Update

I'm skiing in Steamboat, Colorado, and am finding a little time to write, but not much. I will be posting regularly again soon. Peace Out.

WolfHearts

       On this Hallmark Holiday known as Valentine's Day, maybe this poem will inspire some of you lovers out there to be extra loving and tender and understanding with one another. Or maybe it will move somebody to write a poem for their partner. If so, let me know. That would give me a warm fuzzy feeling all over.

WolfHearts

The first time I met you
There occurred a deep sharing
That allowed me to feel
A new sense of daring

In both of our selves
I sensed a deep longing
To connect with another
And create a belonging

We were as lone wolves
Living life on our terms
But we yearned for a pack

Of two hearts
That burned

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

Innie & Outie

       One of the things that’s been out of balance with me recently is the amount of energy and time I spend going inward versus the amount of energy and time I spend taking outward action. When I spend too much of my juice delving into what’s going on inside of me, I lose perspective, and I become out of sync.
       The myth I have all too often bought into is that the only way to address what’s going on inside of me is to spend time there. In other words, being introspective, inner directed, dissecting my behavior, and working on what’s going on within. I can be guilty of looking too hard and too long on the inside.
       With most people, it’s the opposite. They are constantly in action and don’t spend much time within themselves, looking at what’s going on inside and digging deep, examining their feelings and their behavior. The world is actually built that way. Thus, we are much more likely to be unconscious than conscious. Much more predetermined to look for the answers outside versus inside. Deep self awareness is not highly valued or rewarded, so it’s often looked upon as a frivolous pursuit.
       To be either too outwardly directed or too inwardly directed leads us to down the same parallel path, but in opposite directions. To neglect either leaves us out of sync. With ourselves. With our lives.
       What I’m coming to is the need for balance. For months, I was doing inner work and outer work. I was looking inside and doing outside. I was in action, and I was staying in touch with what was happening inside. Right before Christmas, I started getting away from that. And I started showing up differently in my life. So my life started showing up differently to me. Too much introspection and not enough action. That’s the trap I can fall into.
       When I spend too much time on my insides, my behavior changes, but not for the better. Writing is a great example. Writing is at once an internal journey and an external action. If I spend too much time thinking and digging and feeling and focusing on what’s going on inside, but neglect the action of actually writing, that’s no good. Similarly, if all I do is write, without coming from within, without knowing what’s in my own heart, without being connected to what’s happening inside of me, then my writing isn’t very good. No matter what I’m writing about.
       I can apply this to the rest of my life. The balance of inner work and outer action creates true forward motion. Not only that, but it moves me down a path not possible if I do too much of either. There is no “perfect balance”. But the conscious pursuit of striving for balance is what gets me where I want to go.
       A great analogy is that of an airplane on route to it’s destination. In any one given moment, the airplane may be on or off course. But it’s constantly making little adjustments, so that it’s always moving in the right direction and gets to where it’s supposed to. Compare the computer guidance system of the plane to our insides, and the flight of the plane as human action. One without the other does not lead the plane, or ourselves, where we want to go. A top notch guidance system without a plane doesn’t do much. And a plane without a guidance system ends up flying, yes, but all over the place. People are the same.
       When I am functioning on all cylinders I’m doing both simultaneously, and I’m striking a balance in my life overall. I am connected to my insides and at the same time, taking action. I am involved in conscious action and behavior, versus unconscious action and behavior.
       If I can apply what I know about keeping fit to the rest of my life, I can go anywhere I want. Being fit means taking care of my insides and taking action on the outside. It means proper nutrition, commitment and positive attitude (inner work), and working out diligently and consistently (outer work). If I did one without the other, I would not achieve what I want, which is a body that feels as good as it looks.
       My whole life can be like that if I balance my insides with my outsides.


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

Johnny Harmony

       In this moment, I’m looking through the center of my self, down a long hallway, and I feel so far away and small; the way something looks when you turn a pair of binoculars around and look through the other end. That’s what I feel like to me right now. I am far away from my own true self. And that true self appears so small that it feels insignificant.
       This dynamic is not created by my true self, by the person I really am, but by my false self. I at once experience an inner person as completely separate and distant from who I am on the outside, and at the same time the two feel merged, and I don’t know where one begins and one ends.This is extreme disharmony; when the very experience of who I am feels simultaneously far away and merged with something else. I’m in there somewhere, but I don’t know who I am, so I don’t know who I’m looking for. So I can’t find myself.
       My false self, also called the ego, has sensed it’s own mortality lately. My ego has sensed that he no longer serves me like he used to. I’ve been looking to minimize his role in my life. And like a street fighter who’s in a life or death struggle, he’s fighting back. Hard. There’s a struggle happening within me that’s shaking me to my depths.
       I’m not depressed about this, which is good news. Because before, when I would sense this struggle, this disharmony, I would often go into depression and anxiety. Those two clinical ailments would keep me from being able to look deeper into what’s happening. I would focus on the depression and be unable to get to what’s truly behind the depression. That’s no longer the case. I’ve made great progress there.
       Recently, I’ve heard from more than one intimate friend, that I appeared to them as a dichotomy. That they were having trouble knowing who I really was. I didn’t understand that for a while. Now I do. Because I experience it myself, on the inside. They were sensing something going on inside me before I could see it. Before I even knew it was happening.
       I have not yet reconciled elements of myself. They do not live harmoniously in me, so they are going to present that disharmony to the world at large. And certain people pick up on that.
       I know myself to be a deep, tender, sensitive man. I also know myself to be colorful, outrageous, bold, and irreverent. It’s not about asking myself “Who’s the real me?”. It’s not about choosing which pieces are me and which aren’t. Because all of that is me. I can be bold and outrageous and sensitive and tender. If I’m asking which ones are me, I’m asking the wrong questions. To paraphrase the song “11 O’clock Tick Tock” by U2; “I have the answers. It’s the questions I have wrong.”
       I should be asking myself how do I reconcile these pieces inside of me. How do I get them to live in harmony. How do I accept them all as part of me and come from a different place, a more whole place. If I’m coming from a fragmented place, where I experience those elements are disparate and incongruous, where my insides can’t come to terms with itself, then that’s what’s going to show up on the outside. That’s what some people have been reflecting back to me. Because it’s going on inside of me. It’s not happening all the time. There are many hours when there is harmony within, and thus harmony outside. That’s when my MoJo is working. But there has been enough discord, and on a very deep level, that it’s showing up enough to be noticed.
       If I make peace with all those parts of myself, then I’m not asking the question “Who Am I?” anymore. Because I know that I am all of them. I am tender and sensitive and deep and irreverent and outrageous and bold. If they are in harmony, then they will show up different. They will show up as integrated and whole and harmonious. So that’s what will be reflected back to me. People won’t experience that fragmentation if I don’t come from fragmentation. They won’t experience me as disharmonious if I’m not feeling disharmonious inside. It’s about me making peace with all of those elements. Then that peace is what I project. And that peace is real. Because it’s happening inside of me first.
       I know all of this. Now, however, it’s in my face in a whole different way. I’m experiencing this disharmony distinctly and powerfully and painfully right now. I’m not looking at it as an outside issue anymore. It’s not completely in my behavior, but in my energy behind that behavior. If I’m in harmony with myself, my behavior will be different sometimes, but not always. What will always be different, however, if I’ve made peace with myself, is how my behavior shows up. How I show up. My energy will be different, and that makes all the difference. I could take the exact same behavior, and if it’s coming from disharmony, then it’s going to come off one way, and be reflected back to me in that way. If the behavior is coming from a place of wholeness and harmony, that’s how it’s going to show up on the outside, and how it’s going to get reflected back to me.
       If I am clear inside, that clarity is what gets projected. Over the past six months or so, I’ve experienced lots of clarity. I’m experiencing a great sense of unclarity currently. On a level I haven’t been to before. Another layer has been peeled back, and that’s where I’m looking.
       I’m finally getting that this isn’t about self improvement. It’s about self acceptance. I don’t want to look at me as something that needs to be fixed. Because that means there’s something broken. There’s something wrong. With me. I’m getting that, as long as I see it that way, I will never be “fixed”. I will always find something “broken”. Not because anything is broken, but because that’s how I’m framing the whole process. If I make the shift to self acceptance, that’s how I shift myself. I don’t shift by trying to “fix”.
       I shift by accepting. By loving. Myself. Others. Life.  


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

Snowmance

A snowstorm creates incredible romantic opportunities. Take advantage of them. I offer you a simple and beautiful idea here.