Heart Body

       A few days ago, somebody reminded me of how resilient the heart is. How it can be broken, sometimes repeatedly, and still come back to love again. I have recently learned how true that is. My heart exercised it’s resiliency when I finally allowed it to be torn apart.
        This is counter intuitive. And for myself, being a personal trainer and long time exercise fiend, it’s double-secret-probation counter intuitive. I’ve lived according to the axiom that you make something stronger and better by building it up. When it came to my heart, I interpreted that as fortification. Make it harder and tougher, at least on the outside. To build a strong heart, one that could deal with heartache, I had to fortify it so that it could withstand the blows of life. Or the sharp deadly arrows of another.
        Looking at that philosophy now, it’s clear to me how flawed my strategy was. Because I wasn’t building a stronger heart. I was building a stronger wall around a heart that I thought was weak. The way a garrison would build a fort around a town full of children.
        And my heart was, and still is, like a child. Or should I say, like a happy, well adjusted child. Playful and open, ready for the next...whatever. Excitable and wild. Spontaneous and sincere. Passionate, and absolutely gushing with what it can do. Wanting so much to give and receive love.
        My heart was always that way, but the fort I had built around it didn’t allow that light to shine through enough. Like a child who isn’t allowed to come and play, my heart yearned, but was denied it’s sustenance because my walls were keeping too much out. And too much in. It’s what walls do. And they did their job. But the child of my heart was still inside, suffocating. Starving. Lonely.
        My whole life, I thought the way to a strong heart was to protect it by building a a fort around it. But I was wrong. The way to a strong heart is to open it up and let it do what it was created to do. Put it out there and let it run and create and feel. Let it go unfettered and see what it can do. Use it. Let it exercise. Let it love.
        Like a twist on the old “child for the path” metaphor. Don’t prepare the journey for the heart. Prepare the heart for the journey. By letting it out.
        So, actually, my exercise analogy is totally applicable. Because instead of protecting my heart with walls, or with a suit of armor, I let let it run free. I let it dance and play. I let it go and see where it takes me, as anyone regularly reading this blog can attest. Wild at heart. And just as children get stronger and healthier and happier by doing that, so does my heart. And therefore so do I.
        I’ve worked out for thirty years, since I was fifteen. Up until very recently, I subconsciously related to my body as a veritable suit of armor. A encasement that would protect a very tender place deep inside of me. Now, I still work hard at building a strong, healthy body. But my relationship to the process, and to what I’m building, is radically different. No longer a suit of iron, I look at my body as well conditioned vehicle that’s carrying very precious cargo. That shift, not only in my thinking but in how I relate to myself, has allowed me to build stronger, healthier, freer, dare I say more beautiful, body. Certainly a body better suited for my life.
        No longer used to protect. Or defend. My body now serves the purpose of being a vessel through which I carry all of myself into the world. A spaciously limited but metaphysically vast movable home that brings it’s practically limitless contents with it, wherever it goes. Nothing else on earth can do that. Nothing that humans have ever created. No inanimate object in the universe. Only the body. How fuckin’ exquisite.

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

Click on the photo abpove to see more portrait shots of yours truly done by a great photographer named Jernnifer Devlin. Click HERE to go to her website.

Mental Necrophilia

       I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon mind-fucking something to death. Mental Necrophilia. And I can’t even say what it’s about, because that wouldn’t be fair to certain people. So forgive my vagueness.
       Ultimately, obsessive thinking is about me, not about whatever or whoever I’m obsessively thinking about. As always, the lesson in this situation is mine.
       If what I suspect is happening is actually happening, and I have strong circumstantial evidence that it is, then I’m hurt. And paradoxically, I’m also pleased. But if this certain something isn’t happening, I’m still hurt. And also somewhat relieved.
       So either way, yes or no, there’s a world of hurt attached to this. What that means is there’s still a world of hurt inside of me that I haven’t released yet. And therein lies my lesson.
       Mind screwing this thing sends me down a road I’ve traveled often. A road of self flagellation, fear, doubt, pain, and intense self hatred. My mind beats myself to a pulp because it, the mind, is obsessing. That’s like being with an alcoholic who drinks and then blames me for her drinking. It’s insane. But it’s where I go sometimes.
       It’s because I’m back in my head. It’s because my mind is a tool that sometimes uses me. When it comes to affairs of the heart, my mind is a terrible leader. When I hurt, or love, or feel, coming from my head leads to one result. Pain. But my heart leads me to my truth, every time. I have to be able to to quiet my mind and come from my heart. For the longest time, I couldn’t do that. I can now. I just sometimes forget, and I slip into an old bad habit.
       The integration of my mind, body, heart, and soul is my key to making decisions that serve me best. If those elements can communicate and integrate, then they serve me. Instead of me serving them. My whole self is thus the fluid and harmonious integration of what I feel, what I think, what I know, and what inspiration and intuition are telling me. Heart. Mind. Body. Soul.
       In this recent bout of mental necrophilia, my mind is not helping me. Because my mind is telling me how weak and foolish and worthless I am for feeling something. For wanting something.
       My heart knows that no matter what the truth is in this situation, the only solution is love. Self love first. Love for another second.
       When I lead with my heart, I quiet my mind. I stop mind-fucking, and my head can get back to constructive, not destructive, pursuits. Instead of telling me how bad I am, my mind can focus on how to get published. I need my mind for that. Strategic planning, research, analyzation - all things I’m very good at. All things I like to do. All functions where my mind takes the lead and guides me. So I put it to work where it’s needed. I focus it on what it’s good at. I keep it out of the emotional cookie jar, where it tells me that to feel is absurd. Where it tells me that following my heart is foolhardy.
       The first draft of this post was written freehand in a Barnes & Noble bookstore. On my way back to Cape Cod from Boston, I felt so compelled to write that I had to stop and set up shop there. On the shelf next to me is a mug that says:
              Dance as though no one is watching
              Sing as though no one is listening
              Love as though you’ve never been hurt
              Live as though heaven is on earth
       In the middle of reading it, I have to choke back the tears, so poignant are these words. Especially at this moment. People much wiser than I have said that there are no coincidences.
       I think about the words for a moment, and I break it down line by line.
       Dance as though no one is watching. I can honestly say that when I dance, I do it as though no one is watching. And I can dance. So when I let go, people end up watching. What a great paradox.
       Sing as though no one is listening. I sing all the time. In fact, I’m singing right now. “Sweet Baby James” by James Taylor. It’s on the P.A. system here, and I know the words, I love the song, and I’m singing it. Audibly. I sing in the car. I sing at home. I sing in line at the store. I even sing in the gym. I know people are sometimes listening, but I sing as if nobody is. I just love to sing. So I do. You should hear me at a rock concert.
       Love as though you’ve never been hurt. For the first time in my life, I’m loving as though I’ve never been hurt. For twenty-five years, I loved with the memory of pain. I know what that feels like. Now I’m loving somebody who isn’t with me, says she doesn’t want me, and has hurt me worse than anybody ever has. And I still love her. I’ve thrown my heart on the table for her, more than once. I’ve written about her here, on numerous occasions. I share whatever is in my heart with anybody who reads my blog. I do it because it’s how I feel. I do it because it’s my truth. I do it because, regardless of how she feels about me, I love her. That’s loving like I’ve never been hurt.
       The last phrase on the mug, Live as though heaven is on earth, is the perpetually tricky one. But three out of four isn’t bad.
       When my mind gets in the way, when it tries to lead when it should follow, I can’t do any of what it says on the mug. I can’t dance, or sing, or love, or live, the way I want to. The way I need to.
       Obviously, I need my mind to write. But my mind takes direction from my heart. I write from my heart. My head simply assists. My mind and my body are tools that my heart and soul use to express themselves. This is the type of integration and communication I alluded to earlier. The type where my whole self participates in the creation of my life. This is one reason writing is so special to me.
       When my mind was causing me pain and turmoil, I followed my heart into this bookstore. I followed my heart to write this piece. I have followed my heart on this journey that began when it got broken. Shattered beyond my recognition. And following my broken heart, that from all “reasonable” accounts wasn’t working very well, has allowed me to create this blog and finally share all of myself. Following my broken heart has allowed me to get in touch with a life time of pain, and allowed me to finally start to release it. Following my broken heart has opened up my life in ways that my mind never could. Following my broken heart has allowed me to know, on a level previously foreign to me, that self love is the key to my being. Following my broken heart has, ironically, allowed me to love like I’ve never been hurt.
       My heart continues to lead me. For sure, that is a road less traveled. Especially for a man. But that is my path. Looking back, though, I’m not surprised. Because on virtually every level, at virtually every turn, I’ve taken a path less worn. Listened to a different drummer. However you want to put it.
       Sometimes, it takes painful, frustrating situations like these to remind me to follow my heart and not my head. Someday, I hope to know that so deep within me that I don’t have to go to that dreadfully painful place in order to get back to where I need to be. When that happens, I will be living as though heaven is here on earth. And then I will truly be free...

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

My Purple Heart

       I received three priceless gifts yesterday.
       First thing in the morning, I got a call from my sister Cheryl. She told me that my piece “Jordan Kelley” had inspired a father to write a letter to his estranged son. The fact that something I wrote could impact someone in that way still hasn’t hit me. But it will. When it does, you’ll hear about it. Because I’ll hear about it. From within.
       I suspect that what’s blocking my emotional response to such a beautiful piece of news is my inability to fully honor my own writing. “It can’t be that moving”, I hear myself say, even though there’s plenty of information to the contrary. But I’m still having trouble absorbing the positive feedback, the support, and the wonderful little stories like these about what I’m doing. I need to get better at taking that in. Another inside job that needs some attention.
       Second thing in the morning, I saw that it was snowing out. What a perfect day to light and trim my freshly cut tree. So I spent the next ten hours lighting, trimming, holidayz-ing the house, watching football, and blasting Christmas music. All at once. Had loads of fun.
       The third priceless gift happened as I was unloading one of several massive containers full of Christmas goodies. I came across a very plain cardboard box. Thinking it contained one of my many special and carefully wrapped ornaments, I opened it up and found something even more magical. I found one of last year’s Christmas gifts from my principessa.
       There were two items in the box. One was a posable plastic action figure of a knight and his steed. On a Sunday afternoon last December, we spent a beautiful day shopping together in the center of her town. We went into a toy store, where I got excited over these little knights and horses. She remembered that and went back to get one. Maybe she even bought it there and then while I was gawking at something else.
       Either way, I loved the gift. Because it showed that she was paying attention. To me. To what I liked. To what moved me. Even if it was a silly little action figure. It didn’t have to make sense to her. She gave it because it mattered to me. And that endears me to people I love. Possibly more than anything else.
       The second thing in the box was a small black velvet bag. As I looked at the bag, I couldn’t remember what was in it. In the back of my mind, however, I wondered if it could be....no. It can’t be that. I threw that away when she broke up with me six months ago, didn’t I? During my three week tirade of anger? I’ve come so far since then, that that brief period of my life really is a little blurry. The way I felt, or didn’t feel, the thoughts I had. So much is different now.
       So I’m staring at this black velvet bag and I pour it’s contents into my hand. And there it is. A purple sparkly stone in the shape of a heart. I didn’t throw it away. No. I put it away. To be opened again at some point in time when I could completely receive it’s message. It’s message of tenderness. And caring. And warmth. And love.
       I then realized something else significant. At least significant to me and how I operate. Not only did I save the gifts, but I saved the box the gifts came in. I saved the paper it was wrapped in too. I only save the box and the paper under two circumstances. One, I love the box and paper and want to look at it again later. Or two, the gift means something incredibly special to me.
       Well the box and the paper were nothing to write home about.
       My heart always knew how much I loved her. While my head was working overtime to build walls around my heart, trying to protect it, inside those walls, my heart was tripping over itself.
       All the time I was with her, my heart was talking to me. I just wasn’t listening very well. But a part of me was listening. Because that part allowed itself to be guided by what I was feeling. So I was able act on that, and not on what my head was telling me. That part of me knew enough to put the precious gift away until I could fully receive it. That part was aware of how much the gift meant to me. Of how much she meant to me.  That part saved the box. That part saved the paper. And found it again. When I was ready.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (plus Three More Priceless Rights) Reserved.

Round Mountain

       When I was a kid, I had this recurring dream. This recurring nightmare. There stood in front of me a rock. Actually, it was a boulder. No, it was more like a mountain. A round mountain. I was expected to push this round mountain, to move it. All by myself. Nobody in the dream told me I had to move it. But I knew I had to just the same.
        I also knew that I would spend the rest of my life trying, alone, in vain, to move that round mountain. I knew that I would never get any help, and that it would never budge. Not one millionth of an inch. Every moment of my entire life was henceforth going to consist of trying to move this round mountain and never making any progress.
        Staring at this round mountain and contemplating the rest of my existence, I experienced downright suicidal hopelessness and despair. When I woke up, always in a cold sweat and breathing heavily, my relief that it was just a dream knew no bounds. I was grateful beyond measure.
        That dream recurred from the time I was about seven until late in my teens. Up until a few years ago, I had never told anybody about that dream. Not my parents, or my siblings, or my friends, or my teachers, or even my stuffed animals. It was too horrible to contemplate. So like almost everything else I felt then, I kept it inside, and tried to forget about it.
        That nightmare literally scared the life out of me.
        I’ve often thought since then what a sublime and subtly horrific dream that was for a child to have. What I’ve understood since then, is that although I was just a kid, I had already developed adult sized fears. I skipped right over the G-Rated phobias and went right to the R-Rated ones.
        What I didn’t realize as a child was that my waking life resembled that dream. An overall sense of hopelessness, despair, frustration, and melancholy pervaded me as a kid. The dream just reflected that, on the subconscious stage of my sleep.
        I don’t have that dream anymore. But I still remember how it felt, and sometimes I can go there while I’m awake. Sometimes, I still feel that nightmarish level of despair and hopelessness. And, just like it did then, it scares the life out of me.
        I’m good at procrastinating. I’m a pro at letting certain things build to a point where it’s no longer just a deed to be done or a problem to solve. Now, it’s a project. A huge, messy project. If I do that with enough things in my life, I can get that awful feeling again. What I call the “round mountain syndrome”.
        Not again, I tell myself. Not after all the work I’ve done. How the hell do I periodically keep coming back to this shit? Despite all my progress and growth. Despite the profound breakthroughs and awakenings and shifts I’ve experienced over the past six months. Despite all that, this fuckin’ waking dream will not go away.
        It comes up for a reason. It comes up because I still need to work on it. I know that, but that doesn’t help me when it shoves itself into my life. When that happens, I feel crushed by that round mountain. It takes up the whole sky. It takes up all my space, both inside and out. It looms omnipresent. It is both the immovable object and the irresistible force. Like the song by the band Boston, this is more than a feeling. It’s a pervasive, underlying attitude and perspective that still occasionally rears it’s butt ugly head. And I hate it. It goes against my natural enthusiasm and passion and energy. It feels like a cancer that I just want to cut out of me and be done with.
        But I always move through it. I take much better care of myself now, especially when I'm in trouble. I’ll work out more, and let the endorphins kick into hyperdrive. I’ll pray more, and meditate more, and do some yoga, even though I’m as tight as a piano wire. I’ll get in a few extra al-anon meetings, and talk to people about where I’m at instead of keeping it inside. I’ll write about it now too, and share it here. It all helps. And I move out of it much quicker than I used to. I don’t stay there long anymore. That alone is reason to be hopeful and buoyant.
        Maybe someday this feeling will go away and never come back. And then again, maybe I’ll have to deal with it for the rest of my life.
        If it does keep coming back, though, I’ll tell you something I’m actually looking forward to. And that’s being in bed some night with a woman I love and telling her about this dream. Sharing, for the first time in my life with my lover, this positively awful nightmare and that positively awful place that I can still sometimes go. Because I’m no longer afraid to be so vulnerable. I’m no longer ashamed to admit that some nights, I need to just crawl into her soft embrace and absolutely melt into her warm, loving body. Letting myself completely go. Breaking down if I have to. Crying if I need to. While she holds me, listens, and loves me back to the present. Back to a time and place where I can share the nightmare of the round mountain with the woman I love. Back to a time and place where I don’t have to go through this alone, and I can finally ask somebody for help.

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

Tree

        Scared. Anxious. And lonely.
        These feelings go deep. These feelings go old.
        I know this, because they don’t require any conscious thought to surface. Like a big old maple tree in the back yard of my mind, they have been present for as long as I’ve drawn breath.
        Fear, anxiety, and loneliness took root right out of the womb, when I was separated from my twin brother and stuck in an incubator for he first three weeks of life. Like the maple tree in the yard that’s always been there, those feelings have created a formidable presence. They show up in the corner of my emotional eye even when I’m not looking at them. Like the tree, they can feel omnipresent, even when I’m not playing in them. Even when I’m not near them. They cast a long shadow. It sometimes feels as though no matter what I do, or where I go, or who I become, I can not get out of that shadow.
        If I look closer at that tree of fear, anxiety, and loneliness, I understand that it has a consciousness. And just like a real maple tree, we’re not always aware of this consciousness because, as humans, we can’t understand it. Or we don’t believe it exists.
        But It does. Just like a real maple is saying something to me when I look at it, my tree is communicating to me as well.
        What he’s saying to me is that, more than anything, he needs something. He wants something.
        He wants Connection. Community. Love.
        But he is deathly afraid that he will never get it.
        So the tree grows himself bigger and stronger and more beautiful. Because he wants to attract people. But at the same time, because he doesn’t believe he will ever get true connection or community or love, he’s trying to prove to himself, and to everybody else, that he’s so big and strong and beautiful that he doesn’t need or want any of that from anybody else. He can give it to himself just fine, thank you.
        That tree is the part of me that never knew what I wanted because to know what I wanted was synonymous with not getting it.
        As long as I kept myself in the fog of not knowing what I wanted, or as long as I consciously just didn’t want it, there was nothing to worry about. You can’t worry about not getting something if you don’t want it. That was me, my whole life.
        But by finally acknowledging that I don’t want to play life as a game of solitaire, that I don’t want to be a lone warrior anymore, I become vulnerable.
        No shit.
        Excluding material possessions, which were always plentiful, as a kid I learned not to want or need anything that I couldn’t give to myself. Perpetually lonely, anxious, and sad, at some point I stopped asking for what I needed and wanted because I wasn’t getting it. Unconsciously, I decided it was better not to want or need much of anything. I also decided that I better learn to give to myself, because nobody else was going to.
        So I set myself up for a troubled existence. I was created to give love, to receive love. To connect to others and build those connections into all types of intimate relationships. I was created to share what was inside of me, and to welcome what was inside of others. I was made to be part of communities that serve their members.
        When I was a kid, that’s all I wanted. That’s all I needed. And quite frankly, I didn’t get much of any of it. So I went the other way. Not socially, but emotionally. Not on the outside. On the inside. I blocked off all those precious things I wanted because I didn’t believe I could ever have them.
        And those walls came tumblin’ down this summer. So now, what I’ve always needed and wanted is staring me right in the face saying “It’s about time you saw us, and heard us, and recognized us. We didn’t go anywhere. You did. You’re back. Welcome.”
        But now I’m petrified because I want again. I need again. And I’ve spent most of my life running from that and denying it. And at the same time, a part of me doesn’t believe I can ever have what I really want or need. That part screams to me, in a voice so loud sometimes it’s all I hear; “You’ve been that route before! It didn’t work then! It won’t work now!”
        But now I can’t do what I used to. I can’t fight what my heart truly wants anymore. I can’t fight that part of who I am anymore. Not because I’m not strong enough. I’m stronger than ever. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. No. It’s because I’ve experienced the most profound shift of my life. The shift to fully embrace what I feel. To live from my heart and not my head. I don’t want to run away anymore. I want to run towards.
        And maybe it takes even more strength to embrace all of who you are, what you want, and that which you were made for, than it takes to fight it. Fighting it certainly takes strength. In fact, it’s exhausting. But embracing it takes strength and courage and faith and trust and belief. And it gives me energy, rather than suck it from me. Embracing takes a true warrior spirit. It takes more. So I have to be more. And I am more.
        And if I can own that I am more, I can speak to the tree in my mind. The one who’s scared and anxious and lonely. I can connect to that kid in me who’s cynical about ever getting what he really wants. What he really needs. I can connect to them and say “Trust me. I won’t let you down.”
        And I won’t.
        Because my heart knows better. My soul knows better. And that’s what I try to listen to now.

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