This summer, I read one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

It is “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury

It appealed to me as a summer read, because the wonderful writing evokes through it’s hero Douglas Spaulding, the very essence of what it is like to discover that you are alive, and describes in amazing detail all the life giving, soul nourishing, bountifulness of being alive in summer.

It is a feeling I recall holding as a boy, a feeling of summer which however I try, I cannot ever seem to rekindle it in my own soul, now that my life’s experiences, the highs and the lows have taken their toll on me.

On Page 292 of Dandelion Wine, after experiencing a continual and wonderful onslaught of  words, which described the beautiful essence of summer, I came across these words which have had a profound effect on me:

[Mr Jonas speaking to Douglas Spaulding who is lying unconscious with a fever in his bed under an apple tree]

“Some people turn sad awfully young, he said.

No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way.

They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world.

I know, for I’m one of them”   

These words moved me very deeply in a way which seemed to sum up the very core of my nature.

Despite knowing that I live, despite the generosity and richness of summer, despite all the things I have done, despite all the love I have been given, despite all the successes I have enjoyed, I have never really escaped a pervading sense of sadness, of melancholy, of anxiety and inner pain.

Mr Jonas leaves two bottles for Doug, one of which is filled with the atmosphere of the Arctic and the cold wind of the Hudson Valley;  and the other with the winds of the Isles of Aran and Dublin Bay and fog from Iceland.

These mixtures of cooling air revive Doug and I think that they revive me too.

The overwhelming sense, that recognising and accepting melancholy as it rises within me, and then falls in a never ending undulation is tempered, by an ever deepening sense of self, and that these feelings of sadness are only ever a part of it, they do not define it all.

I love this growing capacity within me to nod to my old friend, but not to be owned by it.

To respond by running, by moving, by observing, by being outdoors in the sunshine, in the rain, in the wind so that the body is buffeted, slapped, awakened to an ever-deepening alertness and appreciation for being alive.

I know, for I’m one of them too!

My next blog will be: Testing the Limits

William Defoe

In recent years I have been trying to develop my capacity to be less reactive in situations, particularly in the home, where my immediate response was often one of anger, frustration, release or sullenness

How surprising then, that my reactivity and creativity at work are the very things for which I am highly commended, because in the working environment my reactivity gets things done, keeps the wheels turning and outputs delivered.

Whilst driving home from work last week on a busy motorway, I was momentarily pre-occupied with how, in the fast moving traffic, my environment was constantly changing while I had the appearance of not doing anything to change it.

Cars and vans and lorries sped passed me in the outer lane while I drove along at a constant speed in the inner lane, in which there was no obstruction or slow moving traffic which I needed to overtake or avoid.

The concept that, I can find myself in an environment in which, despite the fast moving pace of the world around me, I can sit tight, maintain speed, cover the distance whilst at the same time taking note and maintaining my relationship with the situation that I am in called softly to my inner voice.

I have noted that it is quite possible to react internally to the changing situation, whilst outwardly keeping a steady course.

At some point, further down the road, I may need to signal and manoeuvre, but when I do, I will have had time to prepare, time to find a safe space, and time to signal my intentions to others, so that my impact is managed, it is balanced and it is appropriate.

My next blog will be: Page 292  – Dandelion Wine

William Defoe

I have adopted a bad habit of running with my head down, particularly up hills.

If I chance to lift up my head, and see the gradient of the incline, I sense an immediate dip in performance as if the knowledge of the effort that is still required to reach the top is too much to bear.

Until recently, I have kept my head down and eyes averted to the ground so that my effort is invested fully in the moment, but the problem is that this solution is poor for my posture, it denies me the opportunity to see the environment (often beautiful) in which I am running, and, at the point I reach my goal, I have no sense of achievement within me.

I have asked myself what it would be like to look ahead and overcome this sense of being overwhelmed in the current moment.

Could I invest heavily in the moment, whilst looking ahead without suffering a loss of pace in the current moment?

It is hard to overcome the feeling that looking ahead brings, because it demands a focus of strength now at this point of the hill despite knowing that more “suffering” is to be endured.

I have come to appreciate that looking ahead is in fact, a good practice, not in the sense of being dissatisfied because I am not where I need to be, but as a means of recognising and appreciating more fully the here and now as I move forward.

My breathing is improved, my outlook is transformed, my context is wider and I am safer because I am actually looking where I am going rather than at my feet.

It is my intention to translate my learning from running practice to my life’s struggles.

Where am I now? How does it feel?

Do I know where I am going? Are there options for me to consider?

How is my behaviour affecting my own mental state, the lives of others and my ability to function safely in the environments into which my life takes me?

The intention of my new found capacity to look ahead, is to improve my performance in this moment, to overcome the feelings of being overwhelmed and fatigued and to take enjoyment from aspects of my life, despite the difficulties I am working hard to overcome.

My next blog will be: In Traffic

William Defoe

On Thursday 21st September, I attended a conference in London.

After the close of the conference, I had an hour to myself before I needed to head for my train.

As I was in the vicinity of Victoria Station, I decided to go to Westminster Cathedral, and pay my respects at the tomb of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who had been laid to rest under the tenth station of the cross a week earlier.

As I knelt at his place of rest, and quietly recited the rosary, I felt a strong sense of fatigue and a need for rest.

I have fallen into this habit of saying “only seven years to go and then I can retire”

I resolved, as I knelt at the grave of this very good and humble man to refrain from thinking that my problems will be solved when I finally stop working – I know they won’t be, so why do I keep pretending that they will.

As I walked around the cathedral, a choir started to sing solemn vespers, and I felt a very deep sense of calm and peacefulness which has been absent from my life in recent months.

I was surprised to see that there was an opportunity for me to go to confession – that is what is known in the Catholic Church as The Sacrament of Reconciliation.

I tend to keep up my ritual attendance to Christmas and Easter, but not much in addition to those great feasts, particularly as I have felt in recent years a disappointment and a frustration at the limited value I have been able to attach to its outcome.

On Thursday 21st September, my visit to confession at Westminster Cathedral was transforming.

The priest, on hearing that I struggle to manage a deep and wounding inner-conflict within my marriage,because I am gay was remarkable in his willingness to listen, to guide and counsel in words which resonated with my own secular practices which I have developed through integral coaching.

His words were a soothing balm to my restless soul, because they were empathetic, they were reasoned, they were lacking in judgement or specifying direction in line with teaching etc etc.

He wanted to make sure that I knew that he had heard my pain, and my confession was not for being gay (of course not) it was the impact that my frustration has on others, particularly my wife.

I am proud that my church has priests within it, like the priest who listened and spoke with me at confession, who want the church to be where we are, prepared to meet us in the midst of our suffering and to soothe and counsel not from a position of dogma but from a place of love.

My next blog will be: Why I Think Looking Ahead is Good Practice

William Defoe

I’m currently in the midst of a storm of all the old stuff.

It is a destructive cycle of old feelings of rejection and hurt, which I have worked hard in recent years, with the support of my coach, to overcome.

It should feel like a failure then, to experience these old worn out emotions and a sign that my development has not worked, but in fact it feels the opposite.

It feels wonderful, in an abstract kind of way.

It feels good because although I am experiencing these old feelings, I don’t believe them, and because I don’t believe them , I am less likely to act upon them in the moment.

It’s as if my destructive thoughts are encased in an inner energy which resists without suppressing the emotions which I am currently experiencing.

The hard bit is getting through the pain, which feels intense and raw:

• Feelings of frustration with the suppression of my sexuality;
• Feelings of failure in respect of my role as a husband and father;
• Feelings of disappointment in aspects of my upbringing;
• Feelings of jealousy and anger towards my siblings;
• Feelings of wanting to be alone – to run away and be left to live in peace
• Feelings that my job is too much for me to manage;
• Feelings that I am unloved and misunderstood;
• Feelings of physical inadequacy as a man.

My solution to all this in the past was to let rip in almost a rage to make damned sure that those around me felt their share of my pain too.

My solution this time around has been to run, to walk, to sleep, to be quiet (that is the bit I find hard); just being with it, waiting for it to drain away from my head space so that all the positive aspects of my journey to know and love self can once more occupy my mindset.

I haven’t cried, but perhaps if I had it would release the  tension within me.

I am grateful that I have developed a capacity to be in the midst of a storm of all the old stuff, without delivering all the old actions which I used to display wreaking havoc in its wake.

This means that the old rituals of having to go back over the destructive ground to repair damaged relationships, and retract words said in anger, asking for understanding and forgiveness are no longer required.

My next blog will be: Wearing a Handkerchief on Her Head

William Defoe

Last thing at night, as I prepare myself for bed, I follow the same ritual of releasing my body from its clothes.

As my underwear are help by my hands down to my knees, they then make the journey onward alone, brushing over my calves and ankles to land on my feet.

I have become adept at stepping out of my underwear with my right foot, and then flicking the said item with my left foot, so that they fly through the air to be caught by my right hand, before being marched to the laundry basket and unceremoniously dumped, without so much as a goodbye.

This flick of the foot to the wrist, speaks to me of how my body has the capacity to work between its many parts to support itself, and find ways to be efficient and creative and agile in the problems with which it is faced.

The act of bending to the floor to retrieve my fallen heroes puts a strain on my back which is prone to spasms of pain if the act of bending down is not executed with care.

Much safer then, to flick and catch and save my poor back the trouble.

I’ve been wondering whether my mind has the same mental agility as the body to metaphorically dispose of the worn out underwear of my thinking in such a way, as to use its inherent skill, to spare itself unnecessary strain and to dispose of my worn out thoughts efficiently, unceremoniously and effectively.

My conclusion, at the current time , is that in certain circumstances it does have that agility, but it has taken years to train it to learn the process by which it moves with a flick from old ways of responding to events to new ways of being present, being compassionate, being less judgmental of self and others.

I think that to be able to reflect, is to rehearse the steps needed to flick the foot and twist the wrist so that the mood is caught and dumped quickly especially when its contents are a risk to my health and well-being .

I think to pray is to connect with the synapses and nerves which control my propensity to  wallow in the suffering, to revel in the mood of victim, and the culture of blame.

If I am observed by my wife flicking my underpants into my hand, and I catch her eye, there is smile, an unspoken connection between us of witnessing something which is clever and ridiculous and this response is my hope for the training of my mind to know and love self.

My next blog will be:  A Storm Of All The Old Stuff

William Defoe

I have written a diary  – a sheet of A5 for each page – for just under seven years.

I rarely read it, but the point is, I know that I have a record of my comings and goings, my highs and lows, my emotional journey through what has been a period of intensity in since I came out as a gay man in 2012, living in a heterosexual marriage of 25 years duration at that time.

I have noticed that if I write my diary at the end of each day, the limited space I have to write is filled up with the minutiae of small facts about what I did and where I have been and who I have seen.

If I write my diary a day in arrears, I remember less about the detail, but more about my emotions and feelings and it is these I am more interested in recording whilst encasing them in the who, what and when as background detail.

It is my emotional journey which I am most interested in recording, because as I journey through this period of development to know and love self and to accept my gay sexuality I am looking to see the curve of highs and lows in mood and whether the gaps between the periods in which I display anger and reactive behaviour is lengthening between  episodes.

My journey is not trying to reach some nirvana where my state of emotion is flat or my anger non existent or my mood on a constant mid-high, rather my diary helps me keep a record as a point of interest, a point of reference and a point of fact (albeit my version of the truth).

My wife has open access to this blog, to my journals (longer pieces of writing which explore particularly intense episodes in depth) and to my diaries.

The understanding between us is that I don’t use these forms to direct a message to her and she cannot challenge my version of the truth in direct response to my written word, although I do enjoy noticing her attempts to do this subversively!

So, my diary is my emotional store, it allows me to let go, so that despite its form taking shape a day in arrears, I can live my life today, in the present.

My next blog will be: Picking Up My Underwear With My Feet

William Defoe

In recent years, I have adopted a habit of collecting a few pebbles and shells from my visits to the seaside.

I have a rather lovely water feature in my garden, the water from which, tumbles onto the clean polished pebbles and splashes indiscriminately into the air.

I also have a shell garden, placed on a flat stone by the front door which in my mind’s eye is a beautiful piece of art.

I don’t know, if it is because I consider myself to have collected enough  pebbles and shells, that quite often, I now seem to have acquired a sense of guilt for continuing to take these inanimate stones and empty shells from the seashore.

I have this constant feeling that every time I have picked up a pebble and considered its beauty and then discarded it back into the sea, it has somehow had a lucky escape.

Can it be right?, I ask myself, to take an object from where it belongs and transport it in my luggage to my garden hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Is there a finite number of pebbles and shells?, and is my collection likely to deprive future visitors of their right to see these objects in their natural environment?.

In my garden, I have created art, in the sea or on the shore they are home.

I have been struck, by how I seem to have this innate sense, that belonging and identity are wrapped up in staying close to roots and close to family and close to faith and close to home.

That somehow, to break out of that sphere of the life into which I have been conditioned and nurtured would somehow be a risk or a betrayal or a failure.

I am beginning to see that this logic of staying put is pretty much the same, as thinking that the inanimate object in the sea values its home.

Perhaps the fact, that I have transported that object, and created a work of art which is a thing of beauty, and a wonderful addition to my garden which is appreciated by all who come to visit me, is not a betrayal of it’s origins, but a sign of how the courage to change can be transforming and, yes, beautiful.

My next blog will be: Writing My Diary A Day In Arrears

William Defoe