Conversation with God (whoever you think it may be)

You may have read, what I imagine must be a great book by Neale Donald Walsch, with a title something like this. Not having read it myself, this is however what came to me this morning when I woke up feeling low. 

At one of the many times when I was needing solace after the end of my marriage; one goes on needing it over the years, as many out there will know; I went to stay with a group of nuns in Bedfordshire. Not being of a religious bent, I went for the spirit of the place, the quiet, the garden, the simple services with plainsong and the kindness. 

One of the sisters offered to be around should I want to talk or have some spiritual guidance. And that was so wonderful. To be offered the presence of a person just to be there for me. Not for payment, not for obligation, not even because they already know and love me, but just to be there and hear whatever I’d need to share and offer some thoughts. It brings tears to my eyes just telling you about it. Being heard is a true gift.

© Maggie Sawkins 2014 All rights reserved
My art work on Etsy

Thankfully this one morning it came back to me. The exercise Sister Esther I think, had suggested. To write my problems down and then answer them with my non-dominant hand as though God is speaking through it. Perhaps the closest we can get to hearing the voice of something other… in my book at least. 

'So what I need to do today...', I thought, 'is write to God and see what he says'. Here is how it went:

Me: God, I woke up dejected, I’m thinking about A and how she has made a success of HER artistic talent - could I have done that…? And she’s created a beautiful home, has a lovely man gorgeous kid…  could I have done differently if I’d done what she did…? Then God, there is all this mental clutter that comes in: ‘its all too late’, ‘I’m never going to work out how to get my art off the ground’, and ‘is that the thing I need to do anyway?’ And ‘how come I can’t kept the flat tidier?’ and ‘what about all the plans I keep forgetting that I made on paper for my business?’ and ‘I’ve forgotten about doing everything'  and then ‘I had yet another migraine at the weekend, post-training… what a mess I am… ’, and ‘should I go to this event on crowd-funding or am I kidding myself… ?’ God, why am I so self-critical? 'I should stop being so self critical', 'I should have stopped that by now, having worked on all my unhelpful character traits in such detail…' then 'was it all a waste of time, why hasn’t it worked?' And finally ‘Oh, maybe I need to talk to God…’ 

God: For goodness sake, shut the F up and get on with something you enjoy… you have a lovely flexible life and there is no big boss making it hell - except YOU! 

Me: Gosh, I didn’t expect you to be quite so blunt. I thought you were all loving and kind… no need to be RUDE! I feel a bit sorry for myself now… Even God is being nasty to me. 

God: Oh well, take what you like and leave the rest. I’m off to sort out Syria, Gaza, Nigerian emailers pretending to be the UN. That and mulling on how to get democracy to work everywhere… and finding a way to help those deluded militant boys who think killing will create a wonderful world… If only they could regain the ability they were born with to see this truth: that peace is the answer. That and anything we can do to help everyone accept themselves and find a way to accept others. And you can help with that… 

Me: Yes, I can help others and I need the help too. I teach what I most need to learn, no doubt about it. Try softer. Take risks. Be who you are. Start with the end in mind… I do know that I have something to offer. No use fighting when life can be wonderful. I can appreciate all I have in this moment. Thanks for the help God. Take it easy. Speak again soon, have a good day. 

God: You too… all you need is love. Go well. 

Me: How did the Beatles know that so young? Well here I go… Good Morning God x

Do your thing

For nearly thirty years, I’ve had this quote to memory: ‘Whatever you can do, or think you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.’ Thanks to Goethe for that one (and to JB who alerted me to it). It’s pertinent on so many levels. 

For most of my life, despite any and all appearances to the contrary, I’ve not been conscious or clear what ‘my thing’ is. I’ve been running around in a fog (never a great idea, you get all sorts of knocks), trying to fathom what I’m ‘supposed to be doing with my life’. I have been seeking answers. Where does that ‘supposed’ come from…? It's a horrid word - lives on the same shelf as 'should' and can be very confusing. It prevents my cells connecting to the essence of being alive. 

© Maggie Sawkins 2014 All rights reserved
My art work on Etsy

Early on in my journey, I truly felt I was ‘damaged goods’ and therefore needed a great deal of mending. No fun. On one of the workshops I undertook in my search, we were invited to ‘go and be with a tree’. This was not any hippie, new-age session but instead a lesson on registering what it means to be here… what purpose do we have as souls on this earth at this point?

I recall that it was a challenge to do this… to sit and ‘be’ with a tree. I knew of tree-hugging and to this day I touch them as I go past, especially the saplings, encouraging them on their way. I got from taking part in that exercise, this truth: that the tree (to the best of our knowledge) doesn’t spend its day worrying about the what, how, when and more importantly why, it is growing and changing. 

It just exists, following its nature to be it's particular species of tree and undergo the cycles of the seasons; not to question 'am I doing it properly, maybe I should be a rosebush or a pigeon…' It simply embodies its essence: juices, cells and the potential to become tall or have blossom, conkers or berries as its DNA dictates. And as far as I’m aware, it doesn’t ever ‘try’ to do any of it at any other speed than the organism that it is, allows. It is pre-programmed with this unfolding, flowering, developing  roots and branches all in good time. And it bends and sometimes breaks with the weather, the seasons and with any kid that jumps on its branches before they are strong enough to bear that kind of thing. 

So in sitting with myself and being, I begin to find a more mindful way of living, moment at a time. I develop discernment about what makes my heart sing, where I am in my element (Thanks Ken Robinson). This activity (of lack of), helps me to desist from questioning. I resign repeatedly from 'Figuring-it-out-Anonymous'. In the simplicity I look to do what I can do, to be who I truly am. That seems to me the boldest, most powerful thing I can begin to do. The genius of being who you are x

Speak Up

They say that, ‘we teach what we need to learn’. As a recovering shy person, shyness being one of many traits that have no doubt blocked me from achieving, it was no accident that I ended up in a speaking club one night with a good friend. 

I got the idea from Meryl Runion, ‘Speak Strong’, whose book, 'Power Phrases', I discovered on a training at work. I was inspired and decided to visit my local Toastmasters group. Long story short, I worked on my own 'public' speaking and have gone on to train thousands of adults and teenagers, passing on simple tools and ideas. Tools that can help all of us overcome the psychological and practical challenges of being ourselves in front of others. Whether it is speaking up in meetings or standing up at a family wedding, we all have important stuff we can say, if we are willing. 

© Maggie Sawkins 2014 All Rights Reserved
My work on Etsy

It is a thing of beauty to see a person who is painfully conscious that every time they walk up to speak they are very hot, flushed and mind fretting. Then to witness by the end of a simple but nonetheless effortful, day - they are capable of standing and speaking without notes, on a subject close to their heart.  All because a few things have been put in place, with some encouragement from me, that now make it manageable.

I’ve done it myself: I’ve opened events and spoken in front of large groups. I’ve trained and spoken to delegates on hundreds of courses. I've been a teacher of teenagers in Tottenham and trained my fellow trainers. Yet when the moment comes when I need to put myself on the line - not as a trainer or professional of any kind - but just as myself, that moment is the hardest test of all. For all of us. The one where the ego comes in and sets us up by bragging a bit about what we do. Or the opposite: the shame-based voice that shuts us up and acts as the brake that will stop us from speaking and saying what actually might be (as I know) a very valuable thing to air. 

Case in point: I was an audience member for Radio 4’s Four Thought last week. I heard thought-provoking and heartfelt speeches. First from Benet Brandreth, on a revolutionary proposal for a ‘third house’ of 600 citizens, chosen by lottery to make decisions for the country. Then Phillipa Perry, on how our stories can define us, acting as lenses through which we interpret the world. 

But it was the third speaker that got me in the gut. Rebecca Mott spoke of her experience and subsequent exit from the violence, unnamed torture and slavery of being prostituted at 14. I felt the stillness and quiet horror in the room as she surely broke new ground, speaking about this stuff on Radio 4. And alongside the subsequent fourteen years of living hell, R4 had been her comfort and consistent support. It had reassured her. 

Then after her talk, the questions. The first was a simplistic one about equality and offered no acknowledgment to Rebecca. I knew what we had witnessed had taken courage and integrity and felt to me, radical. 

Too late, I tentatively put up half a hand but the session was wrapped up. So I didn’t speak. Too late to say it in the room, I did go and talk to her in person. And I realise I’d allowed my own fear of ‘what will they think?’ or ‘I’m not as bright as all these intellectuals…’ and ‘but he’s really well known…’, to block me. I stayed silent when I was inching towards saying something valuable. I judged at the time, that maybe it was ‘better to stay quiet’. That my thing was not vital. As the intensity of the experience stayed with me, when I got home, I made a voice recording what I had wanted to say at the time. 

Here is the transcript: "…I felt like was in a room where you (Rebecca) are breaking new ground talking about this in public, on Radio 4, and in fact it was spellbinding to listen to you and we were all very still I noticed at one point.

And - what I wanted to say was that no doubt there are people listening to this - perhaps in the room and definitely at home, who have experience that relates to what you are saying and maybe they haven’t been violent, maybe they haven’t been creating torture for someone, but they have and they do, continue to maintain this belief in this arty-fairytale or whatever it is that things (prostitution) are dressed up with… 

I know there is this argument about choice… but I don’t see any or hear any teenagers, having worked with a lot of them, wanting to go into prostitution as a career… and I don’t think its something people go in their mid-life-crisis career changes either… ‘I think I’ve missed my calling, I’m going to be a prostitute after all and exploit myself that way’…  

I can’t even begin to imagine what would take somebody to do it… so  almost feels like a spurious point really… I want to say sorry, that I haven’t spoken up sooner… and didn’t get heard in the room because the first question you had about 'don’t things need to be fairer' (for women and men) and you answered with ‘we don’t wait’ (for black and white to be equal before we abolish slavery) and of course we don’t wait. I wish that I had spoken up just to acknowledge you and thank you for your courage - in saying something so cogently about what is actually, for me, a frightening truth that is mostly hidden and you brought it out of the shadows…  and I hope that people will stop and think… and that we can make some of the changes that you are proposing. Thank you.”

So learning from my own challenges and willingness to be seen and heard: better late than never at all. Never too late to take risks. 'Do something that scares you every day', said Eleanor Roosevelt. I’ve now sent it to the producer of Four Thought: better to speak up and speak out in whatever form, than to stay hidden. 

I know that so many of us have wonderful messages which the world needs. ‘It’s never too late to be what you might have been’, George Eliot. We need to hear all voices. Thanks to all those that speak up. Thanks Rebecca.