Trigger Warning: this article contains a discussion of love, loss, grief and suicide that may not be suitable for all readers. AoE community, please read with care.
The first time I sang this song to an audience was in a small local pub the night before my youngest daughter Holly took her own life. It was also the first time I had been aware of tears rolling down my cheeks whilst performing.
Step back a few hours, and I was on a park bench watching the tidal river ebb away in front of me. I was phoning my daughter. I wonder if I was aware of her life ebbing away like the river. She didn’t pick up. I didn’t expect her to, and it’s difficult to admit there was some relief. I don’t know what I would have said.
Her mother was speaking to her every day. This routine began two weeks earlier when Holly was signed off work with anxiety and stress. Had Holly’s deep sadness influenced me to choose this song to sing on this night? Or was it my sadness at my sense I was losing her love, and I could no more stop that than I could stop the river in front of me from flowing back to the sea?
I left a voice message telling her I was about to set up for a gig and could talk to her afterwards if she wanted. She texted after midnight. A simple “Love you, Daddy.”
She had already decided to end her life. Her husband had been making sure one of her friends was checking in on her every day, and she had invented an arrangement to meet someone for lunch the next day. She reminded him of this bogus meetup when he left for work and said she would have her phone off.
Until you’ve loved a love you had to lose You don’t know what love is
As far as we know, she went to the pharmacy that morning to get what she needed along with a bag of chocolates to take away the taste. An image seared into my mind is how I walked into her flat the following day and dipped my hand into that bag of chocolates. Nothing tasted the same. The lips that taste of tears lose their taste for anything else.
And how the lips that taste of tears Lose the taste for kissing
For the last 44 months, I have been learning the meaning of the blues. That yearning and despair will never go away. The pain that blues musicians have expressed for over 150 years. The pain of racial or personal oppression and hardship or losing your loved ones. It never goes away.
You don’t know how hearts burn For love that cannot live, yet never dies
Holly could not live, but her love will never die. I sit here today on her birthday, unable to do anything other than think of her. Forget all notions of ‘getting over it,’ ‘moving on,’ ‘having closure’. Blues music has been around for over 150 years, and if I could live that long, I would still carry those complicated feelings of love and loss with me.
Looking at the history of Blues Music, I see a different perspective. It did not begin in slavery. The descendants of enslaved people created it. It expresses the continued oppression of African Americans but also celebrates their freedom. The Blues is a genre expressing sadness, but at the same time, it celebrates the joy of freedom.
Now I know what love is. It is being able to experience joy and pain concurrently. Sometimes, I found it difficult to feel anything before Holly died. By losing her physically, I have gained the ability to feel love and sadness simultaneously and find I am feeling so much more.
Intimacy is a big thing. Something we are programmed to seek out from birth. It is human instinct to seek connection and closeness with others. It begins with our mother as we seek physical intimacy for survival. Physical intimacy also has a role in the survival of the species.
Often the concept of intimacy is collapsed down into this single idea—physical intimacy or touch. It is, in fact, a much broader idea.
You could break intimacy down into four parts:
Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Troubles arise where we collapse these all together.
I have had a rocky journey with intimacy. I have sought out intimacy with others without exploring the intimate relationship I have with myself. I will share some of these ups and downs and hope you find them useful for your own journey.
Let us begin with a quote from Osho:
“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it’s not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person — without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.”
― Osho
Being Left to Cry Under the Cherry Tree
My mum already had three sons when I was born. She says I was the one that cried the most, and she was worried about it. Understandably and typical of the times, I spent much of the day lying in a pram. If I cried too much, mum would wheel me out into the garden, well out of earshot, and place me under a cherry blossom tree.
I have considered this image a lot. A baby cries to create a connection with the parent. Mum will pick them up and work out what their needs are. Physical contact may be enough, or a feed or nappy change. What happens when they are put out of earshot and their cries ignored?
It feels like something around my need for intimacy was interrupted here. I am not judging my mum’s behaviour, just wondering what I made of it in my baby-brain way. The image often comes back to me. I sense I liked being under the cherry tree. I found a way to soothe myself by watching the soft pink petals in the sunlight.
Was it here that I began to crave physical intimacy with a sense that I would never get it? Was it here that I found that I could soothe myself by focusing on beautiful things, but there would always be a yearning in the background?
Here I am, 60 years later, and I have a wonderfully intimate relationship with my mum on a mental, emotional and spiritual plane. I have accepted and respect she does not want hugs or kisses on the cheek or any of that soppy nonsense.
Sewing Up My Pockets
So this is a physical bit; cover up your ears, mum! I was five, and I was very tactile, and mum decided that I spent far too long with my hands in my pockets, and I wasn’t playing with a couple of conkers and a worm that I had found in the garden.
She sewed them up. Verbal threats had failed, and it was the only thing left to do.
I craved touch and cuddles, and they were not on offer. This is not a complaint or a judgement. It was the ’60s; there were all sorts of bonkers ideas going around about how to bring up children.
So I was taught how to shake hands when a grown-up offered theirs, and I delighted in rare cuddle moments when my mum had to lance a boil on my bum, clean out my ears or squeeze my zits.
Any other physical contact was considered perverted. I understood that masturbation was a sin. Physical intimacy with yourself or another was something you probably had to put up with at some point in your life, but it’d be best to avoid it.
A Totally Confused Teenager
Deprived of physical intimacy and weighed down with shame for craving touch, I began dating girls. What a nightmare that was!
I was a cute geek. I fell in love with anyone that let me stroke their hair. I could sit for hours in the cinema, just breathing in patchouli oil and waiting for a chance to brush my hand against theirs.
Allowing me a tiny amount of physical intimacy sent me into a love-spin.
My mind was fried by conflicting pressure from peers and older brothers.
“Have you done this? Have you done that? Has she let you …….. ?”
It was as if it was a competition and the girl was just an object to be conquered, a series of challenges. If I didn’t complete them, I was obviously gay. I didn’t want to be part of this.
I just wanted to feel close to another human and make a connection. I could snog for hours on end, and I loved just touching and talking. I could become obsessed with smooth skin that felt like velvet.
Marrying Too Young
I was obsessed with physical intimacy to the exclusion of all else. The first time I met a woman and clicked physically, I thought this was true love. I had to marry her.
The marriage was doomed and lasted four years. I had no idea how to have a rounded intimate relationship. I was not even remotely emotionally literate. We had very little in common on an intellectual level and rarely knew what to say to each other.
Spiritually we were both lost causes, blindly flailing about in life, trying to make sense of all the conflicting messages, and having no idea who we authentically were.
Separating Intimacy from Love
Many years have passed, and I have been married to my second wife for 37 years. We are intimate with each other on all four levels (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual), and it all fluctuates wildly.
I have noticed that whenever I gain any level of intimacy with another, I get very confused. Particularly as a musician, this becomes a problem. Improvising music with someone is a very intimate act. I can enter into the zone with someone, and it is almost as if we are one. There is no separation between us. This is a sort of spiritual intimacy.
On several occasions, I have got swept up in this as if I was in love. I have not had the conceptual framework for separating these things. I seem to have no holistic understanding that I can be intimate intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually with someone. Physical intimacy does not have to be a part of that.
It is only very recently, in the context of a therapy group, that I have realised that I can be intimate with many people in many ways. I have learnt to separate it out and value it just as it is.
The Paradox of Intimacy
I have been afraid of intimacy on any of the four levels. I collapsed them all together, so obviously, if I am intimate emotionally with someone, then all the other three must follow, and that can’t work, so I must avoid any kind of intimacy at all costs.
If I allow myself to be intimate with anyone, all my relationships will collapse, and I will be alone.
I have felt so alone avoiding intimacy so I won’t feel alone.
The Freedom of Intimacy
Training to be a counsellor has brought me the freedom I have sought. The Counsellor/Client relationship is about as intimate as you can be. The work depends on it.
The work also depends on the boundaries around it. I will choose to be intimate with you for one hour a week. That’s it—no vagueness around the edges. You will learn to be intimate, and I will learn to be intimate, and then we will walk away from each other and go about our daily tasks. Both of us can bring more intimacy into our lives through this process.
I am really learning to be intimate with myself, as intimacy with another depends on that.
I am becoming intimate with my body. Sensing what it is trying to tell me, learning to listen to all the emotions it has stored up for so many years. Intimate with my emotions, learning they are coded messages from the past, not prescriptions for the future. Learning intimacy with my mind, noting the patterns of thought that automatically click into place and what triggers them.
All this opens up the space for intimacy with my soul. What gives my life purpose and meaning? Can I learn to hear that voice above all the others?
I am not making ridiculous claims in my title. I will detail below a creative approach to working with any obstacle or block life throws at you. I will give an example from my own life, where I have applied this approach.
The only thing I ask of you is that you find a way of being open to working with metaphor.
As a quick practice in this, look at the title picture. Ask yourself some questions.
When have I ever hit a wall in my life?
Did I give up and walk away?
Did I smash it down, climb over it, find ways around it, tunnel under it or find a gateway I could walk through?
Did I spend the rest of my life asleep on this side of the wall?
Could I have done something differently?
Did I see it as an obstacle but miss the opportunity?
Failing a job interview can be seen as a setback or an opportunity to identify and develop the skills you need to secure a job you love.
Having your heart broken can become an obstacle to ever being in a relationship again, or it can be an opportunity to explore how you relate and deepen your connection with yourself and others.
Our logical mind is very good at identifying all the obstacles in our path. To identify the opportunities hidden in the wall’s bricks, we need to access our creative mind. We need to let our soul and emotions have a voice.
I imagine some of you are about to click away. That is your logical mind getting in on the act. What is it saying? “I’ve got no imagination — I’m not creative — this is arty-farty bullshit” or something along those lines? So, by all means, click away. I will shout to you as you leave.
“That’s what you always do — at the first obstacle you back away — your loss — once again, you have missed an opportunity.”
Find Your Own Approach to Working With Metaphor
The possibilities are endless here. Many readers may be writers. In that case, write the story, maybe draft several versions until you find the one that fits.
If you are an artist, draw some images. Musicians could write a song. Many people use mindfulness and visualisation techniques. Poets will find their way in verse.
Marketing executives can start applying their juicy language to their own lives.
Imagery — the core of metaphoric language — will surprise, grab, inform, and persuade your [readers] as mere explanation will not. Vivid language will distinguish you from the swarm, will make you heard above the drone, will make you that rare person today: a communicator who gets results. ~ Anne Miller
If you are new to this malarkey, I am asking you to communicate with yourself. The technique does not matter. You have everything you need right now. You don’t need to learn something new or go on a course or google endlessly “how to work with metaphor”.
In Working With Metaphor, You Can Bypass Your Habitual Logical Thinking Processes
Faced with a real wall like the one in the picture, how would your logical mind respond? Would you get on Google Maps and find a way around it? Keep walking until you found a gate? Decide that you have stumbled upon someone else’s private property and go somewhere else?
Now think of an obstacle in your life. That job you really wanted, the friend you no longer talk to because of a misunderstanding, getting your creative work published or exhibited.
Are you applying only logical thought processes to this issue? Is it working?
When Business trainers use the metaphorical phrase “thinking outside of the box,” they suggest you step outside of the box created by your logical thinking mind and access all the other things at your disposal.
Use your intuition, think creatively, visualise a different solution, imagine you have already solved the problem and work from there.
Time For an Example
I was working as a teacher, a freelance musician and a performing storyteller.
My heart was not in teaching. I felt trapped. I wanted to do more creative work, but I could not make enough money to survive on that alone.
I wrote a story and started performing it, and it was not until I had performed it several times that I realised I had discovered the answer to my own dilemma through writing the story.
The Basketmaker
A basketmaker saw his craft going out of fashion, and he was losing money. He decided to put all his effort and energy into building the world’s biggest basket and making himself famous. He did this but made a terrible mistake. He built the basket from the inside, and when it was complete, he was trapped inside it.
He berated himself and raged and screamed but could not break out. A mentor came to his aid in the form of a talking frog. The basketmaker pleaded with him to throw him a rope or a ladder or call a helicopter—all of those logical thinking process solutions.
The frog talked with him regularly but could offer no practical help. The basketmaker expressed a lot of anger and frustration to no avail.
Eventually, with coaching from the frog, the basketmaker gave up trying to escape. He spent his time singing and dancing and got great pleasure from this. One day while he was singing and dancing, he found a gap had opened up in the basketweave, and without further thought, he squeezed through and danced his way out into the world. He never returned and never made another basket, spending the rest of his life travelling around singing and dancing for his living.
How I Found My Own Solution and Applied It
The story I had created without conscious thought gave me my solution. From that moment, I focused all my energies on the things that gave me pleasure rather than focusing on how trapped I felt in a job I had lost any love for.
Within weeks an opportunity opened up in creating my own music and performance business. I handed in my notice and moved into an uncertain world that served me well for many years. Working with the metaphors in the basketmaker story gave me the confidence to take that leap of faith.
How to use the creative approach
Identify the obstacle and find a metaphor for it. Is it a wall, a pit, barbed wire, a cage, a desert island? Be as creative as you can. Draw it, write about it or visualise it in a detailed way.
Live with it for a while. How does it feel being trapped or stuck in this way? Don’t force a solution; that would be your logical mind kicking in.
Imagine a wise person/creature joining you in this space and suggesting a strategy or be open to a solution appearing out of nowhere. The solution may not be logical or obvious. It could be magical or ridiculous.
Live with that for a while. Don’t feel you have to act immediately. You may find alternative solutions pop up in dreams, or you may suddenly have a eureka moment in the bath.
Be patient; ideas need fermentation time
Creating my basketmaker story and the changes I made probably covered a period of three or four years.
The apple falling on Newton’s head was a eureka moment. Lots of thinking preceded it.
Newton’s formulation of the concept of gravity took more than 20 years and included multiple components: preparation, incubation, inspiration — a version of the eureka experience — and production. The Atlantic
Anything that ferments takes time. Sourdough bread takes a week. Single Malt Whisky ten to fifteen years. The key thing in all these processes is that you will have to wait longer if you don’t start it now.
Before You Rush Off
Jot down four things on a post-it note and stick it on the fridge.
The obstacle
How you feel about it
The opportunity
………………………. (Leave this one empty — let it ferment and wait for your eureka! moment)
I look forward to hearing if this is useful in the responses below.
For the past two years, I have been in therapy. Alongside this, I have been learning how to operate a recording studio for recording, mixing, and mastering my music.
In the studio, I discovered the function of a tool called a “Limiter.”
In therapy, I discovered the limiting beliefs I have about myself.
A limiter is a tool that flattens stuff out. It limits the volume of loud sounds, and it increases the volume of quiet sounds. The reason for doing this is so that whenever a record comes on the radio, it will always be at the same basic volume or loudness. You wouldn’t want to reach for the volume control between songs or tweak it when you can’t hear those gentle sounds over the car engine. It standardises the level of sound.
In music, a pretty useful tool — In life, not so.
How I Have Been Limiting Myself
One line from Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem sums it up.
“We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.”
I am a calm and gentle man with a big smile. This is one massive cover-up job. I am that person, but I am much more than that. I have learnt to cover up and hide all manner of aspects of myself. The quiet demeanour covers up all manner of turmoil. I have not just been fooling others. I have been fooling myself.
It all stems from a core belief that there is something wrong with me. I cannot pin the creation of that belief on one incident or person. It built up over the years of my childhood, and I have identified some key moments.
The baby that cried the most — being put on powerful medication for anxiety at age 11 — Homophobic bullying — Young family friend being murdered — some messed up underage sexual experiences.
The story doesn’t matter. No one is to blame or at fault. What matters is that I slowly built up a core belief about myself.
Something is Wrong With Me. I Mustn’t Let Anybody Find Out.
A year ago, I started to uncover this around a simple memory regarding my sexuality. Read the full story below if you wish. Briefly, I was in a pub listening to a young male singer-songwriter with a bunch of male friends. I was on my third pint when his set ended.
I said, “Wow, he is gorgeous!”
I then stopped talking, withdrew from the conversation, left early, and vowed never to drink more than two pints ever again. Unpicking this later, I realised nobody had reacted to my comment. They probably didn’t notice. It was all in my own head.
“Oh my god! Now everyone will think I am gay! Am I gay?”
I had applied the limiter to my life. Digging deeper, I found an underlying belief that being attracted to anyone of either gender was bad and something to be ashamed of. An idea that having sexual needs of any kind was a sin or aberration, something I had to deny and cover-up at all costs.
I then began looking for other unconscious reactive processes I went through regularly, based on the belief that there was something wrong with me, and I needed to conceal that.
I found many. In my unconscious, I am afraid I am a sexual predator, so I must never express any sexual interest in anyone, even my wife! There is not a bone in my body that would force myself on another, but that fear is there as part of my belief that something is wrong with me.
I must never blow my own trumpet because this will make others feel inadequate around me. All my achievements are just a con — luck — a flook — not the result of any hard work or talent on my part.
You get the gist. I am fucked up so it’s best if I turn the volume down on everything and then I won’t get discovered as a fraud and a freak. Keep it bland; keep it beige; blend in.
There is Nothing Wrong With Me
There has never been.
The truth crept up on me over several years, and I finally started believing it—no blinding light revelation.
I have talked the talk for many years, but still, the unconscious processes were there. No amount of positive affirmations or mindfulness moments made any difference. Unconsciously I applied the limiter, and it happens in everything.
Playing the piano, I start going into the zone — oops make a joke of it and move on.
Writing, get fantastic feedback from my editor on my first novel — oh shit, stick it back in the drawer for another five years.
In my amazing Counselling group, I begin to access some emotion — Oh sorry guys, I am taking up too much time in the group.
The limiter is applied.
How it Feels When I Switch Off the Limiter
Now I notice when I am applying the limiter, and I can choose to use it or not.
I was in a practical observed session working as a counsellor. The idea of the limiter was fresh in my mind. I noticed it trying to kick in during the session, and I kept switching it off again, letting myself be there with the client, not allowing the mind to take over or hijack the session.
The feedback I got was overwhelming. These words sum it up:
“remarkable, a masterclass in just ‘being’.”
So now I know there is nothing wrong with me and there has never been. I can be authentic, and I can be real. Sometimes I may still mess up, but I can deal with that.
Making mistakes and then learning from them is so much better than holding back for fear of making mistakes. I have been talking that talk for many years. Now I can honestly say that I am walking the talk. It feels great.
Grief is a personal thing. Crying is part of it. I am saddled with sayings like “big boys don’t cry” and so many limitations I place on myself, that it has taken 30 months to let the tears flow daily. It is such a relief and also painful beyond measure.
On the day after Holly died, everyone around me was crying, and I had slipped into coping mode. Organising things. I screamed into the darkness once on the journey to London, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was numb—a functioning zombie.
I have sat in hours of therapy, support groups, and a Counselling training course. No tears. Plenty of emotion, plenty of reflective thought, and careful consideration of my feelings and those of others.
When I start to feel the tears some automatic limiter switches on, I gently take a breath and withdraw myself. This is not a conscious act. I want nothing better than to really feel the feelings and express them.
I have a home recording studio, and this provides me with the metaphor of a limiter. It is similar to a compressor. When you have recorded many instruments, you are left with audio which fluctuates in volume and dynamics, like a human being and their emotions.
For your music to be accepted on streaming platforms or radio play, you have to level it out. The studio tools bring up the volume of quieter elements and limit the whole thing from going above a prescribed volume.
I am applying these tools to how I am in life, and I have been unconsciously for 60 years. I limit myself. I flatten out the dynamics of my life in some misguided quest for a way of being that is acceptable to the world.
When the Tears Finally Flowed
I was pacing around my flat with the presidential inauguration rolling on the TV. Amanda Gorman took command of the microphone and began to unstitch the comforter I had woven around my heart.
When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
The tears began to flow, not solely for the USA or humanity but for myself. I have been living in a never-ending shade for 30 months. Carrying so much loss and wading through an ocean of grief. I truly believed my calm, gentle demeanour was peace.
When I started to explore that never-ending shade, I realised it stretched back 46 years to that lonely young man in London who learnt how to smile broadly despite the huge well of sadness he was carrying around. The smile even fooled me.
I sobbed and heaved at the words.
That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried.
I have been trying, hoping, and hurting for so long. I am so tired. With her beautiful colours, carefully articulated speech, and delicately choreographed movements, this young woman became for me the combined voice of my 20-year-old self and my daughter Holly.
Holly was such a strong leader. I had imagined her as Prime Minister of our country. She had given me hope. I wish she had kept some for herself.
I am watching Amanda’s performance every day now. The tears now flow with these words.
We will rise from the golden hills of the west. We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked south.
I am from none of the places she mentions, but it gets me every time. This call to action is not about geography or politics. It is about humanity rising from its slumber. It is about me stepping out of the shade of my own sadness. It is about speaking my truth in the face of intimidation and knowing that most of that intimidation is generated by voices inside my own head.
The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Only by allowing my tears to flow can I find the courage to free the new dawn. It is not an easy transition.
Yesterday I sat listening to someone else’s grief and inertia, and the tears flowed again. I began to instigate my normal coping strategies honed to perfection over many years. I started to bottle up the emotion and store it on tidy shelves where it could safely sit for the rest of my life.
That was what my friend was doing, and they did not need me doing the same. I noticed how I was holding back the tears, and I told my friend. They flowed again and with the sadness came those flashes of joy and light as the new dawn bloomed. With that moment of connection, we both felt a little more awake.
For five minutes, a skinny Black girl with dreams of being President picked up those bottles from the dusty shelf and put labels on them for me. She removed some of the corks and invited me to do the same.
This was a paradigm shift for American politics but also for me personally.
I have no idea what you will take away from this story, but I would love to hear from you. Please respond and let me know. Writing is one of the ways I connect with the world. I like to write about my experiences, and I love to listen to yours.
I love creating food for myself the way I like it, but the sparks fly when I share it with others. They don’t have to love it. In fact, what I want most is to share the food and talk about it. It is not about the food.
I want to find some point of connection through the tastes and textures of a feast. Whether it’s a shitake mushroom risotto or a saffron ice cream, ciabatta rolls or a Tarte Tatin, I don’t want your unconditional praise and adoration. I want to connect with you. I would like you to guess the spices and flavourings, be curious about the pastry’s texture, and inquire how I achieved such alchemy.
Connecting with Myself
I have spent most of my life hiding, retreating to isolation. I love to create. Food, music, stories, songs, videos, poems, it doesn’t matter what. That is not my spark.
Connecting with Others
I’ve been a passionate teacher, storyteller, jazz musician, composer, arranger, team-builder, businessman and counsellor. None of that is my spark. That is stuff I do because of my spark. I lost my passion for teaching when successive governments reduced education to a skeleton and then picked the bones clean of all need for human connection.
Identifying my Spark
Connection is my best and worst thing. It ebbs and flows through my 66 years of life. I was born into a large extended family, yet the past pictures hanging on my inner walls are those where I am alone. At the piano, playing the guitar in my room or reading.
Outstanding memories of connection with my family are fraught with difficulty. Of course, there were some great family events and outings, but those tend not to stand out in memory. Images of brothers kicking monopoly boards in the air, fights at weddings, inevitable Christmas meltdowns, all permanently etched into my retina.
So my survival mode is to avoid connection. Connect with myself only. What I actually want is to connect with others.
Disconnection
As a teenager, I loved having a girlfriend. It felt like an essential part of my life. Someone to hold hands with, go to the cinema with, walk on the beach beside or sit with for an entire evening in a pub nursing a single pint of beer and a packet of crisps.
I loved the connection and intimacy.
Where it all went wrong was around sex. Older brothers, the media and peers handed down the message that the sole purpose of having a girlfriend was getting laid. For me, this broke the connection and destroyed the intimacy.
It was a two-way thing. Girls in the ’60s were handed down conflicting instructions. ‘All boys are interested in is having sex with you. If you let them have it, they won’t respect you. If you don’t let them have it, they will dump you and find someone else more willing.’
Without all the gory details. I became impotent under the weight of all these conflicting messages. Yet, my spark did win through, and I have made wonderful connections over the years and had some glorious sexual experiences also. Sorry if that is TMI!
Creative Connection
My biggest learning about connection has come through my creativity. My ‘Eureka! Moment’ happened in my early twenties when a brother took me to a jazz club in London. On a Sunday lunchtime, four musicians got together and drew me into their craft and their inspiration. After a couple of numbers, the leader spoke to the audience and introduced the band.
However, he did not introduce them to us. He introduced them to each other. Bass player Dave meet drummer Martin. Saxophonist Henry meet the rest of the band.
In this tongue-in-cheek moment, he unlocked a passion. He told me that these musicians were not following the script laid down in manuscripts and rehearsals. There had been no rehearsals. There were no manuscripts. This was a one-off scratch band thrown together by rubbing diaries of availability. They were accessing a universal language, a set of agreements unspoken that meant they could connect in the moment through music. It hooked me into the jazz world.
Many Paths to Connection
Since then, my solo creative pursuits have all blossomed out into career moments where I connect with others and help them to connect.
For 15 years, I studied jazz and then began to teach it. I immersed myself in making a connection with music and the musicians. I had peak experiences where I felt a force greater than myself playing the piano through me.
This path dipped, and I became a performing storyteller. I became a conduit through which others could connect with the ancient wisdom of storytelling, and I could connect with hidden parts of myself.
This then developed into singing groups improvising with our voices, connecting heart to heart and soul to soul. Later drumming took over and I built a business of 15 years on facilitating connection and teamwork through Drum Circles.
Current Learnings
Now I am in the final stages of learning to be a counsellor. I am learning how to connect the various parts of myself. By creating a balanced connection between my own body, mind, spirit, and emotion, I can connect with others and help them do the same.
Only by healing this disconnection in ourselves can we hope to heal others and save the planet from destruction at humans’ hand.
I promise I will continue to follow my spark of connection. I encourage you to tease out your spark to step past your distractions and lead a purposeful life.
First published in Invisible Illness on Medium John Walter 📣Aug 6 · 7 min read
Image by Author
Mydaughter Holly was 28 when she took her own life two years ago. Losing your child to suicide is a devastating and life-changing experience. It is not something you can get over — recover from — come to terms with — heal with time.
Holly is dead. She did not choose to go, and she is not in a better place.
I am still here. I am trying to make sense of my life now that my beautiful, brilliant star of a daughter succumbed to a fatal mental illness.
This story is not about Holly. It is about how grief became my wake up call.
In the weeks before her death, I had lost all sense of direction. Scroll back several years, and you see my business collapsing and with it goes my sense of purpose.
I was a creative activator going into schools and the corporate world using music and drumming. I was passionate about connecting people and facilitating their creative spirit. After the crash of 2008 money started being withdrawn from educations arts budgets. I began ploughing money into marketing to schools. Nothing could reverse it. Profits disappeared and soon became losses.
Unlike others in a similar position, I refused to diversify. A passion had driven me for ten years, and I was not willing to make compromises. My inability or unwillingness to create a pivot point for the company was disastrous. The business folded, and so did my sense of adventure.
I decided to go back into teaching to keep up the mortgage payments. I could write for weeks about what a disaster that was.
I limped from one teaching job to the next with resignations and discontinued contracts piling up behind me. Alongside this, I was downsizing and trying any other way to make my finances work, and my debts go away. Somehow, I found myself making an official complaint that my line manager was bullying me.
Amid this sorry tale, I woke up one morning to find I had gone deaf in one ear. Long story short, I had a brain tumour. It knocked out all hearing in one ear and disrupted my sense of balance. It is now a dormant tumour and has been for three years.
So in the few months before Holly died, I retired as a teacher, walked with a stick, took on a menial admin job for 20 hours a week and did very little else.
It is not all doom and gloom here. I had paid off all my debts and was living in a beautiful seaside location. I walked to work across the beach and sometimes swam in a sea pool on the way. There was some contentment there but no purpose or meaning to my life.
A death by suicide is usually sudden, often unexpected and may be violent. These factors increase the degree of shock and trauma experienced compared to many other types of bereavement. Survivors may struggle to make sense of what has happened and fundamental beliefs may be challenged.
I have had excellent support from Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide and in the process met with others coping with this trauma. Some are still needing support 30 years after the event. For most, it is a life-changing experience.
I remember stepping outside of Holly’s London flat 36 hours after she had died there. We were on our way to identify her body. We decided to walk across London parks rather than take public transport.
I was sleep-deprived and groggy, but as I stepped into the sunshine, I felt my spirits lift.
“How can I be enjoying the sunshine when Holly is dead?”
I realised at that moment that life for me was going to continue. I realised that this loss and devastation would be with me forever, but I had some choice on whether I allowed the trauma to paralyse me or to energise my life.
Now I realise it does both concurrently.
I am embracing joy and pain.
“We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.” ~Mary Oliver — Evidence 2010
Two years have passed. Holly is with me always. I am not necessarily thinking of her, but I am aware of her presence. She sits on my chest sometimes as I wake, and it takes a considerable effort to ease her off and get on with my day.
I had a moment of paralysis sitting in my van watching a woman chatting and laughing. For five minutes there was part of me that believed Holly was not dead at all. Here she was with her hair plaited and her eyes shining.
The logical mind and my soul’s yearning fought it out for a while. I felt the pain of losing her and the joy of who she was, come together. I got out of the van and continued my day with both moving me forward.
The thing I find hard to admit.
I have renewed purpose in my life since Holly died. I find it difficult to admit that. As if it is disloyal. I should be sad — lying in a darkened room tearing out my hair. The grief police will descend on me at any minute and arrest me for doing it all wrong.
The truth is I have come alive in many ways and particularly in my creative life. I am writing regularly. I have dusted off a “five years in the drawer” novel and now work with an editor to make it ready for publication.
I have created a YouTube channel and systematically record my repertoire from the many years I was a professional storyteller. I compose music and find ways of sharing it. I bake or cook something new almost every day.
Responding to the wake-up call.
I threw away my walking stick a few days after Holly died. I had been using it for a year because my balance was so compromised. We were walking daily through London, meeting with Holly’s many friends, family and colleagues. One day on Westminster Bridge, I realised that using a stick as support was ridiculous. My brain would only learn to compensate for the loss of a balance organ if I walked unaided and got used to it. I left the stick in a bin on the bridge.
A few days later, I signed up to train to be a counsellor. I spoke to a local trainer and explained my background. Two months later, I began the basic level course, and now I am a year away from qualifying.
Becoming a counsellor was something I had always almost done but never taken the plunge. We had been encouraging Holly to see a counsellor. I could impact someone in a similar situation to her. The course is providing meaning and purpose for my life that was sadly lacking.
Rediscovering meaning and purpose.
Important to note here that I am not religious in any way. I don’t ascribe to a higher purpose or serving a greater good or a spiritual path.
Yet, I have rediscovered meaning and purpose in my life.
Werner Erhart’s words: “Life is empty and meaningless” resonate with me. It gives us the freedom to create, in the moment, whatever meaning we want for our lives.
He also says:
It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act.
So to rediscover meaning and purpose — every day, I take action. I am creative, and I don’t need to narrow that down to the activities that make me money or seem noble.
One day I feel moved to write, and the next I make music. Another day I create videos. Some days I bake cakes and make bread and go for a long cycle ride.
My life had lost purpose. I had narrowed down my actions to those that made money to the exclusion of all else. I had some illusion that I had to decide to be one thing to the exclusion of everything else to survive. I had to be a teacher or a musician or a storyteller or a drumcircle facilitator or a videographer or a counsellor or a writer.
I can now change all those “or”s to “and”s.
Main points of the wake-up call.
Joy and pain can coexist.
Anything that you consider meaningful is meaningful.
Your purpose is to take action wherever and whenever you feel moved.
Creativity has no limits unless you impose them yourself.
Freedom is our greatest desire and our biggest fear. I now realise I have struggled with this paradox for most of my life. Now is the time to learn how to recognise it, how to identify it in whatever guise it presents itself. When we are aware of the fear stalking us, we can choose to take a different path.
“Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.” ― Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
I was a struggling jazz musician. I sat at a beautiful Steinway Grand playing a duo concert with a brilliant saxophonist. Just the two of us playing my compositions and improvising together effortlessly as we had for the last few years. One thousand people seemed to be giving us rapt attention, and their warm applause qualified this.
All thoughts of what, or how to play disappeared, my mind became an observer as my body took over, driven by spirit and connection. The saxophonist seemed similarly possessed — his hands, mouth, breath and instrument, suggesting and responding in equal measure. I imagined a thousand threads connecting us both to the audience. I felt their energy prompting us, encouraging us in our flights of freedom.
Afterwards, I floated over to the green room, luxuriating in the joy of this peak experience. We shared the view that it had felt like the audience was playing us. Like it had been a mystical encounter.
My wife, with baby in arms, greeted us with herb teas and a little adoration. The saxophonist left us to find a more exciting after-party.
That was 35 years ago, and it was the last professional jazz gig I ever played.
What happened? Ten years of grafting and learning, paying my dues in function bands two nights a week, building up a reputation and playing the jazz clubs and night clubs in the Bristol area. Here was the absolute dream gig executed beautifully to excellent reviews. What went wrong?
Recognising turning points. Did you choose freedom or safety?
Looking at it now, I see that I was afraid of the freedom of being a jazz musician. Sure it is a tough life, but it can be sustainable. My saxophonist friend went on to become a well respected international player and still tours and teaches on a global circuit.
It was fear. I transformed myself into a small cog in the machine because it felt safer. I became a teacher with a steady income and regular hours. I milked goats and flew kites with my daughter.
I don’t regret that decision. But I am now curious as to the unconscious drivers behind it.
I have had a wonderful life. Often I have felt I am living the life I love. I have run my own business and sustained a beautiful marriage throughout. I have only had short periods of feeling like a cog in a machine.
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But the decision to walk away from jazz haunts me. I am curious. I still play at a local level, and every performance is a delight. There is no diminishment in my love of the art form. I compose many tunes, but there is little outlet for the doodlings of a local piano player.
Jazz has always been associated with freedom and spontaneity.
As Herbie Hancock says:
One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
So I chose to play one of the most challenging instruments, in a genre that is all about expressing freedom from limitation. I became extremely good at it, and then I gave it up!
I yearned freedom. I studied freedom, but ultimately I was afraid of freedom.
What was the root of that fear?
I remember an earlier gig in my mid-twenties, where a beautiful young woman approached me in the bar afterwards. She asked to hold my hands. She stroked them. She told me how my music had transported her into a beautiful imaginary world, and she wanted to feel the hands that could do that.
I could not take it in. I was acutely embarrassed. I tried to make light of it. I wondered what drugs she had been taking. I thought she was hitting on me, wanting something from me other than my presence at that moment. I could not accept that I had created something beautiful for another person and they valued and appreciated that. She was acknowledging me for sharing myself.
“Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.” (Bill Evans)
I wonder if that was the root of my fear. My art had given me a glimpse of myself that was too bright and too beautiful for me to bear. I had become used to a life where my creativity was a very personal thing shared with a small group of friends that I trusted.
Maybe the young woman holding my hands had seen a glimpse of my soul. Experienced something about me of which I was completely unaware. Thirty-five years ago, I was not ready to take that in. I found all manner of ways of justifying a decision to step back into the shadows.
As Marianne Williamson says in her much-quoted text:
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
I justified leaving it all behind as a sensible decision. Making my wife and baby my priority. Being a provider for my family
“transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man”
Making a choice to step past that fear.
It is never too late. Scanning my life now for those turning points, I have identified many.
On some occasions, I have embraced the fear and taken a plunge into the risky arena of freedom. Inevitably another opportunity has soon arisen where I have taken the safer option, stepped back behind the curtain and settled for a herb tea rather than a line of coke.
It is not that I regret any of those decisions. My life has woven a beautiful web glistening with many jewels and witnessing much sadness and pain.
It is now that I choose freedom. I can identify the patterns, and I can anticipate the turning point. When I make a decision, I can notice whether it comes from a place of freedom or is more about me bolting for safety.
The questions to ask yourself.
Is this, or could this be a turning point in my life?
Am I drifting into safety when I could choose freedom?
Could I reinterpret my anxiety about a particular choice, as excitement?
Could the comfortable, natural choice just be a way of avoiding the anxiety/excitement?
How to make the choice.
I am not suggesting you should always choose the risky route. The road that fills you with anxiety could easily be a dead-end, or it could take you off the edge of the cliff. What I am saying is make an informed decision.
Notice how your physical body is responding to the choices. Find a way, through mindfulness or meditation, to listen to the yearning of your soul. Notice if your conscious mind is constantly repeating itself.
My conscious mind had a regular chorus to keep me in my safe place.
“Who do you think you are?”
“You are too big for your boots — too clever for your own good.”
“You will never make anything of yourself.”
“Your head is in the clouds.”
“You are wasting your life away.”
(If you have any others of your own I would love to hear them.)
I don’t blame the adults in my life for feeding me these snippets of constriction. I take full responsibility for allowing my mind to take them in and then for using them to make a cosy, safe nest of resistance around myself.
They are not the truth. The chatter of the mind rarely is. These are little life rafts I created for myself in my youth. I was drowning in my emotions, and I clung to anything that came along.
Don’t be like me and mistake these liferafts for firm ground. As a child, you needed them to survive the flood of emotions and deliver you to the mainland of adulthood. Most of us forget to leave them at the shore. We drag them around with us for years convinced they are part of us, an aspect of our identity.
Now move on.
Once you have made a choice, you still have the opportunity to reflect on that and make other choices.
Was it a compelling choice? Are you feeling excited now you have made that choice?
A straightforward test question to ask yourself is:
“Am I moving on?”
Suppose you are continually going over the reasons for your decision. You are mulling over the choice you made and justifying it all to yourself and others. Then the answer is no. You have just added another brick to the walls of your prison.
You will know when you have conquered the fear of freedom. You will not be locked in the past. You will be moving on freely into the world, following your heart and feeling excited for the present and the future.
John Walter 📣Jun 3 · 5 min read first published on Medium by Invisible Illness.
The author took the image.
Grief is not singular. In 2 years grieving my daughter, I have begun to realise how much grief I have accumulated in my body and soul. The trauma of Holly’s suicide has triggered all the other pain and loss I have been holding for many years.
Regular counselling has been a vital resource to get me through the last two years, but I soon realised that although my grief around Holly was close to the surface, there were many other issues that very often took over our sessions. My relationship with my father soon came to the fore, prompting an exploration of my gender identity and sexuality.
My inner child has been surfacing in the last couple of weeks. He was calling out to me from 54 years ago when I was a tall 11-year-old who loved being outside, cycling, swimming in the sea or just mucking around on river banks with other kids.
From the Author’s archive. John Walter — back row centre.
At this age, I was the tallest in the class, the fastest runner and ranked amongst the first three in most tests. But 1965 is the year all sorts of things changed.
Childhood wounds began to accumulate. The owner of a local sweetshop caught my best friend and me stealing a Mars bar each from her shop. The local policeman arrived at our door, and my parents banned me from seeing my friend ever again.
My parents decided to enter me for a scholarship exam to a prestigious boarding school which involved a weekly visit to a local maths teacher for booster lessons. Perhaps due to the pressure to succeed in this exam, I became very anxious. I was conflicted, between the desire to please my parents and pass the exam, and a fear of being shipped off to boarding school. The anxiety caused crippling stomachaches, and my doctor prescribed phenobarbitone which is a powerful barbiturate. Luckily I managed to do well in the exam but not well enough to secure a place.
A toddler who I used to look out for and who was a family friend, was murdered. Irrationally I have blamed myself for this.
The list could continue. What I recognise is that the age of 11 was a turning point. I lost interest in education. I adapted in various ways so as not to feel the wounds.
I created survival strategies that served me well for a time, but now I need to give some space to my inner child. The surviving child has hit a crossroads; the adult I have developed into is failing to cope.
Connecting with my inner child.
With lockdown in place, I have had the freedom to connect with my inner child, the 11-year-old boy, happy in his idyllic childhood world.
I have found myself back in my hometown. Everything about the town feels like I have gone back in time to the ’60s. This is helping me make the connections. I have very few responsibilities and can focus on whatever creative work or activities I feel drawn to.
The only bakery in the town which is remaining open is the same one I walked to as a child to collect a still-warm loaf in a brown paper bag. In 60 years it has changed very little. The chain bakers and cornish pasty shops have all closed for the duration of lockdown, but this tiny shop continues. Even in normal times, a maximum of 3 customers at a time could enter.
Image taken by the author.
As I stood to wait for my loaf of bread, the door to the garden opened and a young man brought in a tray of steaming loaves from the bakery behind the shop. As a child, I knew the times that the fresh bread would be appearing and would offer to make the daily trip for my mother. As I returned from my errand I could never resist picking off some of the warm fresh crust and eating it. My mother did not approve but it was a small sacrifice to get the errand done.
I am also using the local grocer rather than supermarkets. The family business stretches right back to before I was born. The pace of life in the town is sleepy and slow as it usually was at off-season times.
Part of my grief has been my grief for my inner child. He is creative and imaginative and cares nothing for practicalities and doing the sensible thing. He knows what he needs and finds ways of fulfilling those needs.
The cycle rides.
I had my bicycle repaired and have started daily cycle rides along the cliffs and through the narrow lanes and cycle paths of North Cornwall. It is my inner child that is leading and directing these rides.
The first morning I awoke with grief sitting on my chest like a weighted blanket. Young John slipped out from under the duvet, and I found myself standing in the kitchen at 5.30 AM looking out at the glorious day. Young John packed a bag with a swimming suit, towel, a bottle of water, a cheese sandwich and an orange.
With no plan, I cycled down the driveway in shorts, T-shirt and sandals. Young John decided to turn left. The ride continued in this way. At each junction, I either turned left or right, but it was all spontaneous with no thought of the destination or the return route.
There was no pushing. On some of the steepest hills, I got off and walked, or I rested in a gateway and took in the view. At one point, I went into a field, took off all my clothes and lay in the sun reading my book. Along the way, I rested and ate my lunch. In the heat of the day, I found a deserted beach and swam in the sea.
I arrived home refreshed. Able to get on with creative projects for the rest of the day.
I now have a similar cycle ride every morning, conscious that this is when my inner child can come out to play. My thoughts on these rides bounce around all the losses and trauma of the last 54 years. I am carefree and free of all responsibilities. I am cycling alongside grief, and I am allowing my inner child to take the lead.
