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July
'Challenging The Monkey' – Part 1
In the next three articles you'll find out a bit
more about who I am for they contain a large part
of my own process of change over the last few
years.
I should own that these days I have a few
radical ideas. My typically English, public school,
middle-class upbringing has (despite its best
efforts) not managed to prevent me from developing
my intuition nor has it kept me away from
discovering some universal truths (or weird stuff
according to some people such as my old
schoolmates). Truths such as: Problems can also be
seen as opportunities; what you give out, you tend
to get back; what we are thinking today is creating
our tomorrow and, one of the biggest of all,
everything happens perfectly.
Eight years ago I had a health (throat) problem
which was basically my wake up call. Fortunately
for me, I chose to wake up. My life since then has
been a roller-coaster ride which has lurched from
highs of complete trust and faith to lows of
self-doubt and anger with the universe for not
always providing me with what ‘should’
have been mine.
My book, The Male Agenda, has been a case in
point. At the time of my throat condition I was
landscape gardening, following eleven years in the
music business. I had left music during the
recession in the early nineties when I foresaw that
I would have to spend too much time in studios to
make ends meet at the cost of missing out on time
with my wife Winnie and new baby daughter, Anna.
The cut off was bizarre – one Friday afternoon
I was mixing my last record, the following Monday I
was let loose in some young mother’s garden
with a strimmer and a mower with instructions to
‘restore it to its former beauty’! As I
knew nothing about gardening this was a not
inconsiderable challenge, but clearly my guides
were watching as I managed to avoid wrecking her
garden completely.
I shovelled **** for a couple of years, earned a
modest wage and built up a strong client base. I
was reliable and polite which people valued. As far
as paying the bills went, we scraped by. But then
my little monkey started getting restless.
I don’t know about you, but my monkey sits
on my left shoulder giving me all sorts of gyp
about life. He started complaining about my career.
“Oh my god we’ve become a gardener! A
gardener. We went to Sevenoaks School for heavens
sake, we’ve been a songwriter for Motown, a
record producer – we have ‘A’ levels
and ‘O’ levels. We should be a Captain of
Industry by now. We should be up there alongside
our contemporaries who have gone on to such great
things. We’re heading for – dare I say it
– NOWHERE’SVILLE. We have to take action
and we have to take it now.”
Well, who was I to argue.
And so I moved into landscaping. I’ve
always been creative and Winnie’s an
artist….. Seemed obvious really. Well done,
Monkey.
I got most of the jobs that I went for. Before
long I was employing people. And, as the jobs grew
so did the pressure. The funny thing was, I was
earning no more than I had been when I was just
shovelling smelly stuff. Still, Monkey was happier
because now I was becoming someone.
We had by now had our second child, Sophie, and
there was even greater pressure on Winnie who was
stuck at home with a four year old and an 18month
old. Looking back I cringe at how I could have been
dumb enough to allow her to take on the lion’s
share of such an enormous job. But I just
didn’t know then. No-one had warned us of the
tedium experienced by a mother at home alone all
day with two young children. She longed for adult
company. She longed for support. She longed for me
to share the job. And I longed to share it too but
I couldn’t see how I could keep a roof over
our heads and work any less time than I already
was.
Which is clearly why I had to manifest my throat
problem. It had been getting sore for a while, then
a lump appeared – then I noticed I was getting
hoarse by about the middle of every morning. Winnie
had been getting more and more interested in
holistic lifestyles and alternative medicines and
every description we read in books pointed somewhat
ominously to the big C. In spite of this, I
resisted going down the medical route – a
voice inside me kept saying “trust,
trust”.
During this period we learnt to meditate. For
those of you who do this simple discipline, there
is no need for me to tell you how important
meditation has been in my process of change. It has
been my rock. No, it hasn’t changed my life
and neither has it been the answer to all my
problems; but it has helped me to change my life
and it has helped me to access strength and clarity
that I never knew I had. It has been like a doorway
through to a room full of magic. I’ve had to
walk through the doorway, I’ve had to learn
and choose to use the magic. And I have. And all I
can say is that if you’re one of those people
who doesn’t meditate regularly and you’re
finding yourself struggling at all with life –
give it a try!
My throat continued to cause concern. The pain
increased to the extent that I booked a session
with a healer (a prospect that scared the living
daylights out of the monkey). A few days before
this session, Winnie and I went to the local
library and got out about a dozen books on
alternative health. One night I found her in our
bedroom swinging a crystal. Her explanation was
that she was dowsing. Not only that, but she was
apparently getting answers and that was starting to
scare her!
I had heard of dowsing through a couple of
wonderful ‘heavies’ that I used for doing
groundwork – they had showed me how to
massacre a wire coat hanger and turn it into an
extraordinary device for locating water pipes and
electricity cables. And it had worked. When I had
asked them to explain how it worked the reply came
back something like “well I dunno, yer just
think about wot yer wanna find and it shows
yer.” Although Winnie was using a different
tool, it was the same idea. And then she told me
that you could dowse for remedies and suggested
that I try it for my throat… to be continued
next month
©2008, Barry Durdant-Hollamby
See Books,
Issues
Barry
Durdant-Hollamby is the founder of The
Art of
Change
 ,
a UK based organisation specialising in helping
individuals and corporations to effect sustainable,
holistic, positive change. He works intuitively on
a 1-1 or group basis and also conducts many talks
and seminars - all without notes or preparation!
Barry is also the author of three books the latest
of which is The
Male Agenda - a book
which seeks to inspire men to create greater life
balance and happiness. He is the father of two
daughters and lives in the South East of England.
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