630 ANNIE BECOMES MOM TO TWO Chapter 7 MORE INSIGHT INTO WILD THING :)

Riddle:

In addition to sports stadiums where else is the Wild Thing sanctioned by society to run free, breathing fire?

In the bedroom

Stories concerning igniting those flames may surprise you as much as I'll be surprised to muster the courage to watch those stories sizzle on your screen once insight into that stage of my life expands my comfort zone.

Each time insight expands my comfort zone, memories, which back up inside my throat, emerge from my depths as naturally as every intimacy, posted, thus far.  (And though these stories will be written anonymously, I'll ask permission from any adult, who takes part as a main character, just as I did with my sons.)

In post 629, I suggested that my stories might inspire you to quest more deeply into yourself.  Today, clarity suggests that while writing these stories my quest to understand myself advances, as well.

Each time a puzzle piece emerges from my subconscious and slides into place next to that which is already known, a bigger picture—which Mother Nature thought best to block behind my defensive wall—expands.  As my perception of past events, seen through the eyes of a younger Annie, expands, a narrow view, which had seemed black and white, begins to alter until my mind's eye is exposed to a technicolored picture of reality, which had gone unsuspected before.

Each time newly gathered puzzle pieces conjoin, altering my perception of past events, my perspective into self awareness deepens.  For example, upon viewing yesterday's reality in a new light, I gain insight into a situation that the undeveloped mind of a frightened child could not comprehend without help from adults in the know.

Asking for help is what intensive therapy is about.  No matter how mature my mind has grown, I find myself in need of help to excavate truths so painful that defensive layers block me from healing tragic injuries on my own.

If Mother Nature calls upon the defense system to erect a mental block in order to protect a child's sanity then just as that block layers up, over time, each layer must be gently softened and peeled away, insuring that subconscious pain, secreted away in its rawest state, does not gush out, all at once.  Thus during the healing process, one must muster patience, tenacity and resilience while this excavating process sorts through puzzle pieces in hopes of regaining peace of mind, lost long ago.

Let's look at this way:
As children, we develop mental patterns that carve
Deep channels of thought into our minds.
Patterns of thought, like habits, are hard to break.
As a mind sets grows habitual in nature
Any change feels like something to fear.

I mean, once you get to know yourself ...
Who wants to learn that you're someone else ...

Let's say that this person you've grown to be proves to be
A better person than the self you'd believed yourself to be
Humility suggests you may say:
Goodness gracious this person you're describing
Couldn't possibly be me!
You need to get your head examined ...
On second thought, if you're on target ...
Then the head in need of examining might be—mine
At this point, your quest into self discovery is on a roll :)

Often times ego gets in the way of clarity
Other times humility blinds us from seeing who we've developed to be
Either way, we deny, deny, deny—the truth
Not just truth that hurts
But truth that sets us free to see ourselves as we've grown to be

In lieu of therapy I couldn't regurgitate trauma that caused my voice to choke in my throat.  (Need I say that as a public speaker, insight into irony is poking through the surface of conscious awareness, right now?)

Once my mental habit had accustomed itself to closing my eyes to realities that I could not fathom, life's heaviest moments were heaved into a chest that sank to the bottom of a river flowing with subconscious discontent.

This heavy weight inside my chest was composed of experiences too painful to bear or bare until the dam separating subconscious weight from conscious memory collected that last straw, which popped the lid on the dam—and without understanding why, I'd burst into tears and feel confused until puzzle pieces began to float to the surface of conscious awareness, at last.

At this point confusion has grown to feel so natural that each time another puzzling piece pours out of my memory bank, curiosity gets the best of fear, and I work to understand relationships that suddenly make no sense, at all.

As one thought leads to the next, trains of thought may switch tracks so fast as to make my head swirl like a top until I say—OMG, this head spinning stuff has to stop!

While slowing down this head spinning stuff, I slow down my thought processing machine in order to examine each piece of baggage that flies out of box cars, which coupling together, make up the run away train that circles through my head, making my mind feel like a gerbil on a wheel ...

Today, when that gerbil spins my wheels, I spend time in solitude—writing until my runaway train pulls into a station.  This morning, I awoke thinking—as thinking makes me reach for a pen, I found myself 'writing' at 5:30 AM.

Thank goodness over these past twenty years, I've had ample time to hear myself think for myself—concerning how best to fulfill my unmet needs.  And because I'v learned to think for myself, at last, nothing about the life I choose to live stalls or stagnates, over long ...

Ever since that first blessed four months time spent in solitude, twenty years back, no one decides when to rein in my wild thing, but me, meaning that, at long last, my decisions, concerning how best to live my life, are my own.  Think to know me?  Think again.

Think again, because—your first thought may not be your best thought for this reason:  The little that shows on my surface misses emotional complexities, which layer up as children grow up.

Most adults I know hide most of their traits behind their own defensive walls.
Some know how much their inner lives differ from their social veneers.  Some remain so confused that they don't.

I'm getting much too far ahead of myself.
Time to back track to Annie becomes a mom of two ...

It's a fact that very few parents enjoy yelling at their kids.
Even so, this question begs asking:
What compelled Annie to read through and collect a library composed of more than one hundred texts, concerning raising kids to develop a wide variety of personal strengths—unless Annie's sixth sense whispered that the kid in need of developing those strengths had been hiding, quivering fearfully, deep inside a subconscious pocket of her mind ... and with that, today's runaway train has pulled into the station, at last :)