Living my life has at times felt like an unbearable ordeal.

In recent years, I have got to grips with a new way of being in the world, and I have found a way of accommodating and accepting  much more of me than was hitherto possible.

I have also made strenuous efforts to accommodate and accept much more of the views and opinions of others by putting myself in a place where I can hear their pain and sense their vulnerability.

In getting to grips with self and others, I have shifted my life into the present, letting go of the past, and this has been possible, I believe, because I have learned to trust in a better future.

In being able to trust, I have had to be prepared to stay silent and listen when what is being said, and what I am hearing, (not always the same thing!) is challenging my ability to remain calm.

It is essential that I do stay calm, because to trust means I have to be able to get up close to what I most fear, I need to be able to get up close to a different view, I have to be able to get up close to the vulnerabilities of others.

Whilst on holiday in May, a little bird visited my breakfast table outside on the patio overlooking the sea.

This little bird stood chirping for my attention, on the back of the vacant chair opposite me and my wife, in the hope of earning a crust.

Each day, I would break off a piece of crust from my toast, and place it gently on the table close to where my hand was rested.

I was amazed and thrilled when the little bird hopped onto the table  and bopped, bopped, bopped, over to the crust, grabbed it and flew to the floor to consume the reward it had gained for its tenacity and bravery.

A key focus of my life at the current time is for me to help to heal the wounds of family division, for which I sense that my past behaviour is a cause.

It is too simplistic to blame it all on my past behaviours, in fact I think to do so, is unhelpful in terms of being able to be a conduit for change.

My remarkable shift in attitude and capacity to live in the present, should be, and is, the catalyst by which I draw strength to heal the wounds of family division – I know it can work, I am living proof that it can.

I will be the little bird which will chirp happily from the sidelines in the hope of an invitation to move in close.

I will be the little bird who will bop bop bop towards the source of the pain in others.

I, like that little bird will learn to trust, learn to take the risk, which, with each passing day lessens, as the promise of a reward for my efforts becomes a reality.

My next blog will be: Courage

William Defoe