Injury

It's karate tonight. Unfortunately, I seem to be losing interest in it. Going with strained quadriceps that don't quite seem to have healed probably won't help matters. Learning other things in my spare time might be affecting my motivation too.

The particular way in which my ASD affects me means that more effort has to be put into learning a new physical skill or movement. Solo practice, away from the class, becomes more important. I no longer have the time that I once had for that, or maybe that's just an excuse. I seem to find the time to practise tai chi quite easily.

Maybe it's not the quadriceps injury, but another kind of injury. It's six months since my mother died. Apart from when I've been working with clients, where my mood is always relatively neutral, my mood has been quite low. Grief may not be a physical injury, but it feels like an injury nonetheless.

Manchester Airport at night

There's a rail strike. I hadn't accounted for that. There are also no hotel rooms available at a reasonable price. This all means that I'm spending the night in an airport. It's October, but I've managed to find a spot that's relatively warm. It's quiet here too. As I write, a young man is pushing a trolley with cleaning supplies around, pausing occasionally to mop spills and other unpleasant things from the floor.

A matter of hours ago, I was saying goodbye to the one I love. We both wish that we lived on the same strip of land, at the same address. Travelling back and forth is the current way of things though. I was thinking about this while on the bus, which would take me to the train, which would take me to another train, which would take me to the airport. I was thinking about how our lives change, and we change with them.

In counselling theory, we talk about configurations of self. Really, we reconfigure ourselves many times throughout our lives. It's tempting to think that our sense of who we are is constant. The truth is, we are changed by our interactions with others and the world around us. Sometimes our experience reconfigures us, forcefully, in so many ways that we question most of the things we believe about ourselves. We might find ourselves mourning the loss of who we once were. We may no longer be the same father, mother, brother, sister, friend, colleague or other.

A young man is now walking around with his phone in his pocket. The phone is playing old songs in French. Strangely, it seems to fit the atmosphere here.

Amy came into my life at a time when I was reconfiguring myself in many ways. Actually, that was something we had in common. It's something we still have in common. We're at a point where we understand each other enough to respect that the other is going through a process.

The man with the old French music is now sat just a short distance from me. I have to admit I'm enjoying the music - it seems to go well with the atmosphere of an airport in Northern England at night. The sound of it is echoing in this space, which makes it even more spectacular.

I used to hate airports. An airport is a place between here and there. When you're here, you're not really here; you're not there either. In your heart, you wish you were somewhere else, with someone else.

I've been in this country and away from this country enough to see it for what it is. Being back here, there's a sense of how wonderful and awful it is at the same time. Now, in the dark with the lights shining only in pristine, characterless rooms and corridors, it's easy to forget all of that for a while. It's not so easy to forget that I'm away from the one I love. She's probably sleeping now. I hope she sleeps well.

The young man with the old French music has gone. Maybe he has a flight to catch. Maybe I'll fill this space with the sounds of the old soul music I've been favouring recently. I'm lonely here right now. I guess I have to get used to that feeling again.

A Sincere Prayer

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit...

Lord, I offer you my love, my prayers and my service.

I place my suffering before you this day, recognising that I suffer by straying from the path of righteousness.

I pray that you keep those I love safe and well, Lord, and that I am not a source of pain for them. Rather, I would like to be a source of comfort.

I ask forgiveness for the times I have trespassed against others.

May I offer compassion, forgiveness and mercy to those who have caused me pain. May I offer my service to those in need.

I pray that you deliver us from the evil of this world, which manipulates our thoughts, emotions, words and deeds. Let us not say and do evil things to each other.

At this time, Lord, I request special attention for the one I love sincerely. I ask for your blessing on our relationship, that it may continue and thrive through honest communication and understanding. I ask that, together, we have the strength to overcome current and future difficulties as a couple. I pray that she is safe and well, and that she is successful in her endeavours.

I pray, Lord, that I can be a man in whom she can have faith. To this end, I pray that the darkness which so often falls across my mind can be lifted. I pray for a healthy, loving relationship with her, and that we may be together soon.

Amen.

Forgiveness

I learned this morning that some people want to "cancel" Metallica. Apparently, the band's music has been discovered by a younger generation through a TV show. This prompted at least one person to obsessively search through the band's history and past performances to judge whether they were inherently righteous or evil. Some incidents from the past led to the band being judged as evil, and the current way of the world dictates that they must be destroyed.

If you're not well-versed in psychological theory, I will share something from the psychoanalytic school with you. All of us are good; we are also bad. We have the capacity for acts of kindness; we have the capacity for acts of cruelty. We must be very, very wary of anyone who is only aware of their supposed "virtue" and blissfully unaware of their dark side: they will commit despicable acts and still say that they are only capable of being virtuous. Be especially careful of those who most loudly proclaim that they are nothing but virtuous.

Hollywood has given us the notion of heroes and villains. We see black and white, rather than shades of grey. In psychoanalytic theory, this is known as psychological splitting - things have one property, and can not have a property which we see as contradictory to that property. We see ourselves as good or bad. We see others as good or bad. We are less capable of seeing ourselves or anyone else as good AND bad.

I can only guess what motivates someone to comb through a band's history, looking for reasons to despise and attempt to destroy them. It would seem that fear, hatred and anger are present as driving forces. What is absent in this and other manifestations of "cancel culture" is forgiveness. As the western world largely abandons Christianity, the Christian concept of forgiveness is also being abandoned. The new western ideology which is being touted as the new religion doesn't preach forgiveness.

Forgiveness isn't easy. Forgiveness requires a high level of emotional maturity. As schema therapy and other schools of therapy show us, however, there are circumstances in which each of us can find ourselves thinking, feeling and acting as we did as children. How this change comes about depends on our personal history. We should be clear about one thing, though: trying to destroy someone because they once said or did something we didn't like isn't a mature thing to do. As I said before, we are all good, but we are also bad.

There was a time when seeing and hearing examples of "cancel culture" provoked fear, hatred and anger in me. Now? I forgive them. It's better for me to concentrate on thinking, feeling and acting from courage, compassion and acceptance. This isn't so that others will see me as inherently good or virtuous - it is simply better for me and those I love if I think, feel and act in such a way. It also seems to be a path that leads us away from our internal suffering. My compassion, then, is for those who worship at the altar of "cancel culture" as well as those they target - as much as they hurt others, they hurt themselves.

What about Metallica? There was a time when musicians were deliberately provocative, pushing boundaries and wilfully going against the prescribed societal norms. Being as human as the rest of us, they sometimes made colossal errors of judgement. If we're saying that mistakes cannot be forgiven, with the passage of time, then we will be forever terrified to do anything which pushes the boundaries. Mediocrity and banality will become the norm. I would contend that the passage of time will judge "cancel culture" and its proponents poorly.

As the world moves further towards political polarisation, and away from any sense of being politically moderate, fear, hatred and anger are becoming more deeply entrenched within our psyche. I feel sad about this, and pray that we can do better, but accept that this is the way things are right now.

The Ominous Appearance of Chen Haoyan

She was crying. Her friend, in the window seat to her right, seemed unconcerned. I wondered whether I should remain unconcerned too, or at least give the impression of a lack of concern. I had started to feel overwhelmed by the problems of others and the problems of the world more generally. The plane was still sat on the tarmac at Dubai. The seven hour journey to Manchester had yet to begin.

Asking if the young woman was okay seemed a reasonable thing to do. The question invited an answer, but a short one. She answered that she was nervous about the flight. I said that I understood. An announcement over the plane's public address system stopped the conversation going further. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against the seat in front of her, as though in prayer.

About half of the way to Manchester, I started to think about the previous few weeks. The visit to see my girlfriend of the time had been different. The trip to Ilocos Norte, with her family, had accounted for some of that difference. There had been a general feeling, however, that things weren't the same between us. A lunch meeting with two of her work colleagues had felt tense, as though they felt uneasy in my presence. On a previous visit, they had been more friendly and less awkward.

During my stay in the Philippines, I hadn't mentioned the increasing number of pictures I had noticed on social media, of my girlfriend with the male colleague with whom she had a car sharing agreement. I considered how few photos she had taken of the two of us in nearly ten years of being together.

I decided to look at the pictures I had taken on this last visit. When I got to a photo taken in the grounds of the hotel in Currimao, a voice beside me said "Wow! Beautiful place!" The conversation continued with the places to which she had travelled and where she would like to go again. She asked if the woman in some of the photos was my girlfriend and I confirmed this. She talked about her desire to visit the Philippines one day herself. I gave her some advice on where to go if she ever did get to the Philippines.

I introduced myself. She introduced herself too. Her name was Chen Haoyan, which she told me was a boy's name. Her parents, she said, had done little to hide their disappointment that their only child had been a daughter. Being unfamiliar with the naming conventions of her culture, I chose to accept what she said as true. She had, apparently, been to visit her family, after the unhappy occasion of her grandmother's death. She apologised for her earlier tears, saying that she was usually unafraid of air travel, but leaving her family this time had made her unusually anxious. The loss of her grandmother had focused her attention on the mortality of her parents.

Yorkshire felt strange to her. Unable to afford accommodation closer to the university at which she studied, she had taken residence in a relatively small town. She didn't know how she would approach the local community and thought that they didn't know how to approach her either. Apart from a few passing greetings, there had been little interaction. She said she had never felt so lonely before.

I considered her appearance. She was quite tall and slim, conservatively dressed, with her long hair tied back and thick-rimmed glasses completing the image of an archetypal introvert. To the people in her small adopted town in Yorkshire, she probably didn't seem particularly approachable.

Something I had noticed in my work was that those who had tended to lock away their emotions struggled the most through the process of grief. Suddenly, they were confronted with this other, emotional version of themselves. Grief can lead us to examine who we are, and this is especially true when we find ourselves changed by the loss. I wondered whether, had she not suffered a recent loss, Chen Haoyan would have talked to me like she had.

I rarely talk openly about my religious or spiritual beliefs. Such things are hardly welcome in this day and age. I often feel that there is a message, something to be learned, in the things that happen to us. Meeting Chen Haoyan felt like one of those moments. After arriving in Manchester, waiting for my train, I saw her and her friend at the station. They walked past me, either not noticing me or pretending not to notice me. That felt like another message - another lesson to be learned.

Two months later, the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK. I didn't know if or when I would see my girlfriend again. Within the space of a few months, it became clear that I would never see her again. The daily video calls became increasingly one-sided, with her giving one word replies to most of what I said. Carrying the conversation wasn't an easy task for me, and she knew it. Eventually, text communication largely replaced video calls, depriving us of context for each other's words and creating misunderstandings. We had one last video call, in which she said she didn't know if she wanted to speak to me again. At one time, in what seemed like the dim and distant past, she had said that her day didn't seem complete unless she got to talk to me.

The lesson I saw in the breakdown of the relationship was that love was stupid. I could only see a lonely future stretching out before me. The thought scared me, but I had lost hope that it would be any different. Joining an online dating service was my way of challenging God, the universe or fate to prove me wrong. I had been wrong, of course.

On my way back from a recent visit to see my current girlfriend, a series of accidents saw me take a different flight than the one I intended to take. After landing in Manchester, I saw a familiar face in the train station. It wasn't until I sat down on the train, and she sat a few seats behind, that I remembered her name. It was Chen Haoyan. I thought about talking to her, but ultimately chose not to make the approach. A few weeks later, a problem surfaced in my current relationship which threatened to bring it to an end.

As mentioned earlier, my spiritual beliefs include a conviction that there is a guiding hand behind many things that happen, and there is a message or lesson for us to hold on to. I don't know what God, the universe or fate is trying to tell me about Chen Haoyan. I just hope that my lack of awareness doesn't cost me another relationship.

Ego and emotional maturity

Reacting to a video in which a martial artist was testing himself against other martial artists, one person commented that the man in the video was playing "patty cake". The man in the video replied that the commenter had shown by his comment that he had not trained in martial arts. The commenter then went on to repeat his original criticism, adding that others who had been kinder in their responses didn't know as much about fighting as he did.

When I was younger, tact and diplomacy weren't strong points - it was only when I realised this, and worked on correcting it, that my interactions with others improved. The first step, however, was admitting that I was so often the cause of the problem. I didn't lack compassion or empathy, so the root of the problem was a mystery to begin with. After reading psychological, philosophical and spiritual works extensively, and reflecting on what I read, I had the answer - I hadn't learned healthy ways to express anger. The authors of those works have long been forgotten, but I'm grateful to them for so freely sharing their wisdom.

I won't go into great detail about my early years. The main point is that those close to me often pushed me to the point where anyone would probably feel angry. When the anger inevitably surfaced, the same people were quick to say that my anger was inappropriate and I had a problem. It's a story with which many people might be familiar. When those around us give the impression that our anger is unreasonable and maybe a little frightening, we learn to suppress it. Unfortunately, as Freud said, suppressing our feelings only gives them more power and means they will eventually reveal themselves in increasingly unhealthy ways. In terms of anger, there is a "pressure cooker" effect. People who have learned to suppress their anger will reach a point where all that suppressed anger can no longer be contained. The anger all comes out at once, and is not in proportion to the event which apparently provoked the outburst.

We would like to see ourselves as being without fault. As infants, we are unable to survive alone, so we learn that the goodwill and approval of others is necessary. As we get older, the approval of others is not so essential, but we would still like to have friends and maybe romantic partners. As much as is possible, we would like others to have a favourable impression of us. In reality though, we have no control over how others see us. How they see us is usually more about their beliefs, values and attitudes than anything we might do. Usually, but not always.

We are all prone to bias and prejudice. There are people we choose to be close to, and others we keep at a distance. Whether it's conscious or unconscious, we make decisions about what we want and don't want in a friendship or relationship. When things don't work out, however, we have to be honest with ourselves about the role we might have played in the distance that has grown between us and others.

The man who accused a martial artist of playing "patty cake" when he was sparring came across as angry. His comment suggested that he hits his own sparring partners hard. As a martial artist with many years of experience, I know all too well why this is wrong. It further suggests a problem with anger and a feeling that he has something to prove, much as his comments did. Maybe it's easier for me to spot because I've been where he is before.

When we are not in control of our ego, our ego has control over us. We suffer greatly because of this. Rather than having healthy boundaries, we become overly defensive. Things which are not personal attacks against us are perceived as such, and we might even go on the attack against those we unreasonably see as a threat to our sense of who we are. Our suffering leads us to cause the suffering of others. At its most extreme, the ego leads us into narcissism.

Our sense of who we are will not be matched by how others see us. Two things we should not try to control are how others see us and how they see themselves. Winning approval is not a good motivation to do good things. In fact, I've learned to be extremely wary of those who most loudly proclaim their virtue - experience has shown that they usually have the most terrible dark side.

My intention isn't to preach. I'm far from perfect, and that's the point. In accepting and acknowledging our capacity for darkness, we take away much of its power. If we see fault in others while being unaware of our own, then we are helping no one. We can't really alleviate the suffering of others if we have not first dealt with our own.

Changing the rules of engagement

Some years ago, I was in a pub with a friend. He had brought someone else he knew. Let's call this acquaintance Darren to protect his real identity and simply refer to my friend as "my friend".

Darren quickly got onto the subject of how many fights he'd had. He took great pleasure in detailing the many ways he had caused bodily harm to others. He had, in his estimation, knocked a number of people unconscious. As he continued, some of his claims started to sound a little exaggerated, but I chose not to challenge them. His sense of who he was seemed to be linked with his ability to cause bodily harm while keeping himself relatively safe from harm. In that respect, he was far from unique.

I started to wonder whether my friend had told Darren about my involvement with martial arts. In that context, it could have been that he was trying to impress me. He might have believed, quite wrongly, that I would respect someone for their ability to harm others. Maybe he expected that I would join in and tell stories of my own battles. The truth is, if I ever talk about the few times when I've found myself in those situations, it's always with the sense that something went horribly wrong: something which should have been avoidable became unavoidable.

My friend excused himself and went to the men's room. He had been affirming Darren's claims, but I got the impression that he was tired of doing this. It was at this point that I was asked whether I had been in many fights.

"Not for a long time. That's not the way I do things now."

Hearing this, he became silent for a moment. He then agreed that fighting wasn't the best way to settle things. What he said next lent an air of truth to the claims he had made earlier.

"I wish I could stop."

The truth is, hearing everything he had said, I knew that the majority of the fights he'd had were about his ego or that of someone else. His sense of self was indeed linked to his ability to cause harm, with how "tough" he was. By asking about my own experience, he was inviting me to compete with him and probably to eventually bow to his greater perceived skill. He wanted me to compete with him on his terms, or give such a contest up as a lost cause.

What I did was to refuse to compete with him on his terms. It was interesting that, in the absence of an audience, he instead agreed to my terms.

We shouldn't allow others to dictate what is valuable to us, or on what terms they will find us acceptable. Friendships and other relationships are built on compromise, and on accepting the things in which no compromise can be found. I don't care about being "tough". In fact, my work has fundamentally changed my understanding of the nature of toughness. There's nothing particularly difficult about giving in to our anger. I value being reasonable far more highly.

I do wish someone had taken a picture of the expression on my friend's face, when he returned from the men's room and noticed how the atmosphere had changed.