SuperFly's 11 (part 2)

To get up to speed, read SuperFly's 11 if you missed it.

In the "Nurture Vs. Nature" debate, I stand clearly on the side of "both". 

It's a Yin and Yang paradigm, just like almost everything. Case in point: I've lead an unconventional life (to say the least). Part of that is circumstance (nurture) and part of that is intrinsic to who I am (nature).

There are great benefits, and some heavy costs, to the life I've chosen, with the understanding that some it is a matter of life choosing me. Which is not to say I'm not 100% responsible for all of it. Taking the possibility of past lives off the table (because I'm undecided about my belief in that), life chose my early circumstances and environment. Life chose me from the get go to be blessed with access to money, education, a nice place to live, relatively high social status, and some fine comforts. When I became an adult, I chose what to do with all that.

Never having to worry about some of things many find a challenge, like food on the table, rent or mortgage payments, and shelter, I focused on developing my inner dimensions. I worked at  educating myself, at developing self awareness and personal growth; I played at living a life full of creativity, self-expression, and, truth be told, having a good fucking time.

But there are certain areas of my life where I have been unchallenged, and those areas are thus underdeveloped. My purpose and career have always been nebulous. I've doubted my inner strength, my resolve, my resiliency, my tenacity. There's been an over arching theme of intense self-doubt and lack of true self-love. I always felt I was "missing something", and didn't believe I had what it took to be successful, especially when it came to career and purpose. 

That is, until I got my ass into treatment. 

When Michelangelo was asked how he created the statue of David from a single block of marble, he replied, "David was already in there. I just had to remove what didn't belong". That's a great way to describe what I've been through over the last five months. Yes, I've gained massive amounts of new knowledge, learned new tools, gained understanding, had shifts and breakthroughs galore. and made exciting au courant inner connections. I've built myself up from the inside out. But, fundamentally, this has been a journey of stripping away what doesn't belong, letting go of that which no longer serves me, and discovering that all I need is already inside me. It is through that clearer lens that I now see myself. It is with that new sense of self that I now fly into my life.

It's both self-discovery and self-creation. I don't see the two as independent, mutually exclusive, or even separate. There is an alchemy to this process that at once allows me to discover, and create, a truer, wholer, higher version of Clint "SuperFly" Piatelli. That's the best way I can describe it right now.

In the first part of this post, SuperFly's 11, I wrote about picking apart, looking under the hood, of a scene from the movie Ocean's 11. The sene moved me, and I wanted to know what about it had touched something deep within. Then, in therapeutic sessions, I dug deeper and then applied what I had gleaned. This is a wonderful example of an axiom I have fully subscribed to since entering treatment: Use Every Experience As An Opportunity For Growth.

In the restaurant scene, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) surprises his ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts) who's sitting alone, waiting for her new husband. Danny is somewhat contrite (without actually apologizing), open, and direct. From jump street, Tess starts shooting sharp, poison arrows right into his heart. She's hostile, angry, bitter, quick witted, and deadly accurate. Ocean, however, has enough insight to realize that this behavior, paradoxically, is further proof that she still deeply cares about him. Tess knows how to hurt him, and goes straight for the jugular. Not that she doesn't have reason to. He lied to her. He abandoned her. He screwed her over, royal. And yet, there he is. In the belly of the beast. 

He loves her. And, despite what she is saying, he knows she still loves him. He knows this, in his bones, in his heart. He's wiling to lay all his cards on the table for it. And, if he's wrong, he'll eat his words like a man and move on. When her new husband finally enters the scene, Danny sees him kiss her hand, right in front of him. Ocean is standing in all that with a rock solid core and taking blow after blow to his ego, to his manhood, to his heart. He may be dying on the inside, but he doesn't break a sweat. Doesn't go down. Doesn't even flinch.

What I see and experience is a man boldly standing in the middle of his truth, with the balls, with the chutzpah, with the self-assurance to take himself right into the lion's den. I see a man coming from his heart, opening himself up in the most vulnerable way possible. He integrates his vulnerability with his powerful sense of self and inner strength. He embodies, he is living from, the wisdom that his open heart is his one of his great sources of personal power. That is a paraphrase of the tag line for this website, "The Most Powerful Heart Is An Open One". 

When I strip away that which doesn't belong to me, the unnecessary stone from the marble statue, I am that man. When I integrate all those parts of me that were once disharmonious, my true light shines strong and bright from within and illuminates the whole of my life. When I answer life's call and risk laying it all on the line and detach from the outcome, I live a fuller, more enlightened existence. When I courageously stand in the whole of my truth and take that into my life at full throttle, I'm living the life that I designed. A life in harmony with what's happening within me. There is congruence between my inner and external worlds. 

For this discussion, let's take the fact that Ocean is a thief off the table. As we get to know Clooney's character throughout the movie, I see that Danny Ocean is highly intelligent, gutsy, courageous, creative, self-assured, bold, and has a huge heart. He's respected, admired, and loved. He's a trail blazer, a maverick, a leader. He's A Universe Denter.

Sounds a lot like someone I've just gotten to know.

©2017 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

SuperFly's Eleven

There's a scene in the movie Ocean's Eleven where George Clooney's character, Danny Ocean, surprises (shocks, actually) his ex-wife Tess (played by Julia Roberts) at the restaurant in the very hotel he's scheming to rob blind. I remember when I first saw the movie, something about that scene hit me so hard between the eyes that it felt like my third chakra was having an orgasm. In the moment, I wasn't focusing on my inner experience; I was way too into what was happening on the screen. Later, I pulled it apart, as I usually do with such powerful episodes. My takeaway, in a nutshell; "What fuckin' balls".

Back in late March of this year, that scene came up again during a therapy session. I've mentioned before that one of my challenges early in treatment was to more strongly identify with my adult man and integrate him with my inner boy. It wasn't that my adult self wasn't already there and underdeveloped; it was that he sometimes didn't show up when I needed him most. He needed some serious coaching in that, and other things.

I needed work on converging my exuberant, vibrant, sensitive boy with my powerful, wise-minded, more emotionally mature man. All too often, I literally experienced these two parts of me as separate people. And these two didn't know how to relate to each other very well. They loved each other very much, but didn't know how to communicate. Think of a father and young son relationship where the two have difficulty talking, sharing, and getting each other. The father is responsible for that kid, so he's gotta man up and learn how to show the boy that he loves him, will protect him under any circumstances, and allow the kid to express himself, in all his childlike glory.

Simply put, I had to grow up. And I had to grow up without losing the boy. My fear has long been that if I really "grew up", I would lose the boy in me. And this fear is not an imagined one. You see it all the time. Men, as they mature, often lose their sense of play, their sense of awe and wonder, their curiosity, their ability to let it all hang out, their passion, their imagination, their joy for life. They become overly serious, less expressive, more stoic, more distant. They lose that Je ne sais quoi that was alive and well when they were kids. 

I consciously never wanted that to happen to me. Ever. At any cost. Partly because I so identified with the boy, loved him with all my heart, and let him run so free within my life (in this context, the tag line is "In Healthy Ways"). I picture this metaphorically as a huge field, bordered by a forest, where a little boy is running and playing with wild abandon. He's insatiably curious about all the flowers and fauna he encounters. He's climbing the trees, and examining their leaves and bark and limbs like he's looking at them for the first time. He's building a tree house. He's exploring, and genuinely wowed by the experiences he's having. He's playing, pretending, creating, on the fly. Well I never wanted to cage that boy. I never wanted to put him in a playpen, no matter how big they playpen was. I wanted that kid to advance the limits, test the waters, and actually open the envelope (not just push it).

What I did need to learn is how to better parent that kid. And to do that, my man had to learn to communicate with him. To show his love, not just proclaim it. I've learned to bring that man into my life, integrate him with the boy, and have them so seamlessly one that they no longer feel like two separate people in the same body. I couldn't function anymore feeling so splintered. I had to be the whole, unfragmented trunk of the tree, all the time. And, paradoxically, I had to integrate that on an unconscious level so that I could consciously access the man in times when he wanted to bolt. Times when I needed him most. It's a process, and I'm well into it by now.

Circling back to Mr. Clooney, he represented, in that scene, many of the attributes that I admire, respect, and want to emulate. The scene itself is brilliant. From an artistic perspective, it's very well conceived, brilliantly written, and marvelously acted. But for me there's way more to it than that. I was reading between the lines, identifying the subtext, drawing out the unstated feelings, digging up the emotional content, getting inside the characters, and using that information to serve me. I was, in a word, "Repurposing" that scene so that it gave me something I wanted and needed. It was giving me a partial blueprint for the man I want to be, the man in parts I already am, and the man I am becoming.

Join me for part two, where I get into all the gory details.

©2017 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Going To Eleven

There was a time when my most glaring flaws, my many imperfections, my deepest pains, and my maladaptive thinking and behavior caused me great shame. Even after all the work I had done previous to getting into treatment, there were nuts I could not crack; scars I could not look at; wounds that would not heal; things I could not share, with anyone. No matter how loving, accepting, non-judgmental, and supportive they were. Some of that shit, I wasn't even aware of. 

That time is coming to an end. 

Through the years, I have continued to dig into the depths of my heart. I get to new places, stay there for a while, and then start digging again. The journey never ends. But that's okay with me. Because the gifts get better, the deeper we go. The treasures get richer, the more we risk. The gold gets brighter, the more we share. The more we connect. The more we open up. The more we Love.

I have known that for years. But knowing that doesn't mean you're ready to do it. At every level, you have to bump against something, or somethings, that you can't go around, under, or over. You just have to go through. At this point in my journey, I am reaching the bottom of that level. I'm having lots of breakthroughs. I've seen The Other Side of this. And it's freakin' beautiful.

The healthiest, most loving, most compassionate, wisest people I know have gone through the darkest places and the most fiery of hells. They have sunk so far down they're off the radar. And they have climbed out, one excruciating rung at a time, to new heights; with new strength, new resolve, new lives. 

I am gradually becoming one of those people. And I'm proud as fuck about it.

My perfectionism has less and less of a grip on me every day. My fear and shame fade into memories as The Ghosts Of My Past a little more every time I forge ahead. I'll meet them over and over, for the rest of my life. But I won't ever be their slave again. They will win some battles. But I'm winning the war (I'm not big on framing this journey like a war, but sometimes, that's what it feels like).

Where before I thought "Who's going to love me if I sink this low and have to go into treatment?", I now wear this whole experience like a badge of honor. I wear it with profound gratitude. If I continue to lead by example, as I've done since my first day of treatment back in March, I will impact lives, I will make a difference, I will live on purpose. 

I was a Universe Denter long before I got here. Throughout my life, loved ones have made that clear to me, countless times, with their words, with their actions, with their love. I knew I was able to do that, just by being fully myself. But I forgot it all too often. My self hatred would rise up and tell me that, "You may be able to dent another's universe, but there is Something Fundamentally Wrong and Unfixable about you". It would tell me that, deep down, I was broken and couldn't be helped. I've thought that since I was a kid. So the voice was loud and persistent and sometimes all consuming.

That voice is all but gone. 

It doesn't ever go away completely, but when it does come up, I just don't listen to it. I have turned the volume on that crap down to a whisper, and turned up the volume of Who I Am. Who I Really Am. What I Really Am. To paraphrase Nigel Tufnel from the movie "This is Spinal Tap", "I go to eleven". 

I'm under no delusions that I have anything licked. There are more levels to go. There are always more levels to go. Levels I haven't even dreamed of. But those levels always lead back up. The deeper I go, the deeper I dig, the new challenges and pains I face, as much as it might hurt to go through, become roads to new places of awareness, joy, wisdom, strength, passion, and purpose. Instead of roads to hell. 

Yeah. I'm having a good week.

©2017 Clint Piatelli., MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Digging Up A Body Image Disorder (Body Addiction part 3)

In my last intimate relationship, my lover noticed that, for a while, I became a little distant. That “while” coincided with the time span of my obsessive compulsion to get my body where I wanted it. I didn’t see the connection between distance and getting in killer shape. She noticed it. She felt it. But I wasn’t aware of it. And I certainly couldn’t explain it. 

I can now.

When my focus becomes my body, it leaves less space for other people. Especially my significant other. I learned that in a Body Image Disorder group. I didn’t know I had a BID before I got into treatment (just add this to my list. If I wasn’t so healthy, I’d think I was totally fucked up). I thought that, when I hit the gym and the cardio hard, and really watched what I ate, I was just kicking the ass I needed to get into shape. I was indeed doing that, but when you have a BID, things get far more complicated. 

Body image disorders are relational. They stem from, here we go again, a lack of nurturing, mirroring, and attunement in childhood. If we don’t get enough of that, and lots of us don’t, it can, sometimes, manifest itself as a body image disorder. As kids, if we don’t get what we need, we can believe that there is something fundamentally flawed about us. I did. Deep down, I thought I was, literally, a Defective Model. 

I carried that Defective Model bullshit into adulthood. I didn’t consciously feel that way most of the time. I didn’t act that way most of the time. But it was always there, somewhere very deep. And, when we get older, if we believe that we are fundamentally flawed, we can make the unconscious choice to go to our bodies to “fix” it. This makes sense, because our feeling of defectiveness is abstract. The body is concrete. It’s something we can alter, and actually see the results. Our body is our physical connection to life, our membrane to the world. So those of us with BID's unconsciously believe that, “If I just looked better, I would be more lovable”; no matter how loveable we truly are.

I was also a fat kid (this just gets better and better, doesn’t it). It felt beyond awful to be ridiculed and shamed. So when I discovered, in my teens, that I could do something about not being fat; in fact, I could do something that actually made me look….damn good, I took to it like a crack whore to, well, crack. 

There is some good news here. Being a heavy kid and never wanting be heavy again creates a very strong drive to be fit. And, for virtually my entire adult life, I’ve been very fit. In fact, I look and feel better today than I did at twenty-five (I’m 54). So there’s the gift in the wound. There’s always a gift in the wound. But if you don’t heal the wound, and you can’t heal it by having a great body, the wound is still there. 

Combine the fat kid syndrome with a body image disorder, and I was an accident of exercise and militant eating waiting to happen. It wasn’t about the actions of exercising religiously and eating right as a way of life that was the problem. Plenty of people do that in a healthy way. The problem was how I attached to it. I attached far too much of how I felt about myself to how buff I was. So I developed a mild to moderate obsession about being really fit. 

Being buff, however, does feel great. And not just physically; but mentally, emotionally, even spiritually. By working my ass off, educating myself, and applying great discipline, I made an ideal a reality; like creating a great career, or crafting a beautiful song. I had achieved something very difficult, so there’s a powerful sense of satisfaction. It fundamentally boosted my self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of self. And there are more endorphins constantly screaming through my body, even long after I exercise. I looked and felt better than most men half my age. I felt more connected to my body, and more connected to life. Looking and feeling the way I want powers up my prana, my “life force”. It fills my heart and soul with positive energy. It feels like electricity is surging through me all the time. That’s spiritual. I know, because I was aware of it. I felt it. It was visceral. It was real.

However, there was a dark side to that. A dark side that not everybody shares. That dark side is that it became too consuming. Again, if I’m that consumed by this, or by anything for that matter, there’s less room for you. It’s akin to being a workaholic. If so much of your energy and so much of yourself goes into your work; if you over-identify yourself with your career, the loved ones in your life pay for it.

In my last relationship, I was very loved. I felt very loved. More so than in any relationship I ever dreamed of. But deep down, I still had that wound. I knew I wanted to look better. But when I unconsciously believe that I can fix something on the inside by looking better on the outside, I’m in for trouble and a rude awakening. And I’ve known, for many years, that you can’t fill an internal hole with external dirt. But if you’re not aware of that hole because it’s unconscious, then it’s a blind spot. Everyone’s got blind spots. That was one of mine.

The Great News is that, Clint, "You've come a long way, baby!" (Remember that ad?). I’m currently once again getting in killer shape. But I’m not consumed by it. I’ve turned this unconscious pre-occupation into a conscious choice. I no longer attach any of my self worth to single-digit body fat percentage and a muscular physique. 

I’ve had the privilege of working extensively with Ari Winograd (www.bddclinic.com), who, literally, wrote the book on body image disorders, “Face To Face With Body Dysmorphic Disorder”. He has educated me, impacted me, and been a powerful ally in my healing. And before I worked with him, I made tremendous progress in residential treatment to develop myself from the inside out. I feel better than I ever have in my life.

Finally, on a very personal note, I want to say, I’m sorry Sweet Angel. The last thing I ever wanted to do was create even an inch of distance between us. The last thing I ever wanted to do was make even an inch of less space, for you.

©2017 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Mother Kym (part 2)

Lots of kids are bullied. I sure as shit was. It was worse than a mind fuck. It was a heart and soul fuck. Not only did I not know, as a child, how to defend myself, verbally, physically, or emotionally, but once the event happened, bringing it to mom made it worse. So I just stopped bringing it. Being completely ill equipped to handle such a thing, the event would stay with me and rattle around inside of me, indefinitely. I would go to my head and try to work it out. That’s certainly one reason I can be in my head so much if I’m not being mindful. I learned to do that very young, and those neural pathways got forged in steel.

With my EMDR therapist, we did an exercise where I recreate a specific, shitty, traumatic bullying experience. But I pick another woman to be my mom (my cousin Kym, the best mother I could possibly imagine), because my real mom wasn't able to give me what I needed. Then, I recreate the experience the way I would have wanted it to go down. 

It looks like this: 

I get physically bullied by an older kid at school and bring it home to Mother Kym. She consoles me. Wipes away my tears. Listens to me. Holds me. Loves me up. Makes me stop feeling bad about myself. She tells me what a wonderful little kid I am, and tells me she knows how awful this must feel. She gives me some ice cream and we start talking about something else, something I’m really interested in, like dinosaurs (I still find them endlessly fascinating). Then she calls the parents of the jerk-off that did this to me, and tells them, respectfully but in no uncertain terms, that their son is to leave me the hell alone.

Then, she teaches me how to kick some ass.

After four weeks of involving dad and other people to teach me what to do, I approach the bully in school. Since Mother Kym made the phone call, I’ve been on the receiving end of countless taunts from the bully and his cronies for involving her. But I’ve been able to withstand that, because Mother Kym and I have processed it, and I have some new resiliency regarding verbal abuse. I believe that kids have to fight their own battles. But the kid needs help. The kid has to be thought how to do that, by adults. It doesn’t happen by magic.

The bully tells me he’s not gonna apologize, and starts taunting me again. I ask him once more. He laughs. Then, I do the last thing he expects; I smack him right in the kisser. Hard. In front of all his friends. I’ve been practicing this for a month, so I know how and where to land a punch. He goes down like a sack of bricks, holding his bloody nose and bloody mouth, yelping like a dog. I say to him, “Don’t ever fuck with me, or my friends, again.” Then I walk away. Scene (that’s a theatre term for “End”).

I’m not a proponent of violence. However, I believe, in certain situations, you have to make a statement. A bold, loud as fuck statement; one that echoes long after it’s made. A statement that brings peace, self-assurance, and safety to the one who made it. This is that situation. This is that statement. In the world of elementary school, no one is likely to fuck with me again. I feel safe. Something I never actually felt, ever, as a kid.

Therapeutically, combined with EMDR, this stuff works because it powerfully forges new neural pathways that I build on. I immediately felt better after the session. I often know how to appropriately stand up for myself as an adult. But that doesn’t heal the original wound until I create something new around that specific trauma from childhood. And as long as the original wound is still there, there’s still the possibility of maladaptive behavior associated with events that trigger it. For example, nowadays when my blood does get up, I can sometimes act inappropriately and blow my top. Or, sometimes I’ll freeze, because my central nervous system shuts down. Those responses are a result of trauma. And neither works. 

The man I’m becoming is completely secure in his ability to act appropriately and take care of himself, and anybody he's with, if necessary, in any situation. It's also important I give fitting breadth to the word "appropriate"; because it's not completely objective. It's a space on a continuum, not an absolute point. Not recognizing that doesn't honor my own standards, values, and unconventional nature. If I'm present and in the flow of my own personal power, I'll choose behavior that serves the situation and myself. In an extreme example, as an adult, I know how to fight, but it won’t come to that, unless I'm physically threatened and have no other options. Because, otherwise, I can’t be bothered with your bullshit. I rise above it, because I am above it. I don’t care about you being a jackass or trying to pick a fight anymore then I care about a tiny spider crawling across my foot.

And that’s all I got to say about that…….for now.

©2017 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.