True Companions: An Introduction
[An Ayah Writes]
Hello Dear Recepient,.
Beautiful Peace and Blessings to you all.
So, I recently took up a mission for continuous and disciplined self-development, built around Calibration, Connection, Conditioning and Contribution through my mind, body and spirit.
Over time I’ve learned that it is good to surround oneself with people that care and can act as accountability partners. Doing this encourages me to advance in areas that are important skill sets of mine, areas that I’ve struggled dedicating time to devote myself to in order to be useful to myself first, those around me and mankind in general. I do believe that my brain is one of the biggest assets that God has given me, and I feel it is a duty to act upon it one way or the other, either by reading, reflecting and/or sharing.
In the past, I have struggled with an “academic brain”, with relatives often asking me to “dumb things down”. I have also struggled with having to write and edit and do other things, but with the tools and people around me today, I think I can move forward to do this as I ought to frequently. My intention is to share my reflections with you weekly — and I hope that you will hold me accountable should I fail to do so. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder but with great familial connections comes a great responsibility to preserve them. May the obstacles of time and distance never be an impediment to my stride to duty.
One of the important projects that I’ve had in the pipeline involves reflecting on myself, the collective self and the condition of society and its people. What I mean by this is that the primary focus should be on myself, but the goal is sharing reflections in such a way that my inner circle or comrades may get to benefit from this better, more contemplative version of myself.
To begin this journey, I’ll start with a book on my shelf that I’ve been ignoring for a while. This project has given me an opportunity to finally put it in focus and give it the attention it deserves. The book is called True Companions by Kelly Flanagan. The book has many important quotes worthy of sharing, but I’ll start with one from the introductory passage:
“The miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts… it is when one plus one equals a thousand by Frederick Buechner”.
The foreword of the book was written by Ian Morgan Crone. I read the foreword a while ago and I found it to be very powerful. It is a reflection of how — as individuals — we first need to focus within and try to connect with ourselves, before trying to bond and establish relationships with other people. This is because the secrets of ourselves — our prior experiences buried within us — are what give us room to engage, respond and react to the people around us.
Morgan Crone said:
“As a kid, I learned to manage my feelings by watching them as soon as they began to show up. If I was fast enough, I could make them disappear before I felt them. Or worse, before I incurred the consequences of expressing them. Growing up, I learned that with enough whacking (beating things down), I could make sure that some of them (his subconscious emotions and frustrations) would just stay down (it never hurt to add a little substance induced oblivion and just to make sure), then thank you very much. Of course, that worked until it worked against me. I thought I was doing fine. Well into sobriety, married to my college sweetheart, living in an idyllic Yellow House in New Canaan, Connecticut, discovering my sweet spot in a growing ministry vocation, burying my father and along with him. So I taught the pesky demons that had colored my relationship with him so darkly. What they know, those most decided it was safe enough to pop back up again. This time, I couldn’t walk down. I didn’t even have a mallet ready and lickety-split went from zero to frenzy. What is happening to me? I asked my therapist, his answer give me the vocation I’ve been on ever since ‘You’re just waking up’”.
This is something that I know I’ve experienced before. I’ve grown past it, but it is a reality for people who don’t know, may never know and may end up dying with their emotions buried. Yes, I sure shouldn’t be saying I’ve gone past it — as I have learned from the foreword — with the hope that it is not a means of denial. This is rather a means of understanding myself better in order to know how to manage certain things that I still need to climb and ascend through to achieve my goals in life.
I will attempt to present certain things to readers who may need help understanding or coming to terms with themselves while I interact with the paragraphs of the book. It is important that, as I share these reflections, I encourage people to be part of a reflective community; a community where people self-reflect, as well as present a picture that is valuable for many of us within our family and relationship dynamics.
We may take for granted that some of us are blessed to have certain dynamics nurtured around us, but these dynamics are by virtue of where and how we grew and the relationships we shared. Some of these are inherited transgenerationally — passed from one family to another. So it’s important that we come to articulate our sense of knowledge and knowledge of self, such that when difficult situations and difficult relationships arise — whether it’s a divorce, a fight or just simple tension between individuals –we are conscious — extra self-aware — of the situation at hand(to deliver a suitable response for the time being).
And it is on this note that I begin to read the title ‘True Companions’ to you. I will end this with a final quote by Morgan Crone:
“Friends keep one another company. True companions keep each other tethered to the ground of reality, to the ground of being. Are you in a season of discovering that what used to work for both of you or you is now working against both of you or you? Been there? Done that? It is why I am so glad to commend ‘True companions’ to you. It comes with some really great strings attached.”
And so I look forward to sharing my experiences and observations about society — with a sense of obligation and consistency — with you.
Yours,
The Ayah
