Catharsis - Renewal and Restoration.

Catharsis - Renewal and Restoration... before you can leave the past behind, you need to acknowledge it, accept it for what it is, or was, then create space in your mind to move on!

When people ask me about my life, I usually just shrug my shoulders and say... "Naaah, nothing special, same old boring stuff as everyone else really!" Which is basically true, if you grew up with, or were related to, the general crowd I was surrounded by for most of my life.

School was pretty much non-eventful back in the sixties. Grew up in a very working class area of Manchester. I remember a teacher explaining to me once, why we (the pupils) were never taken anywhere outside of school, for school trips etc and her answer was that we lived in a very deprived area and the school did not receive enough funds to organise such trips.

I also remember an Author (science fiction, can't remember his name), visited our school and I was quite excited, because I loved to read and had read one of his books. 

Near the end of his talk, he started talking about "slum areas of Manchester" and went on to describe how the inhabitants of these slums lived... well, it was very interesting, because had he done his home-work, he would have realized that most of the kids listening to him at that time, lived exactly as he had described! 

SHOCK. HORROR, that was the first time I realized how poor we were... and that I lived in what he described as a "SLUM". I think the reason I can not remember his name or his book, is because I just blanked it out of my mind. I hated him, his attitude and his descriptions of everything and everyone I had ever known. I destroyed his book!!

In later years, after leaving school aged 15, working in manufacturing/factory work, the money was good for a young lad, but I drifted into self-destructive friendships, getting involved in very heavy drinking and for a couple of years drugs too. Nothing too hard core, no needles involved, but still, not very good for your health.

I put on lots of weight, lived on kebabs and beer, suffered drunken blackouts, experienced all kinds of anxiety and panic attacks. I remember going to the Doctors once, because I knew I needed help and couldn't get it from the people and family that surrounded me, but when the Doctor asked me how much alcohol I drank... I started to say "about ten pints..." he interrupted and said "What a week? You are nearly an alcoholic!!" ... but had he let me finish, I was about to say "Per Day!". 

He gave me one Valium, that is one tablet, not one bottle, for the panic attacks and told me to cut down on the drinking. That was the end of the "Help" I was looking for.  

It took several more years of kebabs and beer before I started trying again to help myself. So I joined the Brahma Kumaris to learn meditation. It helped quite a lot to ease the anxiety I was still suffering from, but it did nothing to help with my main problem... the drink.

I came to realize, after a few lessons in meditation and reading books on self-realization etc, that the alcohol was not actually my big problem!

I realized that my biggest problem was the crowd of people that surrounded me. They all had heavy drinking problems and heavy drinkers like to have company... buying rounds in a pub is a very sociable past-time.

So to cut a very long story short by a few years, I managed to escape the bad influences that were keeping me down. The alcohol intake greatly reduced, in fact, these days I probably drink less than ten pints of beer per month, however, I do tend to drink far too much Tea... but I am told Tea is good for you!

I still work full time in a "normal job" but I love the internet, social media etc, blogging, making video's etc, etc.

Life is good, I feel healthy, happy and generally contented with the way things are. My experiences have been interesting to look back on as memories, but I wouldn't want to go back and re-live them for all the Tea in china!

I have left out quite a lot involving Hell's Angels, drink driving, hob-nailed boots, knives and chains in my teenage years. I might use them for some future story!

One last thought... Overcoming poverty in life is one thing, but overcoming poverty of the mind is quite another. To quote William Shakespeare "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt!"