Hellerrrr You Brilliant Resilient —
I’m a late processor. Late for what? I’m not sure.
I’m a take-my-time processor. That’s it.
When I was in London, ??my voice instructor would sometimes pour us both a whiskey and ginger before a lesson (in tea mugs).
I remember the end of one session while another was beginning, she sent me to the corner off-licence for supplies. That’s when 22-year-old me learned what a Moscow Mule was.
At some lessons she was sweet as pie, and other lessons she said things to me that made my throat catch, my stomach clinch, and tears sting my eye corners.
I never knew which teacher I’d be seeing that day. And I wondered why I felt stressed biking down to Brixton every week.
A year after I’d moved to NYC, I was walking down Second Avenue when in an 8-part harmony angel choir theophany moment ?, I stopped in my tracks and said out loud, “Sylvia was an alcoholic!”*
I just thought all Londoners drank that much. I did bartend in a pub, so I had plenty of evidence.
But yeah. A little slow in the evidence assimilation there.
As I tell you that, a list of dodged bullets runs like a dang-that-was-close news ticker through my young adult years.
You see, for various reasons in my childhood, my mind learned to file potentially painful information in the “Process Much Later” file. ?
While this has caused problems (ask the active paperwork inbox in my still-unpacked studio), it’s also brought benefits.
I’ve navigated scenarios so chaotic that if you proposed them in script form to Lifetime TV, they’d tell you to bring them something realistic.
My brain created all kinds of back door exits in response to life traumas that are very handy escape hatches when I encounter crap-tastic circumstances.
Don’t get me wrong. My lil-Dan coping mechanisms have wreaked their share of havoc.
Thousands of dollars worth of therapy and credit card interest later, I’m here to tell you I’ve come to a spot where I can usually meet my psyche’s brilliant survival tactics with understanding and gratitude.
They even work in my favor sometimes.
Big emotional event?–My mind organizes the ordeal into the deal-with-later file, and I know one day I’ll let the snot and tears dribble. But today I may just have to pay bills.
What are the things that little you did to cope that keep showing up today?
Did you know that your voice tells you about these kid skills too?
?Tongue tension, for example, is often a belief that you need to press back your expression because you might have run into negative consequences for letting out your feels.
?Pharyngeal constriction (intense whispery/constrained feeling) can link to earning love through meeting a perfectionistic/impossible standard.
?And hypofunctional phonation (not enough breath energy for a vibrant sound) can shine a light on areas where you’ve judged you don’t deserve things.
I remind myself, and I tell my students that these things are all tryina help you.
Your tight tongue is protecting you from the danger your expression got you in in the past.
Your constricting pharynx is trying real hard to keep you doing the things that get you love and acceptance.
And that stingy air flow is keeping that story alive about not deserving nice things so you don’t have to grieve over the years you’ve ID-ed with the deprivation that got shellacked on you as a kid.
I’ll often ask a student to pause and meditate into the spot that’s not doing what they want it to do.
They have a little conversation with their tongue root or their pharynx, and just like when you ask anybody a genuine question with the desire to understand, those parts of the body speak up.
When we can meet the parts of ourselves that seem to be getting in the way with empathy and compassion, we learn a lot.
I guarantee you it’s a lot more effective than shouting, “JUST RELAX!”
This week I invite you to notice the patterns little intelligent you cooked up to survive, and maybe give your baby psyche some props for their resilience brilliance.
When we invite these things to share their stories with us, they can mellow out, and they can even integrate themselves into some healthy adulting if we can partner with them in a gentle and conscious way.
And remember, beautiful you with your intricate assortment of survival skills, there’s only one of you, and folks need to hear the story that only you can sing.
Love much,
Dan
ps *re: my London story, names have been changed, and I still talk out loud to myself on city streets.
pps here’s the bar where I worked in London. The Havelock Tavern. Still there in Brook Green. I enjoyed working there, and it’s where my love of cooking started.
