When my Mind Is Full but my Mouth Freezes

I have this habit that seems weird to me, I watch myself in real time.  But not in a mystical out of body sort of way.  More like I’m living in the moment and narrating it simultaneously.  Almost as if there’s a second version of me standing a few moments of time behind my little universe with a notepad taking notes on my facial expression, timing and tone of my voice.  It’s sorta like self reflection, but sometimes feels more like an annoying surveillance van whose inhabitants are passing judgment.  As for what that looks like.  I’m in a meeting, someone asks a question I’ve actually thought about deeply and I can feel the fullness of the answer in my head.  Up there my answer is complete, layered with nuance and connections to dozens of other ideas that matter, it’s all there, sharp, alive and crystal clear.

Then the uneducated hillbilly in me kicks in and what tumbles out seems more like a bad sketch of what was a detailed blueprint, “as builts” included.  I hear myself speaking in partial sentences, safe sentences, watered down sentences that don’t match the architecture I’m carrying in my head.   So, there I am, blathering and I get to watch myself do it, which somehow makes it even worse.  It’s a punishing dichotomy, the tension between struggling to say that thing in my head, and the harsh judgment I place on myself for not being able to effectively articulate the thing – even though people say I did.   

That looks a bit like this

As I’m sure everyone has done, I replay the conversation afterwards.  And then thought, that is not what I meant, not really, you know that feeling.  Your mind writes the director’s cut later, with better wording and pacing, better clarity, better courage.  But in the moment, you get the theatrical release, supposedly edited for safety, rated PG, and sometimes missing the best scenes.  The frustrating part isn’t that I am short on thoughts, I am drowning in them, about everything.  Sometimes I have nothing to say, and sometimes I have too much to say, and I can’t always translate it fast enough into a language that makes sense.  Sometimes I think my CPU is underpowered and my RAM is gummed up with memory leaks.  And yes, the more I examine it, the more it stacks, exponentially.

The torturous part is, intellectually I see it so clearly and my emotional self doesn’t give a shit.  And of course I know what that battle between Id, Superego, and Ego is called, intrapsychic conflict.  In less clinical terms the Id is instincts, impulses and desires.  The Superego represents rules, morals, should/should not, and guilt.  And there right smack in the middle is the Ego, trying to keep the peace between these competing factions, the referee if you will.  My ref is old and worn out, but still stands back up every day.  I think he has started taking supplements because I feel he is doing a better job as I get older.

I’m not sure where in my journey I started to notice that perfection wasn’t helping me, it was choking me.  I saw this more clearly in my work life but it was present in my personal life too.  My overthinking brain kept trying to craft fully formed thoughts in moments when all that was needed was honesty and forward motion.  In all of that I realized the struggle wasn’t communicating, the struggle was with my own expectations of myself.  Somehow I expected my words to arrive clean, properly ordered, debugged and ready for prime time.  What in the hell kind of standard was that, especially when the best conversations are the ones that are simple and free flowing. 

The kind you have at dining room table, or in a hallway at work with that trusted coworker, or even under an old Jalopy while you’re changing the transmission with your best friend.  The places where nobody expects a perfect sentence, from me or anyone else for that matter.  And yet there I was, drafting white papers and developing formulas when all the people or person really needed was the Smitty version delivered with honesty and compassion.  Perfection isn’t a virtue, it’s a fucking traffic jam the likes of what we see on the 5 in LA at rush hour.  It just sucks!

Learning to speak without fear has been less like flipping a switch and more like walking a long arduous path to the top of a high perch.  While at the trail head the path looks flat and easy but once ya get going you realize it is full of hidden obstacles and blind corners.  My intellectual self keeps trying to sprint ahead, convinced the faster I move the faster I’ll get to perfect.  Meanwhile my emotional self is chugging along at a much slower pace and less worried about beating the time but learning to be OK with wandering aimlessly and enjoying myself. 

I used to try to outthink the journey, engineer it into a straight line.  I was missing the point, its about the journey, not the destination.  That’s where the learning happens, the acceptance of what is happens.  That’s where the texture of our lives is created.  And  somewhere along that winding path, I realized the journey wasn’t about finding my words at all, I already have those in my head.  It was about finding a different way of treating myself.

Talking, it turns out, isn’t a performance, it’s a draft and we need to give ourselves permission to speak in drafts.  It’s supposed to be rough the first time, and it gets worn smooth over time with practice and patience with ourselves.  When the words are messy, wrinkled and sometimes without a flow, I have found people understand me better, not because I polished it but because it was real.  I am still learning the little narrator in my head does not always have to be a real time critic.  He can be a partner, someone who can learn to say, good start instead of you blew it.  And I want him to learn how to say the only way you fail is if you stop trying so, please follow Mr. Rogers three keys to success - be kind, be kind and be kind, only ensure you are being that to yourself too.

Maybe the words will never arrive fully formed and polished.  Maybe for me they’re meant to meet me halfway, there between Superego and Id firmly in my Ego.  Maybe that’s the work now, letting the three parts of me sit at the table without trying to outshout each other.  Letting the words come when they are ready, asking all three to be human and kind with each other. I guess that conversation is also part of the ride.  And maybe this is why I so much more like typing, when I’m doing that, it feels like all three of us are finally in concert with each other.