Creating A Square Hole

I resisted a regular yoga practice for years because of how positively uncomfortable even the most remedial postures (like sitting on the floor) felt. It was analogous to the guy who doesn’t go to the gym because he’s so thin that he’s embarrassed doing ten pound curls, so underdeveloped are his muscles. For such a person, even the most basic of exercises with the lightest of weights feels so excruciatingly difficult and awkward that motivation and discipline can be completely sabotaged by horrific self-judgement. 

That was me attempting yoga. I would be doing a very simple posture and feeling like a completely defective physical being. “You’ve got to be kidding me”, I would say to myself. “There must be something seriously wrong with me. I can’t even hold or do this elementary posture without hitting a wall almost immediately. I’m hopeless. I’m a lost cause. Why fucking bother?”

Spending almost three months here at Kripalu has radically shifted my perspective, and, more importantly, my self-compassion. When I stopped crucifying myself, and just accepted where I was at, as uncomfortable as it may have been, everything shifted. This was an internal shift. Nothing on the outside changed. 

This shift allowed me to put my energy into figuring out the best way for me to practice yoga, instead of putting energy into what a complete boob I was. I realized that I had special needs when it came to yoga, and that I had to treat my body with unlimited kindness, unlimited compassion, and unconditional love. Getting mad at my body for not performing the way I wanted it to did about as much good as getting mad at my self for suffering from the malady of depression. That is: No Fucking Good At All. 

Once I was in a place of love and acceptance, rather than judgment, I was able to come up with ideas on how to further my practice. I hired a private yoga coach (like, duh, Clint). It never occurred to me to do that before. I mean, when people who are neophytes to the world of weight training want to build their muscles, they often hire a personal trainer. It’s the best thing they can do for themselves. But I was blind to that option because I was in so much self judgment. I was blind to exactly what I needed, even though I already knew exactly what I needed.  

My first session with my new private yoga coach went like this. “I’m not interested in doing any sort of flow. Currently, I move through the poses with about as much grace as Trump moves his way through the presidency. I also don’t want to focus on strength right now. My muscles are already heavily taxed with resistance training. My triceps scream bloody murder, even a week after I hit them at the gym, just supporting myself in upward dog (which made me realize I had to stop pushing myself so hard when I lifted. So I modified my routines accordingly). I want to focus on alignment, making my body longer and more flexible, and educating myself to the intricacies of the practice. I’ll worry about isometric yoga strength and grace later.”

What I did was take myself out of “Supposed To” mode and moved into “This Is What I Know I Need Right Now” mode. I was avoiding flow classes at Kripalu like the plague, for good reason. My body was telling me “Not Now”. Instead of sucking it up and doing it anyway, I was actually taking care of myself by not doing any flow classes. When I realized that not doing those classes, classes that I was intuitively resisting, was in fact an act of self love (and not undisciplined avoidance), I could focus on what I did need. Instead of trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, I just created a square hole. What an epiphany. 

Initially, yoga was a demotivating practice for me because my body was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t feeling better about what I was doing, I was feeling worse. So I wanted to do it less. When I started listening to the wisdom within, I opened myself up to a constructive, motivating process, as opposed to an unmotivating, destructive, one. 

In some areas of my life, I’m an expert at listening to myself. In other areas, not so much. But when I cultivate paying attention in one area, I strengthen my ability to hear myself in all areas. Moreover, I particularly develop paying attention to the wisdom in those places where I have traditionally told myself to just shut the fuck up. 

That’s it. I’m happy with this piece. So now I’m going to shut the fuck up. 

©2018 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Rock Your Boat Baby

“Rock ’n’ rollers are....the noise makers, the law breakers, the bottom-bashing fornicators.” 
                 - from Pirate Radio
 
“And we make no apologies for it.”
                 - from SuperFly Clint Piatelli

A while ago, I caught Van Halen perform on the Jimmy Kimbal show. The band shut down Hollywood Boulevard and performed live, in the street, on a huge stage. A true rock n roll event. The song aired was “Hot For Teacher”. 

Crowd shots showed 6000 people, none of whom were shaking, head banging, dancing, or otherwise moving. They were all standing still, smart phones held with both hands overhead. Not even their heads were moving, lest the vibration shake their camera and ruin their footage.

I get it. Those 25 and under have grown up in a culture where virtually everything is video recorded; where the message is that it's more important to digitally capture what’s happening than to viscerally experience it. And, truth be told, if us fifty-somethings had access to smartphones when we were young, I’m sure we would have responded similarly. 

But at the same time, I know that we are missing something when, in the midst of the magic of music, we, by conditioned default, choose physical immobility over movement, focusing our attention on the recording of an experience rather than the living of it. When we choose the more primal choice of throwing our bodies and our hearts into an experience, we create opportunities to profoundly shift ourselves. When we instead placate ourselves and become little more than a glorified witness, we take ourselves one more step out of it, and lots of us are more than a few steps out of it even before we hit the “record” button, because we have become desensitized, guarded, and otherwise disconnected from our hearts, virtual strangers to our deeper selves.

I’m not admonishing or criticizing video recording. Personally, I love being in front of a camera, and I love capturing footage. I’m simply sharing an observation, opening a path, and questioning normalized behavior.

Maybe it’s a question of balance, of mindfulness, and of passion. Capture a little footage, but never forget that we’re here to throw ourselves - body, heart, and soul - into an event. Into Our Life. The phone as video recorder has become another distraction, maybe even an experiential replacement, for our minds; instead of being in our heads, per usual, we can be in our phones. Maybe that even offers some real time relief from being upstairs so much. 

I’m offering another way to live beyond being talking heads. Drop into your heart. Way down. Allow yourself to Feel The Music. Connect to a full body, full heart, full being response. Maybe you can do that while you’re recording, but the footage is gonna be damn shaky. Can you live with that? What’s more important? A stable recording, or having a booty-shaking-heart-quaking-physio-emotional experience?

Even though we drummers are sitting down, we move our bodies as much as or more than anyone else on stage. Maybe that’s one reason I am so physically and emotionally connected to music, why I can’t sit still when I hear a song I love. Maybe that’s why I often sing, regardless of where I am, when the music talks to me. I’m just talking back. I’m having a conversation with my lover. I’m making love, fully clothed, in my car, in CVS, wherever, with Mistress Music. 

And I don’t even have to change my underwear when I’m done.

 

©2018 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved. 

The X of My X Is My "Oh"

Early last week up here at Kripalu, I was having dinner with a group of women when one of them looked over my shoulder, waved at someone, then got up abruptly and headed towards the door of the dining hall. I turned around and saw the back of a guy hurriedly exiting said door. It was one of those moments where you know two events are somehow connected, but you don’t know how. The woman (I’ll call her “Phebee”) who had suddenly gotten up from the table soon returned and rejoined the conversation.

At the end of the meal, Phebee invited us all to go for a walk. I was the only one who took her up on the offer, and we headed towards the stairs together. Before heading down, she said to me, “I’m sorry, but I can’t go for a walk with you”. I replied, “Okay”, and looked at her, silently asking the question “Why?”. “Well I already told this guy that I would go for a walk with him. And that guy recognized you. You dated his ex-girlfriend.” In hindsight, it’s possible she said (or meant) “He’s dating your ex-girlfriend”. I really don’t know, because it never came up again. Phebee continued, “He doesn’t have anything against you, he just doesn’t want to hang with you”. 

I understood. And I was intrigued. I asked Phebee to find out who the mutual X was. Hell, I was curious. The next day, I found out who the common denominator mystery woman was. 

My first reaction was “Jesus. What are the fucking odds of that?”. I then wondered how this guy knew who the hell I was or what the hell I looked like. And, I also felt a bit of an ancient male energy kick in. I wanted to size this guy up. I wanted to check him out. That’s pretty natural. Especially since me and this X used to me madly in love.

Over the next few days, completely by happenstance, this guy and I passed each other in the hallways and in the dining hall what seemed like an inordinately large number of times. However, while I can’t speak for him, I was, as I said, curious about him. And when there is a curiosity about something, or someone, the universe often presents opportunities to answer that curiosity. 

We never said a word to each other. And let me stress that what I’m about to say is complete conjecture. I have no hard evidence for it. I do, however, have pretty slammin’ intuition, I am rather empathic, and I can sense the energy of other people. I sensed an uncomfortableness between us, and it wasn’t coming from me. I felt a palpable uneasiness from him whenever we were within a few feet of each other. Again, I’m spitballing here, but I had a powerful sense that this dude would have, if he could have, avoided me like the plague. 

After both Phebee and this dude left Kripalu (and, true to form, he walked right past me once again as he was exiting the facility, presumably on his way home), I hit a yoga class. That’s when things really got interesting.

As we started class, during the opening meditation, I felt a wave of emotion engulf me like a wet blanket. I felt myself start to profusely tear up. It got so intense that I had to leave class early, go to The Swami Kripalu Meditation Garden, and have a very long, hard cry.

There are probably multiple layers to this emotional outpouring, but the only one I was fully conscious of was rested in a missed opportunity. I had the chance to take a risk, approach this guy and say, “I just want you to know, I have absolutely nothing against you. I don’t know anything about you, but I sense that you are a kind man. I wish you nothing but love, peace, and happiness”. 

What also hit me was that it doesn’t matter if I was right or wrong about the guy’s experience. Even though I have good intuition and can sense energy, that doesn’t mean I knew what he was thinking or feeling. I could have just been projecting a whole story on him, maybe even projecting my own pain. But, as I’ve said, that doesn’t even matter, because it has nothing to do with the lesson I was reminded of.

So I had the opportunity to potentially ease the discomfort of another fellow being, and I missed it. I had the chance to maybe help someone else, and I didn’t. Granted, I thought of it after the fact, so I’m cutting myself some slack. It mildly haunts me to know that I possibly missed a chance to maybe assist somebody who was maybe having a hard time, who was maybe uncomfortable, who was possibly experiencing some unease, who was perhaps even in some pain. 

Throughout my recovery, indeed, my discovery, I have become acutely aware of my ability to impact people. I have become attuned to how profoundly I touch people; both painfully, through attitudes and behaviors that serve neither me nor anyone else; and lovingly, through attitudes and actions that bring forth my highest self. 

I have been told, by more than a few people, in more than a few contexts, that I cast a long shadow; that I’m a hard act to follow; that I have a big, powerful presence. I’m not assuming those attributes have anything to do with the aforementioned situation, although it wouldn’t shock me either. Quite frankly, I’ve had a lot of girlfriends, thus a lot of ex-girlfriends, and I wouldn’t know but one of their pre-Clint ex-boyfriends (or current boyfriends) if they sat next to me, looked me in the eye, and told me their name. 

The lesson I was poignantly reminded of is that, underneath whatever big, colorful, playful, powerful presence I have, there lies a very tender, very soft, very gentle, very sensitive, absolutely giant heart. That heart is in fact a huge reason I have a presence to begin with. I’m truly the sizzle and the bacon. I was reminded of my nature, which is to reach out and touch as many people as I possibly can in this life. Metaphysically, and/or physically, I want to wrap my body around people in a firm, secure, beautiful hug, and love them. What’s inside me is the heart of a man who really just wants to love you. Who wants to ease suffering. Who wants to make a difference in people’s lives. Regardless of whatever facts I’m either spot on or way off about here, I am reminded that, amongst other things, I am a healer. I am a lover. I am a man with a really big, beautiful heart. 

"Performing the duty prescribed by one's nature, one incurreth no sin"

                                            - The Bhagavad Gita

 ©2018 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

A Love Letter To The Villanova Class of '85

On the day of my graduation….May, something, nineteen-hundred-eighty-five….I vividly recall a seminal moment. There I stood, dressed in my cap and gown, now, officially, a Villanova alumni. It was a whirlwind of activity that day, and yet, I found myself alone for a few moments, just looking around. Amidst all the pomp and circumstance, all the smiles and hugs, all the joy and celebration, I felt a brief but very intense wave of melancholy, of mild panic, sweep over me.

My mind heard itself say, “You have made so many special friends over the last four years. You are returning to Boston. Most of your loved ones now live in New Jersey, in Philadelphia, in New York. Will you ever see them again? Will you ever be in their lives again? Will you ever feel them like this, again?” 

In 1985, the world seemed a lot bigger than it does now. There were no cellphones. There was no internet. No email. No social media. And the word “Blog” would have sounded like a Marvel Super Villain.

Well. Here we are. Almost thirty-fucking-five years later. And guess what? I feel you.

Our class is special. Don’t exactly know why. Don’t exactly even care why. I just know, Sure as Shit, That It Is. And I’m aware that a lot of you know it too.

We have learned hard lessons. We have struggled with mental and emotional illness, addiction, and nervous breakdowns. We have born the crushing grief of losing several of our beloved classmates far too early. We have lost parents; many of whom were familiar and cherished by those of us not blood through birth, but blood through love. We have endured the excruciating pain of seeing our spouses, even our children, die. We have endured bankruptcies, lawsuits, and being stabbed in the back by family and friends. 

We openly bear loneliness, insecurity, self-doubt, and debilitating fear. We go through the seemingly unbearable heartaches of divorce, of betrayal, of break-ups with partners we wanted to spend the rest of our life with. We have reluctantly yet courageously drank from the cup of agony and despair.; we have willingly guzzled from the overflowing stein of ecstasy and joy. We have enjoyed the quiet and priceless moments of sitting with our families, with each other, and doing absolutely nothing; just being. 

We have shared countless moments of Off The Fuckin’ Charts Fun, Merriment, Revelry, and Mayhem. We do business together, supporting each other’s livelihood. Our children hang together. We have lived together, broken bread together, drank together, slept together, and fought along side one another. We have bled for each other, taken bullets for each other, and had each other’s backs so many times we could tell a stranger about every beautiful blemish, scar, and sweet curve of each other’s backsides. 

A few years ago, one of our classmates paid me quite possibly the most precious and endearing compliment I have ever had the honor of receiving. She said to me, “Clint, you are the beating heart of our class”.

Wow. That was like an emotional Academy Award. It was distinction amidst a sea of those of distinction.

That said, I have, in my life, been a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel, a thief. I have shit where I have eaten. I have fucked around on my girlfriends and I have slept with married women. I have hurt and scarred people with my words and with my actions, both deliberately and unintentionally. I have been passive aggressive, and just plain motherfucking aggressive. I have at times consciously and purposely worked at being the biggest dickhead I possibly could; sometimes just too get a rise. I have at times been lazy, greedy, foolish, gluttonous, and way too full of pride. I have had opportunities laid at my feet and pissed all over them. I sometimes feel as though I have not lived up to my potential; that I was given so very much, and did not fully capitalize on those gifts and blessings. Sometimes I feel the scorching burn that, despite my cavalcade of unique experiences, my life is ultimately not worth much; that I do not measure up; that I have not, nor ever will be, what I would consider “Successful”. 

I have physically and emotionally hurt myself, and beaten myself up without mercy, because I didn’t believe I was worth anything more than pain. I have lashed out when I should have shut up, and shut up when I should have said something.

I am not proud of these transgressions. But neither am I ashamed. There have been times in my life when I would have seen myself as a horrible human being for these less than stellar moments. Today, however, I just see myself as being human because of them. 

I have made amends, still have more to make, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Loosely paraphrasing Elton John, “I’m sorry” has never been my hardest words; “I love myself” has been. 

Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with an innate desire, with a born of flesh obsession, to throw myself out there; to lay it down; to blaze an ever revealing path of my own sometimes half-baked design; to unabashedly share who I am - in all its naked glory and occasional madness. That has always just felt right to me; in my bones, in my heart, in my soul. It’s always made sense. I didn’t have to talk myself into it. It felt natural. Like breathing. That sort of living inspires some, and horrifies others. And, I’m, like, so okay with that.

Winning our third title was the Vanilla-Nova icing on an already giant, scrumptious, delicious, beautiful Oreo peanut butter cake. Topped with gallons of Oreo peanut butter ice cream.

I don’t care where I am. I don’t even care what happens. As long as I am with all of you.

Whenever I need a dose of unconditional love, I join my Villanova tribe. The gratitude I feel, the fullness of my heart and soul by your company, the emotions that well up in me, the feeling of being so truly blessed, so deeply loved, routinely brings me to tears in my private moments. I often cry in private. Because I can’t always tame the male macho demons of doing so in public. Nevertheless, I want You to know that You move me. All the time. Often beyond words.

I have lived a life, I continue to live a life, that many would envy. A truly blessed existence. I have so many positively amazing people who love me very much, and who I love very much as well. Who could ask for more? When I can get out of my own shit, drop down deep into myself and truly know all of that on a cellular level, there is nothing in this universe that can put but a dent in the splendor of that moment, in the magic of that day. 

Countless times during my pilgrimage to San Antonio, I heard, “Clint, we were so concerned about you. We have followed your journey, and we are pulling for you,”. The amount of support, care, affection, and love that I have received from all of you; from the first days we met, to the moment you heard me out cry out for help, to the moment I saw the last of you leave San Antonio, would fill a million hearts. Mine is positively bursting.

You continue to feed me when I am hungry, shelter me when I am cold, pick me up when I fall, wipe the blood off of my face when it scrapes the ground, and dress my wounds. You hug me when I am lonely, wipe away my tears, and love me most when I need it most. Simply put, You help me live. You do nothing less than give me life. If I have given you but a fraction of what you have given me, I would consider my life a deafening, louder than fuck success. 

If I shine, it is because you are willing to see the dazzling reflection of your own divinity. If I burn hot, and loud, and radiantly, it is because you generously stoke the fuel of my flame. If I am a bright light, it is because you shine yourself onto me.

Whatever We Are, We Are Because of Each Other.

                         - Superfly Clint, April 4, 2018

Adventure Of A Lifetime

Ah, Music: Mystical. Evocative. Healing. Magical.

2017 was a motherfucker. In music therapy the other day, each of us had to chose a song that somehow symbolized the past year. We then went around the room, announced our very personal choice, and that song was played while we all listened to it. The person who chose the song then talked a little bit about what the song meant to them and why they chose it. The experience proved incredibly powerful and moving.

The choices were as varied as the people who chose them. Everything from "Float On" by Modest Mouse, to "So Far Away" by Staind, to "Change" by Tracy Chapman. And people chose them for different reasons. Some chose a song that represented the year as a whole. Some chose a song that defined their throes into addiction during a very rough period, while others chose music that has helped them move through their recovery. 

I thought long and hard about what song I would pick. There were so many. I had a laundry list that felt relevant and poignant. And I could have gone in a million different directions.  

I considered the song "Ship To Wreck" by Florence + The Machine, because it was a song that I answered with a vehement "No" as I listened to it on the night of my last birthday (see my post about it). I considered a song called "Wicked Soldier" by Tonic, an upbeat rocker that's on every workout playlist, because I felt like a soul warrior for most of the year, battling my inner demons. "Mean Street" by Van Halen, another all time favorite, also resonated with a resounding clang of the heart; for I had walked my own self induced Mean Street for enough of the year to know I do not wanna go back. I ping-ponged with these choices, until another song hit me between the eyes and felt like a hot needle in my heart. 

"Adventure Of A Lifetime", by Coldplay.

I haven't been able to listen to that song in almost half a year. That song was Our Song; Me and My Sweet Angel's. I had heard it for the first time just before we got together in April of 2016, and I immediately fell madly in love with it. It was instantly one of those precious and rare songs that strikes the harp of your heart and the cello of your soul, and you have no idea why, nor do you care; You just accept it as an is, and you roll with it. Our first weekend together, in New York City, we played the song together and realized we both loved it. We fell for that song about as quickly and powerfully as we fell for each other: Instant-Head-Over-Heels-Ass-Over-Tea-Kettle-Full-Blown-Double-Whooper-With- Extra-Cheese-Madly-In Love-With-Each-Other. Magic. Just like the song.

I played that song when we weren't together to remind me of her, and it usually turned on my water works. I even sent her a video of me listening to that song and balling like a baby to it. That song was her to me. That song was us to me. It will always be her to me. It will always be us to me. A marriage of physical and meta-physical  form that defies words or explanation. It just Is. It just as sure as fuckin' shit, IS.

Sitting in music therapy group at Zen Recovery the other day, surrounded by people I trust and love, going through so much of the same shit as I am, I felt to myself "This is the time to hear it again. This feels like the right moment. This is It." 

So on it came. And on I sobbed, in front of a tribe I have I have only known for less than three weeks. 

I didn't chose that song because I wanted it to mean something different. I chose it because I wanted the support to be able to listen to it, at all. I chose it because, in addition to it being Our Song, my life over the past year has been the Fuckin' Adventure Of A Lifetime. I've spent most of it in treatment, doing the hardest work I've ever done in my life. 

It will never replace the meaning it has always held. It will just add to it. David Lee Roth once said "Everything I do in life is 'in addition to', not 'instead of' ". I connected so strongly with that quote, that I have attempted to live my life along those lines whenever possible. 

I'm not going to to blasting that song anytime soon. I'm just grateful that I could find the love and support to listen to it, Period. I'm not looking to redefine it, because, I can't (nor do I want to), and that would dilute what that song means to me. I am, however, looking to recover, to heal, to connect more deeply to this tribe I'm with and to my process of recovery. Any and all means at my disposal are thus fodder for that healing, for that connection, and for my own growth.

Whatever the fuck I'm doing these days, and whatever the fuck I'm doing for the rest of my life, I'm moving. I'll keep moving. Sometimes, so subtly, that I can't even see it, that I can't even feel it. But that doesn't mean something isn't happening.

Like the rock that becomes a geode of glistening Amythyst; like the slab of limestone that becomes gorgeous marble; like the hunk of aluminum oxide that becomes a sapphire; and, just like it says in "Adventure Of A Lifetime", I'm a "diamond taking shape".

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