This is maybe one of the most difficult chapters that I have to write. The year of 1973 could easily be buried among the many other stories of my past. Yet it is a part of me and events occurred that I cannot, in good conscience, deny happened.

In my adult life I challenged myself to cast out the skeletons in the closet of my past. To move forward in life I had to acknowledge both the good and the not so good - both within character and my experiences. If I could not be honest to myself it would have been hypocritical to expect honesty elsewhere. If I could not explore the darkest aspects of my life with reality and truth, how could I explore any aspect of life with a fair degree of objectivity?

Within this chapter lies an event of such deep emotional trauma that decades later I still experience flashbacks. Perhaps the reason that I include this as a recorded part of my autobiography is to empower others to face their personal demons in order to grow in spirit and self-belief. Fear and shame are powerful inhibitors to personal growth. I learned how to overcome them but not before I experienced the result of how they worked like a cancer to erode my psychological and emotional well being.

…But this part of the story occurs a few months after another symbolic moment.

For years I looked forward to reaching the age of twelve. Maybe the idea stemmed from my belief that Peter Pan was twelve. He could fly. It was a magical age to me and I wondered if, at the age of twelve I would suddenly learn how to fly also. There was a part of me that told me I was thinking nonsense but another part of me so desperately wanted to change the harshness of the mundane world and turn it into a magical fairytale.

On the morning of my twelfth birthday I got up full of expectation. This was the day that I had looked forward to for years. It was meant to be a landmark year when everything in my life changed for the better.

 

Walking The Path is now available in paperback See http://www.shaneward.co.uk for details