The wisdom of childhood . . .
Just Let Go!
Two years ago I gave up practising as a therapist, trainer, management consultant, and NLP person. This caused some consternation among those whom I had helped to train. They couldn’t understand my motives. The fact is that I had no reason in mind. It’s true that I thought it would be nice to fashion a house with Irem according to our tastes but even that wasn’t why I gave up my practice.
Amos has been very good for us. It enabled me to find some roots after the nomadic years. It provides Amazon with a unique childhood opportunity to breathe clean air, swim in unpolluted waters, and learn two languages without pressure from relatives to be, or do anything more than just be herself.
I had not anticipated that I too would be able to enjoy the same benefits but that’s exactly what has happened. Here there is no need to compromise and as a result slowly but surely I find myself revisiting what I supposed to be past choices and noting that although my intuitions at the time seemed sound for various reasons of duty, or pressure, life took me in other directions.
Take smoking for example. I first encountered tobacco on my father’s knee. At different times he smoked either a pipe or cigarettes. So did I, from the age of about ten years upwards. When I met Irem she was so anti-smoke that I packed-it-in within a week and have never looked back. The strange thing is that even at the age of ten I knew that smoking would provide me with little genuine happiness, but since my friends all smoked I did too. I guess I was scared that if I didn’t smoke I wouldn’t have friends, which now seems ridiculous since not all my friends were smokers.
Then there’s been the Roast Beef of old England. Beef, together with mutton, pork and other game is the traditional English way. Beef is served with horseradish sauce, lamb or mutton with mint sauce, pork with a slice of pineapple or apple sauce. Roast potatoes figure highly with such meats as well as cabbages, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and string beans. As a child I loved Brussels sprouts, cabbage, beans and other vegetables yet really wasn’t at all partial to meat. Through a process of intimidation and cajoling I slowly began to eat it, [much later I even became convinced that I enjoyed it]. Today now that meat no longer features in my diet I remember my early struggles to avoid it and I am amazed at just how wise I was. My only regret is that I ever ate it, just as I regret smoking.
More recently I’ve cut my alcohol levels back. I was never a big boozer but could handle a snort when it was demanded. John Hall, my second father-in-law [FIL No: 2], always claimed that I consumed wine like others drank beer. I don’t know that his comment was justified but I seem to remember getting through a number of bottles of Beaune when ‘eating’ with him? But of course it isn’t really wine, or beer, that I enjoy. It is the company and conversation that goes with social drinking. Dennis, [Bob] Ryan an artist and writer introduced me to Fuller’s Beer years ago when he took me to what became my favourite London pub ~ ‘The Dove’ at Hammersmith. There the rooms were thick with tobacco smoke and were heated with coal fires. The coal was brought from the cellar by an Irishman with slurred speech who went under the unlikely name of John Smith. He was also the pot-man but never allowed to set foot behind the bar and serve.
Phillip sent me a bottle of Fullers’ beer in Jocelyn’s luggage which I consumed two nights ago. It reminded me that I never really enjoyed Fuller’s beer. Frequently, in my twenties, I became ill through consuming excess. But relished the company of Bob Ryan and his friends, particularly Sally who had ‘eloped’ with him with my help. She was mine for one glorious evening before she ever met Bob, but that’s another story.
Another attraction of ‘The Dove’ is that it has always been a writer’s haunt. Whenever I go there, even now that the fireplaces are bricked up and the gents has a proper roof, the conversations are always the same. It’s a bit like going to Diagon Alley ~ a meld of Elizabethan, Dickensian timelessness steeped in history for good measure. In case you haven’t guessed I’m now off beer, but grateful to Phillip for having sent me the Fullers.
So what am I writing about?
Quite simply I seem to be going through some kind of metamorphosis and enjoying every moment of it. I certainly don’t feel virtuous, or superior, to those who approach the world differently. Remember just six months ago I approached life much in the manner that is common. All I can say is that mentally and physically I feel so much sharper. Indeed it was interesting that yesterday after the bottle of Fullers and a small wedge of Danish Blue Cheese I felt ‘normal’, whereas today now the effects have worn off I’ve recovered my recent state of bliss. This has been a huge lesson, since I now know that my ‘normal’ simply ain’t good enough!
And so this is, I conclude, must have been what I came here to discover. This is why I gave up practicing as a psychotherapist. For however ‘clever’, or ‘effective’ my skill never would I be able to provide a complete answer to the problems of others until my own transformation could be arranged and stabilised. I suspect that once it is then therapy as practiced under the regimented rules of the United Kingdom, Europe, USA, and even Turkey, will seem a very poor destination as a career?
