01/30/2024
WHAT IS THAT SMELL?
It has been quite a while since I have written anything of inspiration. Well, I am back with some thoughts to share about how I have learned to live life in a more keen or insightful way. By the way, I have just retired from the mental health field. During my tenure of 37 years, I have worked on both sides of the track. One side being the non-spiritual folks and the other side being the spiritual folks. I think it has been a miracle that I have never been shot at by either side. The consensus of the research states that 80% of the world holds a spiritual orientation to life. This orientation can move in a million diverse ways of explanation. My bearings conclude that 100% of humanity is spiritually coordinated whether the nonspiritual 20% in the world realize it or not. Put on your seat belt please! It is going to be a ride, Clyde!
Over the years, I have cultivated an intimate relationship with Google. However, the intimacy is one-sided between us. I love Google, but Google cannot reciprocate love towards me. Its programming can DEFINE intimacy in great depth beyond me, but I can FEEL the positive or negative impact of this emotion. Google cannot buy a ticket to this passionate experience. This reality directs me to believe that all human life is spiritual. We have a quality far greater than any other design in this world as we know it. Bill and Ted would respond, “Whoa dude, that’s heavy!” I would respond, “No dudes, it is spiritual!” I have asked Google if it has experienced love or creativity. Google quoted human experience and defined aspects of it. Its design could not answer with yes or no. Google is restricted to human experiences solely and wholly. Let us get humanly/spiritually complicated with the platform of emotions or feelings.
Human behavior has the power to give off aromas. To label aromas negative or positive is entirely a trick of being human. Most emotional aromas are decided good or bad within the first 9 years of living life. Let us look at the positive or pleasant fragrances. Positive emotional scents are role modeled by parents in the beginning but are expanded when children begin attending school. Behaviors are the stimulus or spur of scent impressions. When a parent behaves in warm ways, an aroma is generated. How does the smell feel? When a parent is affectionate, considerate, devoted, or tender, HOW does it smell...good or bad? Let me be more concise: What is the smell like emotionally when they role model loving behaviors? Does it attract or repel? What response is generated when role models show liking, respectful, affirming, patient behaviors? Is there “life” that follows with these smells? A fulfilling life is defined by feelings of delight, thankfulness, satisfaction, wonder, freedom and many more.
Feeling the scents of being loved, liked, respected, and affirmed is going to leave an impact as does the odors of being unloved, unliked, disrespected, and criticized. Do I want to live with these aromas increasing or expanding? If there is life in the smell of good things, then there must be inherent power, hope, certainty, peace, liberation, and delight and a great measure of truth here. More importantly, what impact does this process have upon the creation of my identity? At age 5, I watched a “scary” movie with my dad, at the end of the movie my dad said, “Ok son, get up and go to bed.” I decided to risk trusting my dad that he would respect my feelings of fear of a dark hallway and a dark room to go into. So, I told him I was afraid. He did not respond the way I needed him to respond. I will share that with you later, but now, what imprint would he have left on me if he said, “Come up here son and sit on my lap. If I were 5 and watched that Boris Karloff movie, I would be afraid of that dark hallway and dark room. You know what: I am going to go with you, and I will make sure that nothing will happen to my boy. Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your feelings with me.” CAN YOU SMELL IT? The consistent aroma has the power to affect my life as I grow and figure out who I am. WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? Does it feel good or bad? Let’s keep the experience in the black and white realm. Hey, at 5, I cannot spell much less define the ideas of respect, love, allied, close, affirmed, but I can inhale the fragrance of this interaction. I am aware that it is ok to be relaxed, thankful, reassured, excited, secure, forthright, and just downright OK. Again, I can’t spell these words and I can’t define them, but biologically, I recognize LIFE within these fragrances. Innately, life attracts and entitles me. I want it to detail and label me. I want it to explain me. I want it to encircle and flank me. This process stirs and vibrates my inner being. I LOVE THIS FRAGRANT JOURNEY! How long will it last? I also noticed that my parents were a key denominator in planting and nurturing these aromas. How lucky am I? I love them deeply and they are easy to love! THIS IS CHILDS PLAY! All I have to do is smell and feel. This life is writing my identity. These experiences are tagging and labeling me. How lucky am I that I don’t have to be complex or deep. I didn’t have to enter the abstract world from age 2 to age 12. I don’t have to learn to keenly interpret what is true and what is false in my experiences, nor do I have to learn to repress and suppress a lot of my circumstances. I just have to BE HUMAN.
Let me share the actual imprint upon me at age 5. As I shared, I took a big risk of being transparent and forthright with my dad. I trusted him because I JUST LOVED HIM, but he betrayed me. After I told him I was afraid of the dark and the walk I had to do in order to obey his order. He irritably said, “I told you to get your butt up and go to bed. If you don’t get and MOVE NOW, I will give you something to be afraid of!” Well, well, now I am afraid of the dark and him. Fear of my dad overrode my fear of the dark. I smelt something unbelievably bad. The smell of fear is bad but worse if my dad intensives the overpowering odor of fear. I am afraid of the dark and now I am afraid of my dad. The aroma made me sick but who cares? I went to my room without a word of appeal. The long-term impact emotionally was that I WILL NEVER mention when a nauseating odor CLOCKS IN because of my fear of an experience. There is no life in these situations. With time, the focus is not about the smell of life and thriving. The center of attraction is surviving and suffering. It is primarily about being a human doing and not a human being.
I did not feel respected. I did not feel heard. I was not affirmed. I did not feel important. I did not feel loved or liked. Eventually, feelings/aromas of not being liked or loved enough intensified. It stunk and I stunk! How different would the impact have been if my dad were more honorable in his role modeling? This is a time-honored tip for children to search for a big bottle with heavy shots of Febreze!! It will safeguard and camouflage the smell of your identity.
How about another example? At age 12, I worked ridiculously hard to get a good report card. I did! I got all Bs for the semester. IT SMELLED GREAT!!! I ran all the way home to show my parents. I was energized. I felt alive. I felt eager, bold, reassured, delighted, and confident. I ran inside the house to find both my parents there. I was smiling from ear to ear. What a great aroma! This may have been the first time I knew I was going to get their approval and maybe dinner at Mickey D’s! They seemed excited about getting to look at my grades. Their excitement died instantly with an ALL-B’s report card. Their only response was “Why didn’t you get all A’s?” The smell was putrid, diseased, hurtful, painful, harmful, and unhealthy. Worse, I internalized that I was guilty and shameful. It was ME! I could not separate their actions from my identity. Somewhere in this lifeless process, I embraced a failure mindset versus a challenge-oriented mindset. The SCENT of direction was if things get too difficult give up! AND I DID! I failed academically! If you wanted to evaluate me by grades, I was stupid or very mentally challenged. Ironically, the dangerous and vile aroma assortments of fear, shame, guilt, and their big families have the power to create most of the problems in human identity and the problems of the world.
Did you ever want to ask key people in your early life if they loved, liked, respected, and were looking for affirming ways to Febreze your life? I did, but very few times because of the reactions I got from mom and dad. Uhm, what were the scents they were smelling by my asking for a simple life inspiring aroma? They reacted like their young child had just taken a dump-truck dump in the living room of their house. I will talk later about the repeated impacts of conflicting true to life and lifeless aromas. Sadly, it did not pay for me to be a black and white thinker for several years of my early life having no grasp of understanding that a lot of bad aromas in living life have the empowerment to create the deadly aromas labeled fear, shame, and guilt. A design that should have never been allowed in human software programming, but it is there regardless. I deeply regretted and grieved the neglect and deprivation of life inspiring odors of being open, happy, alive, good, loved, positive, strong, and interested, but this is not the end of the story.
Ironically, my experiences with bad smells of behaviors outside of me should never have had the persuasive capability to outline and interpret my identity. BUT IT DID!
Stay tuned for a discussion about a universal human truth that negative experiences are initially more powerful than positive experiences.
