Briut, Briut. I know from white knuckles. I understand the "best" problem for myself. And the pressure of the kettle that needs to have the spout opened.
I'd like to share some of my own stuff with you and hope it's on point.
I think "best" and "pressure" have a connection:
What is need for best? My brother and sister, they were "best". Me, I was the mistake, the also-ran. What love and attention there was seemed more about their obligation to love their child. It seldom reached the deep little me, hiding out in my little cave, my private world, where I had my little make-believe playmate and my doggie.
How I wanted to belong and to matter, to know how much my love mattered to them, that I mattered to them. Being taken along while parent's shop, being teased and frightened endlessly by my sibs--this was not "mattering". So I started going through the hoops to matter. And what mattered most in my family? To have the best, to look the best, to be the best athlete, to get the best grades, to belong to the best...yada yada. So I became driven to be the best. And at best, I was mediocre. Oy, more not belonging. More disgraceful and shameful and humiliated little mediocre. Didn't seem to matter...grades, sports, tolerated by the in group at school, playing piano, sports. Sports. Did I mention sports? THIS IS NOT LASHON HORA ON MYSELF. It is what I remember of my emotional childhood.
So here's an inner dichotomy for ya...a kid who feels like the worst, trying to perform/have/be the best for nothing more complicated than love, in a world that seemed like it withheld love. Thus goeth the hamster wheel.
Life for me has been in large part about frustration at never being able to succeed, and being forever anxious that my inferiority is going to show, that I'm going to get hurt, teased, shamed. (despite that in the eyes of the world I'm probably seen as a "success". Never mind.) So what do I figure out to do? Ahhh, the secret world where nobody can get at me. And when this little boy discovers my older brother's p**n stash, I say to myself, "Who needs them? I've got the love I've always wanted right here in my own hands. Any time I want. Goodbye world, as long as I can hide this.
Now a year or two earlier I had an experience that was to shape the underpinnings of my life forever. I was playing (by myself) in our front yard. And behind me was a bright rainbow-like essence that was familiar and filled me entirely with peace. I didn't even turn around. I just remember knowing this was the G-d I'd always known, but this was a BIG "Hello" from him. It lasted maybe thirty seconds, and it was no big deal because I was used to hanging around with Him in my little private world. But it was the incontrovertible knowing for me that Hashem is real.
So back to discovering my brothers p**n stash. I noticed that every time I did "it", I left my best friend, "H. And I felt guilty, but I couldn't figure out why I felt guilty since my family obviously condoned "it" because nothing was ever said about my brothe's stash that was left out in the open. My friends certainly didn't talk about feeling guilty. Today we all of us here understand that guilt. But it was a mystery to me for a very long time. Years and years of therapy with different therapists and none of them could give me a satisfying answer.
Frustration starts to build. What am I frustrated about? I want the love, the intensity, the rush that I knew intimately as a little guy, hanging out with Hashem, right there in my little private world, right there along with my imaginary playmate (Poobah, by name, if you MUST know) and my doggie. But I had come to rely on my own devices, having dismissed "H as always there anyway, and since we knew each other pretty well, I figured he's just take me back whenever. I guess you could say I was a spoiled little brat when it came to Hashem. I'll do what I want, cause I know You'll always be there anyway. Ta Tah. So off I go seeking my own rush. We all know where that goes. I'll spare you the details.
As we all know, there's never enough. So I keep chasing the promise of things to come by my own hand. But the rushes only last for a second, as we all know too well. I can't ever seem to keep the rush at the deep place, so, of course, as we all know, it's back for more. Always trying to get the deepest place filled--the place where i could hide out, nice and safe, with my imaginary friend, my doggie, and Hashem kind of watching over everything like a good parent does when the kids are playing in the living room.
Separated from G-d, [i]playing[i] G-d, I became obsessed with filling the hole in my little heart, "The hole in my Soul", that started out longing for familial love, and became the "phenomenal urge", the deepest longing of my soul. Today we know what the reality of that urge is about. But that's post drugs, sex, and rock'n roll, B"H.
So, Back to the beginning of this megillah. Needing the best has not been for me a lack of humility and an acceptance of what reality has to offer--a very satisfying good-enoughness. Needing the best has for me always been driven by needing to seen, to be included, to be thought of as special, to matter. Humility for me, so far, has been about the shame of facing my so- called "mediocrity", my ordinariness, and feeling the human pain of that, and then when "H or the guys at GYE come along and remind me that "H made me, loves me, had me born as a Yid, the greatest evidence that I matter, when I am reminded Of who I am and what my mission is and what my avodah is, then I feel humbled that I was off into "inferiority". I feel a kind of healthy shame that I would forget and be back into handling things myself, beyond hishtadlut.
So all in all, it's the hole in the soul that's been put on hold by a being who is trying to be the best, do the best, be good, just to matter a little. FRUSTRATING. AND THE PRESSURE BUILDS. AND WE HANG ON WITH WELL INTENTIONED WILLPOWER.
Problem: "Hanging on" for me, is hishtadlut. But histadlut without "H's love and help is going to feel like I'm in this all alone, again, that nothing really is going to reach my private place like we-all-know-what.
What I've found for myself is that when I start to feel the white knuckles, when only the best will do, and when the pressure of the phenomenal urge is building, that I'm way past the efficacy of histadlut. It's either a "go or no-go" situation. If I can catch the pressure starting to build up and know that that's going to be a trigger of no return, I can turn to the chevra here, and to "H. But I've got to get out of the problem. Things have gotten beyond what I can do on my own. The only hishtadlut that's left for me in those minutes is to come here, GYE, and to just turn it over.
This, as a guy who goes by the name of Briut has said to me over and over, is to be living in the solution rather than the problem. Thinking, reasoning about letting a little steam off, etc is living in the problem. Knowing that when the pressure buil-up starts that we're already in trouble, and need to get a move on. No more thinking. Move into the solution. This is what Reb Briut Hakadosh has taught me, over and over.
But if I wait too long, the toilet is coming right in my face.
My counsel, which is actually your counsel to me... stop sooner. Completely forget about your count, your kaballah, Rosh Chodesh. This is willpower trying to solve "the problem". This is the us that needs to have and be the best, by our own hand. Forget about goals, promises. Forget about everything except today, except living in the solution, in Hashem's precious hands (as you once so poignantly put it to me). Let go and have a cry and ask Him to please handle all this "having to..", all the pressure of the hamster wheel to "make it happen".
I will daven for you that He comes close, and answers with a rephua shlema, "shlema" being the operative word. Because we need it all the way down to the private world, to the etzem, We need the relief. And you know better than most that there is only One experience that can bleed off the pressure completely. When we get that huge sigh of relief.
Bitachon. Emunah. These are hard to come by when the pressure's building. But the machinations of the mind are the exercises of the ego--I can do it myself, thank you very much. Keep posting, reaching out and davening, just for today. forget about Rosh Chodesh. It will be a beautiful time..Rosh Chodesh in the three weeks. The bittersweet of Hashem's peace. Aren't we all seeking His Peace.
I guess I've gone on. That seems to happen to me when I'm talking to myself.
