Self story

I would love to live

like a river flows,

carried by the surprise

of its own unfolding
John O’Donohue

As the telling of a story deepens, it becomes more therapeutic. As I journal, I notice there is a quality of depth, a feeling of descent as I continue to write. As the descent continues, the practice of just writing what comes to mind becomes more therapeutic.

Is this the value of free association that Freud was originally advocating? Let the person talk until they land into a depth of feeling that speaks some significance or meaning.

Can story still be in the here and now? Story in a coaching or therapeutic relationship has often been looked down upon as a ‘resistance’, or a ‘projection’, a defence against an interlocution that might reveal unwanted truths. And yet our mythology, our novels, our poetry, our erotica, they all make you feel something vividly.

The drama of our stories – their contradictions, fantasy, horror, absurdity, lustfulness, hatred and self-centred heroism – drive our feeling. We project the dramas within onto the canvas of our novels, our poetry, our erotica; they are personal mythologies that collectively infuse the cultural narrative.

The images created in these forms and the effect they have, impact our feeling and our sense of who we are. They become not just stories but visceral exchanges that unfold our depth and realisation of the self.

The challenge for us are the nagging internal questions of “is it real?”, “does it matter?”, can I grasp it? Our desire for certainties can lead to stories that close us down, make us rigid, snuff out potential. The desire to grasp, to understand, to have some kind of final destination kills the vitality that kindled the story in the first place.

Stories are the tremor of our day-to-day experience of the world. They are the winds that whip up the oceans of our emotion and drive the clouds of thought and feeling across the sky of the mind.

Almost once

Who was that person? Of course no one yet. Your faint light extinguished, like a lit match in a breeze.

An inchoate potential of unfolding – stopped, released and drained.

My own face, a pulling beneath the eyes, heavy. My cheeks as though thumbs were pressing and pulling down. A deep tiredness, the dampening deep of disappointment.

But then also a relief, a feeling of a weight lifted, a reprieve, a deep sense of being unready; despite feelings of excitement. The imagined images of who you might have been, dissolving in a few moments.

Were you anyone before your light flickered out? Of course no one yet, but something.

The world on the screen

The world in front of you, the world you know,

Is the world you don’t want, but can’t let go.

It’s path is well trodden the beginning quite pleasant,

There are many familiar faces, and a beckoning premise,

That this is a world you are supposed to desire,

Status and wealth, what else to aspire?

With all this on offer the choice seems straightforward,

Acquiescence required, noble interests ignored.

But all of these things, these people have done,

The clothes that they wear, their illusion of fun,

Cannot atone, for a sad sense of longing,

A truth once held, a certain belonging,

To something they believed in, a bubbling passion,

A fire in their eyes, a youthful obsession,

For something they held dear to their heart,

But which they let go, when shown this path.

This path and its pleasures, takes it own toll,

It’s status and possessions wither the soul.

They fell for a trick, this dazzling premise,

Their existence now stuck in an accumulating crevice.

As the price to be paid is revealed and claimed,

And the fire in their eyes, flickers and wanes,

The passion they had, that truth once known,

Becomes lost in the ether whilst a new truth is shown.

What has been buried? What could have been gained?

If that young person had been steadfast, determined and stayed,

With the passion he had, that unfashionable dream,

Instead of being lured by the world on the screen.