Emotional Bullshit

In the vernacular of Clintology:

emo•tion•al  bull• shit.

1. denial of how you feel;
2. kidding yourself, and someone else, of your feelings;
3. not done consciously; a blind spot; you don’t know that you don’t know it;
4. when you become aware of this blind spot, the possibility of creating something new and different appears; a more conscious, far more fulfilling and loving emotional life; you then have the possibility of truly intimate love in your life.

       Emotional Bullshit. It’s everywhere.
       I was once a world class Emotional Bullshitter. I was angry and sad and was in complete denial about how angry and sad I was. Today, when I engage in Emotional Bullshit, it’s almost always in my denying that I am either angry or hurt.
       It doesn’t make us bad people. It doesn’t make us wrong. But it does get in our way.
       Emotional Bullshit is not purposely deceiving somebody about how you feel because, for example, you don’t want to hurt their feelings. It isn’t being deceptive because there’s something you want from somebody, and being deceptive will help you get it. Emotional bullshit is when we are so cut off from what we feel that we don’t know we’re not being honest about our true feelings. Emotional Bullshit is in essence emotional denial. And a great acronym for D.E.N.I.A.L.  is “Don’t Even Know I Am Lying”.
       This comes at a tremendous cost. Emotional Bullshit is accompanied by a reluctance to be vulnerable and a reluctance to open up; when we are afraid to admit we are afraid. We Emotionally Bullshit when we are afraid to admit we are lost, don’t want to look bad, and don't want anybody to see how lost we are.
       Emotionally Bullshitting another is not done in a calculated fashion designed to deceive. It is done out of fear, and as an act of protection. It’s a survival mechanism that saved us from great pain in the past.
       Emotional Bullshit is what I call a semi-conscious choice. If it were totally conscious, then it would be an active lie. If it were totally unconscious, we would experience virtually no internal conflict over it. But because it’s semi-conscious, we aren’t aware that we are doing it, but we are on some level suffering because of it. We have feelings of love, and desire connection and intimacy, but we are too afraid to give into them. Our fear prevents us from getting what our heart most desires.  
       In our present culture, where the fear of intimacy, vulnerability, and commitment to another runs very high, we routinely stuff how we feel. We deny our desire for connection and love. In fact, we have become very sophisticated and clever about denying it.
       Emotionally, we don’t know who we are. We don’t know what we feel because we are so cut off from our hearts. So we don’t know what we want. And the way we currently go about relationships is how a culture that doesn’t know who they are or what they want behaves. We have one half or both halves of couples coming in and out of the relationship. We look lost. We act lost. Because we are lost.  
       There is a way out of all this. But it requires we embrace something else. It requires coming out of emotional denial and into emotional embrace. Almost like an alcoholic coming out of denial of being an alcoholic. And just like in any twelve step program, this means, and here's a four letter phrase: “doing some work on ourselves”.
       This should really come as no surprise. Look how much time and effort and energy and commitment we put into our careers to succeed and be more fulfilled at our jobs. Don’t our relationships deserve at least a fraction of that time, energy, effort, and commitment? And when I say “relationships” I am first and foremost talking about your relationship with yourself. Right behind that would be your intimate relationship, if you have one, or any other relationship in your life that is vitally important to you.
       Coming out of Emotional Bullshit and living a rich emotional life is also known as being “emotionally available”. You can relate becoming more emotionally available to achieving physical fitness. Many of us commit precious resources to staying physically fit. And most of our education in this area is learned by doing. It’s a practice. We also learn from reading books and magazines about fitness, and often hire professionals like personal trainers to assist us. Isn’t our emotional life worth at least that much?
        As I’ve said, when I Emotionally Bullshit myself these days, it’s usually around anger and sadness. This is because of my continuing occasional struggles around the emotions anger and pain. Whatever particular emotions you are most uncomfortable with (and this could actually be all emotions), you will be in most denial about. You will shut those most uncomfortable and frightening emotions out the most. Ultimately meaning you will be in the most conflict with them and suffer the most from stuffing them.
       Years ago, I gave up the fear of being vulnerable. In other words, I got comfortable with the emotion of love. I put down much of my macho bullshit facade and embraced how wonderful it felt to love another and be loved. I did this in all of my relationships. With my lover. With my close friends. With my family. I embraced my huge heart, my deep feelings, let go of a sometimes very hard exterior and softened up so much that I redefined all the intimate relationships in my life, from my father to my girlfriend.
       I don’t struggle so much with coming from my heart anymore. I don’t struggle with showing love. I show it. I receive it. I swim in it, even if sometimes I feel like I’m drowning. After all, how the fuck do you learn to swim if you stay out of the water? You don’t. Yet many of us try to be in loving relationships without actually diving into the water. And when we do dive in, we wear a life jacket. We half ass it, not risking being vulnerable, not opening up. We jump in, life preserver on, then jump out when it gets tough or scary. We’re incredibly stingy with our emotions, aren’t willing to explore ourselves, and aren’t willing to risk.
       Let me ask you, does anybody who doesn’t take off the life jacket ever learn to swim? You’ll never learn to swim in the exquisite sea of deep and intimate love without taking off the life jacket and giving it all you’ve got. And, if you’re with a person who’s already a better swimmer than you, and loves you enough to stick with you while you give it your best, you can learn so much. And you can swim together.
       Because, after all, that’’s what the ocean is for.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Anatomy of A Ready To Go Bedroom

Here's how to equip your bedroom for role playing, love making, comfort, and lots of fun.

Click on the tumbnail below to take you to another page, then click on that thumbnail to take you to a much bigger picture, as it were.

Morning Channel

       I usually don’t editorialize my poems when I post them. But my writing coach, Anika Nailah and I are creating a workshop that will teach couples how to write poetry for each other. To facilitate that, I’m paying very close attention to my own poetic process so that I can pass on what I know in order to help others write from their heart.
       This poem literally wrote itself inside of me this morning as I awoke. Its seeds were planted in my subconscious, pre-cognitively, because before I was even aware of what I was thinking, the words were coming together to form sentences and phrases. I love when that happens.
       If we cultivate our awareness to what we’re feeling, thinking, and experiencing very first thing in the morning, we may surprise ourselves with how creative we are at that time of day. Solutions to problems or key insights may come to us like a lightning bolt. Ideas and phrases that may make a difference pop into us, as we float out of our subconscious and into our conscious mind.
       Next to your bed, keep a pen and pad of paper, or an iPad, or any device where you can readily jot down what comes to you. Make a habit out of taking notes on what you’re going through very first thing in the morning. Take advantage of these brief but powerful moments when you may experience yourself as a channel to some higher wisdom or creativity.


I can

Wipe away every tear you cry
Hug away every doubt
Caress away all your aches
Kiss away every fear
Love away all the pain you suffer

I can

Not because I’m so special

But because you are

©2012 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Update on Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 1:45PM by Clint Piatelli

Forgot to mention that the impetus for this poem was when I awoke thinking about the extraordinary powers of super heroes (I told you our minds are wild first thing in the morning). I got to thinking what if super powers are not a function of the super hero but instead a function of the people in his life that he loves? In other words, the super hero has super powers not because he has been granted them by some amazing process, but because of how special the people in his life are, and how he feels about them. It's actually the incredibleness of others that gives him his powers, not himself.

Clinterview: Man Vs. Emotion (part 3)

Emotional Availability is necessary for creating deep, fulfilling, passionate, exciting, and remarkable intimate relationships. It's a practice. So let's start practicing....

The Science (Sort Of) of Self Expression

       Human evolution experts have hypothesized that a key element to human development has been our ability to express ourselves artistically. As far as we can tell, Homo Sapiens were the first hominids to create cave drawings. These drawings are the first graphic examples of artistic and literary self expression. Anthropologists determined that this ability to create art has not only been critical in the development of human culture and society, but in the development of the individual. In other words, if we want to keep growing and developing, we need to express ourselves.
       That’s great news. Because it underscores what I’ve been serving up here on MuscleHeart. There is some science behind all of this feeling based self expression stuff. There is indeed a bedrock of reason, research and data underneath how important it is to express yourself. And I’ll be exploring more of that in future posts.
       If we are disconnected from our feelings, our ability to express ourselves becomes severely limited. I know this very well, because I have been there, more than once. How and why we disconnect from our feelings is a fascinating subject, both scientifically and emotionally.
       Feelings can be frightening. Especially for people who spend lots of time in their heads, which is to say, most of us. Feelings are powerful, and they sometimes move us against what our head is telling us. What we feel and what we think are sometimes in opposition. Our heads and our hearts don’t communicate well unless we cultivate and nurture and develop a relationship between the two. One way to look at them is like two very different people who both want the same thing but, because they are so different, are having a very hard time communicating and understanding one another. We all know what that’s like.
       Our heads and our hearts both operate from different places, but ultimately, beneath all the smoke and mirrors, they want the same thing; they want us to be happy and fulfilled. They both want love. Yes, even the head. But the head believes it and it alone knows how to get it, and wants to be in control of getting it. The head, and by head I mean the mind, believes that it can figure everything out, and that it doesn’t need the heart.
       The heart isn’t crazy about the mind either. The heart finds the mind terribly condescending, self righteous, and just a big fucking know it all. Which in some ways it is. The head and the heart miss the essence of each other. They both miss the benefits and strengths each one brings to the proverbial table. And unless we make a conscious effort to build a relationship between the two, they don’t get along very well. And that leads us to pain and suffering.
       I am by no means an expert at getting my head and my heart to communicate. Sometimes I do it, and sometimes I down right suck at it. But I’m aware of the value of this relationship, and I practice getting it to work. And one of the ways I get the two to work together is through self expression. Because to be fully expressive, the heart and mind must work together. They have to communicate. To attempt self expression without engaging the mind means no action is taken. To self express without your heart results in a pretty uninspired, vapid endeavor.
       From what I wear to what I write, my self expression comes from my head and heart working together in presenting myself to the world. The total is greater than the sum of the parts if both are dancing with each other and not trying to go solo, which is each one’s preference. There are plenty of times when I wish I did not have a heart to cloud my thinking. There are plenty of times when the power of my emotions makes communication between head and heart difficult, because the stronger and louder my heart screams, the stronger and louder my head yells to be heard. It can literally become a shouting match inside of me. And I’m an intelligent, very deep thinker who also has a huge heart and feels very deeply. So it’s like Clash of The Fucking Titans.
       When that happens, I have to take a step back. I need to hear both, and to do that, they can’t be screaming. I want the intensity of what they have to say without the volume. And sometimes I don’t know how to get that.
       But I’m working on it.

©2012 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.