Inventory
Basically, when I am upset, my demands,- often camouflaged as kindly requests, – have not been met. Essentially, I have relapsed into the attitude of `Playing God´. Those demands can be seen as a design for how the world should operate, – according to Patrick, that is…
Befriending Life
I had taken up a stance of resistance to life because things had not been working out as originally envisaged. It seemed that every move of mine was being counter-acted by an invisible opponent who was simply trying to make things as difficult as possible. That, of course, was my Victim Saboteur…
Moderation?
My version of denial sounded like this: Alcoholics are people who drink half a bottle of vodka before getting up in the morning and sleep under bridges and, since I never drank vodka before getting up and only sometimes slept under bridges, where’s the problem?
Miracles
Some Saboteurs are stealthier than others. It is a characteristic of our human condition to overlook some things in our field of vision. I certainly had. There are always blind spots. This happens due to our innate imperfection. This is neither good nor bad. It is simply the way it is…
Sage Perspective
My life then took a dark turn. Many years were to follow in limbo, spent in the no-man’s-land of clubs and pubs; numbing and self-medication, whereby my feeling got stuffed ever deeper, until the anaesthesia was almost complete. „Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely; a story with a middle only,“ wrote the contemporary Irish poet, Paul Durcan at around that time…
Half Measures
Sitting in the kitchen of a friend’s house, holding in my hands one of the few remaining prized possessions, – my hardback copy of John O Donohue’s `Anam Cara´, – I opened it at a random page to read: `Many of the things that hold us back from inhabiting our destiny are false. They are only images in our minds. They are not real barriers at all. We should never allow our fears or the expectation of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.´…
Bealtaine
My sense is that the TV has superseded the open fire in the homes and psyches of our people. I much prefer the fire, a preference based on countless hours of `fire-watching´ in my childhood. You will find no TV in my abode…
Foundations
As this has been the major theme of my own experience, it appeared that the time had now arrived to `pass forward´ the guidance and support which has so generously been given me during my life. One of my main qualifications could be described as `having made almost every mistake that can be made´ along the way and `turning the respective experiences into gifts´…
Fasting
In hindsight, I see that all me daemons (Saboteurs) had come out to play, preying upon my existential fears (future) and criticising me for not better preparing my new business venture, which had not been unfolding as my optimism had declared it should have (past). This is a classic example of a stance of resistance to `what is´, the main source of suffering for all of humankind…
Generational Trauma
For example, the facilitator would ask the client to give a summary of the topic that she hoped to resolve and would then ask her to select, from the participants (many people had never met each other before), people to represent themselves, their mother, father, grandparents, siblings, etc – those people considered to be most relevant to the work at hand. The client didn’t participate actively in the constellation, but rather worked from the side lines in tandem with the facilitator…
