A subtle yet tectonic shift.

Something has finally clicked. I feel strong again. I feel assured and confident again. My mind is quiet. No longer am I tormented by constant pecking of doubting thoughts and anxiety. How did it happen? Let me see if I can find the exact path. The day of transformation began as several attempts before had. I was faced again with my weaknesses and could not see how to cope. But I had few new factors to ponder that helped me work through it. Three factors if I recall. First the setup. When faced with my weaknesses the first symptom was a knot in my chest. Taut and painful it was unbearable as usual, but I was forced to choose new paths to deal with it.

Change Factor 1 – The coin on its side.

The first factor was the recognition of my usual two choices furthering my self-defeating attitude. My partner had said she needed me to be stronger and at first, I took that to mean she was unwilling to allow me to come to her for emotional comfort. But then I came to realize that I was not merely asking for comfort, I was unloading my emotional burden on to her, asking her to do the work of resolving it for me. The knot itself, I did not know how properly unwind. I only had two coping mechanisms, I needed her to release it or I had to forget it. This led to an ever-repeating pattern. I would be faced with my weakness, the knot would form, and I would either run to her, in my weak state and make my case for sympathy for her to release it, or allow my mind to employ a variety of defense mechanisms to forget its emotional impact. The second coping mechanism was originally the more difficult to detect but was center in my attention that day. The original mechanism was the reasoning of the ego, an excuse creating mechanism. It was not my weakness, it was someone else’s perception, their madness, not mine. For a long time, it was my strongest defense, but as I learned to detect it, a more insidious mechanism arose. I would assure myself I found the problem and was taking steps to solve it. This sounds all well and good, until I realized it wasn’t leading to actual change. The feeling of self-satisfaction was sufficient to resolve the knot, and also to forget the sting of its lesson. With the pain mollified and my brain having offloaded the problem on my future self, I resumed the same patterns of thinking that lead me to make poor decisions in the first place, thus the pattern repeats again. And with the usual path, the first coping mechanism of running to my partner to ask for absolution, being finally recognized as the choice of child-like mentality, left me with no options to resolve it this time. This realization was made by the point being made to me that I often spoke of the emotional turmoil of a few minor childhood embarrassments, but being faced with my weaknesses repeatedly as an adult failed to illicit even the same level of response, much less the stronger reaction it deserved. So, first factor, recognition of previously unrecognized methods of self-amelioration, forcing me to look for a new path.

Change Factor 2 – Embrace the suck, especially if others had to.

Second factor, forcing myself to look my weakness in the eye. Deciding against trying to unwind the knot, deciding my partner had paid the price for its resolution too long, I resolved to carry it despite its discomfort. I can thank my previous attempts at enduring discomfort (cold water training, fear facing) with opening that path to me. But it was still an act of willpower that would drain me, regardless I resolved to move forward carrying it. So, I then took steps to ensure this choice would not be questioned by my mental doubters. It was also pointed out that one habit of weakness was avoiding eye contact when I felt corrected. So, for the first time I looked myself in the eye and spoke directly to my doubters to tell them to back off. A momentary win, but revealed a larger problem. I could see the expression of fear and looming failure in my face, my eyes. I tried in vain to alter it, to find a way to smile or at least appear impassive, but to no avail. With every attempt the look of fearful passivity remained in my eyes. I looked weak to myself, and so I felt weary of the knot, starting to hear the voices of doubt that anything could ever change.

Change Factor 3 – Someone has walked this path before, follow them.

But then I recalled the third factor, an example of determination to emulate. When discussing what the nature of this being stronger looked like, my resourceful partner said the Captain of the Lewis and Clark from the horror film, Event Horizon, played by Lawrence Fishburne. Methodical, patient, yet decisive, haunted by the pain of former failure that gave him determination to do better. I replayed the character in my head looking for examples of how he dealt with the challenges before him, and found an interesting commonality, one that existed among many of his characters. An expression of patient determination. Eyes focused but untensed, jaw forward but ponderous, a look that spoke of quiet strength of will. Previously, under the aegis of my lifelong emotional shield, I had refused to consider emulating anyone. Any exercises in who you would like to be for a day were met with derision as the answer was myself and no one else of course. The emotional shield refused to allow comparison, as that meant proper measurements of my own merits, which meant the potential to fall short, and so the potential to improve was forgone for blissful ignorance. But that shield was dropped last year and the slow journey to reconnect with the emaciated emotional core within has finally allowed me to consider the validity of male role models. However, I had still never found ones that quite clicked, all felt too soft, or too bro-ish, to be me. But in Mr. Fishburne I found what I was looking for, an expression of refined male energy that agreed with me.

Change result – Transmutation of emotional weights.

And so, with these three factors clicking into place, something remarkable shifted within me. With the first I searched for a new path. With the second I decided that path was to endure long term discomfort. And with the third came the expression of determination to make that happen. As I adopted the expression, a psycho-somatic response followed. I felt a change in my walk, my stance, my breath, and with that a shift in the knot. It released, but not into an ephemeral nothing like previous times I had “decided” on a way forward, but into a burning weight. It felt like a rope knot in chest was burned away revealing an iron weight within that rolled forward and settled into my solar plexus. This was a new sensation but it felt “right”. As the day progressed I noticed a number of changes had occurred. The feeling of weight in my plexus did not feel like a burden, but rather a source of gravity that moved with me. With it I felt the urge to walk slower, more purposeful. In fact, every action seemed slower, with more weight behind it. This “weight” made me feel denser, stronger, immovable, in both my actions and my thoughts, as if I truly carried a black hole with me. I felt as if I subtly altered the reality of the world as I move through it.

Such a feeling already has a name, the word we use is gravitas. And I felt I had finally found it. With it my mind quieted, I felt thoughtful, assured, and purposeful. And it wasn’t a willpower challenge either. The new feelings “fit” and I felt bulwarked against the world’s irritations. As mentioned anxiety was down, replaced by sense of robustness, but also physical weakness was lessened. I found pain sensitivity was down, I felt more solid and moved as such. I felt more self-disciplined and able to resist urges to give into temptations and frustration. I think the increase in willpower and pain threshold stemmed from two major outcomes of this new emotional paradigm shift allowed me to implement.

First Outcome of a new path – Stand tall together.

The first outcome was a change in the aforementioned fear of not having the outlet of sharing my emotional concerns. This was from a false narrative that many couples deal with and a false narrative within myself. The first false narrative was that I needed to be completely understood. This not only fed the previously mentioned excuse mechanism by attempting to say, “If I am understood, then I am absolved.” but also fed a misunderstanding among couples that complete sharing brings greater intimate bonding. So, by holding back my need to be “completely” understood, I would shut down the mechanism that looked to find excuses, and with intimacy broke a cycle of enabling self-weakness in order to share, which itself became a barrier to true feelings of intimacy. That notion deserves a larger explanation, but suffice to say that by shutting down the path that allowed a man-child to constantly run to “mommy” to feel safe from the big bad world, the child found its own strength and was able to grow up and be a better individual partner that can connect without dependency. This was the false narrative I did not realize I was perpetuating within myself. I felt I was not strong enough to deal with emotional turmoil on my own, it had to be acknowledged, shared, analyzed, and allowed to “be” in a misunderstanding of emotional well-being. This new sense of determination allowed me to acknowledge the emotion, and then simply let the turmoil go. An act of decisiveness. And with this new sense active I found myself feeling less turmoil anyway, the effect of a focused mind. A far cry from the false bravado and calm I displayed with my emotional shield in place, which simply avoided the emotion and buried it to my detriment later.

Second outcome of a new path – Clarity of mind.

The second outcome was the increased mindfulness I have been seeking but never achieved at this level. With the new sense I felt as everything waited just little longer to be dealt with, even if it required action in seconds. Perhaps it increases brain processing cycles by not spending them on anxiety and doubt. But the constant fear of making mistakes or being seen as foolish dissipated. Instead I felt confident that I really could think something through, analysis a situation and act accordingly. This is also what accounts for the increased pain tolerance. I recognize an injury or irritation as informational and a task to be dealt with rather than a chance to garner sympathy. This complaining less actually leads to not feeling the need to complain. Things become sorted as needed to be addressed and who can best address them, leading to better couple flow as well. And mentioning flow I even found myself being able to enter personal flow more easily again.

Change warnings – Step carefully and to avoid the well-worn.

So, a potential sea change in behavior from a seemingly small decision, but I know it won’t turn my life around without keeping that mindfulness up. The excuse mechanisms and sit there in the back waiting for their chance, along with the pleaser tendencies (its own topic to be explained in depth). The very next morning they showed themselves. I was sleepy, stumbling out of bed and bumbling in a rush trying to make the coffee “first” to show off what a good person I am to my mental detractors. I was moving weakly, sleepily, an appeal for sympathy for anyone watching (to include myself, I later realized). After further messing up my good intentions by making several mistakes, which got the excuse mechanisms ramping up, I caught myself. The excuse system now felt wrong thankfully and it caught my conscious attention, so stopped and took a few minutes to gather myself.

Thankfully that’s all it took. A mental decision to make operating in a calm and prepared manner the priority, and it changed the way I have woken up every day since. I wake up and just stop. A pause I decide on before I go to sleep that allows me to center before I get moving. It puts me in control before my automatic mechanisms start up, leaving me a constant mental step behind, and just reacting to everything. After that, every move I make feels made with decisiveness and purpose. It really changes how you feel about the depth of control you have in your life.

The Paradigm Shift – From SuperMecha to Gargoyles.

Before I used to joke that waking up felt like watching a sci-fi show about giant robots, and there was this whole mission control team, announcing stage by stage of systems coming online as this lumbering giant attempts to get moving. While that may have been seen as just an imaginative way to describe the mental state of non-morning sci-fi fan, I realize it also belies how little control I felt I had. I felt as this tiny pilot struggling to get a huge mechanism moving, waiting for inevitable system failure warnings, constantly troubleshooting and rerouting, a clamor of voices shouting out information as I struggled to keep up. I felt my task was simply to manage these voices better, and since the removal of the emotional shield (indirectly) reduced some of the chaos and cacophony of voices, I thought I was on my way. But the sense of determination has done far better. I feel whole and quiet. The act of waking up now feels simply like shaking off obstacles to operation, I get up, remove them and I am good to go. Very similar actions, wake up, wash up, start the day, but very different outcome. The change being that it feels like the removal of external hindrances, not struggling to get the internal working, and it becomes obvious as I exit the washroom. I was not a morning person. It used to take me an hour and half to get to decent mental state. Now, I’m ready as soon I walk out, solid and just shaking the dust off, as in a very Saturday morning different show.

What will you draw into your orbit…

So now I can stroll about humming a tune, a weight of determination behind every step, as I face the world with my own personal center of gravity. The world feels very different when you realize you can affect it too.