Jim Cogley Reflections: Tues 8 July – Mon 14th July 2025
Note: Monthly Healing Mass will be held in Lady’s Island this Wed 9th July at 3pm.
Tues 8th July – Old Programming
It is not unusual to try and open a computer only to find that it doesn’t respond. The reason that sometimes shows up as a message on the screen is that it’s because old programmes are still running and need to be closed. This is a useful metaphor for life where we can’t seem to get on with our lives, and do what we want to do, because an old script has become a deeply embedded belief that holds us back. Despite all our best efforts, and all the will in the world, some invisible force keeps undermining our intentions. Here we need to remember that much stronger than conscious intention and willpower lies the force of our unconscious and it is this that will always win out. Even when someone is dying and consciously wanting to live there can be an unconscious desire to die that may go back many years and even to childhood or to the womb.
Wed 9th July – The Power of the Unconscious
A man who had a great eye for business and seeing opportunities to make money said that on four occasions with different businesses he had come to the edge of making it big. However, each time and for some inexplicable reason, he had stabbed himself in the foot by making a very bad decision and the venture would fail. He had grown up in a family that was business orientated, and he seemingly had inherited all the skills necessary to make a business successful. What possibly could be holding him back? His background provided a large clue. It was a home where business came before family and making money before relationships. As a child he knew he had never come first so his emotional needs had always been sacrificed on the altar of success. Slowly he came to see that his unconscious was telling him that this was exactly what would happen again should he become successful. He would stand in danger of losing himself and so his unconscious had steered him opposite to where he consciously wanted to go.
Thurs 10th July – Guilt Carriers
One of the tragic fall-outs from sexual abuse is that the victim almost invariably carries the guilt of the abuser and at some deep level believes that something must be wrong with them in order for this horrible thing to have happened. Abusers are adept at grooming their victim and creating the illusion that what is being done is for their good, to aid their development and taking place in the context of a loving relationship. Especially where a child is isolated with no strong family supports, the abuser can present as the one who cares and perhaps the only one the child can feel safe with. As one lady said, ‘I thought that the abuse was love’. Especially where the victim’s body has responded to stimulation that he/she can seriously blame themselves. It is this guilt that becomes internalized and becomes the belief that ‘I am flawed, I am dirty, no one could love me, I deserve to be punished’. These beliefs create the script that then becomes the life story.
Fri 11th July – Knowing what is mine and not mine
Growing up in a home where a mother was severely depressed and unable to cope can had a hugely detrimental effect on a sensitive child. This goes beyond the obvious of the mother not being able to be emotionally present to the child and consequently basic needs not being met. With so much unexpressed emotion in the parent the child can pick it up subliminally and carry it through life as if it were entirely their own burden. Not only that, but the child at a young age has no way of knowing why the mother is so depressed (no more than the mother does either) and so deems themselves responsible for the parent’s distress. This can translate as, ‘If I hadn’t been born my mum would not be in such misery,’ or ‘it’s because I have been bold and done something wrong that my mother is depressed.’ These internalized beliefs create an ongoing enmeshment with the parent leaving the child feeling obligated to her for life and never fully free to live their own life.
Sat 12th July – The Velcro Effect
Becoming ever more aware of old scripts and belief systems can gradually free us from the bondage of limited thinking. There are so many scenarios that happen in childhood where negative beliefs are formed and becomes deeply embedded in our psyche. The child that spends time in hospital has no way of understanding that this is necessary. Instead, it can be interpretated that what is happening is his or her fault and now they are being punished. The unexpressed grief of a parent can become the burden of a child. Even while growing up in a home where parents are continuously fighting, or where there is alcohol or drug addiction, a sensitive child can so absorb what is going on as to hold themselves responsible and even to think that the family would have been better off had they never been born. Later in adult life when a time of crisis arises in their own family this childhood belief can even result in that person taking his or her life.
Sun 13th July – Love thy Neighbour – As Thyself
The story of the Good Samaritan begins with the lawyer asking the question that so many are asking today; what must I do to find real life and have something more than just an existence? In other words what would give me meaning, purpose and direction and add colour to my otherwise colourless existence? Christ then returns the question and asks, ‘what do the Scriptures teach?’ He replies with what was known as the ‘Shema’ in Hebrew. This was the great teaching that was the summary of all other teachings. It was the one sentence that brought together everything taught in the Old Testament. ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and you must love your neighbour as yourself’. ‘If you get this right’ said Jesus ‘then life is yours.’
Nearly a year ago I published this little book based precisely on that teaching. I honestly didn’t realize how popular it would become and what a deep chord it would strike in people. The first print run of 3,000 have sold out and another 3,000 have just been printed. Just the week before last one individual collected 200 copies to give one to everyone that he knew. You could say that I didn’t put a lot of effort into it since it was written over five days, but the reality was that the message had taken fifty years to mature.
At a time of crossroads and crisis in my life a fellow student had given me that timely message, the absolute importance of learning to love myself and it had lifted me out of the pit and literally changed my life. Fifty years later I was still drawing from the richness of what had been spoken and to honour that message I wrote the book. For non-readers it was ideal because it could be read in thirty minutes while for anyone it could be as life changing as it had been for me. Deep within its message lay an answer to so many of life’s problems – our struggles with relationships, loneliness, depression, insecurity, anxiety, fears, addictions, lack of hope or no vitality. At their core all these problems are rooted in how we relate to ourselves. Some of us are so poor in this area that if we were to relate to another in the manner we relate to ourselves, we would be locked up. The one person we have a relationship with from conception into eternity is ourselves. That’s a quite a long journey and we alone can choose what kind of travelling companion we are going to have. So many go through life as their own worst enemy, and not as their best friend, and then wonder why everybody else and the whole world is always so wrong.
This business of loving oneself is the absolute foundation for having a life as opposed to an existence. There is really no other way, and the bottom line is that we cannot be closer to another person than we are to ourselves and neither can we ever feel right until we are right with ourselves.
Fifty years of reflecting on a single message may seem a long time but we have centuries behind us where another message was far more to the fore. This was that God/religion and everyone else always had to come first and we were not important. From day one the focus was on original sin and never on the original blessing of what it meant to be a child of God. From there it was downhill all the way as we grew up in a guilt-ridden culture where God wore a perpetual frown and never a smile.
Out of that space so many good souls generously gave their lives in service of others but never thought they had a right to give to themselves. There are so many retired people particularly religious, who spent their entire life selflessly giving, doing all sorts of great charitable work, but who now, in their twilight years feel empty and wonder why? The answer is as simple as, giving to others but never giving to yourself can only result in an empty barrel. It’s no fault of theirs, but it is a reflection of the culture that we grew up in where any form of loving oneself was seen to be selfish. The reality is that there is no surer way to becoming selfish that by not loving yourself.
Even after fifty years of reflection, the reason why that teaching is formulated as, love your neighbour as yourself and not as we have distorted it, love yourself as your neighbour, has only become clear. If I don’t start with myself and just see the vastness of human need, I will have no personal boundaries and feel obliged to give and give until I have nothing left to give. I will never say ‘no’ and simply burn myself out. At the end of the day, I may be given a good funeral, nice things might be said, I may even be hailed as a martyr for the cause, or even a saint, but I will have died still wondering who am I and what was my life all about?
Having given my life in service to the least of the brethren, I may still have to face a much deeper realization that all along I was the least of the brethren and the needs I most neglected were my own? The message is still the same, Love your neighbour as yourself.
Note: The Book When I loved Myself is available on jimcogley.com for €5 plus P&P.
Mon 14th July – Where do I Really Live?
One of Christ’s core teachings in St John’s Gospel was, ‘Make your home in me and so you will prove to be my disciples’. Many so live their lives out of old scripts that they have become so at home with that they no longer recognize them or even know of another way of living. A soon forgotten word spoken in anger to a child can become a life script. Remarks like stupid, foolish, nuisance, useless, beauty without brains, waste of space can determine how that individual grows up to see themselves. Any form of shaming can have such a detrimental effect as to limit that person’s ability to live a full and meaningful life. It may take quite a bit of reflection to identify these age-old limiting scripts and where they may have originated. Even more important is to consciously replace them with a positive word, perhaps from scripture. For example, as an antidote to having been made feel inadequate I might adopt as a mantra, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ Then slowly but surely this will become the reality of my life.