In the metaphor about the banquet cloth people had different reactions at the first unfolding, there was terror, freezing, and staying with the experience unfolding and or pressure can cause real fear , fear of losing control and in plain language of going mad. The truth is we are all a bit mad especially at times we move in and out of madness but for the most part we do not lose a sense of reality and are able to re centre ourselves.

The affects of the pandemic has caused so much loss, restriction stress and fear that there is an ongoing fear for some people that they will crack up, such unbearable fears and pain are not something that are easy to discuss but something folk like to hide or unconsciously project them into other people so unfolding our cloth needs to occur in a safe place inside us and outside of us.

Lets discuss the creation of this safety, and we’ll begin by stating that if you are mentally unwell and in the care of Health professionals do not undertake any of the following exercises without seeking their advice.

Find a safe place reflect on a mantra or scripture verse, this gives you support and a sense of reality. Seat yourself comfortably and close your eyes,use your favourite relaxing music. Begin your breathing, following it through every part of your body each area where you connect with pain or disturbance stop and breathe into it before moving on,travel through every part of you inside and out. As you do this you will begin to feel a depth of knowledge as to what is going on within you and in the stillness and safety of your safe place allow your creative imagination to roll, this exercise will allow you to access your core strength and eventually your shadow parts.

As you relax into it you may sense a presence with you this is your spiritual guide and is nothing to be scared of rather you might imagine you are going together for a walk in a place of great beauty , a place in which you may find strength and comfort and a feeling of connection. Imagine you are sitting on a seat side by side sharing your thoughts experiences and needs, absorb the support and beauty of this experience rest in this. Open your eyes and look about you possibly you will see and hear things more clearly, take this with you as you leave the safe place knowing how to go there anytime you want and need to.

Meditation will help you unfold your specific cloth with your strengths and shadow parts, use it with wisdom so that you can eventually balance and transform the black and hurting parts of you, do not use it to over inflate your ego rather to learn to manage your personality like a well tuned orchestra, so all of you can dance together in a powerful and balanced coordinated and harmonious way.

Could it be the best way to live is gently and with loving compassion?

DANCE IN HARMONY!

In the last blog I used a metaphor of a banquet cloth being carried to the table to spread it out for the banquet. The cloth was large and required two people to carry it so it could be laid out and examined to see if it needed cleaning for the great event. When the cloth was opened and the insects revealed some people present in the room ran in terror, others were frozen to the spot and yet others stayed and stared at the horror and , yes, beauty of some of the insects. It was possible for those who stayed to recognise some of the insects, and even to see how some of them had been surviving and transforming within the cloth fold.

This speaks of trauma and as indicated in previous blogs people are at different stages and histories and it is crucial to know about these in each case in order to support the individual or individuals concerned in a safe environment.An individual engaging in trauma work needs an appropriate setting, to be held in a safe place both physically and psychologically. It is important for the person concerned to develop a safe place they can go into in their mind when they need a rest, and it is also important they can see the door and have a clear exit to leave as and when they may wish.

Safety has become a major issue as we live with continuing and ongoing trauma during the pandemic as is common with trauma we are constantly on guard not knowing when and where the danger is, and furthermore we loose the sense of balance and find our world view changing.

I worked on a peace line during the Northern Ireland troubles and as many others also know living with terrorism has parallels with the pandemic, in terms of safety, not knowing and hidden entities. I find myself thinking of century duty standing alone and alert by oneself watching in several directions but unable to watch one’s back but in this case there is no changing of guards, our personal responsibility continues, so lets explore more about safety in the now and as unfolding continues.

Safety and balance are central to healthy living we need to feel secure in our relationships with ourselves and others at all times, but particularly at the moment as we are driven to the edge with anxiety always on guard and yet not knowing when all is clear. I wish I had all the answers , but I don’t but I know how to use what I do know re managing stress.

When we have ending in our relationships and life in general we tend to need to revisit these relationships and experiences its rather like the end brings one back to the beginning, and we go in and out if we are well enough remembering and reviewing our stored up memories. Such a process is really important as ritualistic behaviour is part of being human, and is carried out according to our culture and ancestry often these endings will include a celebration and connections with others,

Keeping the distance is something which we have had to integrate into our lives and living during this pandemic, and in my considered opinion we are continually stressed by this because at some levels it challenges our humanity, and our natural way of being. I have noticed even the dogs in the park seem fed up.When you observe others you may be aware that they look dazed particularly if you are observing them on social media— not so easy behind a mask. Its like we need to get ready to go out with our mask and hit ourselves on the head to keep dazed as we go, rather silly , but maybe it makes a point.

We can learn much from the notion of creeping and walking,or not being able to do either and having to live with that.We can also learn from the story of the fold in the cloth and the insects. For centuries insects grew and developed and were able to remain but now more and more human beings and economic environment, and greed has damaged their environments. When we think of them we want to crush them, we fear some because they have developed means of survival which can involve serious risk to us but it appears these means of survival are evolutionary traits for their protection. I sometimes think we have a lot to learn from those creatures we crush beneath our feet and carelessly pound our way through life.Still take another look, if we stay with the fold there were different and dead insects in the fold there were also new creatures in the process of transformation.Stop and think about this.

To continue with unfolding our banquet cloths of which we all have one we need to develop a safe place within and without.

WHERE IS YOUR SAVE PLACE?

SELFISHNESS IS THE ROT OF SOCIETY!

The development of a normal child doesn’t always involve creeping before walking, sometimes they suddenly set off and almost run, these development stages are often watched with delight, love joy pride to mention just a few feelings, and the little one is praised and encouraged to keep it up some parents will even log these stages and of course in today’s world the social media will be popping with the information.

Analogy’s and metaphors stop short of given exact parallels but often prick our thinking and reflective processes into action allowing us to make our own relevant interpretations of events. For some days I have been considering what can happen when a baby is disabled in some way and can’t creep, or maybe never walk.Many gifted parents love and rear the child concerned and are often blessed by the special things. he or she, bring into the world sometimes when under pressure these special things are not always seen, but when looked for can be found.Speaking from my own experience I know the fears and anxieties a parent can have about such a child’s future and the sadness one can feel at the often negative attitude society can have towards them. Such feelings can introduce us to despair , but they can also open the mind to creative and positive ways of managing.

Some time ago I reflected on the need for balance in our lives and in the world. It doesn’t take an expert to see that the world is out of balance, and many people and countries are living out of the difficult animalistic shadow side of life and being. Behaviour such as this comes about through many experiences and lack of reflective living, and of course may be part of dealing with traumatic events and continuing and prevailing traumas brought about by such desperate events which are part of things such as the pandemic. I want to suggest that there is a ‘normalness’ about such behaviour, sounds shocking I know, but its the behaviour of survival and may follow individuals who go through it into better times, need ing to be resolved .

We live in times when great emphasis is placed on having pride in your beautifully shaped body, male six packs , and generally having well toned muscles, but our struggle is how we split the aspects of ourselves. To cope with unfolding issues which are a legacy of the pandemic we need to return to ‘our core’ which includes all aspects of being in the world. We need to finding a true meaning in life and a subsequent purpose for life. As I indicated in previous blogs we need to revisit our self awareness, acknowledging the aspects of our personality, and dealing with those aspects which are out of sinc.

When beginning or revisiting this journey we need to name our qualities and human resources know these and hone them in preparation for the unfolding of an aftermath of the pandemic. Although it is difficult to prepare for what is still to some degree unknown, it is certainly possible to centre and steady ourselves becoming grounded in self knowledge and perspective. We also need to work through our own traumatic wounds, this centring process is important with respect to our healing and to become aware of our inner guide.

Recently I had a recurrent waking dream, in which a lady was walking with her vulnerable adult son. Her son had her by the hand, but whereas her body was visible his was blurred and completely featureless. As I stayed with the dream the hands parted, but which individual who let go was difficult to determine.

There are many insights in this but I intend to just mention how often we do not integrate our vulnerability in fact we let it go altogether when we really need to acknowledge and integrate it into us. We cannot walk on alone if we don’t acknowledge our vulnerability we put ourselves at risk and loss a relating aspect of relating to others possibly becoming unbalanced with an over inflated ego.

As more knowledge regarding the pandemic has unfolded we have been, and are challenged to strengthen our core values for example genuineness, morals, dignity, resilience, compassion, personnel power, and humanity, such strengthening supports ourselves and those we seek to serve allowing us to develop meaning connections with others and to separate from them in a healthy way acknowledging , in so far as we can, what is ours and what is their’s.

The above is a prelude to a reflective life and practice which I hope to continue to develop with you, in the hope that these reflections are a support and guide as we continue to unfold in a process containing both sickness and strength in the coming days.

The great tablecloth for the banquet had been in a storage cupboard for a long time. The staff carried it to the table and began to roll it out each fold had an ageing mark and as they watched creatures began to emerge from them first was a mass of strange insects.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS IN THE NEXT FOLD?

Have you noticed how a baby begins to crawl and the process by which he/she gains confidence eventually, after a period of time realising they can stand if they can just get a grip of something to hold onto. Next, watching in the wings there is a doting parent who praises the child as though no baby had ever achieved such a feat before, and it is quite probable the child will then do it again and again until they get right up on their feet and cautiously try to walk towards the parent or carer often falling down and being encouraged to get up again.The parent or carer may call the child giving eye contact and eventually the youngster reaches them and once again is praised.

It is getting nearer to an easement of the lock-down restrictions and the above is a useful analogy of how some may feel if they haven’t been out much for a while.Lets make some movement towards understanding how to begin creeping in the current context.

When dealing with anxiety such as that raised by the pandemic we are faced with something we do not know and understand and this could be called trauma, because with trauma one of the key factors is a difficulty in coping with something which we have had no previous experience of, and consequently we have no mechanisms in place to understand it and deal with it.

Let’s set some things in place :-

1 Experiencing a huge global crisis such as the pandemic is, and has been very scary for reasons indicated above.

2 It may be quite normal to be scared fearful feel panic, and just wish you could run away to a safe place.

3 Even if you have had anxiety and depression issues prior to the pandemic it does not necessarily mean you are going to get Post traumatic stress disorder, or the new designer problem currently coined ‘continuing traumatic stress disorder.’

4 There are complex traumatic disorders for which medical and therapeutic treatments are required but it is not a given that you will get them.

Come on begin to creep forward with me. A normal baby will usually creep before they walk and as we go out more and more we may need to go slowly and encourage ourselves for everything we achieve.

Sit down quietly and consider and normalise your feelings so you can begin this journey I’m going to call it ‘the creeping excercise’.

Trust your brain it can change and cope, it is not static, but plastic in a sense and can compensate and heal.

Use this simple breathing excercise.

Sit comfortably in your favourite chair breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth real belly breathing do this four times.

Tell yourself ‘my mind is happy and my body is calm.’

Get up slowly and walk to the door

I sense you can’t go any further, doesn’t matter go back sit down and leave it for today.

If you have a friend ask them to stand outside next time so you have a support.

Allow yourself to gradually free yourself more and more every little achievement however small is progress, your progress, so do these excercises at your pace.

Don’t push yourself no need to multitask, and when finished each time praise yourself in some way even give yourself a nice reward your favourite coffee television programme whatever.

As you practise creeping you will become more confident and creative allow your imagination to unfold to help yourself.

Don’t hit me I’ve had my own journey all human beings are connected in this collective experience I’m with you, and God as you may or may not understand him is a constant presence at your side.

This is just a beginning let’s continue to creep and creatively find support and things to hold unto so that we can creep at times, walk, be creative.

HEY STOP! LOOK THAT WOMAN IS RUNNING AMAZING!

W e have been looking at healthy relationships in personal and professional life using reflections on the knowledge of self and others when engaging and connecting within relationships in complex and healthy situations.In particular we have been considering such dynamics relative to the current situations arising from and within the pandemic. Allied to this we have briefly considered the concept of ‘the wounded healer’ which,whilst having been around and named for centuries it has more and more come into the public domain. It is not acceptable to call or relate to oneself as a wounded healer without accepting responsibility for self and client care to avoid damage to the client and contamination of the worker.

Arising out of the aforementioned concepts are quality therapeutic methods which can be learned by individuals and groups and which I believe have significant and useful relevance for our upcoming situations as we emerge out of this last lock-down. Whilst based on a Jungian style philosophy I am applying them to this situation where mental health has been affected on a global scale.

The techniques I am discussing are not to be used for psychotic patients. but for those who are in control of themselves and grounded in reality

Self knowing is a concept which emerges through various philosophies of life, and needs to be undertaken in a sensible and balanced way as we are limited in our ability to know all of ourselves and will always have unconscious dimensions to our being. Many people undertake a journey to self awareness through an engagement in personal or group therapy, or in following a guide who has already followed a path themselves and have given us road maps for the journey, one such person is of course ‘Jesus’ .

Central to self awareness is that ‘Self knowing’ facilitates the development of compassion for self and others, that is if undertaken and used purposefully, the problem is often people undertake a form of this and become arrogant and overinflated with power because they do not use the knowledge it brings to integrate new and genuine ways of living setting aside unhealthy denial and refusal to accept their weaknesses. By this I mean they ‘jump on the bus’ and do not pay their fare, what is needed is reflection on knowledge gained and an integration for growth and development.

If we consider it as a gaining or growing a picture of ourselves we might think of a jigsaw with an emerging beauty but with missing parts or parts damaged and not fitting too well together.

Living a purposeful and ‘aware’ life also enables us to take responsibility for how we live and act, and to develop appropriate morals challenging norms and mores which are ingrained within us and our society. This reflection is just raising some very important and pertinent issues regarding healthy and informed living and will, I’ m sure stir many more up in the coming days.

A simple way to understand growing into ourselves to live harmoniously is to imagine we are made up of many parts just like an orchestra , if the wind section or any other part of the orchestra is not in tune the harmony is impaired, the greater the damage the greater the impairment. Within each of our personalities there are impairments from trauma and general life suffering, and from living in an unexamined and irresponsible way. In an orchestra the manager is ‘the ego’ calling attention to the unharmonious instruments and arranging their repair to restore harmony. So it is in ‘awareness living’ we need to learn about our parts of self, and deal with the parts that are out of harmony so that we live in a harmonious and healthy way.

This week I felt accompanied by a presence particularly on my left side, now I’m quite sane so don’t run away. Sometimes we need someone to walk beside us and sometimes when friends and loved ones pray for us or send us love and light we can actually feel their presence beside us- alongside us. However awareness or examined living means we first of all need to walk beside ourselves managing our daily living with knowledge, balance and common sense so that we can respond to the many calls to walk beside the other person with compassion and awareness of his/her rights, needs and dignity.

I hope you can feel the supportive presence walking beside you and that you take it into yourself and integrate it to give you harmony, and an ability to walk beside the other.

GET GOING WALK!

Physician heal yourself is a familiar and sometimes caustic comment make by someone, who either cares about us and or need to step back, or is made as a caustic comment by someone who doesn’t want to hear advice how ever apt.

Living on earth in a world of people always in some kind of conflict is not easy, but it is amazing how people develop mechanisms to live grow and be happy in such a world. Much of what we learn about coping comes initially from or parents and loving friends, and indeed it is loving compassion which sometimes opens the door to realistic thinking about life and problems. I remember, as a child feeling the restrictions of loving caring parents, who had very rigid beliefs, but I learnt that this was from love especially once when I was very sick and woke up to find both my parents watching at my bedside.

I have spoken before about life as a journey, and for most people this analogy is easy to relate to but perhaps not so easy to endure. The small child kicking and taking tantrums in the large supermarket is causing embarrassment to the poor overstretched mother but the child is in a confusing phase of development moving from ‘me’ to ‘I’. Moving through this phase with a child is beautiful if you understand its purpose for the child is developing his/her ego, or sense of self, and with appropriate support guidance and understanding will negogiate this stage well.

No one ever completes the life stages of development completely and engagement with others and the horrors of life soon bring the innate defence mechanisms into play. Sigmund Freud identified some of these as part of his development of psychoanalytical theory, and today they are constantly being refined and added to as understanding of them develops and the world changes, In our current circumstances with the pandemic we can see a lot of denial ,repression, and projection, to mention just a few. It is important to see these for what they are, and that they have conscious and unconscious dimensions.

The defence mechanisms come into their own during trauma and when used in a healthy way may support and prevent the complete disintegration of the ego. I t is when we use them to exclude reality that they become unhealthy. The guy who insists that he is fine when he has a large hole in his leg is a case in point additionally we can repress matters we need to work through and eventually they will damage ‘our way of being’ in the world, furthermore we may become so unaware that we blame others projecting and giving away aspects of self and scapegoating others. A classic example of this is often seen in groups where a group member glorifies another maintaining ‘you are so clever’ I could never do that!

This simple entree into a complex set of behaviours, I use only to open a door to discussion and reflection on our need to revisit our lives and journey in life especially at this time to check on our health and behaviours with others. ‘PHYSICIAN HEAL YOURSELF’take time to step back and renew your strength for no one is complete and remains, throughout their life’s journey ‘a wounded healer’ this metaphor emerged centuries ago and describes healer’s throughout and within many life philosophies probably the most well known in this country is ‘Christ as our wounded healer’ standing in our place and transforming our iniquities into newness of life.

In psychology Carl Jung took up the metaphor and refined it into ‘depth psychology’.In brief , and that almost seems like an insult the therapist travels through considerable years of therapy in order to understand himself and heal his wounds so that he can engage with the patient who is dealing with raw and psychotic wounds. In this engagement the therapist takes the wounds of the other into or unto himself contains, and holds them, and if he/she is healthy will not be destroyed by it and because of this the patient is healed the wounds have been transformed by the therapeutic engagement. If however the therapist has open untreated wounds then he/she may be contaminated by the patients pathology and become ill.

All of the above is offered in simple terms to support healthy work and engagement with self and others. Yesterday I heard a pastor say that in recent times he had buried 6 young people one after the other. He went on.. to say I’m traumatised by it by what I could deduce I felt I would like to touch him on the shoulder and hear what he needed to say because the word trauma has entered the public domain people now use it but not necessarily to its fullest extent. The truth is we are all traumatised by the pandemic because we have had to experience it without a template and accordingly have had to build coping methods almost daily and become familiar with new rituals. Additionally we are vicariously traumatised by the others story, it gives us the horrors feelings of stress etc.

If you find this blog see it as my appeal to you to recognise this as a double entity at the very least and do your own work so you can stand by or into others in a healthy way!

KNOW YOURSELF!

Tag Know yourself!

The daffodils have done their job, they have heralded in the spring, and now they are dying back, they return to the earth eventually and await their time in the next year.The thing is those plants really know their place and know how to defend themselves.Recently I read how they emit a toxin when picked causing some florists allergic reactions. Isn’t it amazing how the plants and creatures of the earth know more about minding themselves than we do?

I was reared on a farm, and as such knew much about boundary lines and rights of way, and how if not managed this can , at times cause problems on a Saturday Dad would call us early to stand in the gaps at the boundary lines of other farms he had to pass when bringing the cows in for milking. Standing on the line, or in front of it was very important, as it preserved the rights of all concerned. Sometimes wisdom kicks in and the farmers combine to build fences to keep the boundary lines.However it is the ‘Rites of way’ which are more complicated as, on occasion to get past the animals may have to cross part of the other persons land or street which if not managed can cause aggravation at times.

During the past year since the beginning of this pandemic we have all struggled with boundaries and rights. Human beings, when healthy, can be good at keeping boundaries and understanding their own rights and those of others, however the restrictions of life which we are currently undergoing sometimes would make you want to burst loose. We are struggling with where to walk, what to do and most of all we miss the closeness of hugs.It seems to me that its as though we almost need taken into the other person to feel held and contained but instead we are offered their elbow which is extremely strange given the connotations we may have with being elbowed in a bullying way at school or work

The human race had become so arrogant regarding their supremacy power and dominance that the pandemic has totally ‘unfrocked’ them and they are faced with horrendous loss and vulnerability, and in need of means of defence. We have inbuilt defence mechanisms but do not always use these in healthy ways, when we are vulnerable we may project our unbearable feelings into others as we need relief and someone to blame.

Coming out of the pandemic restrictions is an opportunity to grow into healthy ways of self management.I hope we can reflect on defence mechanisms together in the coming days.However the problem exercising me most at the moment are the boundary lines and rights of way within worker and client relationships. For some time the language of therapy has been infiltrating the public domain and is not always understood or interpreted in its appropriate context, likewise therapists and pastors have an opportunity in the current situation to emerge from the pandemic with new ways of coping and caring for themselves I labour with this as I have been aware how friends and colleagues have been overwhelmed with stress in the last year.

Knowing oneself in so far as we can helps to define our weakness and limitations, as does revisiting our job role and learning the rights of way and passage connected with it. Often therapists and pastors find themselves in complex situations, as do friends and colleagues and struggle to find the boundary line between self and other this is such a time as we are all vulnerable together. I hope to spend time with you looking at finding and understanding good boundaries and ‘rites of way’ so we can revisit healthy practices through knowledge and understanding and personal and professional growth.

In working with others who are vulnerable we are often ‘standing in the gap’ created by their pain and trauma so we need to be able to do so and also to separate from the other in a healthy way.How will you do this?

I SOUGHT FOR A MAN TO STAND IN THE GAP TO MAKE UP THE HEDGE AND I FOUND NONE EZEKIEL 20 V 30

TAG RELATIONSHIP BOUNDARIES