Pilamaya People

In some ways, James tells a story about his life (so far) that mirrors the true meaning of Joseph Campbells’s mythical Hero’s Journey where the hero leaves home (usually with not much by way of earthly resources) travels far and wide, overcomes many psychological challenges which work to expand his/her/their consciousness and then returns home to the place they started from - to find home has not changed but they most surely have.

And for James, 40, who graduated with the 2023/2025 IP cohort and who now runs a thriving psychotherapy practice in his home town of Kettering, Northamptonshire, much of this metaphor is literal because he left home and stayed away until the latter part of his training when he returned to the town where he’d grown up only to find a community of like-minded people waiting to welcome him.

James has also recently returned to the Pilamaya People community but this time, working behind scenes as a member of the faculty in the role of intern and shadowing Shaura to support the live teachings and on-demand recordings. Which means, of course, many of you will have now met James online either during a training module or a workshop.

In a way, perhaps it was inevitable that someone who says his nose was never out of books on consciousness and philosophy would find their way to Pilamaya and its trainings. Founder Shaura Hall describes herself as “an explorer of consciousness” and so as well as finding community in his geographical home, James says he also found community in this Pilamaya constellation

*If you enjoy working with Tarot cards, then you can also think of The Fool which signifies the start of the journey — again, one towards the True Self. It is the first of the Major Arcana cards and, in the popular Rider Waite version, depicts a young fellow setting out with his knotted handkerchief on a stick, and his loyal little white dog, to adventure through the rest of the deck and find himself and his life’s purpose. Perilously close to the cliff edge, our Hero can rely on the little white dog (instinct/Soul) to keep them safe from lasting harm as they dive into what lies ahead.

James continues to support men facilitating men’s groups locally — and online — but he is also a talented musician, specialising in composing music that he says reflects whatever is going on with his subconscious.

The big lesson music has taught him, he adds, is to learn to slow down and trust what comes — rather than forcing a more performative creative approach that might be categorised into one genre or another.

He says, “When it comes to creating music, I think our culture has this kind of masculine way of thinking it's all in the head. So, you have to make a plan in advance and you have to have all the steps in place. Whereas, what I'm talking about now is coming into your heart — into the feminine. That tells you what's important and where to look. And then the masculine makes the plan of how to do it.”

Falling in the fishpond. I was probably about two - and took a ‘swan dive’ into the water. I have this kind of hazy memory of kind of looking up as my parents dived in to fish me out. After that, the fish pond very quickly got covered over — like a cage over the top of it. We could think of it as my first ‘swan dive’ into the watery unconscious!

My childhood memories are pretty hazy - aside from this one but my parents split up when I was young and so I remember spending a lot of time reading and being on my own. I have a sister who is 18 months younger and whilst we are close now, I don’t remember being close when we were growing up.

I’m not sure there was anything specific. I was quite a weird kid. I was really into reading a lot of poetry when I was very small and I definitely was drawn to a lot of creative stuff. So I asked my mum about this and she said, actually I really wanted to be an architect. I think I got quite quickly put off that when I started finding out there was maths and physics involved, but I've always been very much on the creative edge, wanting to draw and write and make music.

I’d had quite a big breakdown coming out of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and so was trying to reorient myself. I spent a lot of time with a men's group in London and one of the guys there put me onto Shaura’s work. I spent some time talking to her. Then, a little later on, as I was finally starting to shift out of this deep struggle I’d been through, I had a couple of quite empowering awakening experiences. And just as I was riding the wave of one of those, Saura put out the first message about the IP training.

It landed really at a time where I’d just gone through quite a big personal transformation. I was feeling so much more expanded and open, and so when I read the course content it felt very aligned. There was so much in the course description that really spoke to a lot of the stuff that I'd been researching.

Our culture is very focused on the importance of having certainty — being certain of things — so I have seen that for men in particular, it can be very hard to let go of that framework.

A lot of us get stuck with an absolute framework when what we need to do is allow it to disintegrate so we can re-integrate in a more healthy way. And of course, underneath this kind of work, we have a multi dimensionality that is a lot more fluid and has the flex to leave enough of a question mark in things and poke holes in that certainty.

And so I think, for a man, it's quite a big ask to go there because our culture likes its “heroes” to be men who have certainty.  People are drawn to the safety and security of the alpha male because he makes us feel safe and to some extent, we need that. But where we can get stuck is that we see this certainty as an absolute, rather than accepting I can only have this much certainty given the information I have right now and I need to be open to changing my perspective when new information comes along.

I'm a director of the Brotherhood Men's groups and we run five men's peer to peer mental health support spaces in local towns around North Northamptonshire. We have weekly meetings that are very much like a kind of traditional circle. And then we also do some socials, some kind of activities, some exercise type stuff and also some community ‘give back’ type projects.

I see a lot of the work is really about giving that permission to question whether more is possible, whether someone can still accept themselves, even with these things that they’ve previously learned are shameful or not welcome.

Almost every guy is terrified the first time he comes to a group. So many men have learned that they need to be a certain way in order to be accepted and worthy of love and so it’s a big ask when you’ve grown up in a society where you can't talk about what’s bothering you because that's part of what's not allowed. How do you move beyond that? It takes a lot for someone to come to the group in the first place.

A lot of guys right now are coming with loneliness and social isolation. They’ve got to a point where they've realised that something needs to be done, otherwise it's never going to change. It's the number one struggle that we're seeing. And a lot of people come when they're going through challenging times in their relationships.

So during this initial period, I will be on a lot of the training calls and courses, very much in the background, just making sure that things are organised, people are aware of the Zoom links and the work being covered, and making sure everything's recorded and organised and easy as possible for people to access after a training.

About six months ago I went around to see an old, old family friend who is the mother of a guy that I went to school with. She's ceramicist and had recently started following me on Instagram so that's how I got back in touch with her. I went to see her and she said, “I've been loving all the stuff that you've been sharing. It's amazing that young James found his way back to love.”

She told me  when I was a kid, I was the most loving kid — and said one day, her son had come home from school and said, “Mummy, James Garside kissed me today.”

I was just constantly pouring out love and affection and loved everyone around me. But sadly, that also became the thing that started me getting very badly bullied when I was about eight years old.

That lasted for a long time and I think that's kind of the point that she was making which was the bullying shut that path down for me for a long time because it felt so dangerous. But over the last few years, although I've had a few knocks along the way, I've found my way back there to a large extent and so I feel that.

I feel so much more like I can see that that's the real part of me.

Personal
Therapy: embrace-everything.com
Instagram: instagram.com/jamesgarside
YouTube: youtube.com/@embrace-everything

Blog: embraceeverything.substack.com/

Brotherhood Men's Groups
Website: brotherhoodmensgroups.com
Instagram: instagram.com/brotherhoodmensgroups

And finally, back to poetry! This is James’ favourite poem from that childhood book of verse…

by Robert Louis Stevenson

When at home alone I sit

And am very tired of it,

I have just to shut my eyes

To go sailing through the skies--

To go sailing far away

To the pleasant Land of Play;

To the fairy land afar

Where the Little People are;

Where the clover-tops are trees,

And the rain-pools are the seas,

And the leaves, like little ships,

Sail about on tiny trips;

And above the Daisy tree

Through the grasses,

High o'erhead the Bumble Bee

Hums and passes.

In that forest to and fro

I can wander, I can go;

See the spider and the fly,

And the ants go marching by,

Carrying parcels with their feet

Down the green and grassy street.

I can in the sorrel sit

Where the ladybird alit.

I can climb the jointed grass

And on high

See the greater swallows pass

In the sky,

And the round sun rolling by

Heeding no such things as I.

Through that forest I can pass

Till, as in a looking-glass,

Humming fly and daisy tree

And my tiny self I see,

Painted very clear and neat

On the rain-pool at my feet.

Should a leaflet come to land

Drifting near to where I stand,

Straight I'll board that tiny boat

Round the rain-pool sea to float.

Little thoughtful creatures sit

On the grassy coasts of it;

Little things with lovely eyes

See me sailing with surprise.

Some are clad in armour green--

(These have sure to battle been!)--

Some are pied with ev'ry hue,

Black and crimson, gold and blue;

Some have wings and swift are gone;--

But they all look kindly on.

When my eyes I once again

Open, and see all things plain:

High bare walls, great bare floor;

Great big knobs on drawer and door;

Great big people perched on chairs,

Stitching tucks and mending tears,

Each a hill that I could climb,

And talking nonsense all the time--

O dear me,

That I could be

A sailor on a the rain-pool sea,

A climber in the clover tree,

And just come back a sleepy-head,

Late at night to go to bed.

From A Child's Garden of Verses

You can learn more about why Integration Psychotherapists often work with poetry in the therapy room by listening to Episode 5 of the new Pilamaya Podcast which will go live in a few days. And before that, in Episode 4, the Pilamaya team discuss the importance of Belonging and finding your tribe, both powerful themes James too has touched on here.

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