Blind Spots

Blind spots are a motherfucker. By definition, we can’t see them. That means we aren’t even aware of them; regardless of our level of self-awareness, or how much work we do on ourselves. We’ve all got them. It’s part of being human.

That’s one reason why community is so important. And by community, I’m talking about your tribe that extends far beyond your immediate or extended family. Your family is sometimes a component of the blind spot itself. So they usually aren’t the ones who can spot them, no matter how close they are to you. In fact, that kind of family closeness can work against you. Being able to see a blind spot requires, amongst other things, the ability to be able to look at your behavior, thinking, and perspective with some objectivity. When it comes to you,  family members tend to be…..less objective than is required.

Let’s use the analogy of a blind spot while you’re driving. If the person is sitting too close to you, they can’t see the blind spot either. It’s the person who’s able to see the road from a different perspective that is able to see that there’s another car occupying the space you can’t see.

That isn’t to say that people close to you can’t see your blind spots. On the contrary. It’s people close to you, who know you well, who love you and care about you, who are invested in your well being; they’re the ones who may be able to see them. But they need a certain distance from the blind spot itself to be able to see it. They have to be able to separate themselves from you and the road you’re on enough to have a wider perspective. Family probably can’t do that, because they're usually part of that road.

The people in my life who can see my blind spots are those close to me who are able to take a step back and look at me with love and some objectivity. They need to be able to back up a little to see whatever behaviors, thinking, or beliefs are raising a red flag. These people include girlfriends, friends, counselors, people I’ve met in treatment, and anybody close to me who is doing their work. 

Ultimately, I have to be able to see the blind spot, or it will remain hidden. Just because someone alerts me to it, doesn’t mean I’ll do anything about it. I have to be ready to hear it. I have to be ready to see it. And then I have to do the work I need to shine some light onto it. 

When are we ready to see a blind spot? From my experience, it happens when we continue down a road that isn’t working, and run into so much pain that we realize that whatever we are doing, or not doing, just isn’t working. Several people very close to me raised the issue that I was possibly abusing substances. I wasn't ready to hear that, because I hadn’t hit my wall yet. Once I did, however, I didn’t waste much time deciding I wanted a different path. 

Pointing out another’s blind spot is risky, often painful. You’re watching somebody who is unaware of something you can see more clearly, and you care deeply about them. You can see that, ultimately, whatever they are pursuing won’t give them what they are looking for, or what they think they’re looking for. It takes courage to bring this to someone’s attention. Courage and awareness. Awareness of self. 

Persistent blind spots are usually attached to old patterns of thinking, behaving, or believing that no longer serve you. Taking my abuse issue as an example, I’ve been a social user of alcohol and drugs for most of my adult life. I’ve gone through spells, like after my father died, where I over did it because I was in so much pain and didn’t know how else to cope. But for the vast majority of time, I didn’t have a problem with them.

Recently, however, things shifted, and I started using them to deal with pain again, instead of for social purposes. Right now, I can’t use because it gets in the way of the work I’m doing. I’ve had to be reminded of that, several times. I’m not sure if I’ll use again. I haven’t figured that part out yet. But I know, for now, use can not co-exist with my healing and my growth. And there’s nothing more important to me than that.

I’m extremely talented at seeing other people’s blind spots. First of all, I've very intuitive, and I'm connected to that intuition. My gut can ring like a fire alarm, and when it does, I pay attention. I've been cultivating self-awareness since I was a teenager; since before I even knew what I was doing. It’s in my nature. I’ve done a lot of this work, starting in my mid twenties, at, of all places, The Boston College Graduate School of Management. Continuing on that path, I’ve done workshops, seminars, retreats of all kinds, individual and group therapy, read books on personal development, written about personal development, and practiced a life of it. And for the past three months, I’ve been doing very intensive work in that area. I’m also a seeker, and a healer. And I care a great deal about the people I’m close to. All of that adds up to somebody who’s acumen about blind spots is well honed. I’ve been told, by laypeople and by professionals alike, that I’m one of the best unprofessional counselors they’ve ever met.

I encourage you to take risks with those you love regarding their blind spots. We need others to help us with them. I have been that person for people I love, and it’s worth it. Be that person for someone else. I am forever grateful for the people in my life who were courageous enough and wise enough to help me see mine.

And I can be one obstinate son of a bitch.

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

The Frankenstein Mom (MotherLand part 3)

Some of the most fertile ground for growth and healing is an intimate love relationship. Because such relationships bring up all of our deepest, well, everything, if you both love each other like fire, are each committed to personal development, and are both devoted to fully support each other on this journey, a healthy love relationship is a remarkable place, a magnificent gift, for transformation. 

Part of the therapy I’m doing is what I call The Frankenstein Mom Process (that’s not an official term, just my name for it). What I do is, with the help of a therapist, create a mom. And I create this mom from other women who embody the qualities that I would have wanted in my own mother (hence, Frankenstein). For me, these women are my Aunty You-You, my sister Cheryl, my cousin Kym, and my Aunty Barbara. 

Initially, the wall I immediately ran into when asked by the therapist who I think of when I think of being mothered, my heart and mind go right to my recent ex-love (if I was currently with somebody, it would go to her). When asked who I think of when I think of mothering qualities like nurturing, loving, affectionate, tender, attentive, and warm; when asked who I want giving that to me, I think of my most recent ex-love. That’s because I’ve completely sexualized all those qualities. Yes, one more dysfunctional behavior. Stick around. There’s more.

Because I sexualize these qualities, the only woman I want giving me that mothering is the woman I’m in love with, or the most recent woman I was in love with. Now, if you asked any woman I’ve ever been in love with if I was “needy”, and wanted to be mothered, I doubt any of them would describe me that way. That’s because when I was with those women, I’m aware, on a conscious level, that I want them to mother me. But I also know how unattractive that can be. So I bite back on that need, at all costs. I shut it down. Because I don’t want the woman I’m with to see me as weak, needy, or basically, a big pussy. I’m not saying I’m not loving, tender, gentle, and vulnerable with my lover. Because I absolutely am. But needing to be mothered? No way. I don’t want her to ever see that in me.

This is all my stuff, never hers. Part of it is my own male macho ego bullshit. You can call me stupid, unattractive, even old. I don’t react too strongly, because I know I’m none of those. But call a guy a pussy? If he’s got unresolved mother issues like this, it’s a huge trigger. Probably his biggest. Because it goes right to the core wound. And, because of the social context. The worst thing a guy can be called, at least in my mind, in today’s culture, is a “pussy”. That means he can’t take care of himself. That means he can’t take care of his queen. With a woman, I would think calling her ugly or unattractive would hit the same nerve.

The problem is, whenever I bite back on a need, any need, I pull back, I pull away, even just a little. I’m not aware that I’m doing it. It’s just a natural and unavoidable consequence of holding something that deep back. But the need doesn’t go away. It just gets stuffed. And stuffing isn’t good. For me. For her. For the relationship. 

I’ve never been able to fully articulate this until now, which is another reason no woman ever knew that about me. And, because I attach a shitload of toxic shame to this need to be mothered. If I had ever been able to articulate this issue clearly, and drop the shame around it, I would have been able to share it. 

Well I’m doing that now. Most importantly, I’m learning to give it to myself. And, let me tell you, it’s like getting rid of a sack of bricks I’ve been carrying my whole fuckin’ adult life. It’s like sprouting wings.

Sharing this with my lover would be part of healing it (that and me doing whatever work I need). If she loves me enough, is doing her work, and is solid enough, she can handle it. My last love was all of that. But I wasn’t yet in a place where I could open that up. Live and learn.

When you’ve got no memory of your real mother giving this to you, and aren’t yet able to give enough of it to yourself, you end up, eventually, putting that on your lover. Or, just never sharing that. And in the long run, neither options work. Women who had poor fathers and haven’t completely cleared this up do it to their men, too. 

When both partners are aware of this dynamic, are working at it on their own (through whatever methods are effective for them), then the relationship becomes a beautiful place to share this and deal with it, together. And both of you will most likely be dealing with it, to some degree, for the rest of your lives. Because we never get completely rid of this. We heal it enough, and learn how to handle it better. 

That’s a good thing, in my book. Because it’s one more place for the two of you to get real, get vulnerable, share, connect, love each other up, and heal. 

And that, to me, is just fuckin’ beautiful. 

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

MotherLand (part 2)

There’s an Alanon saying that goes “Intimate relationships will put Miracle Grow on all of your character flaws”. Nothing brings up our deepest, darkest shit like intimate love relationships. This is true mainly because we recreate our relationships with mom and dad when we, as adults, have intimate love relationships. On the flip side, nothing brings out our most loving, brightest selves like intimate love relationships either. And this makes sense from a metaphysical perspective. Carl Jung said “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow”. When our highest selves are brought out, our darkest selves are too. You’ve heard the expression, “She (or he) brings out the best, and the worst, in me”. Yup. Bingo.

My abandonment trauma started, literally, at birth. I was in the womb with my twin brother for nine months. I was lucky. I had twice the company in there: him, and my mom. Then, BAM! We were born. At 3 pounds, 9 ounces, they got my ass into an incubator, pronto. Mike and mom went home. 

In 1963, IncubationLand was not the Shangri-La it is today; back then it was basically a big metal tube. Your family, not even your own mother, was allowed to come in and hold you, touch you, or feed you. The only people not off limits to these sterile infant grounds were the hospital staff. For the first three weeks of life, I had virtually zero human contact, and absolutely none from the only two people I knew on the planet.

I know that I have a memory of this. Not a conscious one I can access, but one that is stored in my body and in the subconscious. I believe we all have some memories like that.

 Abandonment is my Deepest Attachment Wound. I mean, how far back can you go than birth (the possibility of past lives aside)? My abandonment shit goes into Hyper Warp Drive whenever a woman I’m in love with is gone; regardless of why she’s gone. The fact is, she’s not here anymore. Logic goes out the window with this stuff. At least until you start to dig it up and pull it apart. And pulling it apart is not strictly a cognitive process. In fact, if it remains strictly cognitive, you don’t get very far. You’ve got to go deeper. Because some of these cuts go so far into the brain they become unconscious. They go into the fabric of the body. We aren’t even aware of them. We go on auto pilot, and that’s when we get into real trouble.

There are cognitive processes like trauma education, central nervous system and stress response education, group therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Didactic Behavioral Therapy (DBT), individual therapy, and more. All of these modalities inform us about what drives our dysfunctional behavior. They give us priceless information and they educate us on how to apply that information. 

But again, we can’t stop with the mind. We must go into the heart. Into the body. Procedures such as Somatic Experiencing, Psychodrama, acupuncture, cranial sacral therapy, yoga, and meditation, all work the body, heart, and  the mind. These modalities are more comprehensive. Trauma must be healed, I believe, with as much of this as we can handle, emotionally, and,  given our resources. Think of it like a cocktail of healing. 

Everyone’s journey through this mission (“should you choose to accept it”) is different. The common denominators for all of us are awareness, desire, openness, hard work, time, and trust in the process. I have made so much progress because; I wanted it real bad, I showed up, I worked my ass off, and I trusted that things were happening; much of which I could not consciously experience or feel at the time. And everything builds on everything else. It’s cumulative.

Continue with me on this most amazing journey. If you are open the process of healing yourself, and thus contribute to healing and growing your relationships, I promise you will glean some gold from it. If I’m wrong, double your money back.

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

MotherLand (part 1)

As adults, virtually all of us recreate intimate love relationships that mirror, in complex ways, the childhood relationship we had with our opposite-sex parent (Woman/Dad, Man/Mom). As adults, we do this in an effort to “get it right” this time. We try it again, and want to fix whatever didn’t work, once for all, and live happily ever after. 

There is crossover as well. Meaning that our relationships with our lovers is also a function of how we related to our same sex parent. For example, my dad was a very affectionate, demonstrative, loving man. I learned that it was okay for a man to show his emotions. With woman and with men.

Most of this is unconscious. When we make it conscious, we can do something about it. We can pull it apart and find out what the hell’s going on in the depths of our hearts, in the recesses of our minds, that drive most of our behavior in relationships (especially the less than stellar behavior). When we dig it up and make it conscious, we have the ability to make different choices.

In my post “Clint & Little John”, I described my experience of developing a stronger dialogue between my adult man and my inner kid. I literally had to create a father, from scratch, who knew how to talk to and what to say when Little John (my inner child’s name) was suffering and in lots of pain. I had to create that parent because my dad wasn’t good at this at all. His method of getting me to feel better when I would come to him in tears would be one of two ways. Either he would try and convince me that the situation really wasn’t that bad (such logic rarely works on an 8 year old having a meltdown); or, worse yet, he would try and talk me out of how I felt. Neither methods validated anything I was experiencing, or helped ease any pain. 

It came from love, because my dad really did want me to feel better. And that was all dad knew how to do. But kids can’t understand all that. All I knew as a kid was, that, whenever I went to my dad when I was really upset, I usually felt worse afterwards. So I stopped going to him, or anybody else, when I was in a lot of pain. 

What about mom? She was, god bless her, no better. My mother was not at all comforting or nurturing if I went to her in pain. Unless I was physically ill. Mom was then a source of great support. Maybe because physical illness is concrete, tactile, and can be measured with a thermometer (remember the rectal ones? Those were a joy). But, tears and cries of emotional pain and hurt?….much more tricky, for a lot of people, not just my mom. She didn’t hug, she didn’t console, she didn’t offer much of anything in that department. She didn't know how. She came from a family of 9 kids. And her mom worked her ass off as well. Sorry. You can't be there for 9 kids emotionally and hold down a job. Even Wonder Woman would strike out there. So mom was out too. 

I hold absolutely no resentments towards my parents. They loved me and did the best they could. So often, people are reluctant to do this type of work because they believe it will dishonor their parents. Actually, this work eventually leads us to love and respect our parents even more. But you have to walk through the fire to get to the gold. That's just the way it works.

Which leads me to the work I’m doing now. It’s Very Heavy “Mom Stuff”, and how that shit manifests itself in my relationships with women. And it is a motherfucker (how could I not use that word there?).

This is the very deep work that I am now facing: the stuff at the very bottom of my emotional hole. I’ve been aware of lots of this stuff, and done considerable work on it throughout adulthood. I’ve learned a lot about myself from it, and it has helped me have progressively better relationships with my intimate partners. But, there is some stuff so far down the hole, I’ve had to do some serious digging. And digging can be very painful.

Follow me on my journey through this work. I hope it inspires you to dig deep and do whatever you need to create as much positive energy as possible in your intimate relationships. Not only will we love more fully, more completely, more beautifully than ever before, we’ll do it in a healthier way. We’ll be more mindful and more aware when we love our special someone. Our relationships will become less about recreating our past and more about creating something new and amazing and special with the one we love. 

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

Leviathan

My recovery from trauma and depression, and all the maladaptive behaviors that go with it, is akin to a deep dive into a black hole. I wasn’t sure what was at the bottom of that hole, but I was willing to jump. Because if I stayed where I was, at the precipice of that dark, cavernous maw, my life wasn’t going to get any better. In fact, it was going to get worse.

So I took a leap of faith. The ride down has been beautiful; also painful, and the most challenging thing I have ever done. I made great progress. I got better. I healed. I inspired people and impacted lives. I kept going, and the deeper I dove, the better I got. 

Recently, I had a breakdown. Like I hit a sharp lip on the way down the hole.

And fuck, does it hurt.

It’s battered me like nothing else has yet. It’s bloodied me something fierce. It’s opened up my deepest wounds; wounds so old, I can’t remember where I got most of them. Wounds that I knew about, but that only bled occasionally. Now I’m hemorrhaging. Now, I have no choice but to heal these wounds. 

I’ve spent most of my adult life either running from, or bandaging, these deep, massive cuts. I, foolishly perhaps, thought they had scarred over enough so that, maybe, they wouldn’t open up so bad again that they would bleed all over my life.

I was wrong. 

Now, I’m up against it. Up against that which I knew, eventually, I would have to face. I’ve opened a wound that I knew I would have to heal.

The core wound is Abandonment. Specifically, early childhood abandonment. And all the other wounds it creates.

In technical terms, it comes under the umbrella of “Developmental Relational Trauma”. It happens early in life and continues to get reenacted. I mention that because, a lot, if not most of us, have this. Some of us have these cuts much deeper than others. Some of us, for a myriad of reasons, aren’t as effected by them. We all develop coping mechanisms; some, more effective than others. In adulthood, this trauma manifests itself most intensely in intimate love relationships, and the way we attach to others in those relationships.

This is my Core Trauma. I thought I had done enough work, picked up enough tools, and enough skill with those tools, to deal with this one more effectively.

Wrong again.

So I have to dive deeper still. Into the very darkest depths of this abyss. I have more diving to do. I’ve got more work, to do. 

I knew I wasn’t at the bottom yet. I just didn’t think I was this far from the bottom. Maybe I’m not. Maybe it just feels that way right now. Doesn’t really matter. Because I’m not stopping, no matter what. 

I could look at this like I’m even more fucked up than I thought. There are moments, I still do. But that sentiment won’t last. Because if there is one thing I have been, through all of this, is tenacious. I’ve faced every fear with a voracity I didn’t know I had. 

I will eventually see the opening of this gash as another amazing gift. I will get through this the way I have gotten through everything else I’ve faced over the past three months. I will come out of this with more healing, more growth, and a higher version of myself. This, just like everything else I’ve faced, will contribute to my being far more free.

But right now, it just fuckin’ hurts.

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