Written in a winter of dispair, ‘The golden thread’ is a poem of hope, kindness, and inner knowing. I’m speaking to the unshakable understanding that we are, in all ways, deserving of love and belonging, particularly the love and belonging that we can give ourselves. This is true even if we don’t feel it.
Six months after getting divorced my life was in a complete mess. My coaching business had collapsed, I’d had a fairly serious manic episode followed by a severe depression that lasted months. It was at the bottom of this depression that I came across a video by Brené Brown that inspired this poem.
My recent ex-wife, Ruth, had kindly shared the video knowing it would be useful. It was a video of Brené speaking at a weekend conference, and was about 9 hours long. In my grumpiness and low mood I skipped through most of it until I heard Brené tell one of her stories; I was hooked.. here’s my paraphrasing of this story - if you know Brené then you can Imagine her sharing this in her querky style from a stage infront of 1000s.
“… and so, we were doing this huge piece of social science research into what makes the difference between those of us who get knocked down (and let’s face it, we all get knocked down by life at some time or other), … those of us who get knocked down by life and ‘rise stronger’, versus those of us who get knocked down and stay down…
We were looking at the data and there was nothing emerging. We’d interviewed 1000s of people whose lives had been knocked off course, who had hit rock bottom, and we wanted to know what made a difference in the way we responded to these pivotal moments.
Nothing was emerging, no pattern, nothing clear. I felt there had to be something common between these people, but nothign was coming from our analysis.
And then something began to emerge.
A pattern, a noticing… and it was this:
That those who were taken down and who rose stronger had a belief in common; that they never let go of the belief that they were worthy of love and belonging.
Let me say that again: Those people who rose stronger from their period of challenge were those who never let go of their belief that they were worthy of love and belonging.
And importantly it wasn’t that they always felt full of love and belonging. Not at all. In those moments of total loss they felt depressed and dispairing. AND, in the midst of that, somehow, they held onto their belief, their knowledge, their inner knowing that they were worthy of love and belonging”
It’s this inner knowing of being worthty of love and belonging that feels, to me, like a golden nugget that nestles in the nest of my heart.
Sometimes this nugget might feel strong, clear, powerful and an easy thing to hold on to - at other times it feels small and diminished, but, importantly, the golden nugget is never extinguished.
From each golden nugget runs a golden thread connecting these moments through time. For me the thread literally ( / metaphorically ) runs forwards and backwards from our hearts. Backwards to previous life moments of remembering and experiencing my worthiness, and forwards into the future towards more moments of belonging.
Hence the title of this poem; The golden thread.
Like a golden nugget nestled in the nest of your heart An inner knowing; there is a way, a way through a way round, and a way into. To turn towards anything that life throws at you is to hold the golden thread. To hold the golden thread is an exercise in openness, trust, belief and different kinds of Love; A Mother’s love unconditional and whole Corroborating all previous intuitions and appearances. A Father’s holding of what could be, And a childlike innocence an inner playfulness infinitely light and eternally present. To hold the golden thread is to show yourself different kinds of love Different kids of love all holding one untameable Golden thread, From one golden nugget to the next.
Does this poem speak to you?
I’m curious; sharing poetry is always a little vulnerable so it’d be really lovely to hear any thoughts or comments if you have them.
On a more technical poetry front, this is the first poem I’ve used punctuation; our friend ChatGPT said it’s OK to do that, I wonder if the punctuation helped with how you read / heard the poem?
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