Absolute Truth

As I struggled to come to terms with the illusions I had taken to be the truth, I slowly found hope after years of feeling hopeless.

Absolute Truth?

What do you know to be true – absolutely, incontrovertibly true?
That right is right and wrong is wrong?
That there is good and evil?

Well, for me, for over 40 years I though I knew that I am inherently bad so I tried hard to be good.

I spent my whole life judging others by my strict standards and making them right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse than me. When I found someone I thought was better than me I would look hard for proof that there was something wrong with them. I would burrow away till I found something, something that would set my mind at rest and prove I was better after all. In the meantime, I was riddled with jealousy at their apparent superiority to me.

Liberation finally came when I realised that my “truth” was a barefaced lie. The supposed truth of my innate badness, an insecurity for which I had amassed evidence over many decades, was nothing more than a story I made up as a child when I gave myself the label “bad”.

But we are not defined by labels and yet we allow ourselves to be defined, to be limited in what we can be. I am defined if I state I am a gay man, a lawyer, a middle class Englishman, a brother, etc. I am all these things and so much more. In fact, I am anything I say I am, so I declare to you that I am a poet, an inspirational writer, and therefore I am. Whether you like my writing is irrelevant. Whether I am good, bad or indifferent is irrelevant. I just am.

In fact, if anything is true, it is just that we are vessels empty of anything except love; the supposedly incontrovertible truths are just silly notions that rule our lives and kill our love.

Demons

As I struggled to come to terms with the collapse of my business and with attempts to resurrect it, I had good days and bad. No journey can be perfection and though doubt and fear can eventually be eradicated, it takes a great deal of personal commitment and patience! This piece was written relatively early on in the journey of self discovery and self actualisation!

Demons

What is it that transforms me from an inspiring, visionary team builder into a doubt-ridden, fearful wreck on a Monday morning, that has me feel sick in the pit of my stomach and has my heart miss beats at the very prospect of the challenges of the week ahead and the unreasonable goals I have set for myself in life, that hijacks that quiet confidence, that inner knowing that I derive from being true to my purpose?
 
Why, it's my demons, of course: those inner voices gnawing at my skull, silently but surreptitiously sucking me dry, throwing evidence at me from over 40 years experience that I am utterly worthless, a failure, not good enough, a fraud, rubbish, stupid and the myriad epithets with which they harangue me.
 
Quite why they reign supreme on Monday mornings, I am not sure: my demons can strike at any time without warning, undermining all the heroic progress made in the face of sometimes extreme adversity and blindly ignoring a massive body of contrary evidence, that I can be whatever I choose to be provided I surrender myself to it and trust myself.
 
I choose to love my demons that are there to protect me from the pain of failure, disappointment and rejection and that would have my dreams remain a thought or yearning: I thank them for their caring counsel and then courageously ignore them as I take the next step in my journey to fulfilment of my potential.