In a time long ago, in a land far, far away, there was rock band who’s energy, style, and raw talent captured the hearts and minds of everyone who feasted their ears upon it.
I was meditating the other day and during the metacognition phase, I noticed that I had slipped into a dream.
I was being distracted by my thoughts, and then those thoughts morphed into an unrealistic dream.
But I noticed it, I noticed the exact moment it happened.
As soon as I noticed that I was in a dream, I forced myself to “wake up,” and focus on my breath again, chastising myself for “falling asleep.”
Then the thought manifested, “Well, that was cool. Do it again.”
And I did.
Very quickly my thoughts turned back into an unrealistic dream.
I did this a few times.
Sure, technically I was “falling asleep,” and then “waking up,” repeatedly.
The thing is, I was choosing to do that.
It felt like I was flying a plane, dipping in and out of consciousness, as if I were knowingly skimming the surface of it, up and down.
I realized there wasn’t much difference between the conscious thoughts I have when I’m “awake” and the dreams I have when I’m “asleep.”
It’s not like I had to engage a separate part of my brain for that “shift” to occur.
So, I think my conscious thoughts and my “dreams” are the same thing.
It’s just my brain churning out data, creating thoughts (thoughts which “I” notice)..
The only difference between the dreams and the thoughts is “I” (the “me”-ness in “me”, the “controller” of my focus) is suddenly “off-duty”.
That means “I” am not present, examining my thoughts and saying “No, that’s one’s wrong. That one’s bullshit. Hey, think about this ____ instead.”
When I’m not “awake” doing that, my brain is still working, churning out the very exact same thoughts as it always does when I am awake, just now it does it unsupervised and “unfiltered.”
“The little decision maker inside the meat-puppet” is “off duty” when my brain “dreams.”
Now, combine that with the knowledge that my entire life experience is being projected to “me” from inside my own mind, who is to say what’s real and what’s not real?
One thing I didn’t know is that peace is the thing that I value the most in life.
As a young adult, the things I valued and chased (because I didn’t know better) were money and things.
You could look at my bank account and tell I wasn’t that successful, however, I was also told that if one has a handful of change on their bedroom dresser, they are among the richest eight percent of people in the world. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” -Theodore Roosevelt
The reason I didn’t know that peace would become the thing I valued more is because another thing I didn’t know is that I had never felt true inner-peace before.
Maybe I did as a very small child, but I didn’t remember it. I had a bit of a dysfunctional upbringing. For me, life was always a game of survival. I didn’t have time for peace.
When I was a child, someone gave me a “Chinese Fortune” game. It involved a can of numbered sticks. I was shown to shake the can gently, and the stick that rose when I did that was to be my “fortune.” The numbers on the sticks corresponded to a number attached to a fortune in a book of fortunes.
I shook the can, pulled my stick, and read my “fortune.” I remember what it said. My fortune was: “He who dwells in the past will be filled with sadness and depression. He who dwells in the future will be filled with fear and anxiety. Only he who dwells in this present moment will ever have peace and tranquility.”
I think I was about six years old when I read that, and I didn’t know what tranquility meant so I asked my mom. Me: “Hey, Mom. What does this word mean, tranquility?”
She said, “I think it means to relax.”
I thought, “Who the heck has time for that? I have a busy schedule of throwing apples at passing cars already lined up, and I’m way behind.”
I never relaxed. On top of the dysfunctional family environment, I was also diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. I couldn’t relax if I wanted to.
There were lots of horrific things going on in my young life, per me. I struggled with thoughts of suicide from age eleven on. Pretty much since I knew what suicide was, I’ve struggled with internal thoughts, “Hey, Larry, you should try that.”
Later on in life, I was involved in a few incidents in which people thought I acted “heroically.” The reality was that I just didn’t care if I lived or died. I was not that attached to the idea of being alive, so that caused me to sometimes act in manner that seemed “heroic” to others.
Another thing that I didn’t know was that the thoughts of suicide I often experienced were directly tied to some other experiences I also survived that caused me to carry and hide a great deal of shame about myself.
As a child, I hated who I was. When I started going to school and met other children, I started comparing my life experience to what I perceived theirs must be like. Remember what Theodore Roosevelt said about “comparison.”
I thought the other kids had way better circumstances than I had, and I determined that early on. It was a false belief based on nothing. I had no actual knowledge on whether the other kids were experiencing the same type of abuse that I was (or even worse), but if they were, they seemed to be hiding it way better than I was.
Every family has an image they portray to the public to fit in socially within their communities. Not just families, but we all do that individually as well. Not that the image we as a family portrayed to the public was stellar (by no means), but what was going on inside the house was much worse. But those were things we weren’t supposed to talk about…
I picked up a couple of “non-shareable” problems in that house when I was very young. A “non-shareable problem” is a problem that I don’t want other people to know about. It’s a secret thing that I’m struggling with that, per me, is so embarrassing and shameful that I think if anyone else discovers that I have this particular problem, I would be shunned and ostracized from all of society. I feared I would be ridiculed for even experiencing this sort of trauma as if merely being a victim of it made me party to it.
Kids typically blame themselves for dysfunction in the family, that’s what we as kids do.
That all triggers the natural abandonment terror that all humans are born with.
That’s the nature of “non-shareable” problems. We don’t discuss our non-shareable problems (fearing shame), thus we begin to think we are terminally unique in holding them. That leads to social isolation. Low self-esteem.
There are actually fourteen childhood survival traits that people such as myself with high ACE scores (Adverse Childhood Experiences) typically develop as identified by ACoA (Adult Children of Alcoholic/Dysfunctional Families). Poor self-image is just one of them.
When I was eleven, I assaulted my abuser to such a degree that the direct physical abuse towards myself and others in my family stopped. I fought back, basically, and that changed the environment in my house a bit. “It worked!” It didn’t turn everything into Hallmark or Disney movie or anything, but a lot of the more severe physical abuse stopped. It was still very tense inside the house for me after that, maybe even more so.
I still lived under the same roof as my abuser, so I lived with a heightened state of anxiety and hyper-vigilance after that.
It wasn’t a “loving and nurturing” environment to be raised in.
As a teenager, I determined that I had to get away from that house as far away and as quickly as possible. College wasn’t an option for me. I decided that my best course of action to achieve my goals was to join the military.
I went to the Army recruiter when I was sixteen and told him I wanted to go to boot camp immediately. “I don’t care what if you send me to war, just, can I go now?” He said he wanted me to graduate high school first, but said I could go the day after I got my diploma. I thought that sucked, but God bless him. That Army recruiter made sure I graduated High School. He was probably the only one I knew of who cared whether I did or not, and that includes myself.
They ended up putting me in an armor unit.
That was a funny day, the day I took my ASVAB. The ASVAB is this test one takes before MOS (job) selection to “see how smart you are” to see if one even qualifies for the job they’re seeking. I thought, “That makes sense. I probably wouldn’t want someone who could barely read to be in charge of the map.” That’s just thinking logically, but still, there are a lot of lost lieutenants out there, wandering around, holding the map upside down…
I ended up getting a pretty nice score on the test, and the recruiter said, “Wow. Well, with this score you can pretty much have your pick of jobs in the Army. Now we just have to figure out what it is that you would like to do when you get into the Army. Do you have any thoughts on that? What sort of MOS would you like?”
I hadn’t. I didn’t know that was an option. I thought they just stuck you wherever they wanted. I considered the question for the first time and said, “Well, maybe it would be nice if I learned a skill of some sort so that I could get a job in the civilian world afterward.”
The recruiter said, “That sounds like a wise decision. So, if you could have any job out there, what would it be?”
I had just seen the movie War Games and thought NORAD looked pretty cool. The idea of working at a top-secret underground facility hidden inside a mountain sounded pretty bitchin’, so I said, “Maybe something to do with computers? I just saw a movie, and I see computers are becoming a thing. How about something with computers?”
The recruiter smiled and said, “There is no finer computer in the world than the one inside the M1 Abrams tank.”
I said, “Huh. So, you think if I figure out how to use that computer, that would somehow translate into me getting a job somewhere when I get out?”
He smiled and said, “Absolutely.”
I said, “Well, then, sign me up for this M1 Abrams tank deal.”
He almost did.
He actually put me in an M60 unit, which was a much older tank (probably doesn’t have as nice of a computer as the modern M1. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been inside an M1 Abrams tank).
Furthermore, when I completed boot camp, they sent me to Ft Irwin, the Nation Training Center, where we drove Vietnam-era tanks called Sheridans (computer? Pfft… The gunner station practically operated by slide ruler and abacus). In fact, the Sheridans we drove were actually mocked up to look like Russian T-72 tanks.
So, in summary, I signed up for M1 Abrams tanks but was sent to an M60 unit, where we drove Sheridans mocked out to be Russian T-72s. What I didn’t do was pick up any sort of computer skills… I noticed that, but I didn’t complain. Driving tanks was way cool.
In fact, I was “the driver,” that was my position in the tank crew. That’s the position I wanted, so I manipulated my way into that position. My manipulation tactic was “tactically failing” at the other positions and attempting to excel at the actual position I wanted, which was driving the damned thing.
When I got inside the turret of a tank and looked around, it terrified me. It was so small, and everything smelled like gunpowder and grease. “And wow, that cannon gun goes off right in here, too! Boy, that is loud.” So, I didn’t like the idea of being the loader. I didn’t like the whole act of loading the tank. I thought that was some scary stuff. I load the tank’s gun by picking up this massive shell that’s about as big as my leg, then slamming it into this breach, which appears as if it could take my hand off easily if I’m not paying attention. “And, I’m in this rolling coffin, I can’t even see the outside? I don’t want this job.” So when it came to “performing,” I just did the bare minimum to qualify.
I did the same when it came to being the gunner. Although I liked the idea of being the gunner during a battle, I wondered, “That looks fun, shooting the gun, but how long does an actual battle last. I can only see the outside world by looking through the gun sights? I bet I’m going to get tired of sitting in that seat real quick.” So, when it came time to qualify, I just did the bare minimum. I did not wish to excel at being a gunner.
Driving the tank, however, I loved the whole idea of that. “I’m in control of driving this massive beast, crushing things, and I can open my hatch anytime I want to get fresh air. I want this position. So I tried to excel and was eventually given the position.
The first time I actually drove an M60 tank (which is one of the largest tanks in the world at the time), my mind was blown. I couldn’t believe the Army basically just gave me a tank, and here I was, driving it around. A tank. I was seventeen, and I was driving a tank. My mind was blown.
Maybe you’d think eventually I’d get used to it, but I never did. Driving a tank was equally awesome every single time I did it. “I’m driving a tank!” Pfft… it never got old.
So I did some time in the military, then I got out and got a job on the Columbus Police Department.
These are “warrior archetype” jobs that come with their own ideologies and social constructs, unspoken rules to follow in order to fit in, one of which is: “Never expose anything that I perceive to be a weakness in myself.” I perceived that to be “Warrior-Code 101.”
I came into these gigs, however, with childhood PTS from a lot of messed up stuff that happened when I was kid, and still had told nobody about. I was trying to pretend none of that stuff happened and that all that dysfunction was secrets I was taking to the grave with me. My plan was to reinvent myself as “a warrior” and leave that abused version of myself behind in the rearview mirror.
That’s not how life works, however. I was still carrying those non-shareable problems, the same ones I picked up when I was a child, and to me, that became a “learned technique” of hiding shame (or anything I perceived to be shame) and thus never processing trauma.
The tactic of “pretending that didn’t happen” became my method of processing trauma.
I didn’t have positive male role models when I was growing up. I didn’t have anyone saying, “This is what trauma is, and this is how we process it in a healthy way.”
Instead, I have a method of isolating myself spiritually and physically from others and storing trauma/shame like a camel holds water.
Here’s the other thing, a lot of those other kids I’m meeting in boot camp are doing the exact same thing. The majority of us come from impoverished families/communities and are all operating under the same childhood survival tactics of keeping family secrets secret. A lot of us have the exact same non-shareable problems and don’t even know it.
No one talks about the drug/alcohol/sexual abuse they experienced growing up, so it reinforces the idea that I am correct in that I am alone in this struggle.
Due to fear of shame, people tend not to discuss their “non-shareable” problems. Thus, everyone with a non-shareable problem thinks they are terminally unique.
“Everyone is acting like they have their shit squared away. Meanwhile, everyone is struggling with the exact same problem. They have no idea, however, because they lack the courage to talk about it.
There are a few sayings I learned early in my recovery from Complex-PTS and had to repeat to myself often until they were ingrained into my thinking patterns. One of the most powerful ones is: “What other people think about me is none of my business.”
Fear of shame and of what others thought about me led me to live a life spiritually isolated from deep, meaningful relationships with others.
“Once your reputation is ruined, you can live quite freely.” -Anthony Bourdain
“Your reputation is in the hands of others. You can’t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.” -Wayne Dyer
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot control (what other people think about me), the courage to change the things I can (only myself, and my character, how I respond), and the wisdom to know the difference.”
For me, it took work and lots of practice until I was able to free myself from the concerns of what other people think about me before I could just be “me.”
An interesting thing I found, by the way, was that people liked “me” more than the “socially acceptable” person I was trying to be. I was able to enjoy myself and my life more, thus others also enjoyed being around me more.
It took lots of work (and I’m not finished yet) to get where I am now where I typically enjoy a life filled with peace and joy.
I had to “unlearn” my old “way of being.” I had to recognize my “false self” (the person I was pretending to be) and instead learn to just be authentic.
Authenticity is much appreciated but not taught in our shame-based society. Instead we learn to try and be the person everyone else likes. That causes us to be a “people-pleaser,” which is a frustrating way to live and view oneself.
Due to childhood dysfunction and being raised in an abusive environment, we often think our authentic selves are not “good enough.” As it turns out, the more authentic I become (I become “weird”), the more others appreciate me.
It’s either that, or the people who don’t like my new authentic version of myself leave my life (Hey, I’m not for everybody), and new people who do like the “weird” me come into my life. Either way, my life experience improves and life becomes wayyy easier and enjoyable. I begin acting more authentically in a way that lines up with my true thoughts and feelings.
Life becomes easier because I’m not trying to be someone I’m not. I’m not pretending I like or dislike something or someone just to fit in with others.
I can just be me, and as it turns out, I am “enough” just as I am.
That doesn’t mean I just walk around spouting a bunch of personal opinions, casting judgments and preferences onto others.
I’ll talk about that later, but the less opinions, preferences and desires that I have, the more satisfaction (a key ingrediant to “joy”) I experience.
It’s a strange concept and one that I would never have predicted. The “weirder” and more authentic I get, the more I enjoy life and the more deeply rooted relationships I tend to develop.
