I have been noticing within my body-physical a set of brakes.

It is an interesting phenomenon which has revealed itself to me through running five times each week for the last nine months of my life.

I have been wondering why it is that even though I am much fitter, carrying less weight, my run times, although improved, are not even better.

I first discovered my brakes running downhill but they are not in my legs.

These brakes hold me back  when perhaps it is possible for me to run faster, but they control my speed, not from my head (fear of falling) but from my abdomen (keeping me centred).

They speak to me of taking all factors of my run into account, not just my speed, but also my rhythm, my breathing, my stamina and my enjoyment.

I think my brakes have enabled me to keep focused, allowing my run to be an important time for my mental development because they facilitate head space to think, to notice my inner voice, to help me to stay present.

They are unlike the brakes in our heads which at times say to us, “we can’t” or which judge harshly ourselves or others.

My next blog will be: Finding Resilence

William Defoe

My skin – your skin – a seamless suit of exquisite beauty which holds in all of me – and all of you!

Our skin soft, malleable, resilient, self healing, beautiful and a vital and living wondrous organ which is magnificent in its scale and ambition.

The soft skin of the face and buttocks (ne’er to be confused) contrasted with the harder skin of the heel and palms which reveal the vastness of the skins capacity to adapt and protect and nurture what is me and what is you.

So often when I am feeling agitated, it is in the skin in which the stress shows itself to be in distress with a rash here and there, perhaps under the arms or along the belt line or groin or on my feet and hands.

This manifestation of the anxiety felt within is revealed on the surface of my skin, and I soothe with water and cream to heal the wounds which I have inflicted on to my skin in my time of distress.

Slowly those wounds heal, but to avoid these moments of disconnect between my mindset and my beautiful skin, I need to find a place to be calm, a place to be in dialogue with what the skin is protecting physically which is:  my truth; my essence; my life.

My next blog will be: Brakes

William Defoe

I was reminded this week how easy it is for our words spoken to be interpreted by the listener in a manner which results in them taking offence.

My adult child having spent a wonderful day with me, in which my intention was to show her my love and continue our journey to overcome some difficulties in the past, took offence at something I said towards the end of the day in relation to my hopes for her future.

In realising that a word in my sentence changed very much its sentiment, and being told I had caused offence, I apologized.

I then had a long drive home in which my feelings of frustration and hurt threatened not just to spoil the day, but the very future I am trying with my adult child to improve.

It has taken several periods of reflection and inner scrutiny to find my way through all of this and my overwhelming desire is to maintain and strengthen the good work we have begun and that is what I am resolved to do.

I reflected more on my own capacity to take offence and what I can do to work harder to resist the temptation myself to communicate that I have been offended by the words of others, particularly when the context of the relationship is far bigger than a mis-spoken word.

It seems to me that to take offence is to react in the moment without looking wider at the broader importance of the circumstances of the whole relationship and also at whether the words were designed to cause offence or were merely an expression of a view or aspiration which I am less ready to accept than the person expressing them.

A few years ago, after I told my brother that I was gay,he told me that our older brother had suspected as much in a conversation they had about me, but not with me.

I have felt a sense of hurt right from the moment my brother told me about this conversation and it would be fair to say that I took offence – I was mortified by it.

Throughout my journey to nurture and develop my love for self, I have come to understand that to take offence is to close down our opportunities to listen, it is to close down our opportunities for dialogue, it is to close down our opportunities to be open with self.

My next blog will be: Skin

William Defoe

In recent weeks I have felt quite anxious.

This feeling of anxiety has been a regular feature in my life and I am overcoming gradually its destructive power, by becoming better acquainted with its cry for help  – a call from within which requires a response – and also its effects on my mind and body.

Often when I am anxious, I wake up early.

I am restless in my sleeping, and also in my waking.

My waking thoughts are often a surreal experience of eroticism, fear, exhilaration and confusion with a tendency to be trapped in a situation which repeats itself over and over from which I struggle to emerge.

As I finally wake up, whether anxious of not, I am amazed at the experience of how somehow my brain re-boots and reminds me of who I am, where I am, what day it is, what time it is, what my plans are for today, what I am worried about, what I am looking forward to.

My waking thoughts are often the very clearest of the day. I am surprised at how often at the start of the day, a sudden answer appears to a dilemma or a course of action is determined upon, which seems to have come from nowhere.

The deep sub-conscious is processing these things as I sleep, and where feelings of anxiety remain, or issues are unresolved, I know through my Integral Coaching development that I must try to find space in my waking life to be silent – to think, to ponder, to pay attention to my inner voice – to listen to my soul which is the essence of my being.

My next blog will be: The Summons (Verse 4)

William Defoe

I don’t like the taste of cucumber, but I eat this vegetable virtually everyday of my life.

I like to eat a salad for lunch each day, especially in the summer months, and the way I keep them interesting is by including regular ingredients of lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes and cucumber and then a variety of toppings, cold meats, chicken, egg, spicy chicken, cooked pork, salmon etc.

The cucumber is included each day without notice because instead of neglecting to eat it each day, I have discovered that if I cut it up into fine pieces, it looses its impact as a taste I cannot palate, to become an enhancer of the rest of the food on my plate.

Cucumber is therefore, for me, an excellent example on how living in the present can be possible when having to live through challenges which at times can be difficult to bear.

I have known for some time, through my development, which is enhanced through quiet reflection and outward engagement with the world, that the difficult aspects of my life must be spread over all the other aspects of my life to make them less painful, less demanding of my continual notice, and less destructive in my reaction to them.

I have found, that I am better able to consume the troubles in my life, because they are spread in and amongst the balanced reality of my life.

Searching for truth is not some search for a goal of absolute peace and tranquility  – it is rather being able to welcome all things.

So the secret is to spread the cucumber lightly over the salad so that it is consumed with ease rather than being left in the tupperware bowl all the day to rot and decay.

My next blog will be: SS Peter and Paul

William Defoe

My wife and I have opposing views politically.

Whenever there is an election, we walk up to the polling station holding hands and vote in our respective ways.

No attempt is made by either of us to change the others mind.

After exercising our democratic right, we usually call into the pub for a drink – summer elections in the UK are the best because it normally means a pint of beer for me and a glass of wine for my wife, in a lovely English Beer Garden.

We walk back home holding hands.

In the constituency where we live it is my wife’s political party which always wins – it is a safe Westminster seat for her political party.

My wife could decide not to vote because her party would win without her, and my vote has the appearance of not making a difference, but I believe that it does.

My vote counts as a part of the overall “share of the vote” and it gives the result of the election legitimacy for the Government whether it is of my choice or not, and also importantly, to the Opposition.

I think that an important part of exercising our democratic right is to accept the result when we find ourselves on the losing side.

To miss out on this opportunity to respect opposing views in a democracy is a recipe for anarchy.

And I speak here as a voter for “Remain” in the UK’s EU Referendum.

A majority of my fellow citizens who voted, voted for Brexit, so Brexit it is!

My next blog will be: Head, Heart and Soul

William Defoe

There are so many occasions in this internet age when I am asked to provide a log-in and a password.

Help is at hand on a lot of sites for the log-in to be saved so that you do not have to remember it.

It is tempting to take up the offer of a saved log-in but I never do, because it is my instinct to retain the memory of it by entering my details every time I need to access each site.

It takes that little bit of time longer to key the information in and also the need to overcome the frustration of entering the wrong log-in or password for the site I am accessing, thinking it is another, but in the end the discipline of having to type it in and remember it is worth it.

I often find that after a few days annual leave from work, I will pitch up at my desk and freeze momentarily as I struggle to recall my e-mail address, or name and the latest password that I have chosen to access my work station.

I think forcing myself to remember and use my log-in and rejecting the offer to have a saved log-in is quite akin to keeping up the daily exercises I now undertake to keep my life in the present.

These daily actions include a combination of periods of silence, reflection, inner inspection of self, physical exercise, blogging, sex (well not every day!), reading, journaling, writing my diary, prayer, attending Mass, making myself available to my family.

I know that when I let these exercises slip, I lose the connection which I have developed to self.

I run the risk of losing the control I now exert over my fears, and I run the risk of losing the control of my continuous work to be calm.

This work of being present, this work of being safe, this work of facing inward to self and increasingly outward to others is too important to  risking its loss to my life by treating it as if it was a saved log-in.

My next blog will be: Opposing Views

William Defoe

I have occasionally been told by those who are close to my journey to live in the present, that I have been, or that I am courageous.

Perhaps I am being courageous, for example in writing this blog.

Perhaps I am being courageous in trying so very hard to change the way I react to happenings in my own life and in the lives of those around me, particularly when they affect me.

Perhaps I am being courageous in acknowledging at a very deep level within me, the truth about my conflicted sexuality after suppression and denial and rejection of this truth for so many difficult years of my life.

I have not felt courageous.

At times I have felt that in suffering for so long in the darkness of isolation and fear, I have been just the opposite, that is to say, weak.

And then there has been that sense of guilt over my past mistakes and the controlling aspects of my behaviours, which came from a place of love, but which were manifest in anger, sulking and mood swings which were depressing in their pattern and frequency.

I have recently been reading Pema Chodron’s book ‘Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better’ which I have referred to in some of my earlier posts.

In this simply wonderful book she talks about the courage we hold within  – the courage we experience on the inside when we connect to our inner voice of self love, compassion, understanding and hope.

I have been trying to notice this kind of inner courage, which has been hidden (not purposefully but intrinsically) in my own life.

I have noticed that I have found within me a capacity to listen when others are speaking, holding down the impulse to speak – that’s courage.

[It is not that I don’t speak any more, it is just that I am patient in exercising that practice, having given space to the other person who needs to speak.]

I have noticed that that I have found within me a capacity to stay silent when my old reaction would have been to scream – that’s courage.

[It is not that I don’t scream anymore, it is just that I am patient in giving space to the other person who needs to scream (about the past – and my impact on them) their space to do so.]

I have noticed that I have found within me a capacity to just be – an inward focus which is a deep, deep, deep, scary deep excavation of my self-hood – that’s courage.

[I have created a space to be with self on a very regular basis and this has been for me the bedrock of my awakening to the biggest question of all – who am I?]

I have noticed with greater clarity the needs of my family,  and I have reached out to show them that I can be trusted to hold their otherness  – to accept their view of the world as being their own which is different to mine – that’s courage.

I have embedded a discipline within my life to notice when I am veering towards judgement of self or judgement of others  – that’s courage.

I have embedded a discipline in my life to notice when I am straying away from the present, to the past or to the future, without grounding myself back to the present – that’s courage.

My new found proneness to periods of silence, reflection, perhaps prayer, and this sense of calm, peace and compassion which enables me to love self is my deepest courage!

I hope that you find within the courage you bring to the world – notice it!

My next blog will be: Saved Login

William Defoe