557 BEHIND THE PLEASER'S SMILE WHERE TRUTH RESIDES ...

    Now, that we’ve reached the point where I’ll have graduated from eighth grade and my high school years are about to take a turn for the better, guess what lives and breathes a bit easier inside Annie's mind?  It’s her spirit.  Think negative thoughts ... your spirit will dive.  Think positive thoughts ... your spirit will rise—and thrive.

         The human spirit must be quite strong, because, like the heart, lungs, and muscles, it never stops working from the moment we inhale our first intake of breathe through to our last exhale at the end of life.  The spirit, working in tandem with our thought processing systems, attempts to replace a wounded ego's reptilian fears with a sense of inner peace, which each of us hopes to call our own.

         Directly above, I've described two separate parts of the brain, which we inherit before birth (the portion where reptilian fears, fueled by bad memories, resides along side of the strong spirited, thought processing center where each person's potential to consider choices and make wise decisions is based in acquired knowledge.  If asked what human beings are required to acquire if we hope to elevate ourselves above the lower species of the animal kingdom I'd reply:  We must seek insight, which leads to foresight, preceding decisions based in wisdom gleaned from hindsight.

         Any adult, who hopes to reach uncommon heights of self-discipline, personal success, and peace of mind, is charged with climbing the ladder of knowledge one rung at a time.  In order to accomplish any great feat, we must leave the herding instinct, offering the path of least resistance, behind and instead choose a path where self-absorption lessens in direct proportion to gains made in self-awareness .

         Since adhering to self-motivated changes requires one to leave the beaten path behind, the spirit must be spurred on by a courageous, conscious sense of one's own inner drive.  In addition to recognizing inner strengths, we are required to identify vulnerabilities, which hide behind our invisible walls of denial.  Adults, aspiring to attain advanced degrees of self-awareness are few and far between for this reason:  Our defense systems are preprogrammed to rebel against recognizing certain personal weaknesses.  The fact that one side our minds has no clue as to what the other side may be feeling causes the brain to be an exceptionally complex machine.  Once I came to recognize how the brain's complexities impact my life, I stopped trying to figure out where screws were loose in others.  Instead, I chose to see myself as a 500 piece puzzle worth putting together by investing significant portions of my energy and time into understanding contradictions within myself.

         At this point in my life, I realize that it's always my choice to decide which side of my brain will control the other—the reactive reptilian side where unhealed wounds of my ego darken my perspective or the insightful side, which, residing within my Neo cortex, brightens my way toward identifying creative solutions to on-going problems that prey upon my mind.  At eleven years old, Joseph and Annie didn’t have a prayer of saving their relationship, because rather than being courageous, self aware, self disciplined adults, their reactions and perceptions were naturally, childishly self-absorbed.  Rather than showering each other with love's compassionate sense for each other's inexperienced vulnerabilities, they spent years stubbornly pretending to ignore each other, and thus were two wounded hearts denied love's healing powers, because neither knew that in its purist state, love calls upon inner strengths to place the injured ego—the id—the yang—the self-ish side of human nature in time out, most especially when conflicts arise.  When two people remain unaware of the fact that love's purity must be consciously developed, two injured ids tend to darken their views of one another and past events, indefinitely ... and how sad is that for folks, in general!

         Before we return to my first day in high school, where Lady Luck introduces Annie to Debbi in freshman English, I’d like to come clean with you in terms of fleshing in several memories that I’d forgotten to remember (and thus had not thought to connect when puzzling through each stage of my life) for more than forty years.  Once these memories offered me insight into the tunnel-visioned view of a frightened child’s perspective, strings of insights lit up inside my mind, creating an opportunity to draw a bigger picture, which a child's fearful, self absorbed perspective had sadly missed.  Thus while writing forty years, later, my relationship with Joseph finally healed ... at least on my side.  As these memories were recovered, one by one, questions arose within me, such as these:  How often have I 'drawn' conclusions based in dark thoughts, hearsay or conjecture? How often have missing details forbidden bigger pictures to brighten my perspective?  How often have my decisions been based in a fearful rather than in a positively focused perspective?  How intimately do I really know any other person?  How intimately do I really know both sides that make me whole?  When will I remember that no one can drive me crazy except for me, and when will I learn to value myself as I do a friend ... more than I torture myself as a foe?  How often do I choose to self soothe without putting the other guy down?   

         While writing about the fact that Joseph never talked to me again, I realized that I never spoke to him, either.  Once that awareness hit like a ton of bricks, others followed.  OMG, I thought—Joseph must have thought that I'd hated him!  OMG! Joseph had continued to walk past my house, hight after night, meaning that he'd demonstrated a degree of courage, lacking in me.  I was the one who'd cried, afraid to come out from behind the living room drapes, where I'd watch Joseph through the picture window, pacing back and forth!  As this train of thought refocused my perspective, compassion for Joseph's pain burst through any residual pain, which had been harbored deep within my brain, and once again, I came to see why writing is cathartic.  While engaged in writing, both sides of the brain concur and speak as one.  Each time a forgotten series of facts marches across my computer screen, another string of insights lightens my perspective of a time seen, previously, through dark lenses or rose colored glasses.  Each time both sides of my brain re-align, my ability to process through thoughts climbs another rung on the ladder of maturity, and once advancing levels of maturity are mine, solutions to on going problems clarify.  From that moment when the depth of Joseph's pain matched my own, I've remained aware of this fact, which bears repeating:  As an adult, it’s always my choice to decide which side of my brain will control the other—the reactive reptile that fights, flees or freezes in place or the insight-provoking Neo cortex, which quests toward bigger pictures that brighten my perspective until my belief in positive focus comes clearly into view :)

Now, having reiterated a point as wise as that, let's back track a bit, again :)

We remember that after Janet's death when I was three, I'd entered into an unwitting, subconscious agreement to champion anyone who'd seemed in harm's way.  We know that at four, upon Lauren's birth, I joined ranks with the women, who'd made certain that my new little sister remained healthy, happy and safe and above all, we did everything to make certain that she did not 'disappear' on our watch.  We know that Mom held Lauren's hand while I held Dad's.  That my compassion for pain rose in defense of anyone bullied in the school yard.  And since we know that I'd cared for crying children in my kindergarten class, it should come as no surprise that when Lauren began kindergarten, she'd stuck to my strengths like glue to the point that if I was unwell and did not go to school, neither did she.  Though all of that was easily seen, here is what was missed.  Our relationship had grown more than close.  In terms of emotional safety, we'd become enmeshed.  This development of emotional enmeshment is not uncommon in a home where a child's life has been cut short.

Soon after Lauren started school, Grandma Ella suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized for weeks.  Being a deeply devoted (enmeshed) daughter, our mom did not leave her mom's side, so an aunt took care of five year old Lauren and nine year old me.  An aunt who'd once declared two goody-two-shoes, like us, to be a thorn in her side.  During the long weeks of Mom's absence, Lauren's vulnerabilities leaned more and more on Annie's strengths—causing a life-long pattern to set up.  As to Annie, she'd been taking care of friends, in general, for quite some time.  Monkey-girl in the school yard.  Barbara Big Boobs, who'd developed early and lived next door and was deviled by prepubescent boys on bikes, who'd ride past her house until my incensed sense of fury burst and like an exploding missile, I flew straight into their midst, chasing that gang of hormones away from my friend, all by myself.   Whereas Lauren is known as a pretty, clever but insecure little girl when separated from Mom or me, Annie develops into a smiling, self confident, problem solver by day while scratching to get out of her own skin, night after night.  And thus, if you are a parent, who thinks to know your kids, through and through, may I suggest that you take a moment to think about our two sided brains, again ... 

For countless reasons, within the same brain, defensively insecure and self assured, care-taking patterns develop, side by side.  Some folks needs are met by crying or stamping their feet...beating their chests...pulling their hair and screaming bloody murder... or beating up on others, who repress their needs...regress...and depress ... as to Annie, he defense system 'chose' to suppress her needs...solve the problems of others and smile (and scratch) all the while!  And though denying suppression seemed to work just fine for close to 50 years...I've learned that a modified semblance of balance amongst all three styles would have worked better than stamping or regressing or suppressing while smiling and scratching did, alone.  Though helping others while suppressing—thus denying—problems of my own made me easy to get along with, repressing my fears and needs could not help but burst one balloon after another—until I met Will, who will prove to be more like me, deep inside, than most would suspect.  In short, we can't really know others until clarity into one's own complexities—develops.

By the time Annie had met, been drawn to and married her opposite in Will, his coping pattern—that of being emotionally unavailable and utterly opaque—had been set in stone as deeply as hers...and here is where what had seemingly worked well for me began to roll consciously straight down hill.   Whereas being helpful had made me feel valued, deeply appreciated, well-loved and socially successful, most especially during high school, Will's pattern of showing no emotion when at home undermined my sense of emotional well-being.  And thus did a good girl, looking for love in all the right places, grow ever more silently, tearfully needy—behind her smile—deep down inside ... once she evolved from girl friend to wife ...