolyard. He put his little head on Buster’s chest and whispered, do you know my name Buster? Buster rolled his eyes put him down and ran off.

Throughout the day Buster kept hearing the little boys voice, do you know my name? he felt alternately sad the furiously angry because he had lost his power, but he knew there was power in his rage so he stood up, and allowed himself to swell in size he had the power to do this, when he was enraged he could increase in size, and it felt good, but he also knew that he did bad things when he was like this, and hurt himself and others then he thought of the wee boy and felt ashamed the wee boy needed him, and he needed the wee boy. Buster couldn’t wait to see him again the next day.

What do you think happened? What is the little boy’s name?

DON’T RUN SCARED USE YOUR HEAD! STOP AND REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE AND HOW YOU COPED BEFORE DO THIS NOW!!!!!