Building A Better Mousetrap

        A few weeks ago, I did a post called “Fuck You God”. In terms of reader response per word written, I got more bang for the buck from those three syllables than anything I’ve written on this website.
        I guess I hit a nerve. Honestly, that wasn’t my intent.
        My intent was to share what was happening for me that morning.
        After screaming that phrase for what seemed like hours, but was in actuality about twenty minutes, the thought occurred to me to post it. Initially, I rejected the idea. Way too over the top. Way too offensive. Way too indulgent. Way too...pick your poison.
        But then I thought, “Is it real?”. Fuck yeah. As real as it gets. And that’s what sold it for me.
        I had no idea what kind of backlash there would be. Or what kind of support I’d receive. I couldn’t worry about that. Not if I’m trying to be real. Whatever consequences arise from being real is just something I’m going to have to deal with.
        After all, how often are we not real because we fear the consequences of being real?
        While I was screaming, I thought of that scene in the movie Forrest Gump. When lieutenant Dan is on the top of the mast during a hurricane, daring god to kill him. I was actually jealous that I myself wasn’t in a dangerous place in the middle of a violent storm, just like he was. I wanted the full effect, damn it. But doing it in the privacy of my own home would have to suffice. So I settled for blowing my voice out, going house on my punching bag, and working up a drenching sweat.
        Although I had been struggling with how I felt since the previous night, the tirade was actually triggered by the innocuous decision to make fresh juice that morning. Fresh juice which I promptly spilled all over the counter. That’s actually what made me snap. Isn’t that always the way it happens?
        So I lost it, for the first time in over half a year. When it was all over, I realized how long it had been since I was that angry, and I actually smiled. Because it underscored how much anger I’ve released in the past seven months, and how much lighter and happier I am as a result. So getting that angry thus reminded me of how infrequently I go there now.
        And Lo and Behold, after blowing my smokestack and then talking about it with my sister, a small miracle happened. I was able to thoroughly enjoy the rest of my day.
        “How did that happen?”, I asked myself. This was a relatively new experience for me. I wasn’t stuck in the feeling anymore. Just as important, I wasn’t beating myself up for feeling what I felt and thinking what I thought and doing what I did. Yowza. This is much better than the way I’ve been doing it for most of my life.
        In a nut shell, I had allowed myself to be completely real, and then gave myself permission to express that. Full Tilt. That may not sound like a big deal, but consider where most of us go when we have incredibly intense, sometimes disturbing, thoughts and feelings. Often, we immediately negate them and stuff them back inside. Sometimes, we have to, because to express them at that particular moment or in that particular situation may be totally inappropriate. But all too often, we then convince ourselves that we didn’t feel that way. That’s denial. Or we mercilessly criticize and judge ourselves for feeling or thinking it. That’s shame. Or we forget about the feelings, cramming them so far down that we can’t get to them again. That’s disease.
        Build up years of that, and you create within yourself actual physical ailments. You manifest depression, anxiety, rage, obsessive compulsive disorder, and just about any other challenging personality trait you can name.
        It was precisely because I was able to accept and release these very disturbing thoughts and feelings that I was able to move through them. I was fortunate enough to be able to do it right then and there. With reckless abandon. But if circumstance didn’t allow me to do it that way, I would still need to find a time and a place to express what I felt. Somehow. Someway.
        I could have chosen music. Or exercise. Or picked a time and place to lose it when I could be alone. How we choose to release such intense emotions is up to us. But the key is that they get released. The key is they get dealt with. If not, they eat us alive from the inside out.
        Before, when faced with a challenging emotional situation, especially pain, my options were to get angry or to shut down. I vacillated between these two stressful extremes, which were themselves already on a dubious emotional continuum. An emotional continuum that I had created through years of not knowing what to do with what I felt.
        Anger and disconnect. I certainly had other tools in my toolbox. I just didn’t use them. Now I do. And like a carpenter who gets better at building the more he builds, I’m much better at feeling, expressing, releasing, and moving through emotions. “Simply” because I completely honor my process.
        I still have intense emotions. I’m an artistic, creative, imaginative man. A passionate man full of life and energy and intensity. A strong man who isn’t afraid to feel. It’s what I do with these feelings now that’s made all the difference. I actually allow myself to feel them. Then I choose how to express them. How to deal with them. Then I release them and move through them. My life all the richer for it.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and lifetime of Wrongs) Reserved.

The Groove Is In The Heart

       It was past ten at night, and I had been driving for over six hours. Los Angeles, where I had spent my summer, felt like a world away. But the city’s memory was still able to physically manifested itself. All I had to do was look to my right. There, thousands of feet below me, and many miles from this windy road that carved it’s way through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the bright lights and urban sprawl of Fresno exploded out of the desert. Fresno reminded me of the city of angels, if only in it’s stark contrast to where I was going: Sequoia National Park. Home of the Giant Sequoia Trees. The largest living organisms on the face of the earth.
       There were no lights on this road, the only illumination being supplied by the headlights of my rented Mustang convertible. And although it was nearly pitch black, I knew I was surrounded by dense forest. More than that, I could feel the presence of giant trees. Like the kind of sensation you get when you know you’re being watched. I couldn’t see them. But I could feel them. They were everywhere.
       A sense of peace and excitement filled every crevice of my being until it had nowhere to go but out, and I laughed and smiled with a purity I rarely experience. I was in the midst of magic once more. Like that one Christmas morning you’ll never forget. The one, that for some reason felt different and special from all the rest, this night was destined to occupy that same sacred space.
       A simple, yet profound, completely zen experience. One of my life’s great moments.
       Surprisingly, considering the remoteness of my location, I was able to still get radio stations. The Mustang had a crankin’ stereo that could pump out enough volume for me to hear music even with the top down, pushing ninety on any interstate. As I made my way into the Giant Forest, I came across a song that I recognized, although I didn’t know it’s name. But I was way into it just the same. It had a killer groove, an infectious riff, and the melody was completely doing it for me. I could make out some of the words: “I couldn’t dance for another” was one line that kept repeating. But the key phrase, the one that I instinctively knew betrayed the song’s title, I couldn’t completely decipher. “The groove is....something, something, something.” As closely as I listened, I couldn’t make it out.
       That song, seeing as it was part of one of my life’s most precious moments, has stayed with me ever since. I’ve not actively tried to find out what song it was, but I knew that someday, the mood would strike me and I would begin the quest to posses it.
       The other night, that quest began. The title came too me in a dream. I didn’t even have to look for it. It found me. How cool is that?
       In my dream, I was sucking face with...a certain girl. Sucking face is actually a rather crass term here. Because it was one of those very long, deep, soft, passionate kisses where our mouths melded, and her delicious wet tenderness seemed to gently engulf my entire face. In fact, I awoke with my mouth open, drooling on my pillow. I would love to have a video of me during the last few minutes of that dream.
       Anyway, during the kiss, I heard the words of that song clearly for the first time. “The Groove Is In The Heart”. I didn’t hear the song itself, or even the melody. Just the words. But I knew where those words belonged. I just knew.
       I woke up, pillow drool and all, the words reticent in my room, as though they had just been said aloud. I immediately thought to myself “Of course. ‘The groove is in the heart’. Look where I’ve come from. Where I’m at. Where I’m going. How apropos.” Then I turned on my computer and went immediately to iTunes, where I searched the song, found it, listened to several different versions, and bought a few of them.
       Now I’m not claiming that this is some big realization of any sort, or that the dream has any great significance. It was just plain gnarly to hear those words in a dream, especially those words, and know exactly where they belong. Very cool.
       And in a way, it closes the loop on the experience that I had on my way to Sequoia.
       Such experiences are born not purely of the mind, but of the whole being. That’s what makes them so rich and powerful. When you can feel something stirring in your heart. When you know there is something happening in your body. When you are aware of your mind, but not in it. When you intuitively sense your connection to something far greater than yourself, and you are truly conscious that “that something” is connected to everything else.
       That’s an experience. And I want more of them. That’s a life. And I want more of it.

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

Note: To hear “The Groove Is In The Heart”, go here.

Bleach vs. Battery Acid

       I’m told, by many women, that they like a man who’s confident. They also tell me that they like a man who’s connected to what he feels; that he’s honest with himself about his true feelings. And virtually every woman I’ve talked to says that what’s even more attractive is when a man shares what he truly feels with her. Because that promotes true intimacy.
       But what happens when a man’s confidence is at odds with what he feels? What happens during those moments, or hours or days, or longer, when a man doesn’t feel so confident, and he’s in touch with that. And instead of bullshitting his way through that with his significant other, he shares it.
       Does he become less attractive because he’s not so confident? Or does he become more attractive because he’s sharing this with the woman he loves? Or do the two cancel each other out, like battery acid and bleach, to produce a neutral emotional pH?
       Ladies and Gentlemen, step up to the plate on this and share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
       This post is all about what YOU have to say. Let's hear it. Post a Comment.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and zero to fourteen Wrongs) Reserved.