Building A Better Mousetrap

        A few weeks ago, I did a post called “Fuck You God”. In terms of reader response per word written, I got more bang for the buck from those three syllables than anything I’ve written on this website.
        I guess I hit a nerve. Honestly, that wasn’t my intent.
        My intent was to share what was happening for me that morning.
        After screaming that phrase for what seemed like hours, but was in actuality about twenty minutes, the thought occurred to me to post it. Initially, I rejected the idea. Way too over the top. Way too offensive. Way too indulgent. Way too...pick your poison.
        But then I thought, “Is it real?”. Fuck yeah. As real as it gets. And that’s what sold it for me.
        I had no idea what kind of backlash there would be. Or what kind of support I’d receive. I couldn’t worry about that. Not if I’m trying to be real. Whatever consequences arise from being real is just something I’m going to have to deal with.
        After all, how often are we not real because we fear the consequences of being real?
        While I was screaming, I thought of that scene in the movie Forrest Gump. When lieutenant Dan is on the top of the mast during a hurricane, daring god to kill him. I was actually jealous that I myself wasn’t in a dangerous place in the middle of a violent storm, just like he was. I wanted the full effect, damn it. But doing it in the privacy of my own home would have to suffice. So I settled for blowing my voice out, going house on my punching bag, and working up a drenching sweat.
        Although I had been struggling with how I felt since the previous night, the tirade was actually triggered by the innocuous decision to make fresh juice that morning. Fresh juice which I promptly spilled all over the counter. That’s actually what made me snap. Isn’t that always the way it happens?
        So I lost it, for the first time in over half a year. When it was all over, I realized how long it had been since I was that angry, and I actually smiled. Because it underscored how much anger I’ve released in the past seven months, and how much lighter and happier I am as a result. So getting that angry thus reminded me of how infrequently I go there now.
        And Lo and Behold, after blowing my smokestack and then talking about it with my sister, a small miracle happened. I was able to thoroughly enjoy the rest of my day.
        “How did that happen?”, I asked myself. This was a relatively new experience for me. I wasn’t stuck in the feeling anymore. Just as important, I wasn’t beating myself up for feeling what I felt and thinking what I thought and doing what I did. Yowza. This is much better than the way I’ve been doing it for most of my life.
        In a nut shell, I had allowed myself to be completely real, and then gave myself permission to express that. Full Tilt. That may not sound like a big deal, but consider where most of us go when we have incredibly intense, sometimes disturbing, thoughts and feelings. Often, we immediately negate them and stuff them back inside. Sometimes, we have to, because to express them at that particular moment or in that particular situation may be totally inappropriate. But all too often, we then convince ourselves that we didn’t feel that way. That’s denial. Or we mercilessly criticize and judge ourselves for feeling or thinking it. That’s shame. Or we forget about the feelings, cramming them so far down that we can’t get to them again. That’s disease.
        Build up years of that, and you create within yourself actual physical ailments. You manifest depression, anxiety, rage, obsessive compulsive disorder, and just about any other challenging personality trait you can name.
        It was precisely because I was able to accept and release these very disturbing thoughts and feelings that I was able to move through them. I was fortunate enough to be able to do it right then and there. With reckless abandon. But if circumstance didn’t allow me to do it that way, I would still need to find a time and a place to express what I felt. Somehow. Someway.
        I could have chosen music. Or exercise. Or picked a time and place to lose it when I could be alone. How we choose to release such intense emotions is up to us. But the key is that they get released. The key is they get dealt with. If not, they eat us alive from the inside out.
        Before, when faced with a challenging emotional situation, especially pain, my options were to get angry or to shut down. I vacillated between these two stressful extremes, which were themselves already on a dubious emotional continuum. An emotional continuum that I had created through years of not knowing what to do with what I felt.
        Anger and disconnect. I certainly had other tools in my toolbox. I just didn’t use them. Now I do. And like a carpenter who gets better at building the more he builds, I’m much better at feeling, expressing, releasing, and moving through emotions. “Simply” because I completely honor my process.
        I still have intense emotions. I’m an artistic, creative, imaginative man. A passionate man full of life and energy and intensity. A strong man who isn’t afraid to feel. It’s what I do with these feelings now that’s made all the difference. I actually allow myself to feel them. Then I choose how to express them. How to deal with them. Then I release them and move through them. My life all the richer for it.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and lifetime of Wrongs) Reserved.

The Groove Is In The Heart

       It was past ten at night, and I had been driving for over six hours. Los Angeles, where I had spent my summer, felt like a world away. But the city’s memory was still able to physically manifested itself. All I had to do was look to my right. There, thousands of feet below me, and many miles from this windy road that carved it’s way through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the bright lights and urban sprawl of Fresno exploded out of the desert. Fresno reminded me of the city of angels, if only in it’s stark contrast to where I was going: Sequoia National Park. Home of the Giant Sequoia Trees. The largest living organisms on the face of the earth.
       There were no lights on this road, the only illumination being supplied by the headlights of my rented Mustang convertible. And although it was nearly pitch black, I knew I was surrounded by dense forest. More than that, I could feel the presence of giant trees. Like the kind of sensation you get when you know you’re being watched. I couldn’t see them. But I could feel them. They were everywhere.
       A sense of peace and excitement filled every crevice of my being until it had nowhere to go but out, and I laughed and smiled with a purity I rarely experience. I was in the midst of magic once more. Like that one Christmas morning you’ll never forget. The one, that for some reason felt different and special from all the rest, this night was destined to occupy that same sacred space.
       A simple, yet profound, completely zen experience. One of my life’s great moments.
       Surprisingly, considering the remoteness of my location, I was able to still get radio stations. The Mustang had a crankin’ stereo that could pump out enough volume for me to hear music even with the top down, pushing ninety on any interstate. As I made my way into the Giant Forest, I came across a song that I recognized, although I didn’t know it’s name. But I was way into it just the same. It had a killer groove, an infectious riff, and the melody was completely doing it for me. I could make out some of the words: “I couldn’t dance for another” was one line that kept repeating. But the key phrase, the one that I instinctively knew betrayed the song’s title, I couldn’t completely decipher. “The groove is....something, something, something.” As closely as I listened, I couldn’t make it out.
       That song, seeing as it was part of one of my life’s most precious moments, has stayed with me ever since. I’ve not actively tried to find out what song it was, but I knew that someday, the mood would strike me and I would begin the quest to posses it.
       The other night, that quest began. The title came too me in a dream. I didn’t even have to look for it. It found me. How cool is that?
       In my dream, I was sucking face with...a certain girl. Sucking face is actually a rather crass term here. Because it was one of those very long, deep, soft, passionate kisses where our mouths melded, and her delicious wet tenderness seemed to gently engulf my entire face. In fact, I awoke with my mouth open, drooling on my pillow. I would love to have a video of me during the last few minutes of that dream.
       Anyway, during the kiss, I heard the words of that song clearly for the first time. “The Groove Is In The Heart”. I didn’t hear the song itself, or even the melody. Just the words. But I knew where those words belonged. I just knew.
       I woke up, pillow drool and all, the words reticent in my room, as though they had just been said aloud. I immediately thought to myself “Of course. ‘The groove is in the heart’. Look where I’ve come from. Where I’m at. Where I’m going. How apropos.” Then I turned on my computer and went immediately to iTunes, where I searched the song, found it, listened to several different versions, and bought a few of them.
       Now I’m not claiming that this is some big realization of any sort, or that the dream has any great significance. It was just plain gnarly to hear those words in a dream, especially those words, and know exactly where they belong. Very cool.
       And in a way, it closes the loop on the experience that I had on my way to Sequoia.
       Such experiences are born not purely of the mind, but of the whole being. That’s what makes them so rich and powerful. When you can feel something stirring in your heart. When you know there is something happening in your body. When you are aware of your mind, but not in it. When you intuitively sense your connection to something far greater than yourself, and you are truly conscious that “that something” is connected to everything else.
       That’s an experience. And I want more of them. That’s a life. And I want more of it.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a groove full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Note: To hear “The Groove Is In The Heart”, go here.

Bleach vs. Battery Acid

       I’m told, by many women, that they like a man who’s confident. They also tell me that they like a man who’s connected to what he feels; that he’s honest with himself about his true feelings. And virtually every woman I’ve talked to says that what’s even more attractive is when a man shares what he truly feels with her. Because that promotes true intimacy.
       But what happens when a man’s confidence is at odds with what he feels? What happens during those moments, or hours or days, or longer, when a man doesn’t feel so confident, and he’s in touch with that. And instead of bullshitting his way through that with his significant other, he shares it.
       Does he become less attractive because he’s not so confident? Or does he become more attractive because he’s sharing this with the woman he loves? Or do the two cancel each other out, like battery acid and bleach, to produce a neutral emotional pH?
       Ladies and Gentlemen, step up to the plate on this and share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
       This post is all about what YOU have to say. Let's hear it. Post a Comment.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and zero to fourteen Wrongs) Reserved.

When Opportunity Drop Kicks

       For many years, I was afraid to open up to my feelings because I was afraid of where I would go once I did. Of what would happen to me if I truly felt all of this pain I had stored inside of me. I was afraid I would become terminally depressed, or worse, suicidal. The thing is, I was already depressed. Because I wasn’t dealing with all of this hurt. I inaccurately calculated that if I brought on more pain, I would become more depressed. Which would bring my life to a standstill. As it was, I wasn’t moving in the direction I wanted to. Descending into pain would, I thought, bring my life to a grinding halt. And I’d be the one getting grinded.
        It was the same reason I wouldn’t risk having my heart broken. The pain of that first heart break, and the truckload of issues that went along with it, were still living inside of me. Because I had never faced it.
        As much work as I’ve done on myself since my mid twenties, I avoided delving into the truth about my relationships with women. Not in therapy, or workshops, or seminars, or on my own, say in my writing. My first heartache was, in a way, still happening to me. I let it stop me from ever letting anyone get too close.
        I wasn’t phony with my lover, or anybody else for that matter. Even people who don’t like me would say that I’m a straight shooter. So I shot straight. But the six-gun of my life was only firing a few of it’s bullets.
        My feelings were apparently the problem. They had seemingly caused me an inordinate amount of pain. Yes, there was joy. Lots of it actually. But far more pain. So, I rationed, if feeling primarily creates pain, then limit feeling. Do that, and I limit the pain. That sounds nice. Who doesn’t want less pain?
        Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. If I restrict my feelings, eventually, I lose the ability to choose which ones I feel and which ones I don’t. That ability is suspect to begin with, but the illusion of it is easier to maintain in the beginning because initially, life feels better. After all, I’m in less pain. Wow! Less pain! That means more joy! More happiness! So I’m happier! Aren't I? And all I had to do was clamp down on my feelings? This is the ticket baby!
        The whole paradigm was off. It’s not a matter of getting to a different point on a continuum. It’s about creating a whole new continuum on which to operate. To do that, I had to open up to my feelings. I had to deal with all this hurt that I had shoved down deep inside of me. That was the scariest thing I could imagine. So I avoided it. Even though, somewhere inside of me, I knew that would save me. Thus my greatest fear was also my greatest salvation.
        At forty-five, I was ready. In May of 2008, I was coming out of My Dark Ages, the most painful period of my adult life. I could feel myself starting to open up. After months of apparent stagnation, all of my work started to crack the vault I had constructed around my heart. Around my true, whole self.
        But I was still not going to chose to dive into this ocean of hurt.
        Well I didn’t have to. Because it chose me.
        Opportunity is said to be the juncture of circumstance, timing, and preparation. I was ready for a breakthrough. When my last girlfriend broke up with me, it triggered an avalanche of hurt that I had effectively corralled my whole life. Losing her was a pain that was six inches in front of my face. I couldn’t hide from it. I couldn’t out run it, out think it, out maneuver it, out fight it, or out fuck it. I had only one option. I had to feel it. I had to face it.
        When I started to deal with the immediate, in your face pain of not being with her, the world of hurt I had kept inside just exploded. The process of release began. The process of rebirth. And like all births, it’s painful. And like all births, it means freedom. This shit had been keeping me prisoner my entire life.
        I would never have chosen this particular path that began on June 12, 2008. Never. I don’t care what you promised me in exchange. So I didn’t have to chose it. Instead, it was forced upon me. Because it’s what I needed. To finally shift to this new place. This new place where life looks different. This new place where I’m more likely to see opportunities instead of obstacles, hope instead of despair, faith instead of fear, joy instead of pain, love instead of hurt.
        And instead of strengthening my subversive cynicism, this experience has deepened my spirituality. I see that the universe gave me what I needed because I could not give it to myself. I never would have given this to myself. I couldn’t. When I was ready to face this, the opportunity presented itself. And I took it. What a wonderful example of how I co-create my life with the universe. With divine forces. I stepped up to the plate big time, for sure. But I didn’t put the plate there. Or the ballpark the plate is in.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and an opportune amount of Wrongs) Reserved.

Note: See the widget right above this? The one that says "Technocrati" on it? If you look on the left side of any page, you'll see another Technocrati widget. If you like what I'm writing, please click on the widget, join Technocrati for free, and rate my blog. It will help drive more traffic here, which I absolutely want. Thank You. This has been a recording.

It's A Wonderful Life

       This is admittedly a bizarre time to post. But a combination of circumstance and inspiration has found me with some time to kill before I head to a friend’s house for Christmas Eve.
        While watching It’s A Wonderful Life, it occurred to me: How many of us are like George Bailey. Specifically, how many of us don’t ask for help when we desperately need it?
        During My Dark Ages, that was me. Although I was doing certain things to help myself, my attitude was that I was doing it all alone. That attitude wasn’t based on reality, but on my belief that I just wasn’t worth asking for all the help I really needed. I was unable to fully admit how positively awful I felt inside, because I was afraid that if anyone knew the truth, the Whole Truth, they would, in the words of Henry Potter “run me out of town on a rail”.
        That fear of complete alienation because of what was happening to me, because of how I felt, was real. As real as it was for the character George Bailey.
        But I’m not there anymore. Like George Bailey, I had an epiphany, an awakening. Through the actions of another, I was lead down a road, that I chose to take, that changed my life. So on this, my favorite night of the year, I say thank you. To the universe. To my higher power. To her.
        Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
        And Happy Holidays once again...

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a wonderful life full of Wrongs) Reserved.