LOCKDOWN MANUAL
The Secret of Doing Easy Time
by
Dorset Campbell-Ross
Page 2 Introduction
Page 3 What is Hard Time and Easy Time?
Page 7 Don’t Push the River
Page 10 Seeing the Cup Half Full
Page 12 What Am I Going to Do First? and Improving Relationships, Communication and Connection
Page 15 Reconcilliation and Healing Past Trauma
Page 22 Health
Page 26 Play, Fun and Creativity
Page 27 Reviewing my Work Choices
Page 29 Contributing and Making a Difference and Creating a Daily Routine
Page 30 Gratitude
Author: Dorset Campbell-Ross
Centre for Nonviolent Communication Trainer, Mediator and Coach
Editors: Dr Claire Scobie, Tamsen Kidd, Nicola Scotcher, Merran Morgan, Diane Nance-Kivell
Cartoons: Dr Liz Elliot
Introduction
I am writing this manual because I have a lot of experience in being locked down.
I learned survival lessons the hard way — by trial and error — and there were a lot of errors. You don’t have to learn it all from scratch as I did. Take my hand and let me show you an easier way.
I was in prison for three and half years. Before that, I spent nine years in boarding schools at a time when beating a nine-year-old with a cane on the behind was not only permitted, but encouraged by well-meaning parents who thought it would turn their little boy into a ‘real man’ — and prepare him for the rigours of adult life.
I not only survived being in prison for forty months, but I actually flourished. I turned my life around and it has gone from strength to strength ever since. I want to share what I learned because I think it will help if you are finding it tough to do lockdown.
Back in prison, all those years ago, I have a vivid memory. It was not long after I’d arrived. As I looked around me at about a thousand fellow inmates, I saw that some had found the secret of doing Easy Time. They were the ones who were smiling. The rest were doing Hard Time. They were the ones scowling.
What is Hard Time vs. Easy Time?
• Hard Time is when you think your life is on hold until you get out.
• Hard Time is when you struggle to change that which you cannot change.
• Hard Time is when you try to control people who will not comply — leaving you frustrated because you don’t have the power to enforce your will.
• Hard Time is when you do not accept that some things are simply beyond your control.
HARD TIME = STRESS TIME
Easy Time
• Easy Time is a continuation of your life. Life goes on — even in prison or under lockdown.
• Easy Time is when you greet each day as a day of discovery and adventure.
• Easy Time is an opportunity to learn and grow.
• Easy Time is when you identify and accept what you can’t change, and identify and change what you can — namely, yourself.
• Easy Time is when you are interested in your environment and the people around you, because you are eager to learn more.
• Easy Time is when you carefully pick those places where you wish to put your energy and avoid places where your energy is wasted. This includes what you choose to watch, what you choose to say, and what you choose to do.
EASY TIME = PEACE TIME
I avoided fights in prison by applying the guidelines above and by playing music. Music is the language that crosses all borders, including colour and creed.
I taught guitar, singing, and piano. I was the only white guy in the all black R & B prison band. So I was friends with the African Americans (some of whom belonged to the ‘Bloods’ gang), the Hispanics (some of whom belonged to the ‘Crips’ gang), the whites, and the assorted folks from other countries. This kept me out of trouble. The lesson here is that if you give people what they want, they will warm to you, and you will suffer less conflict.
To move from Hard time to Easy time I followed these core principles, and you can too:
1. Stop fighting what you can’t change, and focus on what you can. Don’t push the river. It is what it is. Accept that you are powerless to change the external reality of the lockdown or isolation that has been imposed on you. Accept it. Trust in the mystery of the unknown. Trust that everything is going to turn out for the best, even if it doesn’t seem like it in this moment.
2. ALWAYS see your cup as half full, rather than half empty. During this time of isolation, if you are less busy working, you have more time for meditation, connection, health, creativity, learning, service and future planning. Make these your priorities.
3. Change yourself — it’s the only thing you can. Grab this opportunity with both hands. You may never again have so much time to do this. Use everything that happens as an opportunity to grow in awareness. Focus on what you are feeling and needing. Celebrate your life!
4. Improve your CONNECTION skills through communication, empathy, anger management, intimacy, vulnerability, expressing yourself honestly, actively listening, putting yourself in another person’s shoes, and learn how to ask for clarity and understanding. Learn to listen for the shame, guilt, sadness and fear that lie beneath frustration, anger and blame — both in you and in others. Practice these skills daily. This will make your time in isolation well spent. It will give you a gift that will last a lifetime.
5. Improve your health. Use regular movement to exercise your body.. If you can, go for a walk or a run. If possible, consider taking an online class in yoga, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), pilates, dance whatever you enjoy. Be conscious of what you eat. Notice that eating some foods makes you tired. Only choose food that gives you energy. Take baby steps at first so you can handle the changes with fun and ease, and then build on them.
6. Be creative. Have fun experimenting with new ideas, new materials, sound and music, writing, painting, cooking, sewing and gardening.
7. Consider new ways of making a living that are more rewarding all round.
8. Decide what elements you want to include in your day, and create a regular daily do-able routine that includes all of them.
If you’re doing Hard Time in COVID-19 lockdown, this could be you……
I’m thinking about how the money is just running out the door like a flooding river — spend, spend, spend — and nothing’s coming in.
I’m worried, no, wait a minute, I’m terrified. What will we do when the money runs out? We can’t just keep shopping on the credit card. The day will come when they say — NO MORE! What then?
I’m angry. It’s unfair. Why me? Why must I suffer? Do I really have to stay locked up?
Why do I have to sit here listening to the incessant complaining of my partner and my kids — which is driving me crazy! When is it going to end? They say it could go on for months! How are we supposed to home-shool and work from home at the same time?
Every day it gets worse. I can’t see my friends. I can’t hug anybody or get close to anybody.
I don’t deserve this. I didn’t do anything wrong! I want my freedom back! I want to go out now! I want to go when it pleases me and where it pleases me! I want to see my friends!
This is like being a teenager again! You want to go out late and party with your friends, and your parents say no you can’t, you have to stay home and it’s for your own good. They say it’s for your health. It’s for your safety. Except now it’s not my parents, it’s the government saying exactly the same thing. It’s driving me nuts! I can’t go to work. I can’t make money. I can’t go on holiday. I can’t go to a party. There aren’t any parties. I can’t go out to dinner — all the restaurants are closed. This is f***ed!
And when I try to talk about it to my family, all they can say is that it’s worse for them. ‘What about me?’, they say, ‘You only think about yourself’. ‘I’M BORED!’, slamming the door, as they disappear into their room, ignoring me as if I didn’t exist. Talk about being ego centric! And then I say, ‘It’s all about you isn’t it? Nobody else matters. It’s all about you.’
And we have another fight. I’m bored, cranky, depressed, broke and disconnected.
Once again, I feel guilty. I’m awash with shame. I wish I hadn’t raised my voice. I wish I hadn’t called them names. I wish I hadn’t been sarcastic. I wish I hadn’t lost my temper. I feel so sorry.
I’m sad and depressed. I’m telling myself over and over that I screwed up again. I hate myself. I’m such an idiot. I’ve hurt the one I love again. I can’t seem to change no matter how hard I try. No wonder nobody can love me for long. I always end up pushing them away. What is wrong with me?I lament.
I can’t talk to anyone so I go to bed. It doesn’t help. My head is still spinning, and I’m getting a headache. I take some medication and fall asleep.
The next day I reflect on what was going on for me when I lost my temper.
I felt overwhelmed and worried about this situation and especially our financial future. I was hurting. I was crying for help. But my loved ones couldn’t hear me because I was shouting at them, and not conveying to them what was really bothering me.
And then they shouted back. Crying for help too. We were like two kids having a temper tantrum, just winding each other up.
In the end we achieved nothing. We felt exhausted and frustrated, and didn’t want to be around each other.
One step closer to divorce. One step closer to violence. One step closer to death from sickness caused by stress and tension.
HELP! I’M IN PRISON!
If you relate in any way to the person above you may be feeling desperate. And you’re certainly doing Hard Time. ‘Doing it tough’.
And yes, it is tough. You had no preparation for this. Everything that was normal and secure has become unfamiliar and untrustworthy. You’re maybe feeling anxious, irritable, depressed, or worse.
And I’m guessing you might like some kind of support.
That’s why I’m writing this manual. It’s especially for you. If you can get one thing that will make your life a bit easier out of this book, then it has been worth writing.
You may find some of it a bit overwhelming because there are so many suggestions here. This is because I’m also writing it for the folks who are not doing it as tough as you are. They’re still struggling, just less so.
If you are finding lockdown really hard because you have no time to manage home schooling, cleaning, washing, earning, studying, and getting some exercise, just skim through and find one thing you can do that will help, and commit to doing that. Every day. Then, share it with your friends. They might find it helpful too!
Transforming Hard Time into Easy Time
When I first went to prison. I was doing Hard Time. I was fighting the system every inch of the way, which I had been doing since I got the prize for being the naughtiest boy in every one of the eight schools I attended as a boy.
These days, thankfully, I’m no longer do Hard Time!
These days I’m a certified Nonviolent Communication (NVC) trainer, mediator and coach, living on the east coast of Australia. But back in the eighties, I had first hand experience of what prison looked, felt, and smelt like. I spent two and a half years in Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution, California, and another year in a federal immigration prison in Louisiana. I was the victim of a sting operation during the American ‘War on Drugs’. I was working as a musician in California when I was asked to obtain some LSD for a friend of a friend, who turned out to be working for the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Going to prison can take you on a steep learning curve. Finding the balance between taking care of yourself and getting along with fellow inmates and prison guards required me to learn some exacting survival skills, and today I want to share them with you.
I hope they’ll serve you as well as they have served me, and continue to serve me today.
DON’T PUSH THE RIVER — GO WITH THE FLOW — WHAT WE RESIST PERSISTS
So what does lockdown or prison teach us if we are willing to learn from it?
For me, in general, it was, SLOW DOWN! In some areas of my life, STOP!
Suddenely, in prison or in lockdown, you have time to reflect, self empathise and see if you can get some insight into what is going on in your life.
In prison, you have less power than you do on the outside. A guard can intimidate you and hit you. There is nothing you can do about it. There is an old joke that when you enter a prison you leave your rights at the door.
In prison I learned that I could not change my circumstances by changing others. I could only change myself. Here’s a story that demonstrates this:
I was working in the prison kitchens. I started work every morning at 4:00 am. My job was to make the porridge, eggs and bacon for one thousand inmates. It all had to be ready by 7:30 am. The perk for working in the kitchens was that you had access to food that others didn’t have access to.
Everyone who worked in the kitchens helped themselves to some extra food now and again and smuggled it out of the kitchen back to their cells. They could trade it for items procured by inmates from other parts of the institution. One day I decided to steal a watermelon. I tried to hide it under my jacket, and as I left the kitchen, a guard caught me in the act. My punishment was to stay behind after everyone had eaten their evening meal, to clean the floor for an hour, every evening, for a month.
I began my punishment after dinner. The guard appointed to oversee my duties was an overweight local African American, who had been rejected when he applied to join the police force. He had become a prison guard instead. I could see he enjoyed telling me to lie down on my stomach and clean up the brown congealed milk that had been sitting for months under the milk dispenser. He relished telling me to clean the corners of the dining room with a rag because the mop didn’t get them clean enough.
“You missed a bit, Campbell” was his favourite line.
He enjoyed winding me up, and I was a sucker for it.
He was riding me constantly, and by the third day I was close to exploding. I was so desperate, it was all I could do to stop myself from hitting him. The only thing that did stop me was knowing that if I hit him I would receive solitary confinement and an extension to my sentence of at least a year.
Next morning I went to work in the kitchen as usual, and I went to see the head cook. He was an inmate of Italian descent, from Colorado, completing his seven-year sentence for dealing cocaine. I told him my story and that I was desperate for help.
“This guy is driving me crazy! What can I do?” I asked.
“You have to kill him with kindness,” he replied.
“What do you mean?” I responded.
“I mean, you need to give him more than he asks for. When you are asked to clean the floor, you need to clean it as if it was your greatest work of art. Make it as perfect as possible. Don’t be satisfied with a half-assed job. Make it better than perfect. Then see what happens.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
After dinner, I went again to the dining room to do my punishment. I started sweeping the room. Then I mopped it. I went around all the edges of the room with a cloth. I wiped every corner clean with my rag. I polished the door handles. Then, for the second time, I took my metal scrubby and cleaned away the congealed milk under the milk dispenser.
After an hour the guard came and said, “Ok Campbell, that’s it.”
“Wait a minute boss,” I replied, “I missed a bit over here!”
I ran to a corner to clean up the little bit of food on the floor.
When I turned around, he was looking at me, confused.
Next day, after dinner, he was waiting for me, and pointed out some special jobs he wanted completed. He was looking forward to seeing me bridle, but he was disappointed. I jumped into my work with enthusiasm, and made sure that all the jobs were done perfectly. I cleaned that floor till I could see my face in it.
At the end of an hour, the guard told me I could leave. Once again I said, “Hang on, I just want to do a little bit more over here.”
He glanced at his watch, then at me, surprised.
The next day I decided to yet again make that floor as clean as it could be. To do as good a job as I could possibly do.
At the end of my hour, the guard came to me and said, “Ok Campbell, you can go home now and don’t come back tomorrow. I’m going to let you off the rest of the month.”
So I completed only six days of punishment instead of the set thirty. All because I did not resist. When we resist something we cannot change, the pain persists.
By not resisting, I took away the guard’s power over me. He was frustrated. It was as if he was trying to hit me, but his punches were hitting thin air and not connecting. I had stepped out of the way of the train barrelling towards me, and so avoided harm.
“Don’t push the river” is a core martial arts principle. It means to step out of the path of the energy coming towards you, allow it to flow by like water. If you do this, it can’t knock you over, and so it is with all adversity.
This principle is aligned with an idea found in many spiritual writings: “Give more, and more will be given to you.”
In the year before going to prison, I was on bail awaiting my jail sentence. My mind was going crazy imagining the awful times ahead of me in prison. I only stayed sane by finding a place where I could safely express my feelings. I went to the twelve step meetings of ACoA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) and CoDA (Codependents Anonymous). I needed help, so I went to about five meetings a week. I found solace and wisdom in this Serenity prayer that I heard there.
The prayer is addressed to whatever you believe to be your Higher Power.
To me, it seems very appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in right now.
God, Grant me the Serenity
To Accept the things I cannot change
The Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference
For more info click here.
SEEING THE CUP HALF FULL
“What has this got to do with me going crazy under lockdown?” you ask.
It’s that old chestnut. Are you looking at your cup half empty, or half full?
Right now, you are in your home prison, in lockdown.
Are you doing Hard Time because you are resisting? If you’re in pain the answer is “yes”.
What we resist, persists.
● Are you focusing on all the bad things, all the negatives, the things you can’t do?
● Are you lamenting all the things that you miss?
● Does it feel like your life has stopped, and won’t start again until this lockdown is over?
That’s looking at the cup half empty.
Or are you going with the flow, and continuing to learn, create, evolve and thrive, doing Easy Time?
That’s looking at the cup half-full.
If you want to switch to doing EASY time, here’s a little exercise to get you started.
Write down answers to the following questions:
• What can you find that is good about the situation you find yourself in?
• How can you use it to your advantage?
• What can you learn from being in this situation?
• What new skill can you learn today?
• What new way of earning a living can you research today? Maybe something online, so you can work from anywhere?
• What kind of exercise can you adopt to get more healthy? When are you going to do it?
• What new diet can you experiment with to help you feel really good about yourself? How about looking at the Keto diet and/or Intermittent Fasting?
• Are you willing to practice calming your mind daily with meditation?
• Are you willing to write something creative?
• Are you willing to learn a new instrument?
• Are you willing to paint a picture, and share it online with others doing the same?
• Are you willing to go out and appreciate nature and clean fresh air a little bit more?
• Are you willing to declutter your home, and get rid of things you no longer need?
• Are you willing to deep clean your home to change the atmosphere?
• Are you willing to love yourself, your partner, your parents and your children, just a little bit more, by making specific times to connect with love and care?
There’s a lot there to ponder.
We can’t do everything all at once.
So we need to prioritise.
WHAT AM I GOING TO DO FIRST?
Let’s suppose that you have now decided to change your way of being and instead to go with the flow.
You are choosing to look at the cup half full, and see the potential benefits of being in lockdown.
What is the most important — absolutely the best way — you could use this time right now?
Where do you want to focus your energy?
We can divide our lives into five categories:
◆ RELATIONSHIPS
◆ HEALTH and DIET
◆ PLAY and CREATIVITY
◆ WORK and LEARNING
◆ CONTRIBUTING and SERVICE
Suppose you spent a part of each day — say just twenty minutes on each topic — focused on improving yourself in these five areas. How would things look different in your life in six months? In a year? In five years?
Alternatively you could make a daily focus on just one, two, three, or four of these categories. It’s important not to beat yourself up, but to experiment with and integrate new practices at a pace that is manageable for you.
IMPROVING RELATIONSHIPS, COMMUNICATION AND CONNECTION — WITH OTHERS AND MYSELF
Four things you can do to Work on Yourself:
1. How could you love yourself just a bit more?
Give yourself the gift of something really nurturing.
Learn self-empathy and self-compassion here, here and here.
2. Come to terms with your feelings AND your universal needs, and learn which feelings your needs are attached to. (Feelings list here, Needs list here).
Feelings
What would it take to feel more at ease talking about my anger, pain, jealousy, envy, guilt, shame, sadness and fear? (A more extensive list of feelings can be found here).
It takes practice. Learn by taking slow baby steps in the direction of trust. Find someone who totally accepts you the way you are, and who is available to simply listen and give you their full attention. Be aware you are beginning to share your intimate inner self. Find out if your trust is reciprocated before going too deep and revealing more of yourself than you are comfortable with.
Explore your feelings: Where do they come from? What are they telling you?
Learn how to express them in a way that does not alienate people, but allows you to be real and to be seen.
Learn to ask for things in a way that does not make the other person wrong.
For instance, a simple “Could you help me?” works better than “Can’t you see I need help here?” which you might say if you are feeling out of sorts. If you’re feeling discombobulated it may help to first give yourself some self-empathy, (more info can be found here and here).
Needs
Everybody needs food, warmth, shelter, love, touch, respect, understanding, clarity, and connection, to name but a few. (A full list of needs can be found here).
These are universal needs that we all share. They are what makes us human and they are the root of our humanity. Everyone is trying to meet their needs in the best way they can, given their circumstance and conditioning, including you.
Our universal human needs are attached to our feelings.
When we feel good, it’s because our needs are being met; when we feel bad, it’s because our needs are not being met.
A feeling is like a flag going up to tell you whether to celebrate a need being met, or grieve a need not being met.
Make a practice of noticing what needs are attached to your feelings as they arise though the day.
What needs are most important to you right now?
3. Do your HOME work.
Examine your childhood and heal the wounds of trauma that influence your relationships daily. Look at your parents’ influence and the resulting patterns in your life, rules imposed on you and roles you adopted as coping mechanisms, transference and projection (see below for more info on these). Healing past trauma leads to healing the present relationship. (More info… scroll down).
4. Come to terms with Death and Dying.
Over 200,000 people have now died from the COVID-19 virus. You may know someone who has died, or someone who knows someone. We should be able to talk as freely about death as birth. It is a natural life process.
Sadly, it has become taboo. When someone is dying there is always an uncomfortable and awkward silence when it comes to telling the loved ones. Everyone looks embarrassed. No one can come out and say it. Even the word death is taboo in itself. Instead we will say he or she “passed”, “passed over”, “left this world” or “went to heaven”.
We hide death from our children as though it is something to be embarrassed about, rather than something to be honoured — natural and sacred like life itself.
This pandemic is a chance to change the way we view and talk about death. Don’t avoid it. Grab this opportunity and bring death out of the closet. After all, hiding it does not make it go away.
To learn more read “Die Wise” by Stephen Jenkinson (more info here).
Four things you can do to Improve your Relationships
1. Learn to de-escalate and manage anger — my own and others (more info here).
2. Become at ease with hearing the uncomfortable feelings of others — their anger, pain, jealousy, envy, guilt, shame, sadness and fear — so you don’t feel the overwhelming need to fix them, change them, or stop them from sharing what is real for them.
3. Connect with others in a kind and caring way — with empathy, the way I want others to connect with me, especially when I feel uncomfortable.
4. Learn how to mediate conflicts between others; between yourself and others; and inner conflicts you have with yourself; so that the result is win-win outcomes for everyone (more info here).
To Improve Family Relationships all round:
• Have a daily meeting where you connect together. In this meeting, each person gets to speak for 5 minutes, while the others listen, giving them their full respect and attention. This allows any new anxieties, fears, frustrations, or sadness that is arising in any member of the family to be expressed, heard, and addressed. Here are some guidelines:
1. Nobody else speaks or interrupts when someone is talking. When the first person speaking is finished, they say “I’m done”.
2. Use “I” statements. Always take responsibility for your feelings. Say “I feel…” rather than “He (or she) makes me feel so…”
3. If there are just two or three of you, you can try the 5:2:1 formula, in which you speak for 5 minutes, then your partner reflects back what you said for 2 minutes, and then you get 1 minute to make a comment on anything that arose for you while receiving the reflection.
• Come to terms with Love. What different people mean when they say “I love you”. Why misunderstandings happen. With your family watch Alain de Botton’s enlightening and entertaining talk on Love, at the Sydney Opera House, on YouTube (here). There’s also the concept of ‘The 5 Love Languages’ that many people find helpful in understanding how we each experience love, and how others experience it too. More info (here.)
• Become more fluent in expressing your feelings and needs. Always communicate feelings using the “I” form. Always say “I feel…”, not “She/he/they make(s) me feel…” , Then follow that with “because I need…” So the whole sentence will read: “I feel … because I need …” (for list of feelings go here and for list of needs go here.)
• Learn about emotional maturity
Read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and/or watch his talk on YouTube here, or the School of Life video here
How to Test Your Emotional Maturity
20 Signs You’re Emotionally Mature
How to Remain Emotionally Mature in a Crisis
• Learn about shame and vulnerability. Watch Brene Brown’s TED talks on shame and vulnerability on YouTube (here and here).
• Learn more about anger, anger management and anger de-escalation (here),(here) and (here).
• Learn to mediate. Help resolve conflicts in your family by learning Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and use it to mediate disputes (here). You can all learn these skills.
• Meditate together — peace of mind helps with living in close proximity to each other. When we close our eyes in silence, and focus on our breath together, we can go beyond the concepts of time and space, isolation and confinement. (For more info go here).
Relationship Dynamics
I was raised by an alcoholic/rage-aholic step-father, and a raving codependent mother. I became a raving codependent myself. I have had a lifelong interest in the dynamics of relationships, and especially in understanding emotions. The most confusing and frightening emotion of all, for me, is ANGER. My own anger and that of others. Where does it come from? Why? What lies under it? How is it that anger takes over so that I can’t control it or myself?
RECONCILLIATION AND HEALING PAST TRAUMA
If we hold resentment in our heart, it will eventually cause us stress, tension, illness and possibly even death. It is therefore essential for your well-being to make peace — to reconcile — with anyone who you have had a conflict with in the past.
In prison I had a lot of time to figure out how I ended up there. I had been rebelling all my life against my parents, my teachers, my government, the elitist education system, the media propaganda, the war propaganda, I knew that. But what was my life trying to tell me? What led me to make the choices I made, that ended up with me being in prison?
Pain. I was in pain for most of my childhood because I did not know how to ask for what I wanted in a way that it would be likely for me to get it. When I rebelled against rules and regulations I did not understand (because I did not get how they were serving anybody), I got into trouble. I was punished regularly but it made no difference at all. In fact, it just made me better at NOT GETTING CAUGHT! Like many of my fellow criminals, this was, to us, the most important lesson we learned at school. I only regret that it did not prepare me for entrapment.
Punishment doesn’t change people. The name given to prisons in the US is a ‘penitentiary,’ where you are supposed to change because you see the error of your ways, or a ‘correctional institution’, which does very little, if anything, to correct behaviour with punishment. It does not make criminals into law abiding citizens.
On the contrary, recidivism stands at 85% in the US. This means that most criminals use the prison as a university of crime where they can network and learn new skills to enhance their trade. When they leave prison they re-offend, and 85% of them eventually get caught again, and return to prison. At best, prisons are warehouses to keep the bad guys off the streets. At worst, they are universities of crime, breeding grounds for ongoing gang feuds and murders, creators of drug addiction and the ongoing consequences of this, and as incubators of rage, depression and suicide.
Cleaning Up The Past Improves your Relationships and Your Health
I did change while I was in prison, but I was one of the very few. I changed because I realised that I had taken the hatred and rage that I had directed towards my alcoholic stepfather, and I had then transferred it onto every new authority figure that appeared in my life, starting with my teachers, and then moving on to the police and the government after I left school. Of course, all of them gave me grief.
So I decided to make peace with my step-father. To have a reconciliation. It took many attempts, and it did not happen at first. I got there by making smaller reconciliations, building up slowly to the big one.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves Can Keep Us Trapped in the Role of the Victim
Like most criminals, I broke the law because I told myself I had no choice. I told myself I couldn’t ever get ahead doing a legal job because I didn’t have any higher education. So I got lousy wages being a labourer until I graduated to becoming a musician. Then I made the same amount of money, but it was far easier work.
Only trouble was, I still lived hand to mouth. I could not make any savings to get out of the rent-paying game. I wanted to buy a house. I needed $10,000 for the deposit on a mortgage. When the offer of a drug deal came along that would make me $10,000, I naively thought that fate, or the universe, just served me up a perfect way to manifest my down payment! NOT!
In prison I realised that “having to be a criminal to make a decent living” was simply a story I told myself, and it was not true.
Drug dealing is like any other business. It involves buying cheap, and selling for a profit. The truth is that I had the business skills to be a criminal, and I could easily apply these skills to making a legal living. When I got out, I started an import-export company that eventually led to me becoming the biggest importer of didgeridoos (an Australian Aboriginal musical instrument that I manufactured from bamboo in Bali) into Europe! And that led to the purchase of my first house.
So you see, healing the past wounds connected to my step-father was massive in changing my life to the better.
Reconcilliation: Transforming an Enemy Image using Empathy
It was a long slow process that took many years, but eventually I was able to transform my enemy image of him using empathy. I put myself in his shoes. He had just gone through the war and lost all his friends, and then came home to live with me and my mum. During that time my mum’s loyalty and allegiance was, above all, to me.
I finally saw how hard his life must have been.
Especially competing with me for my mum’s love.
And this gave me understanding, which in turn gave me relief.
It was the pain of ‘not getting it’ that had made me so angry for so many years. I tried to understand it by labelling him a ‘bully’ or ‘evil’, but this did not do it for me.
I realised he was doing the best he could, given what he received from parents and teachers and peers during his upbringing. His conditioning was such that he was ashamed to talk about his fear or sadness to anyone. He had been told, as I was, that when he was sad, “Big boys don’t cry”, and that if he was afraid of anything, he should “Grow up, and stop acting like a baby”.
Not great advice for someone who for years went out on bombing missions night after night, and who lost some of his closest friends, on those same missions. The condoned coping mechanism in those war days was to drink alcohol until you knocked yourself out and could go to sleep.
And yet the advice to hide your fear and sadness was taught by well-meaning parents and teachers alike, because they thought that it would help a young man find a good wife. Women were conditioned to want a man who could be a good provider and protector. A good protector does not take time to feel their feelings of sadness and fear when confronted by danger. They must be ready for immediate action. So feelings must be repressed or suppressed.
I learned well and by eighteen I was able to suppress my feelings of fear and sadness. I also lost the ability to have a decent belly laugh. It seems if you suppress some of your feelings, it affects how you express all of them. Ultimately I became feeling-less, a man who would make a perfect soldier — able to kill with no conscience. But I also became deadly serious, and rather boring. I simply was not fully alive. I was half dead. In truth, I did not like myself.
Over time, I learned that feelings demand attention. When I ignored them, I suffered more.
I also learned that honest vulnerability is attractive. People do not want to be emotional surrogates for others who are emotionally frozen.
So reconciliation is big for me. Nowadays, I clean up as I go. I make amends as soon I recognise where I have made a mistake in behaving in a way that I regret afterwards.
And here is my favourite story of reconciliation. I had a conflict with a family member that took a year to resolve.
My reconciliation story
In the late 90s I had a painful conflict with the sister of my then partner. To protect their privacy I have changed the name of my partner to Mary, and her sister’s name to Victoria.
Mary had cancer, and I was her sole carer for eight months. One day Mary and I had a painful argument, and consequently Mary decided to move out. She did this with the help of her sister Victoria.
Mary died two weeks later.
Victoria did not invite me to the funeral. She said I was no longer a member of the family, because Mary had left me.
I was extremely angry.
The funeral happened. I didn’t go. I never go where I’m not welcome.
A year later I was working in Scotland, at the Findhorn Foundation, as a workshop leader. It was an annual gig, and every year I would treat myself to a holiday in Scotland after the workshop.
That year I decided to visit the Hebrides. Coming from Findhorn, I drove right by Victoria’s house on the outskirts of Inverness, anger still churning in my stomach. I took the ferry from Oban and travelled through Harris and Lewis to the island of Bernaray, an ornithologist’s paradise. The whole island is a bird sanctuary. There are several crofts that have been converted into youth hostels. I stayed in one of these, and the next morning decided to circumnavigate the island on foot.
I walked to the western shore of the island. There was a long white beach that I estimated to be 5 or 6 miles long. It was a sunny and very windy day.
As I walked along the beach my mind was spinning with all the anger and bitterness which was pointed directly at Victoria.
“How could she?” I muttered to myself. “How could she not even invite me to the funeral after I cared for her sister for eight months day and night, while she was sitting in Scotland doing nothing? How dare she!” It went on and on and on.
After about half an hour of walking I stopped. I looked around me and saw everything as if for the first time. My anger had finally dissipated and there was no more. Now I saw the sunshine and the blue sky. I felt the wind. I heard the waves crashing on the shore. The strong wind blowing against me felt so cleansing. Maybe the place had magical properties, I mused to myself.
I continued to walk feeling a lot lighter, no longer obsessing about Mary, Victoria, and the funeral.
At the end of the beach I took the route back to the east side of the island and made my way down to the little harbour. There stood the one and only red public telephone box on the island. I had an answering machine at home that I could call from anywhere and it would relay any messages that were waiting for me. I called home. There was one message. It was from Victoria.
“Call me,” she said. So I did.
“Hello — you asked me to call you.” I said.
“Yes, thanks for getting back to me. Where are you?” she asked.
“Bernaray.”
“What are you doing there?” she asked abruptly.
I tensed. Was I doing something wrong? “I’m on holiday. Just having a little time off.”
“Oh,” she paused. “I’m sorry. I guess I was a bit sharp there. You see, Bernaray is a very special place for me. It’s like a holy place,” she continued. “Every year I go there and I go to the beach on the western side, and I walk along it. The wind is so strong, well, it just seems to blow all my troubles away. It’s the most amazing thing.”
“Victoria, you won’t believe this, but that is exactly what just happened to me, on the same beach.”
“I’m not at all surprised, it’s a very special place. But I wanted to talk to you about Mary’s passing. I have come to realise that when I last saw you I was very angry about Mary’s death, and I desperately wanted someone to blame. So I blamed you. You were my scapegoat. I know you’re not responsible for Mary’s death. I’m really sorry, Dorset.”
Standing in silence, I felt a sensation of relief flowing over me.
I felt grateful that she had reached out to me and made the first move to reconnect. I was touched by her apology. I realised that I mattered to her. I finally understood that she actually cared about me.
She then told me I was always welcome to visit anytime I was passing. I told her I would stay in touch.
I sniffed and wiped away my tears of relief as I put the phone back in its cradle.
Reconciliation will heal you AND your relationship with another. They do not have to be there for you to do it.
Healing Past Trauma
If you want to improve the communication in your relationships, you might want to review your childhood and its impact on your life as an adult.
You might want to look at what happened ‘back there’.
I was sent to boarding school at nine years old. I lost my only source of love in the world — my mother. I lost everything that was familiar — everything I had grown up with. My home, my dog, the cat, the garden, my friends and my parents’ friends.
Like most of the other boys in my dormitory, I cried myself to sleep at night.
Over time I learned that the pain I felt was called abandonment and rejection.
I carried resentment in my heart twoards my mother because I could not understand why she had sent me away.
When I was twenty three I fell in head over heels in love with the gypsy woman of my dreams. At first I could only see what was right with her. She seemed to be perfect in every way. Then, after 3 months, I sarted to see things I didn’t like. I made her wrong for being who she was. I criticised her so much she eventually left me.
And then I felt the pain of rejection and abandonment again.
I could not figure out why it was so painful.
I repeated this pattern. I made myself so obectionable I was abndoned again, and again, and again.
I finally figured out that I needed to forgive my mother for sending me away at nine years old, to stop repeating the cycle. I empathised with my mother, and thought I had found healing and resolution at last.
However, healing can be an ongoing process. I recently discovered I still have work to be done in this area.
Are you aware of any repeating patterns in your life?
Look for their source in the times of trauma and pain in your past. There are wounds there longing to be healed. (For more info go here).
Why are you repeating these old patterns?
Attachment Theory can be a helpful way to gain insight into how our earliest relationship (‘attachment’) style with parents or caregivers sets deep relationship patterns in place. Unless we become conscious of this early imprint, we will keep repeating behaviours that harm our adult relationships. (To learn more, go here).
How to Resolve Past or Present Issues
The following exercise offers other ways to explore how to resolve past or present issues. Write down the three most important relationships you’ve had in your life. Who were they with?
Under each name, write how the relationship began, paying attention to who initiated the relationship.
Was it you, or was it them?
Continue with how the relationship ended?
Who initiated the end?
Under this, write what you most liked about each of these three people?
And then, what you most disliked about these three people.
Having done this, now repeat the same exercise using your parents. Of course you do not need to say how the relationship began or ended, but please do write what you most liked about each of your two parents, and what you most disliked — their positive and negative traits.
Notice if there’s any correlation between these answers and the three most significant relationships in your life. Can you see a pattern emerge? If you do, it may give you some insight as to the cause of ongoing conflicts in your intimate relationships, and offer ways to resolve them.
How to Recognise Transference and Projection in Relationships
This exercise can shed light on the psychological concepts of transference and projection.
Transference is when we transfer our feelings and emotions about a person in the past on to the person we are addressing in the present.
Projection is when we accuse someone of having the undesirable feelings and emotions that we ourselves are having, and we project OUR feelings onto them.
We fall in love with people who feel FAMILIAR. What does that mean? Familiar means ‘like the family’.
We fall in love with people who remind us of our family.
If you had a volatile family that fought a lot, where some members were hit or beaten, where shouting and screaming were considered quite normal and okay, then you will unconsciously fall in love with someone who reminds you of those familiar times — someone who also shouts and screams — because that is the only kind of love you ever knew. You will feel as if he or she is the right person when you have those same feelings of love that you had as a child. After all, that was where we all learned about love, wasn’t it?
Resolving Unfinished Business from Childhood
When we have unfinished business from childhood, unresolved trauma, and/or unresolved conflicts, we will choose a partner who is best suited to help us resolve that conflict in our adult life. We transfer our unresolved relationship with our caregiver, onto our new relationship with our partner.
Unresolved grievances from our childhood will be projected onto our present partner.
If we are unconscious that we are doing this, it can be cause for a very painful relationship.
If we were abused, rejected, or abandoned as a child, the trauma we experienced at that time yearns for understanding and resolution. We may well choose a partner who will abuse, abandon or reject us, or cause similar pain to that which we experienced as a child, so we can heal the wound and resolve the conflict within us.
You can find out more by reading “Getting the Love You Want — a Guide for Couples” by Harville Hnendrix.
Now we’ve done some work on our inner world, let’s do something for our physical body.
HEALTH
Mental Health — the Mind
My parents thought you had to be crazy to see a psychologist or a counsellor. If people thought you were crazy, you were not normal, and you felt ashamed.
Why does someone think you are crazy?
Because they don’t understand you. To be understood takes time. It helps to first understand yourself, so you can be clearer in expressing yourself.
Are you suffering from any sort of depression, anxiety or panic attacks?
If you want to be heard by another person who stays connected, who cares about you, makes you know that you matter, who really listens and gives you their full attention, so that you come up with your own solutions to your own problems — you want some empathy.
Empathy is available for free, or you can pay professionals who offer empathy as part of their mental health practice.
Talking to someone you trust can help.
The stigma and the fear of shame still remains for some of us.
If this is you, please know you are not alone.
What you are going through IS normal for thousands of others too. There is a way through, and you must make the first baby step by reaching out for help.
For help in Australia call:
Lifeline: 13 11 14
https://www.lifeline.org.au/
Suicide Callback Service: 1300 659 467
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800
For more information go to:
Black Dog: https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/clinical-resources
Physical Health — the Body
When I first went to prison I was billeted in a dormitory that was built to house twenty men. Thanks to the ‘War on Drugs’, there was a huge influx of criminals into US prisons at that time. Like all of them, my prison was overcrowded, and my dormitory now had fifty snoring, belching, farting men.
I was assigned to a top bunk and the guy below me had some interesting habits. He did not undress at night. He lay on top of the neatly made bed, fully clothed, smoking cigarettes all night long.
I was not bothered by his clothing habits, but waking up and finding myself in a cloud of cigarette smoke was difficult for me. I was not happy.
Fortunately, I eventually got a transfer to another room.
When I changed my mindset from doing Hard time to Easy time, and started seeing what I could get out of the experience. I decided to get more healthy. We had an oval 440 yards running track in the prison. I started walking around it ten times every day. I also worked out on the weight pile three times a week, and did yoga sporadically.
The habits that I learned then, continue to support me today, during this present lockdown.
Exercise
Make a regular time everyday to do some exercise. Creating a routine, or daily rhythm, can be a great way to support yourself.
If you can go outside for some part of the day, try running, walking, swimming, biking or playing frisbee.
If you are not able to leave your house, try doing an internet class:
e.g.
Yoga,
Breathing Exercises (Wim Hoff)
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT),
Pilates
Dance
Dyad Inquiry Meditation
Self Compassion Meditation
30 min Workout for Seniors
Or you could do push ups, crunches, sit ups and pull ups. Get those abs that you’ve been longing for all of your life! (Go here).
Food/Diet
● If you are overweight, try a more healthy diet that will help you lose weight. Stop eating sweet foods. Cut out sugar, sweet soda drinks, chocolates, sweets, honey, fruit juice, beer and wine. Instead , fill up with as many fresh vegetables as possible — especially big salads. Start cooking more. Quit buying junk food. Experiment with new recipes. Try making your own bread and/or yoghurt. The internet is inundated with cooking shows and recipes.
● Look up the Keto diet and Intermittent Fasting (eating 8 hrs/day, fasting 16hrs/day.) They worked for me. They also have the by-product of giving you a clear and sharp brain which feels extraordinary — if you’re older, it’s like being in your twenties again. Check out other diets that have the particular health benefits that you seek.
● Consider quitting any habit that you know is unhealthy, (e.g. smoking) because you have madea commitment to be there for your family, for life. Addressing an addiction like smoking is a difficult one, and I recommend doing some online research to find the method that works best for you. The 12 step programmes like Alcoholics Anonymous are not for everyone, but they worked for me.
Sleep
Make sure you get a good night’s sleep by:
● Not watching TV right up until you go to bed. Try to have a gap where you wind down for an hour or so before sleep. Reading is good at this time.
● Make sure you get 8 hours/night unless you are elderly and find you really do not need as much sleep as you used to.
● Make sure you have plenty of fresh air to breath while you sleep. Open a window, and add a blanket if it’s cold.
For more info go here
Emotional Health — the Feelings.
Emotional health is about looking after your feelings.
Understanding their purpose and welcoming their input, even when they’re uncomfortable.
Your feelings are connected to your needs. If they’re met, you’re happy, if they’re not, you’re not.
If you feel scared, it’s because you need safety.
If I feel lost, it’s because I need help.
If you need safety, you need to adopt a strategy — an action that you take — that will make you feel more safe.
To meet our needs for safety we can set boundaries — mental, physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual — to protect us. (For more go here)
Spiritual Health — the Higher Self
Lockdown and prison are both excellent places to explore your spirituality.
I have always been interested in what we all have in common amongst our various beliefs. I have resrearched this all over the world and conclude that at the utmost depth of our being we are all yearning for the same thing — love and peace. For me that is the heart of spirtuality, because it lies in the heart of everybody.
Our spiritual journey is our evolution. As we grow in awareness, we take different routes to the same destination — our inner love and peace.
One way of going within is meditation.
In prison I was motivated to explore ways to find peace inside me. Outside there was a lot of chaos. Inside I wanted peace. So I mediated. Just focusing on the breath. Trying to count my breaths up to ten and then repeat, as in the Zen tradition. Failing to reach ten, over and over again, as my monkey mind flew off in every which direction.
Some people like guided mediations. Here’s selection made for different outcomes.
Traditional sillent Vipassana can be learned here
Or Zen: here
What would help you feel more relaxed, peaceful and loved?
PLAY, FUN AND CREATIVITY
Choose to do something playful and/or creative everyday. Do something that gives you a sense of achievement and boosts happiness.
Do any of these appeal?
● Write a song, a poem, a journal, a note to yourself, or the next chapter of your great novel. It doesn’t matter which — just have fun!
● Learn to cook a new dish from an internet recipe.
● Paint a painting, and post it on Facebook for ‘lockdown paintings’ set up by young people in your area or try this site. If you don’t have one yet in your area, set one up and invite others to join!
● Take a daily photograph of something beautiful. Put a caption on it that touches you. You can enter a competition by posting it on the internet.
● Learn to play a new instrument. Learn to play a tune you really love.
● Sing a favourite song. Even better write it too! Record it and post it, especially if you want to connect with others doing the same thing. Check out the Blinding Lights Tik Toc Challenge.
● Dance like nobody’s watching. Or alternatively dance like the whole world is watching! Video your performance and post it on the daily lockdown challenge sites springing up around the world, or strut your moves at an online dance party!
● Go to an ONLINE PARTY!
● Plant an organic veggie garden.
● Play interactive fun games like GROK! with your family to help increase connection, and feelings and needs fluency.
Today we have the internet, so creativity doesn’t have to be the solitary and lonely activity it used to be.
Young children in my home area have set up a Facebook page where they share their paintings and drawings. In your home you see my painting and in mine, I see yours. You could do something similar where you live.
REVIEWING MY WORK CHOICES — DOING WORK THAT YOU LOVE
When I first went to prison, I thought I could only make a large amount of money by doing something criminal. By the end of my sentence, I had decided my belief was no longer true. I had the intelligence to make my living in any way I wished.
I decided to make my living legitimately, mostly to prove that I could, and break the negative cycle that kept me trapped for so long doing something that was not altogether healthy.
This lockdown period of your life can also be an opportunity for you to reassess how you want to make YOUR living now, and after the virus has passed.
You may have lost your job, or simply be worse off, because of COVID-19.
You may be worried about how you’re going to pay the rent next week.
This could be a time to start thinking street smart like an enterprising entrepreneur. How do they think?
They think like a market trader. They look around and see what people need, and figure out how they can supply it for a fee.
It could be anything from making a hygiene mask to making a loaf of bread. Car washing to dog walking. Gardening to house cleaning. Energy saving to space saving. Pickups and deliveries. Selling fruit and vegetables from the garden.
What do people need around you, that you (and your family) can supply, and that you can gain income from?
Alternatively if you are financially okay for the short term, and in the long term you would like to do something different. This is the perfect time to learn a new skill. For example, in NSW, Australia, TAFE are offering courses online right now, for free.
Imagine being self employed, and having a job that you could do from anywhere in the world
You could literally live anywhere — or at least anywhere with a decent internet connection. Imagine a new way to make a living that is such fun it doesn’t feel like work, that you would do even if you weren’t getting paid.
If you do what you love to do, people will love to pay you for it, because they are not just buying the material object, they are buying the energy of the love you put into making it. They can feel it.
Clarifying questions to ask yourself:
1. What do I love doing so much that I would do it even if I wasn’t getting paid?
2. What am I an expert at? What do I know that other people would like to know?
3. How can I help others with my experience of life (my wisdom)?
4. How can I get people to pay for my expertise online?
5. Do I need to write a book, write posts on a Facebook page, set up a website, start a blog, start a vlog, or make a movie?
Research online here. Now is the time.
Join the self-employment revolution.
Notice that folks who make their living online are not phased by the lockdown. Of course their travel is currently restricted, however when the lockdown is over they will be able to go anywhere there is internet connection and continue their work.
If there is more interest in this topic, let me know here and I will write more on it in the future.
What are you going to do when this is all over?
The same old job you used to do, or something new and different?
Home Schooling
Many parents are overwhelmed by trying to teach their young ones the school curriculum, and do their work from home as well.
If you are finding this a challenge, try teaching your kids something you know well, that will help them in their later life, eg. cooking, sewing, mechanics, gardening, or first aid.
You can teach cooking while making a meal for the family — at the same time! This means you do not have to try to split yourself trying to cook one thing, while teaching them another thing, at the same time.
Remember the purpose of all education is not to finish a certain curriculum, but to help prepare our kids for adulthood, in every way.
Enjoy this new kind of connection that you don’t usually have with your kids.
Realise that what you have to offer your kids is infinitely more valuable than what they learn at school because it is the fruit of your life experience. It is your very own wisdom. It is not second knowledge from second hand books.
Look for opportunities to learn from your kids, too.
A few questions to consider:
What can we learn from each other?
What do you know now, that you wish you had known 10 or 20 years ago?
Could it save someone else a lot of stress or heartache to know what you learned?
Why not pass it on? Remember you can’t take it with you.
For example: Tell a story from your life that taught you an important lesson — and tell the life lesson that you learned from the experience.
CONTRIBUTING — MAKING A DIFFERENCE — THE GIFT OF GIVING
If you feel down, contributing to the well-being of another is a wonderful way to lift your spirits, and at the same time make a positive difference to the life of another person.
It can be as simple as calling your neighbour next time you go shopping and asking them if there is anything they need.
Think about those less fortunate than you, and ask yourself how you can help. Just a phone call to check in on a sick, lonely, or elderly person can literally be a life saver!
Think especially of the older folks. This is a particularly scary time for them as they are less resilient than younger folks. They don’t want to go out and risk catching the bug, but they still need supplies. You can help. You can make a difference. And the pay off is that it’ll make you feel good.
You may even find, as I did, that contributing and making a difference is the feeling I enjoy most in the world. I call it the gift of giving and I just want to do it more and more. It is the driving factor behind my writing this manual!
CREATING A ROUTINE
We all need a bit of structure and order in our life because it helps us organise our thoughts and it helps give clarity and understanding.
When you have decided which parts of this manual you want to focus on, put aside some regular times to focus on these parts every day.
Set an amount of time you think is doable for each part. I suggest starting with 20 minutes, and spreading the 20 minute exercises through the day.
Put your schedule in your calendar with plenty of alarms so you don’t miss one!
If you want to learn something practical, like carpentry, yoga, dance, or a new instrument, you will find many videos on YouTube.
If you’re looking for answers on psychology, intimate relationships, codependency, or empathy, try quora.com.
If the question isn’t already answered, you can post your question and someone will answer it for you.
I answer questions there, and have now have over 600,000 readers of my answers. It’s a good way to get your expertise out there and see how it lands in the world.
THE LESSONS LEARNED
Today I am still using these same lessons I learned in prison. They changed my life for the better and my deepest wish is that they do the same for you.
Moving from Hard time to Easy time is not only about handling prison, or COVID-19 lockdown.These are lessons that can be applied to living life every day. No lockdown required!
It is about moving from the darkness to the light in all areas of our life. From fear to love, from insanity to bliss. From prison to freedom.
● Stop fighting what you can’t change, and focus on what you can. Don’t fight the river. It is what it is. Admit you are powerless to change the external reality of the lockdown or isolation that has been imposed on you. Accept it.
● The only thing you can change is you. Grab this opportunity with both hands. You may never again have so much time to spare. Use every day, no matter what happens, as an opportunity to evolve — to grow in awareness. Focus on what you and others are feeling and needing.
● ALWAYS see the cup as half full, rather than half empty. During this time of isolation, you have more time for meditation, connection, health, creativity, service, learning and future planning. Make these your priorities.
● Improve your skills in communication, empathy, anger management, intimacy, vulnerability, expressing yourself honestly, active listening, putting yourself in another person’s shoes, and learning how to ask for clarity and understanding. Learn to listen for the shame, guilt, sadness and fear that lie beneath frustration, anger and blame in yourself and in others. Practice these skills daily. This will support your time in isolation. It will give you a gift that lasts a lifetime.
DEVELOP THE ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
While I was in prison I did a lot of Home Work. I wanted so much to heal the relationship with my step-father that I knew was keeping me trapped in the cycle of misery that led directly to me being in jail.
I asked myself these questions which were inspired by the book A Course in Miracles.
“If my life was a play, and I created all the drama and pain in my childhood, and all the players who played the major roles in my life back then, what was I supposed to learn from it all? What was the lesson I was trying to teach myself? What was the gift that my step-father was trying to give me that I was so resistant to receiving?”
The questions were asking me to see the silver lining in the cloud. To see that tiny bit of white light in a sea of darkness, like the spot of light in the dark half of the I Ching symbol.
I realised that growing up with my step-father, and having our constant fights, created a lifelong interest and an unquenchable curiosity about feelings, emotions, and the dynamics of intimacy in relationships.
It set me off on the path to embrace my own feelings and needs. To become fluent in expressing them, and to empathise with others. It led to the work I do every day. I now work as a counsellor, a trainer in Nonviolent Communication, a mediator and a life coach.
It was never my stepfather’s intention to direct my life in this direction. It happened simply as a consequence of our interactions. I am peaceful and content with my work choices, and I am grateful that I ended up doing this kind of work. So now I am grateful to my step-father, the same step-father who was such an ogre to me for so many years.
When you become grateful for what happened back then, there is no longer anything to forgive. In my story, forgiveness just happened naturally, without any intention to achieve it.
What’s Possible
During this COVID-19 lockdown period you could even create such big changes in your life that you will always be grateful for this time.
Don’t forget, just tackle as much as you can actually do. Do it, then celebrate doing it!
Have fun!
If you need more help, please get in touch and let me know specifically what you are looking for.
I’m also interested in helpful feedback.
I would like to make this manual into an ever evolving community project that we all contribute to. That way it will always be current in meeting the needs of the people it serves.
We’re all in this together. Let’s keep it that way.
My next step is to make this into 10 two-minute videos and put them on YouTube. To get the message out there.
I’m also going to offer it to WHO, UNESCO, ABC 7.30 Report, and The Feed. Any good contacts in the media world be gladly received!
In case you’re wondering why I asked for your email address so I can let you know how this develops, in case you want to be a part of this evolving journey in some way.
Dorset Campbell-Ross
Byron Bay
NSW
Australia
E: Dorsetcr@iinet.net.au
M: www.nvcworks.com