Re-Inhibitor

        One of the things so many of us love about children is their ability to surprise and even astonish us with some of the the things they say and do. I was around a gaggle of my little cousins last weekend, ranging in ages from six to sixteen, so I was witness to an endless stream of entertaining behavior. I started asking myself why we as adults are so enthralled with what children do and say.
        One of the reasons I came up with hits very close to home with me. Children are usually much less inhibited than adults. A child will do something, like get wet, roll in the sand, cover their head with seaweed and put on a diving mask so that they resemble an alien, simply because it’s fun. Simply because they want to. Simply because they can. They’re not worried about what people are going to think of them. And if they are, it’s most likely along the lines of “Oh boy, this is going to make people laugh. I’m going to get some juicy attention for this!”.
        This sort of attitude allows children to be much freer in their range of behaviors. Obviously, they have to learn how their behavior effects others, and therefore develop boundaries and governing systems. But I’m not talking about behavior like that. I’m referring to the kind of stuff like looking like an alien at the beach. Behavior that is undertaken simply because it’s fun, simply because it's self expressive. Behavior whose environmental impact is limited to people’s opinion of it.
        In children, it’s all about fun. It’s all about being yourself and doing what feels good. Children know how they feel, and they express it. They express what they like and what they don’t like. Self expression is a key element in being a kid. What they do. What they say. What they wear. It all screams “Here I am! This is me!”. That sort of outgoing, innocent, somewhat irreverent, self expressive energy is a beautiful thing. And something we lose so much of when we “mature”. Maybe that’s one reason people find artists, particularly rock musicians, so fascinating; that gonzo-out-there-this-is-me energy is so alive and well in them.
        I’m focusing on the attitude here, not necessarily on a particular behavior. As we get older, we learn all types of lessons regarding how to act and what to say. Many lessons are valuable, and help us with our self control, develop our boundaries, and make us cognizant of the rights of others. And some lessons are rather worthless. These are the lessons that create so much inhibition and fear in us that we literally forget what it means to be ourselves. Lessons that raise our self consciousness to such dizzying platitudes that we won’t do things that are harmless but loads of fun strictly because we’re afraid of what people will think of us. Lessons that completely alienate and stifle the child within.
        In my case, when I was a child, I was much more like an adult. I was very self conscious. Prohibitively so. I was incredibly inhibited. More than even many grown ups. I didn’t like myself much at all. In a way, my life has run in reverse. I feel more like a kid now than when I was a kid. I have more fun now than I ever did as a child. I’m exponentially more expressive. I’m more myself. I’m far less self conscious or inhibited. I very much want to be loved and liked, but I’m far less concerned with who doesn’t like me, or even if they do or not.
        By no means am I suggesting that I don’t have these self conscious inhibitor gremlins inside of me. I do. I’m very aware of them, and sometimes, their voices are loud. I struggle with them constantly. But I’ve had some success in taming them. I’ve had some success in realizing where they absolutely do me no good. I’ve had some success in telling them to shut the fuck up.
        What I encourage people to do is get in touch with the kid inside of themselves and rediscover who that kid is. He or she has much to teach you. Not only about who you really are, but about who you really aren’t. If you’re willing to get to know that kid intimately, he or she will help you re-ignite fun and joy and uninhibited energy. That kid will tell you a lot about what you really love. And about who you really love.
        And that child will also tell you a lot about the pain you are still in today. If you truly open up to your kid’s unbridled joy of self expression, then you will also open up to whatever residual pain still lives inside you. Pain that still effects your behavior today. Pain that still effects who you are. And who you aren’t. Maybe that’s one reason why so many people shut out that child within. Because of the pain that’s still there. Because they are afraid that once they rediscover that kid, it’s not going to be all fun and games.
        And it usually isn’t. My own journey involved opening up to the pain first, which is usually how it happens, and another reason people are reluctant to re-discover the inner child. The pain usually comes before the joy, and who the hell wants more pain.
        But I can tell you from experience; it’s unquestionably worth it. The payoff for dealing with ourselves is a fuller life. The freedom we gain in our emotional lives is invaluable. We are able to access energies in ourselves that have been dormant for years and maybe weren’t even aware of. Our self expression flows through us and out of us and back into us again like high voltage through a cable of high conductive copper, re-energizing our lives. We start recovering who we really are. We become open to pain as well as joy, true. But that is so much better than being numb, which is where so many of us reside, so much of the time. I know. I was there for a long time.
        The child within will teach you about your latent pain, and help you get in touch with that ache deep inside of you that hasn’t yet healed. But once you’re in touch with it, you can start the process of releasing it. The child within can teach you about love. About unconditional love. About joy and self expression and fun. They will teach you about feeling. About being. About living. Ultimately, getting in touch with your inner child is about freeing yourself, on many levels, about many things. And how the hell can that be bad?


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a house full of very self expressive Wrongs) Reserved.

Love Me Through Glass

        Placed in an incubator just moments after I was born, I got comfortable being looked at through glass. I got comfortable being loved through an invisible wall.
        From the first seconds of life, I learned how to love and be loved using walls. These walls were a fact of life for me from the very beginning. The barriers were in fact physical before they were metaphysical. I didn’t have to learn how to put them up. They were already there. It’s all I knew, right from the start.
        Because a person, especially a new born, needs love to live, I had to detect the love coming through the glass, or else I’d perish. So I immediately developed the ability to feel love and affection and connection right through the wall. And right after I developed this ability, because I was in there for three weeks, I got used to it. I got comfortable with experiencing love through a wall. So that’s how I did it.
        I’m still most comfortable being loved from afar. Being adored through some sort of wall. But now it’s a wall of my own creation. Or at least it has been. That’s all changing now. But it’s a work in process.
        I’ve noticed that what’s easiest for me is to be aware that someone is looking at me, maybe even talking about me, and letting it go at that. Being noticed and smiled at from across the room is a great feeling. It is most often an invitation to at least say hello, and maybe strike up a conversation. But I notice my reluctance to do so, and it makes sense. Because as long as all you can do is look at me, adore me from afar as it were, I’m comfortable. I’m safe. You don’t know me yet, so I’m still okay. I get to bask in the knowledge that you find me somewhat attractive, and that you’re curious about me. And all too often, that’s enough for me. Because after that, it starts to get unsafe. After that, a little of the wall has to come down so that we can talk. And that, believe it or not, can be very scary for me.
        In an intimate relationship, the wall is still there. It’s a lot thinner, and the glass is spotless and pretty transparent. But it’s a still a wall. Because I still feel the need to keep myself safe. I can’t let you all the way in. I never have. Even right after I was born.
        This is not a unique trait. In fact, it’s all too common. Now that I’m acutely aware of it, I see it everywhere. Not only in myself, but in others. But that’s the way it always is. Only when you become finely attuned to your own experience, your own pain, your own struggle, can you so deftly pick it up in your relationships with others. That’s one reason I believe that some of the best sports coaches were not necessarily the best players. They constantly experienced the struggle of their limitations, and therefore the pain of their professional existence, much more than their super-star counterparts. Therefore, when it comes time to coach, they are able to more readily relate to the struggles of the average player, who make the majority of the team. You can learn to massage egos, and stroke the bellies of the stand outs, a lot easier than you can learn to relate to the painful experience of the common reality.
        When I was released from the incubator chamber, the physical glass walls were soon replaced by emotional ones, but they still weren’t mine. I developed my own from mirroring what I saw, and instinctively knowing that I already knew how to construct them in order to protect myself. So I did. And I got better at it the older I got.
        I’ve chosen to unlearn this way of doing the love dance, a way that I was taught since my very first moments of life. I’m grateful that I’ve become so aware of this and that I’ve chosen to work at doing it differently. My walls are coming down now. With so many of us, the walls get bigger and thicker and stronger as we get older. We can become more closed off as we age, we therefore age quicker, and it makes the aging process far more difficult. Even cruel. I’m going the other way. I feel younger than I have since I was a teenager.
        Like an addict who hit his bottom, I started the slide after my dad died, and I hit the ground with a life shaking thud. After bouncing around on the bottom for a while, I realized that I was in love with a woman who just left me. And that’s when I started to climb out. After I finally faced myself and could not run from the pain anymore. That’s usually how it happens. We come up against ourselves after a trauma, like a death or a divorce or an accident or a series of heart breaking losses, and we start living. Or we start dying.
        But as I’ve said, it’s a work in process. If I were standing, half naked, on stage in a room with thousands of people all staring at me, I would be more comfortable than I would be if I had to approach one of those people and talk to them. Even if I knew that they were liking what they saw. I can often overcome the fear of approaching someone and striking up a conversation, and I’m a lot more at ease with myself than I used to be, but what I notice is that the fear is still there. The fear of not having a wall of glass through which to connect. A wall that’s been there since I was born. A wall that’s coming down.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and The Wall by Pink Floyd of Wrongs) Reserved.