Tiverton and 'A Penny for your Thoughts.'

I spent a most relaxing day in Tiverton, enjoying being reunited with Kathy and Chanti, a walk along the Grand Western canal, a coffee at the canal basin cafe, a haircut (yes, it does still grow), and in the afternoon and early evening, attending the Tiverton hot air balloon festival. One of the largest balloons weighed approximately two tons - given the weight of the basket, the passengers, gas burners, gas bottles, and of course the balloon itself. It's incredible how hot air alone can allow such weight to ascend. Many thanks to Juliet for her hospitality, and the amusing picture of the UK that was on her door when I arrived at her house, with a line drawn from John O'Groats to Tiverton, an illustration of a penny farthing, and motivational words. It made me chuckle. And a huge thanks to Chanti for the wonderful T shirt. I love it!

Whilst in Tiverton, I went in a car for the first time for over a month, and was horrified at how fast it felt. It made me aware of how, for the last three weeks, I have been travelling through life at a different, or perhaps more sane pace; one allowing for connection with nature, other people, and with my own thoughts. Chanti has arrnaged for BBC Spolight to be at Land's End next Friday evening, and so I can now go at an even more leisurely pace for the last 134 miles. My next journey will be to Moretonhampstead, with a view to pedalling (and no doubt walking) over Dartmoor.  

Given I have been alluding to it throughout this blog, I thought it would be helpful to say something about the inspiration for 'A Penny for your Thoughts.' Essentially, my interest is in the idea of life as a journey, and the 'maps' we use to guide us on that journey. However, as Alfred Korzybski, the Polish American writer and philosopher, once wrote 'the map is not the territory.' It's a familiar expression to me, the concept being central to the work I undertake as a systemic psychotherapist and trainer. What Korzybski was wanting to convey with this expression, is that we confuse maps with territories, or models of reality, with reality itself.

Underpinning the work I do, is a core belief that there is no external reality we can all agree upon - i.e. that we all see the world differently, filtering it through the lens of our own experience, or through our own individual 'map.' Thus no two people will ever perceive an event, or the world, in exactly the same way. I have in my work, and in thinking about my own personal 'maps,' been particularly influenced by Carter and McGoldrick's family life cycle model. This considers the impact of 'vertical' and 'horizontal' stressors, as well as a number of 'system' levels, affecting our sense of identity and our capacity to manage change.

Vertical stressors are influences from the past. These might include the lasting effects of world events, or our particular family's way of managing life cycle events, such as leaving home, or managing conflict and difference. It includes passed on beliefs and values. Vertical stressors will also include what John Bowlby, renowned for his work on attachment, referred to an 'internal working model.' Our attachment experiences shape our expectations of others and of ourselves in terms of our sense of self worth, closeness and distance, dependence and independence, togetherness and separateness, affection, trust and love. These early experiences powerfully shape our relationships in adult life. I like to think of this as an internal map. The interviews I have undertaken to date, powerfully demonstrate the lasting impact of early experiences, ranging from a deep sense of feeling secure and loved, to experiencing trauma and neglect. These experiences in turn have an impact on the beliefs, implicit or explicit 'rules,' and boundaries defining territory - for individuals, friendships, couple relationships and family life.

In terms of 'system' levels, we can consider how our 'map' is affected powerfully by the cultures we live in, and messages about what is 'right' and 'normal.' These messages are conveyed through  'dominant discourses,' taken for granted truths that escape critical scrutiny. And the language we use to describe the world, also defines that world. As Desmond Tutu put it 'Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.' Effectively, I am describing how realities are socially constructed, and linked to power. Whether for personal, political or economic reasons, some people have more power to 'dictate' reality; a reality we then measure ourselves against, and largely fall short of. This in turn can lead to feelings of shame, self-doubt, powerlessness, and fear. For example, in the West, there is a dominant discourse about 'success,' largely equated with materialism. But if materialism is the measure of 'success,' why have I seen so many wealthy people for therapy over the years? We can in addition think of our maps as being constructed by - or defined by - discourses or stories, linked to gender, race, religion, age, ability/disability, class, education, ethnicity, and sexuality. What has come across powerfully in the interviews I have undertaken to date, is the need to defy these powerful, restrictive discourses in order to live authentically. As one participant put it so well, quoting Henry David Thoreau, the American essayist, poet and philosopher, 'If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.' Perhaps, it is only when we relinquish the more restricting aspects of the 'maps' we have been given, that we can embrace the idea expressed by so many participants, that it's the journey and not the destination that is most important; and how too much focus on the future removes us from the present moment. As Thoreau, in a less well known saying put it, 'You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.'

Horizontal stressors are those things that inevitably happen to us as we move through life - experiences of birth, childhood, starting school, adolescence; leaving home, a marriage or partnership, middle-age, divorce, older age and death; and what life unexpectedly throws at us, such as redundancy, illness, unexpected natural events, and accidents. A consistent theme that has emerged from the interviews, is that we can be free to make choices, and don't have to be bound by the consequences of things that have shaped us. We can be who we think we are, rather than what has happened to us. A number of people have spoken about how 'negative' experiences and adversity have been transformed positively, allowing for greater authenticity and connection with others. They have also spoken about how in order to live spontaneosusly, and in the moment, one needs to give up a need to be in control.

As already stated, I am interested in where we get our 'maps' from; how they guide us on our journeys, affect our perception of the world, help or hinder us in relationships, and affect our experience of change. You'll often hear people referring to having 'lost their way in life,' how they have 'lost their bearings,' or how they have chosen the right or wrong 'path' in life. The idea of life as a journey is embedded in literature and in our culture. There are numerous stories and novels capturing the idea of people taking journeys in order to face challenges, move beyond boundaries, develop resources, and grow. Joseph Campbell, in 'The hero with a Thousand Faces,' referred to a monomyth, or a hero's journey, referring to tales that involve a hero going on an adventure, winning a victory in a decisive crisis, and returning home transformed or changed.Then there are numerous poems using the metaphor of life as a journey; such as Robert Frost's 'The Road not Taken,' Herman Hesse's 'On a Journey,' and Sylvia Chidi's 'The Journey of Life.'  On the cycle track from Bath to Bristol, I came across the sculpture below. Beside it was a quote from Ben Okri, 'The road was the worst hallucination of them all, leading towards home and away from it, with too many signs and no directions.'

I am also interested in what we choose to do with the unique 'map' we have been given. What if we were to accept that our 'maps,' with their boundaries, rules, ups and downs, and paths to chose between, are just maps, and that they do not define the territory? What if we were to choose to 'tear' them up metaphorically, or at least make choices about what most helps or restricts us from these 'maps' on our journeys? What if we were to stop trying to control or defend them? Then what? Would we be free? Or would we be left with uncertainty, an unsettling idea that perhaps our sense of identity, or self, is an illusion, or a construction? There would be no boundaries to our maps, no clear pathways, no signposts marking the way. What might we discover? What experiences might we have in common that help us? Might we find we are all connected, and that the idea of separateness is also an illusion?

I believe it was the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who wrote in one of his novels that 'the inability to tolerate empty space limits the amount of space available.' What if this were rewritten as 'the inability to tolerate a map without boundaries, limits the amount of territory open for exploration?'

'A Penny for Your Thoughts' is a semi-structured interview based upon six questions:

What are your thoughts about life as a journey?
What have you learnt, growing up, or from wider society, that has helped or hindered you on your journey?
How has what you learnt impacted on you going down one path or another?
If you could have a conversation with your younger self, what would you say?
What has been a highlight of your journey?
If you can imagine being significantly older than you are, what would you be saying to yourself now?

Whilst I have been able to interview a significant number of people on my cycle ride from John O'Groats to Land's End, I am looking for further people to interview. If you would be interested, please feel free to contact me on johnwoolner2@hotmail,com. In exchange for sharing your thoughts, I will give you a Victorian penny, one with the great queen Vic on herself. How can you resist that? All interviews will be held in confidence. Whilst it is my intention to write up the themes that merge from these interviews when undertaking an MA in travel and nature writing at Bath Spa university this autumn, I would not quote from any individual without their prior knowledge and consent.