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So I’m sitting there, on a Tuesday morning, in a Catholic Church thinking: ‘Why am I listening to this? Is that really relevant to me?’ The impulse was to start to try to convince myself that once again, this was the wrong path. Then it dawned on me; that’s what he wants me to think. Who is ‘he’? Call it anything you want: resistance, reptilian brain, habit, fear, the Devil; doesn’t matter, the point is that I always get to this point, we all do, whether you go to church, start weight lifting or quit the cupcakes. We all get to this point, the wall of resistance that makes us want to quit.

This time its different, this time I can see the signs, the signals and the ‘temptation’: “Forget all this stuff, let’s do something exciting, let’s go shopping, lets build an online empire; you know you wanna!”

Actually, this time I don’t, this time I sitting right here and this time I’ll see it through.

Believe it or not, I don’t know everything, I am not privy to the entire timeline of my life in one instant and because of this my decision making process is often flawed. The admission that I don’t know everything is rather liberating as it enables me to look back on previous areas of my life that I have rejected and look at them all from a new perspective; this had returned a lot of freedom back into my life.

I have looked at certain events in my life in a new light, as they have all led me to interesting points and people. If I focus solely on the traumatic side, I see only trauma; when I stop and look at the incredible good that was around at the same time, I start to see structure and reason formulate; like sparkling crystals growing within my inner caverns.

Now, when I thing I have everything figured out, I stop and pause and say to myself:
“Don’t be so sure”.

Growing up was hard. Being surrounded by alpha male bullshit was traumatic to say the least; I was never an alpha male, and I’m still not. In fact, I’m more of an alpha-omega male; but that’s for another time. Being sensitive and in touch with thoughts and feelings that my ‘friends’ would hide by drinking anything that had xxx on the can, meant I was pretty much isolated. Then, when I joined a religious ‘group’ I was once again surrounded by alpha male cruelty and bullshit. Now? It all makes me laugh. The alpha-posturing, ‘humour’ and utter fear of looking inward makes me ’shake my damn head’, as they say.

I’ve been sensitive, suicidal, seven stone, self harming, manic-depressive, brain-washed and now I write poetry; and you know what? I’m still here, I’m happy and I’m just fine! I’ve also learnt more about strength than any sport could ever have taught me. Taking your power back doesn’t mean becoming an arrogant prick, like so many I have met; it means taking your self and accepting the entirety of who you are.

Be sensitive, be thoughtful, be creative, be passionate, be you and don’t for one moment think you have to posture yourself to get on or get ahead; success is more about inner peace than outward power; and remember, there are many more like us in the world, we just tend to keep it quiet, while the alpha dogs run around sniffing their own buts.

I remember sitting once on a lonely Devon beach, in winter, watching a fog bank engulf a small fishing vessel. From the shore I could see that the fog was a small cloud that covered the boat, but would pass very soon; then I wondered how the people on the boat viewed the scene.

When you’re in the fog, you think that your whole world is foggy; there is no perspective, direction or way out. Yet the fog does end at some point and you can continue on with your life. Depression is not permanent or terminal, it may come and it may go but it does not have to take over your life.

So if your life is a little foggy right now, turn on the lights and keep going because the weather always changes. And even if the fog returns you will now know that it is not permanent and you have thus taken aways its power and its hold over you.