Your childhood shaped today and tomorrow

~~~

Blog post – 29^th January 2023

By Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling

~~~

The unexamined life versus the frank autobiography

How to change your future by changing your past

~~~

Sex-love and gender wars – I don’t suppose anybody knows for sure what Plato meant by his slogan: “The unexamined life is not worth living”.

But, in the modern world, the unexamined life equates to “not doing your therapy”.

How do I mean that?

Everybody is harmed to some extent in their family of origin; some more than others; but nobody escapes completely. And what most people do with their childhood harm is to cover it over with a layer of something sweet and superficially nice; a socially distorted PR job. A false self.

Mostly, people do this because doing one’s therapy hurts. It hurts like having a tooth out; and the costs and benefits are similar. If you have a decayed tooth out, it will hurt, having the injection; having the extraction; and when the anaesthetic wears off, the wound will hurt for a day or two. Blood clots may become visible on the tongue, and so on.

However, if you do not have the tooth out, it rots in your gum, and causes worse pain later on, including the possibility of brain damage, because of the proximity of the infection to the brain.

The unexamined life; the downside…

The unexamined life is just like that rotting tooth left in the gum. It rots away, causing low level problems for a long time, before it flares up into a much worse problem. Better to have it out (or filled) as soon as the problem becomes visible for the first time; and better to get into therapy as soon as you spot that something horrible happened to you in childhood, which you have never explored or digested.

The frank autobiography, and the problem of getting hold of repressed memories…

You can do your therapy on your childhood in a face-to-face encounter with a helpful psychotherapist or counsellor; or you can do it yourself in a journal or notebook. If you decide to write it out, you can do it as autobiography; fictionalized autobiography; drama; poetry; or letters to your childhood carers which you never send. I did some of my therapy on my horrible childhood in the form of psychoanalysis, but I have also written a lot of it out in the form of fictionalized autobiography of my alter ego: Daniel O’Beeve.***

Hack writing versus principled writing…

If you decide to write your autobiography, and to publish it, then up comes defence mechanisms. Will people dislike me for this? Will I look good or bad? How can I sanitize my public appearance? How can I distort the story in order to look like a hero instead of a victim of circumstances?

Considerations of those kinds can lead you to abandon principled writing, and to substitute hack writing. Hack writers get well paid for producing rubbish and garbage and pulp fiction. They add nothing to the world, except more junk. Principled writers add some value to the human condition. They liberate or ennoble or rescue; or encourage the growth of hope, compassion, charity, love. They strive to contribute to the creation of a better world, by exposing the underbelly of our current forms of life.

The determination to keep going…

Road to better life Hack writers are beloved of the publishing industry. Principled writers are unpopular with vested interests. They are a nuisance to the forces of political expediency. They undermine the evil side of human nature.

The courage to face the unadorned truth…

And principled writing, including writing autobiography or fictionalized autobiography about a difficult childhood takes a lot of courage. Fortitude. To look ugliness and pain in the face is not an easy task.

The importance of leavening of the text…

But principled writers do not unnecessarily strain or drain their readers. They strive to sustain the flame of hope in the darkest caves that they explore. The work with the principle of leavening their texts. Of finding the moments of humour among the images of pain and suffering.

And the therapy of principled writing heals. Old wounds dry out, and begin to heal; leaving small but almost invisible scars as medals of honour. And the writer is stronger in the broken parts that have been honoured in their texts.

This is what I strove to do in *Daniel’s Disconnected Heart*.

~~~

And that is what I am now working on in

*The Sex-Love Question and the Gender Wars*.

~~~

Daniel for cover - 001 Whatever wounds you have, hidden in your childhood history, I do hope you will try to dress them; process them; and heal them. And one way to do that is to practice principled writing about them, whether as private autobiographical writing, or published fictionalized autobiography.

“The unexamined life is not worth living”.

And travelling incognito is not nearly as exciting and enjoyable as telling the world who you are, and where you have been!

With my very best wishes for your happiness and healing.

Jim

Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling

~~~

Childhood developmental trauma recovery

Blog post – 17^th November 2022

How I recovered from childhood developmental trauma disorder, and found myself in an expected paradise…

By Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling

~~~

Hello, and Welcome.

Our mothers have the most dramatic effect upon our psychical and mental health, and upon our life chanced. So choose your mother carefully!

I have recently written a new version of the first forty years of my life, to explore the journey I had to go on in order to fix the damage that was caused to me in the first two years of life by my incompetent, very young, damaged mother.

In reviewing my life, I thought this was a most important principle:

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

Anais Nin, in her book: ‘D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study’. 1964/1994.

So I explored the various states that I went through; sometimes using factual autobiography, sometimes using fictionalized autobiography, and sometimes using the stories of archetypal characters from my dreams and reveries.

This is how the publisher’s Foreword begins:

“When a child walks away from an abusive parent – when they are old enough to leave – they unknowingly, and unwillingly, carry that abusive parent in their heart and mind. And most often they head off into a life in which they repeat the same kind of abusive relationship with a “love partner”.

When the physical bruises of abusive parenting heal, the psychological scars remain intact, hidden in the subconscious mind of the abused child. And also stored in the physical tensions of body-memory.

Jim Byrne thought he’d walked away. Left it all behind. Sailed into a new life, at the age of eighteen years. But his physically and emotionally abusive childhood relationship with his mother (and his father) came back to haunt him at the age of twenty-two years.

At that point, his life imploded. He’d been over-consuming (“abusing”) sleeping pills for a few weeks, following total rejection by his peer group on a barren military squadron of damaged young men.

Eventually an ambulance came and got him; took him to hospital; where he saw a psychoanalyst for weekly meetings. After three meetings, the analyst told him that he (Jim) needed to examine his relationship with his mother.”

For more, please click this link! The story of Jim’s journey through uncharted territory in search of love!

~~~

Dr Jim's office Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne

Doctor of Counselling, and survivor of childhood developmental trauma disorder.

~~~

To see this book online, at an Amazon outlet near you, please click one of the following links. (There may be a couple of days’ delay in appearing on some Amazon outlets).

Amazon.com, US+		Amazon UK + Ireland

Amazon Spain		Amazon Italy

Amazon Germany		Amazon Netherlands

Amazon Japan		Amazon Brazil

Amazon Canada		Amazon Mexico

Amazon Australia		Amazon India

Buying from Singapore		Flycrates

~~~

Authorship as a surging current of emotional energy

Blog Post: Sunday 18^th September 2022

By Jim Byrne

~~~

Title: The floodgates and the writer’s surging tide…

Writers are people who write.

I write something every day, normally quite a lot.

But these days, it is mostly not fiction; not writing for pleasure.

Mostly I write psychoanalytic reports for my counselling clients. Analysing the real life dramas of people in pain.

Or I write and update web pages about my professional services.

And over the past period of busy report writing, from mid-December 2021, up to yesterday, I have longed to write something fictional; something from my heart; about my interior emotional life.

Then yesterday, when I finished writing a long report for a client, the floodgates burst open, and out came a story that has been fermenting in the basement of my mind for a few days.

This is how it begins:

Blue Boy Karma

By Jim Byrne

September 17^th 2022

~~~

Vasha Popov screwed his little face up, like a well-squeezed dishcloth. He stared into the big, mottled mirror, looking for the echo of his facial contortions. And there it was. This was him. This blue face, with the sad calf eyes and the downturned mouth. And there in the apparent ugliness of his blue face was the evidence, it seemed, of why Mamu did not let him touch her, or speak to her, or get close to her.

His blue hair did not help, regimented as it was by Mamu’s daily brushing with her harsh scrubbing brush, with which she would whack him if he did not stand still while she vigorously brushed out the tangles.

When he relaxed his little blue face, it did not seem quite so ugly, but the dark blue hair and the mid-blue skin were an unbecoming combination.

…

~~~

To read more, please go here: Blue Boy Karma, Therapeutic fictional writing.***

~~~

Of course, this story had its origins and development: like my wife’s flowers outside the front of our home. She had to acquire the soil; buy the seeds and plants; do the planting and watering and feeding. And to lovingly watch over her emerging leaves and flowers.

Similarly, I take certain actions each day, and some on a less frequent basis – such as three days per week – to build up the literary flowers that I want to grow.

Recently I have increased the number of strategies and techniques that I use to produce fictional writing; and it has born leaves and flowers, yesterday, and today, in the form of the short story above.

And one of the things I like to do with my experience of writing is to use it to help emerging authors to increase their creativity and productivity. I do this through my authorship coaching services. For more on my Authorship Coaching service, please go here: Authorship and creative writing coaching.***

~~~

If you are a writer, I wish you a productive, creative, satisfying day. If you wish to become a productive, creative writer, then you must study the art and science of your subject.

The rewards are rich indeed!

Best wishes,

Jim

Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling, and Writing Coach

ABC Bookstore;

and ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy Services.

~~~

Writing therapy and Covid-19 trauma recovery

~~~

Blog Post – 5^th March 2021

By Renata Taylor-Byrne

~~~

Reading and writing can help us make sense of what happened to us all during the Covid-19 pandemic

And you can find peace again!

~~~

“Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change”.

Ingrid Bengis – (From page 10, The Artists Way, 1992)[1]

~~~

Health coach, Renata Taylor-Byrne Because of the challenges, disruption, and appalling deaths and destabilising changes which have taken place since the onset of the world-wide Covid-19 health crisis, inevitably many people have lost sight of who they are and where they are going in life. And they don’t know what the future holds for them.

An invaluable way of finding yourself again – and starting to come to terms with where you are, and what the way forward is for you in your life – is to use a method which has been tried and tested by many people. We are big fans of this process.

In short, you start writing about what is happening to you in your life, and what you have experienced; and begin the process of mentally digesting past events, and coming to terms with the new, very different world you are now living in.

Six months ago, this process would have been premature. Even nine months ago it would not have been advisable. (Early processing of traumatic memories simply acts to re-traumatize you!) But now, more than one year since the first Covid-19 deaths in the west, it is time to begin digesting the awful traumatic shock of this terrible disease.

“You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours”.

Anne-Wilson Schaef

~~~

By writing for a few minutes, every morning, about the stressful time you have come through, you can begin to fully acknowledge the confusion, pain, loss, and anxiety you have been going through.

You can begin to extract any valuable insights you have learned about life, other people and yourself, and slowly start finding and feeling your way into a future which makes sense to them.

Kindle Cover WriteANewLife (2) This very simple but highly therapeutic process is described in our book titled: “How to write a new life for yourself”, (by Dr Jim Byrne with Renata Taylor-Byrne).

The benefits are very real:

For example, Philippa Perry (2012) describes a research study where the people taking part were split up into 2 groups. One half of the group wrote in their diary every day, and the other half didn’t. The results were as follows:

“Diarists reported better moods and fewer moments of distress than non-diarists. Those in the same study, who kept a journal following trauma or bereavement, also reported fewer flashbacks, nightmares and unexpected difficult memories”.[2]

She also describes diarists as less likely to be admitted to hospital, with improved liver, blood pressure, and a stronger immune system. (And keeping your immune system strong is now recognized as the main way you can protect yourself from Covid-19, and other major diseases!)

For more insights into the benefits derived from diary writing, or keeping a journal, please look at “How to write a new life for yourself” (by Dr Jim Byrne with Renata Taylor-Byrne).

The-Artists-Way In her work on therapeutic writing, Julia Cameron (1992) uses several metaphors and similes to try to communicate what her readers and students can gain from using her system of therapeutic writing.

The one I like the most is this:

“Writing in your journal, about the trials and tribulations of your life, is like building a bridge into a better future for you!”

And that is what we set out to do in our book: To provide you with a roadmap which will support you in building a bridge into a better future for yourself.

We used a more gradual approach than Julia Cameron. This approach helps you to begin with small steps; in an easy, simple way; and to slowly build up your ‘writing muscles’.

In the process, you will develop a great capacity to manage your thinking-feeling-perceiving more effectively; calmly; in a more self-regulated fashion. You will become more intuitive; more creative; and a more efficient and effective problem-solver. You will be less troubled by stress and strain, and more likely to succeed in achieving whatever goals you want to pursue!

And, perhaps most importantly, you will figure out how to process the traumatic events of this terrible year of Covid-19 challenges and anxieties.

~~~

Health coach, Renata Taylor-Byrne That’s all for now.

Best wishes,

Renata

Renata Taylor-Byrne

Lifestyle & Health Coach-Counsellor

ABC Coaching and Counselling Services

ABC Bookstore Online UK

The Institute for E-CENT (Research and publishing)

~~~

Endnotes

[1] Cameron, J. (1992) The Artist’s Way: A spiritual path to higher creativity. London: Souvenir Books.

[2] Perry, P. (2012) How to Stay Sane. London: Macmillan.

Books about trauma recovery

~~~

Blog Post 2 – 25^th February 2021

How to process traumatic experiences from your past

Author: Jim Byrne

~~~

Hi,

Front cover 2, Dragons Trauma book June 2020 Traumatic experiences are those which cannot easily be processed by the person to whom they occur. Most people are probably somewhat traumatized (or greatly traumatized) by their childhood experiences. One estimate – by Dr Felitti, in Dr van der Kolk’s book (The Body Keeps the Score) suggests that about 87% of Americans are somewhat traumatized by their Adverse Childhood Experiences!

In E-CENT counselling, we teach our clients to (slowly and gradually!) face up to their traumatic memories, which they have often been running away from; sometimes for decades. Because it is only by facing up to the traumatic experiences from our past – (slowly and gradually) – that we can reframe them, complete them, and allow them to shrink and fade:

“Shadows of the past sometimes contaminate the present and narrow down the future for all of us”, writes Muriel Shiffman. “The purpose of my self-therapy technique is to confront the past and put it in its place. Only then are we released to live the present more fully and grow into a richer future, able to use more of our true potential.” Because she was depressed, Muriel Shiffman “…began to use myself as a guinea pig in a fumbling attempt at self-therapy. … (Over time) I stumbled on the key to self-therapy: I learned to feel painful emotions I had been avoiding all my life. I explored attitudes and relationships that forced me to feel rage and grief and anxiety, and I did a great deal of crying. For two long years I unearthed a hidden part of my life, and suffered and then it suddenly dawned on me that my old, recurrent depression was gone. Somewhere along the way I had lost it, and it has never come back”.

Muriel Shiffman, Self-Therapy: Techniques for personal growth.

~~~

Kindle Cover WriteANewLife (2) I have used writing therapy to heal my own childhood traumas, which has taken a number of years (on and off). I first wrote some articles and papers, and then combined them into a fictionalized autobiographical story – (Metal Dog – Long Road Home***) – plus a book about HOW TO complete your own traumatic experiences***, and one which describes the first two stories that I used therapeutically to heal my own heart and mind.