The long and winding road that leads to your door

Will never disappear, I’ve seen that road before

It always leads me here, leads me to your door

(Lennon-Mcartney)

This meandering life’s journey reminded of an inspiring book by James Hillman, an American psychologist:  The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, setting out the concept of the daemon: a soul seed of a calling, a vocation, or simply of a particular way of living.  The daemon pushes for expression and life, prompting imaginings and dreams to make itself felt. 

So the book signing,  presenting Honor’s Shadow publicly, was a momentous occasion, and an opportunity to recall and honour the two people, my headmaster and my mother (both long dead) who had first pointed out to me that there was something challenging and demanding that I might be able to do.  My mother in particular was a constant source of encouragement, and I am filled with grateful memories of a good and dedicated mother, eager to spot the potential of her children and nudge them towards it.  I so wish she had lived to see the publication of my first novel, I know she would have felt as proud and happy as I did. 

The paperback version launches today, and this evening I am speaking and signing at David’s Book shop in Letchworth Garden City.

Book publication is a long process….. When I first started this blog, my second ever post, Countdown to Publication announced the delivery of my manuscript to my publishers Karnac Books … and now, eighteen months later, the paperback is available.

Happy days!

When writing a novel, I like to find images and pieces of music that inspire me. The picture above, entitled, The Kiss2 is by Andrius Kovelinas and I am considering this as a possible cover image for Honor’s Ghost.  See more of Andrius’ inspiring artwork HERE.

What’s Lucky 7 all about?  A bit of a game for writer tweet mates… and something of a displacement activity … but good fun! Jane Rusbridge tagged me. She’s a writer and blogs HERE .  I met Jane on twitter, where you can find her @JaneRusbridge.

The instructions for Lucky 7 are:

• · Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript
• · Go to line 7
• · Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating
• · Tag 7 other authors to do the same

 My seven lines come from page 77 of my novel in progress, Honor’s Ghost, the second in the series Honor’s Dilemmas and a follow up to Honor’s Shadow.

Honor is approaching the age of fifty, and is troubled by thoughts of her impending empty nest when the last of her three children, Thea, will leave home.  Her marriage to Eliot is under pressures, both financial and personal, and she is gloomy at thoughts of what the future will hold.

She sat at the kitchen table, alone, their family Skype call still vivid in her mind, and a flash of memory: Eden aged five, obsessed with Superman.  She was tucking him into bed one night and he was telling her: “Kryptonite’s his energy source.  You’re my energy source, Mummy, I think about you all the time.”  

The day was rapidly approaching when Honor wouldn’t be the centre of anybody’s world. Another few years and Thea would be gone, and then she’d be kryptonite for nobody.  Then it would just be her and Eliot, if they made it.

As well as the image above, other images that inspire me can be found on my Pinterest board: Inspirations for Honor’s Ghost.

Music tracks that have a special meaning to the novel are My Sweet Lord by George Harrison,  A Place in the Sun by Stevie Wonder, and The Eyes of Truth by Enigma.

 The 7 writers I have chosen represent a range of genres, some published, some about to be published and others soon to be discovered! They are:

Rowena Dunn                  @RowenaDunn

Christine Stovell                  @chrisstovell

Jacqui Lofthouse                  @jacquilofthouse

Stephanie Zia                  @stephaniezia

Vanessa Savage                  @VvSavage

Penelope Overton           @penelopeoverton

Elpi Pamiadaki                  @elpis_bites

I hope you enjoy reading their 7 lines from new works … I’m looking forward to them!

 ”Regret is based on a GIANT assumption; that if something in the past had been different, then things would have been better.”

Ian Lawton

“people who dwell on their past with regret or bitterness are more likely to fall ill in the future”

University of Granada research study

This study hit the news this week; and I was asked to comment, as a psychologist, on Nick Ferrari’s LBC radio programme. You can listen to the clip here: Voula interviewed on LBC by Nick Ferrari 28th March 2012

Regret and remorse are very similar, though remorse has a greater  intensity of emotion, involving anguish or guilt and self-reproach or repentance. Remorse comes from the Latin ‘remordere’ meaning: to bite again’ –  remorse is a gnawing feeling of guilt over a past wrong.

The Granada study adds to the growing body of research that demonstrates the impact of remorse suffered over past events: poorer health, longer recovery time after surgery, earlier death.  And yet, what actually happened in the past is less important than the perception of what happened.  You can’t change events of the past, but you can change your attitude to it in a number of ways: shifting the context, seeing a wider perspective, focusing on more positive elements.

One of the most common sources of regret and remorse is the anguish of parents who worry that they have not been good enough: was I kind enough, loving enough?  Such worries can be a source of great distress.  Who does not empathise with Kate and Gerry McCann,  icons of parental regret and pain, for whom the worst has happened?

Career and educational disappointments are another common source of regret.  In my professional work, the two recurring themes I hear are: I wish I’d had more children; and I wish I’d had more education.

Reflecting and regretting are features of growing older: at fifty plus, with most of one’s life in the past, the impulse to review past successes and failures, joys and griefs, can be a source of happiness, unless remorse becomes the focus of attention, and then it creates misery and pain.

In his book, Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes reflects, through his characters, on regrets of the past, and the anxious rumination on actions taken and consequences realized.   Barnes’ book received mixed reviews, from a yawn of boredom to glowing tributes.  It’s my guess that the yawns came from younger readers, not yet primed to look back and wonder if… And the glowing tributes of course, from older people, with its resonant themes.

Remorse and regret are recurring themes in my novels.  In Honor’s Shadow, Honor is regretful of actions taken many years earlier, and that come back to haunt her.   In Honors Ghost, Honor discovers an intricate story of deep remorse and unforgiveness, hidden way back in the generations of her family.

On the LBC radio programme, Nick Ferrari asked me this: if remorse and regret are so damaging to health, what can be done? My answer: the antidote is gratitude and appreciation for the good things of the past, to rebalance the focus on painful events.

In hindsight, I would add: forgiveness – in particular, the hardest forgiveness of all: to forgive yourself for mistakes and transgressions, real and imagined.

For most of us, over a lifetime, the good you have done, the kindness you have shown, the sacrifices made and the love given and received, far outweigh the moments and episodes when you may have been selfish, careless or ruthless.

“Dreaming is so basic to human existence, it’s astonishing we don’t understand it better. It consumes years of our lives, and no other single activity exerts such a powerful pull on our imaginations. Yet central as dreaming is, we still have no idea why we dream.”

Jay Dixit in Psychology Today

Dreams and dreaming remain mysterious despite many attempts to explain their purpose, and the role our dreams play in our waking lives.  Our daydreams guide our actions in ways that we are more aware of, but they may have their roots in our night dreams.

In a recent experiment, dreams were shown to have a biological function. When rats were prevented from dreaming, they proved unable to produce behaviours that would lead them to survive life-threatening situations.  Dreams appeared to be a mechanism for rehearsing ways to stay alive, at least for rats.

Most explanations focus on the psychological purpose of dreaming, with the psychoanalytical view that dreams are messages from our unconscious minds.  Freud  famously said that  “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”

Carl Jung developed Freud’s view in a mystical, spiritual direction, defining them as glimpses of the soul:  “The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is.”

As a person’s awareness of dreams grows, could it be possible to change this “inner truth”? For example, by using the powers of rationality to understand the coded messages in dreams? Or is it simply enough to apprehend your own truth, and come to terms with it?

In Honor’s Shadow,  Honor, in her efforts to help Tisi contain her violent emotions, guides her through a creative visualization, a process deemed to be close to a dream state.  The unconscious is accessed, and the guided journey is designed to create new understandings, and provide new insights. Honor was attempting to stimulate a change in Tisi’s emotions.

A reader contacted me a few weeks ago to tell me of a dream experience she had during the reading of Honor’s Shadow.  She said:

“I’ve just finished reading Honor’s Shadow.  I was left feeling very intrigued, and full of questions. After the description of Honor imagining Tisi having a forked tongue, I had a dream about 3 snakes (the 3 furies) so it was clearly working on me at both a conscious and unconscious level. I had interesting reactions as I moved from chapter to chapter: I felt the boundaries got blurred between characters.  It took me a while to realise that the dream was alchemical. The colours you used on the cover of your book are the colours of alchemy: black, red and white and I wondered if you had chosen them consciously. I guess that what I would say about your book is: it’s about a woman’s transformation through integrating her shadow and journeying to wholeness. It has led me down that path, and been facilitated by reading your book. Thank you.”

Honor’s Ghost, my novel in progress, is all about dreams and dreaming, with its story about the trials of a new drug for depression and anxiety. (It’s an imaginary drug).  Those who take it experience a profound and transformative dream that restores them to their whole and healthy self.  The dream seems to tell them who they really are.  Would you take a drug that could stimulate such a dream?

If there was a pill you could take to wipe out a traumatic memory forever, would you take it?

If there was a pill you could take to remember something you’d completely forgotten but that was essential to your happiness, would you take it?

A recent research article in Wired   reports experiments on rats, that appear to have succeeded in wiping out a traumatic memory.

“For years scientists have been able to change the emotional tone of a memory by administering certain drugs just before asking people to recall the event in detail. New research suggests that they’ll be able to target and erase specific memories altogether.”

A report in the Sunday Times by Amy Turner this week reported on human trials being conducted into a commonly used beta blocker which also appears to delete distressing memories in sufferers of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Psychologist  Charles Fernyhough has pointed out that science is, as yet, a long way from being able to define the makeup and location of a specific memory, so a drug that can achieve this is probably decades away.

But would you take it?  An obvious application would be for the Armed Forces.  As the mother of an ex-soldier who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I am all too aware of the agonizing memories that a soldier must bear; I would certainly wish that such memories could be erased forever.

However, aside from the dramas of the battlefield, during the course of a normal life, which distressing memories, if any, would you choose to erase,  given that painful events can often lead to new learning and insights that are helpful, maybe even life changing?  What might you erase, along with the memory, that you might prefer to keep?  As the report in Wired points out:

“It may be possible to zap rodent memories, but we can’t ask the rats how they feel afterwards. Maybe they feel terrible. Maybe they miss their fear. Maybe they miss their morphine. Or maybe all they know is that they miss something. They just can’t remember what.”

What if there was a pill you could take to remember something you’d completely forgotten but that was essential to your happiness?

This question is explored in my novel in progress, Honor’s Ghost when Doctor Honor Sinclair, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist takes part in clinical trials for a drug aimed at curing mild cases of depression and anxiety.  The effect of the drug is to induce a dream in which the dreamer remembers something about themselves that they have completely forgotten.

Would you take that drug?  Is there something you need to remember?

William Congreve in The Mourning Bride 1697

February 14^th, that special romantic day for those who love and who are loved, heralds a pinkfest of flowers, chocolates, hearts, romantic dinners and loving gifts. Saint Valentine’s day: celebrating loving and being loved.

There can be fun for single people too: match-making parties, anonymous Valentines, mystery lovers.  You may not have a special love right now, but one day you will have.

But for those who’s hearts have been broken, and who remain alone, injured and rejected, Valentine’s Day is the reminder of the painful shadow lands they inhabit,  of betrayal and the cruelty that drives it.  The emotional dynamics for the broken hearted are different: not, I am loved; not, I am not loved now but I will be. Instead, I thought I was loved, but I discovered I wasn’t, not at all; what I thought was love was its opposite: hate.

One perspective from psychotherapy asserts that most acts of marital betrayal are, at some level, a display of aggression towards the spouse. Moments of cruelty in other words; or of hatred.

Suzi Godson recently reported in The Times that 31% of marriages survive an affair.  But do those marriages flourish, once one partner knows of the cruelty that the other has displayed?  “When as cared about and safe as you thought you were is as uncared about and unsafe as you turn out to be, you can never completely forgive or forget” Mark Goulston MD

Here are three fictional examples of scorned women, dramatic  illustrations of  Congreve’s quote, an alternative reading list for Valentine’s Day.

In The Mistresses Revenge  by Tamar Cohen, Sally Islip takes revenge after she is dumped by her married lover of five years, by stalking his family, with devastating consequences.

Fay Weldon, in The Life and Loves of a She Devil, tells the story of Ruch Patchett who reaks diabolical revenge on her wayward husband.

In Honor’s Shadow, Tisiphone (named after a goddess of revenge) tries, and fails, to resist the power of her namesake’s fury.

For the broken hearted, Valentine’s day is a reminder of the anguish they experienced in love. Many of us may know someone so injured that they never again risked themselves in love.  For that to happen, a step of trust must be taken once more, and not everyone can find the courage.

“As the secrets and lies unfolded, I got caught up in both the storyline and the experience.  I say the experience because the author manages to evoke the feelings of tension and release that occur with suppression and catharsis.”  (Alexandra Dodgson-Liosatos)

I’m having a particularly lovely time at the moment, hearing from people who enjoyed reading Honor’s Shadow over the Christmas holidays, and have written to tell me of their experiences.

What strikes me most is the variety of views readers have, as they  focus on very different elements of the story. I suppose all works of art serve as a screen upon which people can project their own needs, hopes and desires, but I have been especially satisfied  to see how Honor’s Shadow does that, as I deliberately set out to write a psychological drama which might operate on several levels of the readers consciousness.

The story is essentially about the emotional agony of betrayal in love relationships, the natural impulse for revenge, and the superhuman demands to control that impulse in order to avert real disaster of the kind we read about in the press on a daily basis. In other words, how to be psychologically mature in the face of emotionally shattering events; and how insights from ancient wisdom can help us to find that maturity and regain some control.  Yet even this most conceptual intention has not always necessarily been seen as the topic of the novel.

“It’s all about mothers and daughters”     “It’s about different versions of womanhood”

are two examples of a different interpretation of the central theme of the book.

Perhaps, given my intention, one of the most satisfying reader comments is the one quoted above: defining the novel as an experience.  I have been delighted to have so many readers express something similar:

“I couldn’t put it down – I stayed up all night to finish it”

“The tension was almost unbearable – it made me cry”  

“It was a bit like being a horrified bystander watching a slow-motion car crash, as Honor did and said more and more things which I felt more and more alarmed by”

“I got through as much as I could in one sitting – then got up early and finished it before breakfast. Was holding my breath much of the time and a few tears! I really cared about the characters and was kept guessing right to the end…”

I have read numerous novels that are experiences in this emotionally charged way.  And I have also read many books that were quite enjoyable, but without that level of engagement, and which I had forgotten within a few hours of finishing them.

Before Xmas I went to see the film We Need to Talk About Kevin  based on a book that I found powerful and unforgettable as it tackled a taboo subject (failures of love between parent and child) in a profound and believable way.  So I watched the film knowing that it was an imaginary story, and how it would end. In one scene, Eva, deranged by sleep deprivation, is with her crying baby Kevin, holding him out in front of her, looking at him, at a loss as to what to do.  I had to control my impulse to lean forward and call out to the screen: “hold him close! He needs to be close to you; cuddle him, for God’s sake” as if I could avert disaster with my advice.  The story seemed so totally real, that I felt I might be able to change the course of fictional events if I could just get her to listen to me.

What is it that makes some novels an emotional roller-coaster experience, rather than just a reasonably good read that never evokes laughter or tears, fear or joy?  The build up of tension seems to be a strong element, along with at least one character that you care about.

I’d love to hear of any books you’ve read that fall into the “novel experience” category… maybe we could develop a book list based on that distinction! Suggestions please…? comment below or email me at voula@voulagrand.com.

“Our genes have an innate knowledge of family networks”

Could this possibly be true?  that our genes, as well as passing on to us all of our physical characteristics such as our eye and hair colour, and some of our mental capacities, also hold unconscious memory traces of our ancestral families?  That some of our behaviours and values are passed down through our genes, in some way?  Plenty of evidence is pointing in this direction: it is now known that certain personality characteristics are inherent and therefore heritable.  For example, extroversion and introversion, a fundamental personality difference that is determined by electrical activity on the brain surface; or optimism, now largely believed to be “hard-wired” in the brain.

But Pesso goes further, along with other thinkers, such as Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger, suggesting that we may be programmed to repay debts of the past, or to re-live moments of joy or sadness.   Pesso believes that an old injustice is “felt” (unconsciously) in the genetic field, creating a drive for completion – closure as the language of psychotherapy would term it.  This  is similar to the Eastern idea of karma, but across generations of a family, rather than re-incarnated lives.

Al Pesso is a wise and gifted teacher, who will be honoured next year with a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to mind-body psychology, applied to emotional well-being.  His fundamental belief is that human beings are born to be happy; so his guiding question is: what stops us?  Pesso believes that we interpret our current reality through a tightly woven braid, composed of our genetic inheritance, our autobiographical history and stories….. The stories told about us by our families; the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the stories about people and the world that will have driven generations of our families to particular sets of beliefs and patterns of behaviours.

Dan P McAdam has written powerfully about the stories that form our identities in his book The Stories We Live by: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self  He shows how a heightened sense of our own ancestry, family and personal stories can create new options and perspectives for happiness.  And he shows practical techniques for “re-storying” our identities: why believe a negative story about yourself, when a positive one is equally true?  why make yourself suffer unnecessarily?

As I explore these themes in my novel in progress Honor’s Ghost, the questions become ever more complex… and fascinating.

Perhaps this quote explains why genealogy is the second most popular hobby in the UK, fishing being the first. The popular TV programme “Who do you think you are?” shows us the emotional power of discoveries about our ancestors; their heroics, their griefs, their secrets and joys.

In The Ancestor Syndrome,  Schutzenberger, a Freudian psychoanalyst and psycho-dramatist sets out the theory of  transgenerational memory traces.  In a process that has  yet to be fully identified, scraps of memory seem to echo down through generations, manifest in repeating patterns and dynamics, and perhaps also in dreams and fantasies.  These traces make up part of who we become, for better or worse.

Twenty years ago, I had the good fortune to work intensively with Reynold Jelmane, a therapist and leadership development specialist who applies transgenerational methods to personal and professional growth.  Guided by Reynold and his gifted wife Hamida, I explored my own ancestry, keeping in mind the question, What is the wider family story in which I am embedded? Who are those who went before, creating the web which I became a part of?

The  photograph above is of my grandparents, Violet and Paddy Howells on their wedding day, with Violet’s parents (my great grandparents) Annie and Bill Gifford.  As a child I was especially close to my grandparents, though I never knew my great grandparents who died many years before my birth.  My grandmother entertained me with tales of her parents and their many children.  As part of my work with Reynold, I gathered the facts of their lives, coming across two tragic family secrets.  I have allowed my imagination to play around these facts, to invent the circumstances that could have resulted in these unspeakable events; and this part factual, part fictional story forms part of the plot of Honor’s Ghost, a novel  (in progress) which aims to illustrate the quote below, also from Schutzenberger’s insightful book.

“We continue the chain of generations and, knowingly or not, willingly or unwillingly, we pay debts of the past: as long as we have not cleared the slate, an ‘invisible loyalty’ impels us to repeat and repeat a moment of incredible joy or unbearable sorrow, an injustice or a tragic death.  Or its echo.”