For those of you not interested in, what I think may be, my final journey in therapy, please read no further. Assuming that you are interested enough to still be with me, I’m writing about how, a lifetime later, things can come back to bite you on the bum.
Those of you’ve who’ve heard me speak will know that I carry a few cards, with notes on; prompts, in fact. I don’t refer to these much and they are, largely, a comfort blanket. What is interesting is not that I feel that I need them but that I write more than I need to on them, just in case I miss anything. Yet, when I was a charity Director, I must have spoken hundreds of times about the work the particular charities did. This, however, was always with slides to demonstrate this. With that “skeleton” on hand, I was able to talk for hours. And did!
So, when I joined the Professional Speaking Association, I never even thought about not being able to talk. How wrong I was. Without those prompt cards, correctly written, my mind could occasionally go blank. What is interesting, however, is precisely when this would happen. My talk, you see, describes my life and what I’ve achieved, while helping people on the receiving end in our society to solve their own problems. How they were able to develop their potential and release, what Jesse Norman, MP described as, “the vast amount of untapped talent” in this country.
So, the cards signpost these events for me. However, they also describe the transitions from one part of my story to another and these transitions are where my mind can go blank. I talked about this yesterday and that’s the bite on the bum bit. You see, transitions for me have always been extremely traumatic events and I have exorcised the effect of these from my life. So that, although I may remember the events, I don’t have any feelings about them. Well, it seems, not as much as I’d thought.
Yesterday, some of those feelings came back and I was able to see the problems that had, previously, been hidden to me. Another milestone is being passed and, this one, almost at the end of what has been a very long and fascinating journey. Perhaps, in future, there will be fewer abrupt transitions and more of a seamless process. In fact, there already is and that feels very, very good. Long may it continue.