I’ve been having a major clear out of clutter.

I find it difficult, because I value the things that I own and because I look after them it is not easy to justify throwing things out.

A few weeks back, I took three big boxes of books to a local book seller and handed them to him to support his market business.

The books I have kept fall into the following categories:

• English Classic Literature – Dickens, Austen, Bronte, Forster, Eliot
• Poetry – Keats, Popular Poetry, Poetry Anthologies, Children s
• The Natural World – David Attenborough’s BBC  TV Books
• Atlas’s
• The Bible
• Catholic Catechism
• Political Memoirs
• Shakespeare’s Complete Works – sadly not a First Folio
• The Royal Family
• The Papacy
• Journey of the Soul – a range of books that have supported my journey to be present.
• Stars and Planets
• Thrillers

This list speaks to me of a diverse interest in my country, my faith and the world around me.

Some of my reading has been inspired by my education, my formation as a Catholic, but others are at the heart of what it is that makes me who I am – the politics, the poetry, the wildlife.

My books on the journey of soul have released me from an oppressive attitude and a lethargy in life, to a new found energy to try to be interested in the world I live in – to be expansive in my capacity to be in the world and not to be overwhelmed by my small place that I occupy within it.

I have life which is a precious gift, I am unique, I am loved, I love, I feel, I cry, I breathe, I read.

What do your books say about you?

My next blog will be: Perfectionist

William Defoe

Don’t ducks just dabble?

Last week I was amazed to see several flying ducks as I walked along a beautiful stretch of the canal near my home.

I was fascinated by these flying ducks as they lifted themselves off the water, and flew in a direct line over the canal at about my head height, so that as they passed me they were level with my eyes.

I have always known that ducks fly, but rarely have I seen them do so, but to see them fly in a straight line from A to B further along the canal at the height of my head was wonderful.

The canal life seemed to be in flux, early spring, territories being claimed, the strong pushing out the weak, the weak trying their luck against all odds of succeeding to claim a patch of water.

How much of my life has been spent trying to claim a foothold, a home, a place to feel safe?

How much of my life has been spent fending off the aggressor, not just the playground bully and the insecure boss, but also the demons from within?

Through a process of internal scrutiny, coaching, reading, meditation, prayer, physical exercise and friendships,  and a growing acceptance of truth, I have found a life, I have found a space to call my own that lives within me, and is reflected out of me in a new found confidence and love of self.

Ducks don’t just dabble – they fly!

My next blog will be: What Do Your Books Say About You?

William Defoe

I am quite calm at the moment, which does not mean as I used to think it did, that if I was calm, everything was in order – what it actually means is that I am coping with the complicated realities of my life.

All lives are complicated – it is not that I am special – I am simply a human being with a heritage which claims me, a reality which wounds me, and aspirations which confuse me.

When I am calm, that is able to cope, I can sense what it has been like for me to experience havoc in my life.

Havoc isn’t chaotic, or untidy, it is living a life in which the inner most soul is restless, craving, needing, gnawing, wanting to be loved.

Havoc is a rejection of self, a wounding which hurts so very much that night never really seems to turn to day – and this can be for years.

Havoc is loss, loss of time, loss of opportunity to flourish, loss of being able to fully love others, whilst at the same time having this constant feeling of having fallen short as a human being.

Havoc from the perspective of my present calm, is beautiful to behold, because I have pulled through, it is in the past, it is not able to re-claim me because I have accepted self and now I am in a hurry to love those I cherish more deeply, more openly, more generously, more courageously.

Havoc is a reminder of how far I have come on my journey to  live fully present, and although I don’t want to experience it, I don’t want to lose sight of it either, because havoc ultimately has propelled me to acceptance and truth.

My next blog will be: Flying Ducks

William Defoe

In the last few days I have heard with sadness of the deaths of three acquaintances  – all men who have died at the young ages of 20 years, 40 years and 55 years respectively.

Lost Life  – gone too soon, and it was not unreasonable for my expectation of their longevity to have been longer than the time that they had.

Lost Life still, is the time I have spent throughout periods of my own life in which I have failed to connect with living each moment in the full knowledge of the present.

Lost Life when I have denied the needs of my soul – not to be indulgent and reckless, but to accept my truth and to be free of a sense of guilt and loathing for the things I could not change.

Lost Life for the times I sowed discourse and division, because of my complex relationship with self, so that those who wanted to be close to me were pushed away and hurt.

Lost Life in surrounding myself with unhelpful distractions to block out any meaningful attempt to home in on the truth that is me.

In recent years, I have suffered tremendous feelings of guilt over aspects of my parenting which was loving, but also controlling and tense and confrontational.

Then came the calm, the stepping back and the examination of self and the feeling of being crushed and a failure for the mistakes of the past.

Now comes the truth, the outward facing of my development and love for self, so that yesterday I had my first coffee with my adult daughter and we talked  and talked and talked and put Lost Life behind us with the promise of a closer and more open and honest father and daughter relationship.

So, I said to her – “bring me you, hide nothing, I will reject nothing, but lets us bring these things constructively and lovingly and openly”  – in a spirit of being present so that neither of us has to suffer any more Lost Life.

My next blog will be: Havoc

William Defoe

In the BBC TV dramatization of Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice” there is a wonderful scene where Elizabeth Bennet, played by the beautiful Jennifer Ehle, is reading a letter from Mr Darcy, in which each fresh revelation causes her to lose her breath and temporarily set the letter aside whilst she composes herself and her thoughts, for the next installment of the letter.

I have been reading a beautiful little book (a resource for my journey of soul) called “fail, fail again, fail better” by Pema Chodron an American  Buddhist nun.

This gift from my living angel (coach), to support my onward journey to love self more deeply, touched me in a similar way to Mr Darcy’s letter to Miss Eliza Bennet.

I felt breathless and I had to keep setting it aside as I came to terms with the simplicity of the authors message to expect and welcome failure and how to cope with it.

Her words resonated so strongly, because throughout my life I have endured a ruinous sense of having failed as a man, and from this space of deep pain and anguish and hurt, I have lashed out at others with angry outbursts of verbal aggression and addictive attention to unhelpful thinking causing me serious inner turmoil and guilt.

This wonderful book, supports the journey I started three years ago, to change my narrative from failure to love of self, and love and appreciation of those whom are close to me.

I have cultivated an inner discussion, to gain an understanding of my sense of failure, and in that moment of pain, I have worked hard to find some other name for it – hurt, disappointment, frustration or setback.

I have used my curiosity in these difficult moments to develop a deeper care for self, a compassion for self, which through quiet meditation has lead me to peace, calm and acceptance and a profound willingness to listen to my inner voice and take steps to change direction, or accept my truth.

This blog is an outward sign of my new found ability to reach out to others creatively so that my story as a gay and married, Catholic man, may help others to liberate themselves from suffering, and find, like me that:-

to fail is to discover,

to fail is to have tried,

to fail is an opportunity,

to fail is to experience the breathless curiosity for a hopeful future.

My next blog will be: Lost Life

William Defoe

Throughout the last three years of my inward journey, supported by Integral Coaching techniques, I have grown my inward capacity to cope with the world and my place within it.

I have developed a technique to “point in” to the source of pain on any given day of my life, but not be crushed by it, as I was in the past.

Whenever I feel some hurt arise in my mind, I seek first of all to experience an expansiveness of the present moment so that when I “point in” to the source of my pain, or happiness, or anxiety or dreams and hopes, I experience them with a background of some balance.

At this moment in time, I am experiencing some deep concern for my wife and my adult children, for which relationships are strained, and my awareness of it has felt like it is hopeless and a mess and too difficult to cope with.

There is a feeling in me that wants to run, run away from the source of the pain, but I know that won’t solve anything, so instead I ask myself, what can I do, incrementally, if I “point in?”

As I do so, I feel overwhelmed, so to illustrate expansive thinking, I say, this is big work, this will take time, this will take many upward steps and I can expect some backward steps too along the way, but I am going to make a start, I am going to try, I am going to share outwardly the journey of my soul.

I will do this by “pointing in” (reflectively), thinking, breathing, running, praying and then outwardly by making connections, making myself available to listen, to soothe, to ask questions, to love, love and love again to turn this ship round from the tempestuous and dangerous waters it is in to calmer seas.

My next blog will be: Breathless

William Defoe

I was reminded recently when I found myself in queuing traffic out side a Veterinary Surgery about a dog my grandmother had when I was a young teenager.

The dog, a black Labrador, called Cindy, knew the street on which the vet had his/her practice and she would sit on the ground at the end of the street absolutely refusing to budge.

I can see her now, and it makes me laugh, being dragged by her lead but moving only inches as her bottom trailed on the floor – poor thing!

I remember teasing her in the house, by saying out loud “vet” whether I had her attention or not, and she would dart behind the sofa and shake with fear, much to general amusement – we adored her and she was very much loved and looked after, I assure you.

This concept of being “dragged” somewhere we would prefer not to go, fascinates me – it has connotations with the Easter Season too which is pertinent at this time particularly for Christians.

It speaks of resisting something that is potentially good for us in the longer term, but which has short term discomfort e.g. a visit to the dentist for a filling etc and yet we often invent and create delaying tactics to leave the problem to fester until it literally becomes unbearable.

In Cindy’s case, my Grandma would give her a mild sedative in advance of a visit to the vets to calm her down.

Of course, we too can take medication to calm our anxieties and fears, and I have been known to do just that.I have a stash at the ready if I have need of them, but I have come to realise that facing into our fears and examining them, “even from the end of the street” is preferable to being dragged, unwilling, closed, fearful to confront our problems.

Gradually in focusing on the problems I have had, with tiny steps, and the odd tendency to jolt behind a lamppost, I have emerged with a steady footfall towards my goal, of a life in the present, a life a calm, a life of peace, a life which is able to cope with what life throws at me and no longer being crushed by it

My next blog will be: Secret Garden

William Defoe

I have often heard visitors to Catholic Masses refer to the strange ritual of standing and kneeling and sitting with the responses spoken out by the congregation which are spoken out on the whole off by heart.

In November 2011, the Catholic Church in England and Wales, introduced new liturgical responses to the Mass for the priest and faithful.

They took quite a while to get used to, because the old responses had been around for nearly 50 years  i.e from around the time I was born.

Occasionally, even though I now know the new responses off by heart,  I will speak out the old ones, and it is usually when I am perhaps not concentrating on being present, perhaps because my mind has wandered to other issues.

At roughly the same time as the church changed its liturgical responses, I acknowledged to those whom I love, that I needed a change in response in my life.

A change from a reactive, painful, hurtful existence, to a place of calm, self love, peace, a life in the present with the prospect of a happier future.

I intended to make this change, within the current structure of my life, so remaining in my marriage, despite being gay, and remaining faithful to my deep-held Catholic faith, despite finding myself at odds over time with the quality of its welcome to those who have alternative lifestyles.

Last week at a service I noticed again that I called out the wrong response – it feels odd when everyone else around me was saying the correct response.

This made me reflect on how with change, we layover an old narrative, a new narrative, but for this change to be maintained we have to be present with it and vigilant.

I have found in my life, that when the old narrative breaks through, it is to be welcomed, listened to, because it is a voice from the heart of self, asking for me to consider an aspect of self all afresh once more.

My next blog will be: Dragged

William Defoe

A few weeks ago I received a text message from my brother informing me that he had been out for lunch with my adult daughter, that she had been delightful, and that I must be so proud of her.

The impact on me of the message, was felt as a tension in my body, and a confusion in the mind bordering on annoyance.

There has been a disconnect with my daughter, and unresolved issues from how I behaved as a parent during her teenage years to manage her temperament, and my brother knows full well the trouble that exists between us.

His message, irritated me, but rather than hold on to the anger, which even writing this post does not make sense, I was determined to feel into his sentiment.

Was he interfering in my own relationship with my daughter?, or, was he trying to tell me something new about her that he had discovered?.

In the meantime no other communication passed between us, he lives in a different city and I am not always in touch with him, but I did see my daughter on several occasions, most latterly at a family birthday at which I perceived she had upset her sister.

Later that evening, I picked up the telephone and I called her to say I was hurt that she had been mean to her sister, and that I feared for future family unity in the years ahead if all of us did not take a different course.

I acknowledged to her the pain I had caused her as a father struggling to cope with managing her change into adulthood, my sense of failure at work, my sense of failure in my marriage, my sense of failure as a provider.

I explained to her that I had been investing time in recent years, in changing my inner narrative to a life in the present, a life of calm and that I had tried very hard to shake off the old narrative.

In a two hour phone call, she told me that she had noticed the change, she explained her relationship with her sister and assured me that I had misunderstood a more complex situation.

She told me that I had not to be concerned for the past, acknowledging her own temperament and assuring me that she held no hard feelings about my parenting during those years.

We said that we would meet more often on a 1:1 and have more opportunities to talk and get to know each other – she said I don’t think you know me as the person I have become.

After the call, she sent to me a text message in which she said that she had appreciated my opening up to her and she told me “I love you”

At last, I understood the message that my brother had sent to me a few weeks ago when he said “You Must Be So Proud Of Her”

I am!

My next blog will be: A Change in Response

William Defoe

“We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty – only one look – it was close by – but you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty, you wouldn’t turn back! O dear, O dear.”

[Extract from Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame]

These words, taken from one of my favourite books, were said by Mole to his dear friend Rat, after Rat, pushing ahead to get home, ignored the pleas of Mole to stop and take a look at his old home.

I was reminded strongly of this particular passage last weekend, when having made a decision, following much reflection, to direct my development outwardly, I was able to be present with the pain and anguish of my wife in respect of some difficulties, the origins of which are firmly in the past.

Like Rat, I have in recent years, come to terms with my past suffering, and I have been reluctant to engage with it from the perspective of others.

In my current phase of development, like Ratty with Mole, I turned back and inquired of my wife what was causing her so much hurt.

I noticed how calm I was, as I asked her the question, sitting directly opposite her as her words of anguish about our current situation, brought about by a feeling that she had lacked my support during difficult phases of our children s upbringing were punctuated with intense emotion.

I held onto her arms and looked into her tear filled eyes and acknowledged her pain, I accepted its truth without trying to explain it or give my version of the events which she related, I just nodded and soothed to say that it was good that these feelings had at last surfaced between us in this way.

We held each other close, and we remained silent for a while, before making preparation to go out for the evening with friends.

I was not crushed by her feelings as I feared that I would be, I felt a deep compassion for her which I hope will never leave me.

Like Ratty and Mole, perhaps in being honest and open with our feelings, especially our feelings about the past, we will be able to move forward to a present which is filled with the promise of a more loving and supportive future.

My next blog will be: “You Must be Very Proud”

William Defoe