The Silent War
Most people have hidden selves—even those that claim to be you-get-what-see withhold from the outer world. Personas and masks are common, and these are necessary, and keep what might otherwise be chaotic social dynamics functional. Intuitive types take this natural facet of the human condition to deeper levels. The emotional and mental warfare is an everyday state of being; indeed, it’s a moment-by-moment state with rare exceptions, and these exceptions feel like a brush with nirvana.
Most of the time, I project calm energy. Throughout my life, I’ve attracted people who want to bask in that energy as it can calm their nervous systems (as long as there is an exchange, I’m ok with this and it does come at a personal cost as my nervous system is taxed attempting to create the external peace desired by the other person(s)). This calm is real. It’s also a byproduct of one of the theatres in the silent war. I expend a lot of emotional energy to keep my natural intensity out of public view. It’s not about being fake or even about hiding behind a mask. My emotional intensity is simply not appropriate for most social settings and existing in the space all the time would be a kind of taking from others (I would be forcing other people to deal with my emotional energy whether they wanted to or not). Beyond that, as an extroverted feeler, if I create disruption in my environment that often will be reflected, and I will absorb it, adding to the internal chaos. But is also means that a lot of who I am is kept distracted and busy keeping my emotional energy contained, and when I am no longer able to do so, it often comes out in a flood. I’ve already expended a lot of energy keeping it contained, and when that effort falters it’s much like the bursting of a damn. Because of that, it reinforces the vigilance and the battle to maintain the exterior calm.
There are other battlefields. Much of the time, my inner world feels like a collection of armed camps battling for supremacy. My idealism and visions for what could be clashes with reality. Negative messages and negative beliefs born out of protective survival needs exert influence and often dominate how I behave even when it goes against my true wants—against my best interest. These messages and beliefs are often born out of truths—meaning, they were the reality at one time and my mind instinctively tries to protect against the pain of reliving those truths. But in that protective instinct, in that denial, the truth is often reinforced (my mind’s desire to avoid old pain recreates it). For example, my first wound, my first realization in existence is that I am not Wanted. I might do a blog on this but I’ve only recently seen the wound and the emotional energy it holds is full of terror and grief that quickly overwhelms my adult mind if I get near it. This came to light in a group process where we were asked to scatter in the room, and on autopilot, I placed myself away from everyone else. I wondered why. Why did I always do that? I’ve done it my whole life. But I loved the men in my group. So why? And I experienced the wound. A part of me was annihilated by the wound. A protector came in to place to prevent that from happening again but in doing so the pattern is repeated—I recreated the old truth and so the protective response manifests the very emotions it’s supposed to be protecting me from.
I desire connection—deep connection that’s meaningful—to the vulnerable places that want to be seen but hold fear or anger or grief about what that would mean. So there’s resistance. This tension lives in me as a push and pull. Some people pull away, afraid of what I might see within them. I often try to be with people without seeing them, and that’s yet another internal war as I’m wired to connect to the deeper layers. In turn, though I’ve done enough work to where being vulnerable is where I live a lot of the time, I to hold on to that resistance. It takes a lot of trust to let that go.
The environment itself is another battlefield. Come to my house, walk through my gardens, and you will experience a kind of harmony. That is no accident. Excessive noise, motion, emotional energy, light variations, are difficult to withstand. Events with a lot of people are challenging—just to exist in those kinds of spaces requires a lot of energy. I like to go to UH football games, and I take ear plugs as there is not a moment when the sound system is not playing full tilt, or the band is playing, or if the game is actually happening the sounds of the crowds (hopefully, there is some sound 😊). The environment is stimulating and exciting and it also pushes into my natural state of being a deep thinker.
Sensory overload also has another dynamic—I lead with introverted intuition. My brain is always running in the background at warp-speed; searching for patterns, for danger, for meaning and connections. Introverted intuition is built on trying to predict how things will unfold, understand others without being told, and sense the subtext of any given situation. This creates a gravitational pull where my focus is pulled inward almost all the time; this works best in a space of calm, peace and harmony (hence, the environment I have created where I live). But the environment is usually the opposite—the modern world especially is a drug of sensory input that runs like a mass-addiction. My weakest function is extroverted sensing. I have done some work to cultivate it, and I often get overwhelmed as the world pulls me outward, demands my attention, while my inner processing world never wants to let go. Yoga or working out are places where I sometimes to surrender—the push and pull of the weight or the resistance and pain of stretching centers my mind to the task at hand, and for safety, I need to be aware of my external world. I’m one of the weird ones who, outside of those working with trainers, never wear headphones or earplugs. Filtering out the overhead music is easier than having it piped in directly to my eardrums. It’s also a reason why I retired early from corporate life—the company went to a hotel environment where the employees were packed close together on long tables with closely spaced workstations and which had to be claimed each day—I was bombarded with sensory input without a break, and my soul felt beleaguered and stressed.
Being around others usually adds another battlefield. I don’t just feel emotions, I absorb them. Sometimes these emotions resonate closely to what I already carry. It can be a challenge and a battle to figure out what belongs to me, and to let go that which does not. This battle takes place in my inner world. For some, that determination occurs at the outer layers—most people have armor, shields and other energetic protective measures to prevent such emotional energy from entering their inner world without consent. But my mind doesn’t work that way—the energy is coming in. I either deal with it or deal with added emotional weight I then have to carry. So, why not be alone? Because I want connection. Without connection, there is no meaning.
I also see things that others don’t see; sometimes because it’s in their blind spot or because they don’t want to or they are not wired in a way that allows them to see. This doesn’t mean everyone is blind--other people often pick up on the unseen, and sometimes they express it but usually they do not. I have doubts about whether to express it because there is usually a lack of hard data—it’s intuitive, which is in a world beyond words. So often, hours or days or even weeks after a moment, my mind finishes processing and determines what should have been said but the moment is long past. Figuring out what to share in the moment is an ever-present battle—understandings may be half-baked as the internal processing has not completed. Errors might be made. But even if truth is expressed, there could be pushbacks that I’m not prepared to handle because I lack the data to do so and my mind has not fully articulated whatever it’s sensing. Fear of judgment whispers into my mind that revealing what’s hidden exposes me to rejection (and it doesn’t matter whether the revelation was true or not). But the separation of inner truth and outer expression manifests as a kind of disconnection that I seek to overcome (hence, the internal warfare).
My mind is draining. Exhausting. Chaotic. I have said “no” to many things out of a judgment that I need space to recover from the ever-constant silent warfare. But it’s also beautiful. I’ve experienced deep connections with others that feel like a sharing of God. I find it hard to imagine existence without the emotional intensity—would I be fully alive? And yet, it brings so much pain. The silent wars give no quarter. Is there an answer? Perhaps—I think it starts with grace.
