It's only words, but words are all I have.
Being a reasonably self aware person comes with its perks and its drawbacks. For example, it's a perk that I know my strengths and weaknesses so well. It just makes life easier. It's a drawback that I am so horrendously aware of my weaknesses at the same time though. Where do we start? I'm no chef. I can't sing. I have the rhythm of a wet mop which means musical talent is out, and much as I love to do it, I really can't 'dance' in the truest sense of the word. I'm scattered as hell and try as I might, my attention span still isn't very good...wait, what was I talking about?
You get my point. Anyway, my weaknesses are many & never far from my mind, but my strengths require a little more exploration. Bar one: I can communicate. There's a lot of unnecessarily complex and convoluted stuff going on inside my mind & body at any given moment, which can be challenging, but the one thing I have been blessed with is the ability to get it all off my chest. But it's not just that I can - I have to. I have a need to express myself, to share. I always have. But why is that? I wanted to explore that, both in the broader sense but also in terms of why I write what I write and share what I share here.
First and foremost, I have long understood the power of the written word - as though something written takes on a permanence or legitimacy that something spoken doesn't - which is part of the appeal of this process. Blogging for me is a source of solace, of comfort. I empty my thoughts into the world, all of those complex & convoluted thoughts and feelings. In the process I feel unburdened, particularly when it comes to negative emotions, as though a healing process has begun, and the feedback & comments I get in return only add to this sense of healing. And it's powerful! This was never more pronounced than in a blog I wrote over the summer, for which I received a huge outpouring of love, support & a ton of complements from a wide variety of people, including some I barely know. I was blown away by the kind words people had for it, and it was by far, far and away the most highly read blog I've ever written. But the power of the written word to which I refer works both ways. When I write, I read, re-read and re-read before publishing, conscious of this. Am I being overbearing? Is this too strong an opinion? Is X or Y an invasion of someone's privacy? Still, hard as I try to avoid it, sometimes people disagree with, don't care for or are actively offended by my words and that was the case here. I took on board the feedback received & acknowledged the validity of the issues raised, while trying to put forth that I was and am still comfortable with what I had written. But it played on my mind. I can't tell you the love I have for writing. It's the only creative outlet I have that I believe is effective & that I am truly good at. And all I can write about is my life. War & Peace or Harry Potter...just wouldn't be my forte would it? After what went on, I felt gun-shy, afraid to write, more concerned with who I might offend then who I might connect with.
It led me to ponder the ideas and boundaries between privacy & secrecy, expressing & divulging, both generally in every day life, but also specifically in terms of what is ok & not ok for me to write about. It's all very grey, of that I am sure. I have even had people express concern of sorts about how much of myself I am prepared to allow out into the big bad deep dark internet so readily. And I understand that comes from a good place. The whole piece led me to pondering how differently we all define privacy. In the process, I discussed these ideas with a number of people who's opinions I value greatly - I have but one frame of reference so on complex issues, I always like to get a consensus, see what popular opinion is - and I was genuinely surprised at the disparity. There were specific extremes - one viewing privacy as sacrosanct, and of massive scope, the second essentially of the belief that anything you've experienced in your own life is fair game for discussion, who or whatever it may involve. Others were somewhere in the middle but it would be fair to say that my own gut instinct was pretty close to the consensus - I try to write in generalities or broad strokes when discussing people who are in my life today, particularly if I'm writing in what could be conceived as a negative context. The whole thing did make me realise that I have to accept that if I want to continue to use this method of expression, there are times people might not like what I write. That's ok too.
But initially, this led me to a hesitancy that I'd never experienced before. I didn't want to write. I mean I wanted to but I couldn't. I just felt like it was inappropriate somehow. Hell I had it suggested to me that maybe I only write because I just have too much spare time (If only that were true - I would write a lot more!). Over the course of the last few months, that has led me to wondering what it is about me that drives this innate need to express myself. I kept coming back to the same thing: connection.
I know 34 years probably isn't sufficient to call myself old and wise, but one piece of wisdom I feel like I've gained is the knowledge that spinning on this great big rock for however long each of us will, all we really have is each other. That is the human experience, the interactions we have with one another. I think of the happiest places I have been, the ones saccharine tinged in my memory, and they all involve other people, and feeling connected. Anfield when we score. Christmas with people I love. Getting engaged to MT. Dancing with strangers at the Funky Seomra. Different family members coming and going from the hospital meeting our kids for the first time. It's not circumstances that bring about these feelings, it's people. The random stranger I hugged on the Kop, MT's tears as she said "yes" (Swear I didn't cry. SWEAR!)*, the people's faces burned in my memory when we were all laughing around the Christmas dinner table, the energy on the dance floor as the night wore on, the love of my siblings, mother, and in-laws the first time they laid eyes on Carra & Bay. These are the things that I value.
And of course it works both ways - a problem shared is a problem halved, right? Everything I know about how to deal with problems in life - especially the serious ones - is that we help each other. Recovery programs involve strangers sharing stories about their lives, finding common ground, relating to each other. They involve sponsors - someone to confide in when you're at your lowest. Then there's the wider mental health community - suicide helplines, councillor's, therapists, blogging...it's all expression, packaged in different ways.
It seems clear to me then, that I express myself to connect with people, and I express myself to keep my emotional & mental health strong & clear. But there's a third element. Where those two feel very instinctive for me - things I need to do - I think this one is instinctual to me only because I have been doing it so long. When I completed the PSG Coaching Diploma in 2013 (with a distinction, it must be noted!), one of the exercises we did as a group at the end was a simple but POWERFUL feedback exercise. You'd stand in the middle of a circle of all your fellow students and each would give you a word or sentence to describe you. One by one by one, all 20 or so of my course mates gave broadly similar feedback. They used words like "authentic", "genuine", "candid" or variants of that. The telling thing for me was that these are all phrases that can be spun positively or negatively and that's why I felt they were all being truthful. Just because you think I am genuine, doesn't mean you like the person I genuinely am. I liked all of those people but I am reasonably confident that a few of them were not so thrilled by aspects of my personality - I can be overeager in that environment by times, and as the youngest there by a distance I think my occasionally brash manner & the fact I dress like a 16 year old boy may not have been to everyones taste - but there is nothing those people could have said that would have made me happier or prouder than calling me authentic. Because that's me, man. I want, consciously, to put as much of myself out into the world because I would much rather be hated for being myself than liked for being someone I'm not. I believe this allows me engender deeper & more meaningful connections with people, to forge more genuine & close relationships. I can confidently say that anyone who I really and truly connect with, I do so safe in the knowledge that they- that you - know who I am.
You get my point. Anyway, my weaknesses are many & never far from my mind, but my strengths require a little more exploration. Bar one: I can communicate. There's a lot of unnecessarily complex and convoluted stuff going on inside my mind & body at any given moment, which can be challenging, but the one thing I have been blessed with is the ability to get it all off my chest. But it's not just that I can - I have to. I have a need to express myself, to share. I always have. But why is that? I wanted to explore that, both in the broader sense but also in terms of why I write what I write and share what I share here.
First and foremost, I have long understood the power of the written word - as though something written takes on a permanence or legitimacy that something spoken doesn't - which is part of the appeal of this process. Blogging for me is a source of solace, of comfort. I empty my thoughts into the world, all of those complex & convoluted thoughts and feelings. In the process I feel unburdened, particularly when it comes to negative emotions, as though a healing process has begun, and the feedback & comments I get in return only add to this sense of healing. And it's powerful! This was never more pronounced than in a blog I wrote over the summer, for which I received a huge outpouring of love, support & a ton of complements from a wide variety of people, including some I barely know. I was blown away by the kind words people had for it, and it was by far, far and away the most highly read blog I've ever written. But the power of the written word to which I refer works both ways. When I write, I read, re-read and re-read before publishing, conscious of this. Am I being overbearing? Is this too strong an opinion? Is X or Y an invasion of someone's privacy? Still, hard as I try to avoid it, sometimes people disagree with, don't care for or are actively offended by my words and that was the case here. I took on board the feedback received & acknowledged the validity of the issues raised, while trying to put forth that I was and am still comfortable with what I had written. But it played on my mind. I can't tell you the love I have for writing. It's the only creative outlet I have that I believe is effective & that I am truly good at. And all I can write about is my life. War & Peace or Harry Potter...just wouldn't be my forte would it? After what went on, I felt gun-shy, afraid to write, more concerned with who I might offend then who I might connect with.
It led me to ponder the ideas and boundaries between privacy & secrecy, expressing & divulging, both generally in every day life, but also specifically in terms of what is ok & not ok for me to write about. It's all very grey, of that I am sure. I have even had people express concern of sorts about how much of myself I am prepared to allow out into the big bad deep dark internet so readily. And I understand that comes from a good place. The whole piece led me to pondering how differently we all define privacy. In the process, I discussed these ideas with a number of people who's opinions I value greatly - I have but one frame of reference so on complex issues, I always like to get a consensus, see what popular opinion is - and I was genuinely surprised at the disparity. There were specific extremes - one viewing privacy as sacrosanct, and of massive scope, the second essentially of the belief that anything you've experienced in your own life is fair game for discussion, who or whatever it may involve. Others were somewhere in the middle but it would be fair to say that my own gut instinct was pretty close to the consensus - I try to write in generalities or broad strokes when discussing people who are in my life today, particularly if I'm writing in what could be conceived as a negative context. The whole thing did make me realise that I have to accept that if I want to continue to use this method of expression, there are times people might not like what I write. That's ok too.
But initially, this led me to a hesitancy that I'd never experienced before. I didn't want to write. I mean I wanted to but I couldn't. I just felt like it was inappropriate somehow. Hell I had it suggested to me that maybe I only write because I just have too much spare time (If only that were true - I would write a lot more!). Over the course of the last few months, that has led me to wondering what it is about me that drives this innate need to express myself. I kept coming back to the same thing: connection.
I know 34 years probably isn't sufficient to call myself old and wise, but one piece of wisdom I feel like I've gained is the knowledge that spinning on this great big rock for however long each of us will, all we really have is each other. That is the human experience, the interactions we have with one another. I think of the happiest places I have been, the ones saccharine tinged in my memory, and they all involve other people, and feeling connected. Anfield when we score. Christmas with people I love. Getting engaged to MT. Dancing with strangers at the Funky Seomra. Different family members coming and going from the hospital meeting our kids for the first time. It's not circumstances that bring about these feelings, it's people. The random stranger I hugged on the Kop, MT's tears as she said "yes" (Swear I didn't cry. SWEAR!)*, the people's faces burned in my memory when we were all laughing around the Christmas dinner table, the energy on the dance floor as the night wore on, the love of my siblings, mother, and in-laws the first time they laid eyes on Carra & Bay. These are the things that I value.
And of course it works both ways - a problem shared is a problem halved, right? Everything I know about how to deal with problems in life - especially the serious ones - is that we help each other. Recovery programs involve strangers sharing stories about their lives, finding common ground, relating to each other. They involve sponsors - someone to confide in when you're at your lowest. Then there's the wider mental health community - suicide helplines, councillor's, therapists, blogging...it's all expression, packaged in different ways.
It seems clear to me then, that I express myself to connect with people, and I express myself to keep my emotional & mental health strong & clear. But there's a third element. Where those two feel very instinctive for me - things I need to do - I think this one is instinctual to me only because I have been doing it so long. When I completed the PSG Coaching Diploma in 2013 (with a distinction, it must be noted!), one of the exercises we did as a group at the end was a simple but POWERFUL feedback exercise. You'd stand in the middle of a circle of all your fellow students and each would give you a word or sentence to describe you. One by one by one, all 20 or so of my course mates gave broadly similar feedback. They used words like "authentic", "genuine", "candid" or variants of that. The telling thing for me was that these are all phrases that can be spun positively or negatively and that's why I felt they were all being truthful. Just because you think I am genuine, doesn't mean you like the person I genuinely am. I liked all of those people but I am reasonably confident that a few of them were not so thrilled by aspects of my personality - I can be overeager in that environment by times, and as the youngest there by a distance I think my occasionally brash manner & the fact I dress like a 16 year old boy may not have been to everyones taste - but there is nothing those people could have said that would have made me happier or prouder than calling me authentic. Because that's me, man. I want, consciously, to put as much of myself out into the world because I would much rather be hated for being myself than liked for being someone I'm not. I believe this allows me engender deeper & more meaningful connections with people, to forge more genuine & close relationships. I can confidently say that anyone who I really and truly connect with, I do so safe in the knowledge that they- that you - know who I am.
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