Uprising ...

One day, aged 24, I woke up alone in my bed-sit and decided to go for a swim. I can’t remember the bus ride to the sports centre, perhaps I was in a daydream. Changing into my swim wear, I stuffed my clothes into the locker, pinned the key to my shorts and took a quick shower before making my way to the pool side. Appearing fit and calm, the guard paid me little attention as I walked toward the deep end, turned to face the water’s edge and paused. The truth was, I’d never been able to swim a stroke in my entire life.

As a youngster, while friends screamed, splashed, jumped, dived, bombed and messed around in endless fun, I’d been restricted to the shallows and couldn’t understand why. I’d tried and tried to tread water, but kept sinking. A couple of times, in acts of frustrated defiance I’d ventured beyond my depth, but soon had to be rescued, red-eyed, coughing and spluttering. Eventually I gave up.

So, what was I doing, standing there, ready to dive into the deep end? A year before, after spending much of my youth in and out of prison, a wonderful transformation had taken place inside me. Through determined effort in group therapy, I’d broken free from that which kept dragging me to the bottom of life’s deep dark sea. I’d been trapped inside a concrete suit of my own making; a false identity created by my own mind. When the real ‘me’ broke free, it was as if I’d landed in a whole new world, despite still being in a prison. Incredible assurances arose from within me, so much so that I knew with every fibre of my being that the nightmare was over; I’d never return to prison again. Another promise that arose said the following, ‘all that has been lost, has been restored to you.’ The certainties that filled me were unspeakable, beyond words, and I simply ‘knew that I was free.’

So, there I stood with the water beneath me, feeling curiously calm. Then suddenly, without hesitation, I dived straight into its depths. I’d calculated a point of entry that would bring me to the surface beyond reach of the side rails, and way too deep to stand. Floor tiles rose up to greet me from the bottom of the pool as I plunged deeply, then as if in slow motion, I paused, twisted around, and began my ascent. ‘Just stay calm,’ I told myself, peering up toward the bright lights of the ceiling, ‘stay calm.’ Then, almost like a new birth, I broke the surface and began treading water as if I’d been doing it all my life. I proceeded to jump in and out of that pool about thirty times, lording it over the waters that for so long had threatened to devour me. It was such fun. A similar thing happened in prison when I broke out of the concrete diving suit that had me pinned to the bottom of life’s cruel sea; I’d swam free, to live, to love, to smile and have my being.

35 years have passed since being given those wonderful assurances about my future, and every one of them have come true. Not by effort, but by simply knowing. I no longer drown in life, but have been given the ability to swim above it. Everything I write is true, including my books. The aim being to inspire, encourage and testify that there is a way, even if your limited mind cannot believe it.

I once stood in the dock of a Crown Court, lost in my own pain as the proceedings went on around me, a spectator of my own fate. And I remember looking through my own eye sockets, listening as the court officials were speaking about me, thinking, ‘Nobody really knows me, not the real me. I’m not what you think I am.’ You see, the real me was trapped inside a personality of my own making, a completely false one, and it would not let me go. However, I came to despise that false shell and made it my quest to tear it apart. It took all of my courage to achieve that, but there was far more to it than breaking the mold of the old destructive personality. I discovered that the life force within, once liberated from the poisonous influence of the Egoistic identity, helped me achieve things I never thought possible. Thankfully, it’s a loving force that reaches beyond me to help others experience that freedom too. I’ve never know why I went to the swimming pool that morning, perhaps it was a deep instinct to retrieve something that had been lost to me. It was the same with my therapeutic journey; one evening during a session, a challenging opportunity opened up before me and I took the plunge.