My family of origin liked to tease each other. Relentlessly. It was almost as if, the more someone loved you, the crueler they would be to you. So, I grew up thinking cruel teasing meant love. 

When I left my family of origin, I realized that cruel teasing felt like abuse to other people. It took me a long time to shake off those habits I learned from a very young age and actually treat the people I love lovingly. 

Then, after many years away, I moved back to the small town where I was born. And, fairly quickly I realized that it wasn't just my family who behaved this way, it was the entire town. This was an uncomfortable recognition for me and it created an untenable situation for my children in the local, public schools.

What I have learned since returning to this town steeped in cruel teasing... where the only way to demonstrate (or even hint at) emotion is to be mean to other people... is that this behavior is shame-based. It seems the very feeling of love or care or even connection is embarrassing and shameful to most folks here. Especially the men. 

The scariest thing about this cruel-teasing-as-love / deep-positive-emotions-are-shameful vibe is that the flipside to these positive emotions is just pure, fearful hate. If you treat the people you love with cruel teasing (i.e., abuse), imagine how you treat the people you fear and therefore hate? It's somewhat terrifying. 

And, the hard truth of this phenomenon is that this small town that I was born into and moved back to... is probably just a really good example of a small, rural, Midwestern American town. And the folks who operate from this if-I-love-you-I'm-mean-to-you / if-I-fear-you-I-hate-you vibe are legion. 

Shame and fear may be our real enemy. But so many of us seem to feel so much of both, without reflection or awareness, that we may never see beyond the human enemies we've made from them. 

This morning, I was having a conversation with one of my many parts (as defined by the Internal Family Systems model): my wife, my Writer. She and I were attempting to sort through how best to make my writing process and writing life central to my actual life. 

To be clear: I did not see her or hear her. I was fully aware that this conversation took place within myself. I have a rich and layered understanding of my own internal landscape that has come from years of working with the Internal Family Systems model. I have found that this work has helped me in a variety of ways but primarily with emotional regulation and goal-setting/ goal-completion. I will, almost no doubt, delve more deeply into this in upcoming writings.

This morning, as I conversed with my (internal) wife, my Writer... I found myself arguing against trying to start another daily web-based writing log. Even though all the cool kids are now on substack and my wife very much wants us to be one of the cool kids, my point was that I have a hard time wrangling my brain to the daily task of publishing random musings. My wife argued back that this is because I am afraid to be heard and seen by fellow humans and I had to admit, she ain't wrong. 

As our conversation continued, I found myself saying-thinking, "wrangling my brain to write and publish daily musings feels like trying to put pants on my monkey-mind and making it sit still." Then, I laughed out loud. 

Monkey Pants. If I try again, I said-thought, I shall call it "Monkey Pants" and I shall try to fight through the feeling of being seen and heard -- which isn't such a hard thing to fight when one is writing pretty much in total secret. "But the goal is, eventually, to stop writing in secret," my wife offered. And, as always, she is correct.