Today will not be the day that I pen the story of
My most recent overnight hospital stay
Why not?
Because intuition has hit the bullseye, yet again!
This morning, I came to see why my intuitive powers
Cooled my desire to publish the story promised to
You, several weeks back, until readiness felt ripe
And with today’s flash of insight clearly in sight
My mind’s eye has come to ‘see’
The primary reason for postponing publication of
That specific story concerning a young mother who
Was down with the flu until after you and I had
The opportunity to consider insights penned over
These past few weeks, and here’s why that’s true:
During recent weeks, intuitive trains of thought inspired me to pen
Strings of insight, which empowered the conscious portion of
My processor with ‘knowing’ which classic fact of life
Will be illuminated within the story-to-come, and here it is:
All too frequently, we have no conscious clue as to when
Our thought processors are focused single-mindedly upon
Achieving a mission that feels so mentally challenging as to
Be all consuming, suggesting why our intelligence is blocked from
Spotlighting moments in time when our lack of self awareness concerning
The transparency of our emotional reactions seems to slam
The door in the faces of loved ones whose spoken needs go unmet
And on the flip side of that coin we see a person who has grown to
Fear rejection so deeply as to have unwittingly erased
Any trace of personal needs, so focused is her mind upon
Satisfying the needs of others with a genuine smile
In both cases, the absence of self awareness fails to
Acknowledge need to change hats, and when
One hat remains stuck on our heads, over long, our mindsets
Tend to remain so subjective in nature as to block objectivity from
Discerning what another person may actually be feeling or needing
And in addition to that insight, here's another:
If we fail to awaken from our ‘sleeping’ spells of self absorption
We'll not come to know ourselves as well as we think
For example: Hindsight has already offered us insight as to
Why a good, little girl, named Annie (whose home life grew
Ever more stormy in the confusing aftermath of
Her baby sister's unexpected death) had no conscious clue of
Having harbored a subconscious need to rescue
Her shattered sense of personal safety by stimulating
Her processor to stretch beyond the expectations of
Devastated survivors so as to quell her repressed fear of
Being deemed so imperfect as to be unworthy of their love
You see, if anyone happened to frown in Annie's direction
Sudden spikes of anxiety pierced and deflated her bubbly spirit’s
Cheerful smile, and as Annie had no conscious clue of harboring
This self-conceived fear of feeling personally responsible for
Causing everyone's unhappiness beginning with
Her baby sister's untimely death, a sweet little girl grew up to be
A super pleaser, whose white hat—fitting just a tad too tightly—caused
Her to feel so eager to serve the needs of others as to
Squeeze the expansive nature of her creative think tank into a space that
Proved so narrow-minded as to feel irritated and safe, simultaneously, and
Since Annie grew up with no conscious clue as to how often
Her repressed need for safety within a group had silenced
The self assertive portion of her voice from openly expressing
A variety of existential needs that would naturally flash through
Her bright mind, she'd spent most of her adult life masking
The degree of inner conflict, which remained repressed behind
The carefree persona that her defense system had adopted for
Public consumption, and as her persona continued to layer up
Everyone—including Annie—was fooled into believing that she was
Good natured, easy going and agreeably compliant—through and
Through—and since she was so young when her persona had
Begun to develop, her intuitive powers had been denied
The freedom to develop and emerge as she matured, and thus was
Her weakened sense of insight offered not so much as a flash of
Clarity concerning the depth of her need to identify
The interrelated series of early child experiences, which had
Hollowed out the inner strengths of her self esteem, leaving
Little more than a thin-skinned shell within which
Her vulnerabilities, feeling too insecure to think
Outside the box deemed proper by societal convention, hid from
Public view until recent years when that shell had sound reason to
Crack, exposing the depths of her insecurity, at long last, and though
The early stages of naked exposure felt anything but strengthening
Eventually, upon being astutely diagnosed with PTSD, Annie
'Found herself' feeling deeply appreciative of all of
The professional help that encouraged her bright mind to muster
The courage and humility necessary to expose
Her vulnerabilities in order to retrieve every inner strength that
Had been pierced, repeatedly, by spiking anxiety, which, no longer being
Nameless, empowered Annie's intuition to clarify the existence of
Her primary inner conflict, which had caused so much mental confusion as to
Have flooded her mind with mixed messages concerning
Innocence and guilt, resulting in a repressed sense of tightly coiled
Emotional turbulence, and each time intuitive readiness signals
Another layer of deeply buried emotional turbulence to emerge
Annie's recovery from PTSD undergoes sound reason to experience
Yet another emotionally liberating, deeply exhilarating leap of faith forward
And though each next challenging step of her (my) recovery releases
Detailed memories—each of which had felt too terrifying for
A child's mind to process—every anguished terror, re-experienced by
Annie, the adult, today, proves, over the long run, to provide
My psyche with yet another healthy change for the better for this reason:
As therapy sessions inspire a host of inner strengths to develop in
Bite-sized increments, my choice to muster the courage to
Set my persona in time out right next to my ego (hence the need to
muster humility) frees my memory to re-experience
Forgotten details so painful as to have signaled Mother Nature to employ
My defense system to save my sanity by numbing my reactions during
Each assault—followed by gifting my conscious memory with
Amnesia in the aftermath, and because of these sleeping spells
Most of my childhood felt 'normal', suggesting why I actually
Give thanks to my persona, which served me well for
Most of my life (as well as serving my children well, because
They grew up with a mother whose attitude concerning
Life and love was positively focused, cheerful, mischievous and
Creatively determined to raise her trio of sons within
An emotional environment that felt so safe from harm as to
Free all three to discuss any problem that arose, so that her
Consciously accumulated wealth of solution seeking skills could
Guide one and all to carve an existential path whereby
Each one's self esteem developed sound reason to strengthen with
Every step toward leadership that each had chosen to take while
Evolving from boys to men, who are known to be as sensitive to
The needs of others as they are strong) and thus am I grateful to
Mother Nature for taking good care of my psyche until
The path I chose to tread freed my intuitive powers to guide
Me to seek out one therapist after another until a psychologist
Versed in EMDR therapy offered me two additional gifts:
The first being her expertise and the second being
Time in which to piece together those painful aspects of my life which
Had puzzled me most so as to have assembled lost details into
Today's bigger picture, thus creating the memorable sense of
Wholeness which has rewarded my awareness with
Monumental gains concerning self esteem—Whew!
As long as my inner conflict remained subconscious in nature
A host of repressed frustrations would coil up, tensely, behind
My wall of denial, offering the conscious portion of
My processor not even one clue as to how frequently
My existential voice had wrestled with repressed fears, deep
Inside my mind, and to complicate matters further, lets
Not forget that common knowledge reminds us to remember that
We are naturally attracted to our opposites, who are meant to
Challenge us to face up to life's classic lessons left unlearned, again
And again—and with that insight in mind—if I wore
A white hat then I'll bet you believe you can readily guess
The color of the hat worn by a young man, named Will, who was
On a mentally challenging mission of his own, suggesting that
As a bright young lad, growing toward manhood, Will’s persona of
Congeniality was bound to eventually crack, releasing
Tightly coiled, negatively charged emotional reactiveness, which
Proved every bit as salty, stubborn and demanding as
Annie’s reactions remained sweetly servile and
Agreeably reassuring, suggesting why (though both were bright)
Neither learned their individualized lessons for quite some time—
And by the way, in case you've been led to believe that
Will's hat was black—it was not—Will's hat was gray, because
As a young, married, surgical resident, his mind wrestled with
An inner conflict that proved very different from his wife's in that
Annie'd worried, unnecessarily, over not being perfect enough to be
Worthy of love while Will worried incessantly about perfecting
His surgical abilities, which is why his mental focus worked to
Stuff as much medical knowledge into his gray matter as was
Humanly possible, suggesting my need to paint
This next image of Will as clearly as objectivity will allow:
Let’s imagine a wiry young masked man, wearing greens, balancing upon
A high wire, scalpel in one hand, unconscious patient in the other, no
Net in sight, and as most of this young surgeon's waking hours were spent
Juggling a black and white mood with no margin for error in which to
Say 'Oops!' let’s color in very little time for relaxation much less sleep or
Stress relief, and though I realized much of this back then, hindsight
Offers us sound reason to darken Will's mental attitude as being
Too tightly wired and exhausted for his own good, most especially when
He was on call 36 hours off 12, so that rather than arriving
Home happily eager to pitch in and lend a helpful hand (and when fleshing in
The bigger picture concerning Will's black and white vision of daily life let's
Add the fact that his father's early demise during Will's boyhood stimulated
Annie's husband to simulate one whose darkened mood waits for
The other shoe to drop) and thus do we come to see why
Will felt utterly compelled to force feed his swollen gray matter with
As much medical info as could humanly stack up inside his
Memory's file cabinet—just in case he came up against
The exception to the rule during that which was supposed to be
A routine surgery —and having offered this snapshot of
A young, inexperienced surgeon's history, we come to see how
Will's black and white demeanor bled into his white hat, coloring it—as
Gray as the mood in which he'd generally arrived home from the hospital—not
Every night—because surgical residents were not called residents for nothing—
In fact, surgical residents spent many more waking hours, days as well as
Nights on call, with their colleagues and patients than with
Their wives and children— and as a young, fully energized
Wife and mother, who was a teacher of children—who'd
Loved interacting with children—because not all teachers do as
I'd learned by listening to my colleagues in the teacher's lounge—I was
Actually more than okay with this arrangement for several reasons:
Firstly, I'd been with Will since my senior year in high school
And as neither of us could afford to go away to college
Our commuter experience seemed to extend high school another
Four years except for these differences:
#1 Rather than school buses picking us up at the corner stop, M-F
We'd each traveled across the city for about an hour, each way, on
Public buses and elevated trains, no matter the wind-chill factor, and
#2 The work and study load were significantly more demanding
#3 Being a pre-med suggested that Will had need to study
Many more hours than was true for me, due to the
The number of laboratory science credits that he'd needed to
Ace if being accepted to medical school after three years of
Undergrad was his goal—and as that was the goal of
All of his friends (once in college, all of Will's guy friends were
Pre-med) the competition he'd faced to 'make the grade' was intense
#4 As none of these college commuter-nose-to-the-grindstone
Young men were wild and crazy in anyway, Will's crowd fit
My need for straight-laced safety to a tee, and
In addition to that match made in heaven there was this—
#4 The strong sense of academic competition amongst these
Hard working pre-meds, whose hard working families lived
Much like mine, rubbed off on me, because they’d scoffed at
My earning honors by achieving B's in teacher's ed courses, which
They'd deemed Mickey Mouse in comparison to Quantitative Analysis
So, by the time I'd graduated from high school in 1962 with plans to
Attend the same urban university as did these academically minded
Juniors, my conscious adoption of their attitude concerning
Priorities became second nature to me in no time, suggesting that
Early into our courtship studying came first—upping my game
To Ace-ing my classes—sports came second (to the guys), leaving
Romance rounding the bend, approaching the finish line in
Third place, and as Will’s friends were every bit as amiable as
Was he once textbooks were closed, and Saturday nights set
Us all free to thoroughly enjoy ourselves and each other, and as
I'd signed on for that deal by the time I was
A nubile eighteen year old, college freshman in 1962, suggests that
Any expectations for sharing my life with
An impassioned helpmate once Will and I'd walked down
The aisle in 1966 and then found ourselves proud parents of
Two active munchkins—one toddling around while
His kid brother crawled after the first as fast as
His chubby little hands and knees could keep up—had been
Repressed within my memory's file cabinet of
Tightly coiled frustrations, and as long as
I'd dismissed my unmet needs in order to satisfy
My number one need of satisfying the needs of others with
A congenial smile, why should anyone realize that
An undercurrent of anxious frustration had festered behind
My bubbly persona since I was a three year old child, scratching
Away at my itch to get out of my skin until I'd drawn blood, and
Since swallowing the self assertive portion of my voice (unless
My children came under fire) had developed into
A habitual pattern, beginning at the age of three, and since
Unidentified habits are hard to pinpoint much less break
My cheerful attitude concerning our daily life fell
Right in line with Will's lack of time, energy or personal attention at
Home—and all seemed well to the naked eye until 1971, at which time
The wearied surgical resident’s energetic young wife caught the flu ...
Photo circa 1963
Annie at nineteen, a college sophomore
Will at twenty-one, a first year med student
Annie at nineteen, a college sophomore
Will at twenty-one, a first year med student
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