Mental Masturbation

mother/daughter differences, friendship heartbreak, and a birds-eye view to regain your power

I have an obsessive mind. Anyone who knows me, knows, I think a lot. Like, a lot. And I wish I could say my mind is busy thinking up great song ideas, revolutionary new inventions, ways to progress and help society. Sometimes, yes, those altruistic notions consume my mental energy, but a lot of times I’m obsessing over worry, hurts, fears. I’m either reliving the past, awash in nostalgia or regret, anxious about the future and all of the ways things could go terribly wrong or I’m looking for evidence of failure. Maybe this is why I love coaching others in creativity so much, because I know how easy it can be to feel like you’re a victim of your own mind. And how challenging it is to overcome that noise and chaos to actually create.

This tendency of overthinking is especially heightened when it comes to relationships. Whether they are close relationships, lost relationships, familial, professional, broken, disappointing, stable or steady, I think about them a lot. And to be honest, the more broken, disappointing, lost or hurtful they are, the more I think about them. 

My mom, on the other hand, is not like this. At least not outwardly. She lived a life raising two children, married to a Naval Submarine officer who went out to sea for months on end, which meant she was alone often, always in a new town, away from familiar friends and family, every other year. She has told me she trained herself not to miss people, not to dwell. Whether one would deem this emotionally healthy is not for me to judge or to explore in this essay. She did what she needed to do to survive and to be able to be the most present and loving mother she could be in a challenging lifestyle. I don’t know if I noticed this as a child but I did notice that she never seemed worried about what other people thought of her. My mom has always been incredibly helpful, generous, believes deeply in charitable work, giving to those in need. She’s also always been very moral and righteous in her morals. But if someone didn’t like her, especially if she felt it unwarranted, unjust, or in response to her sticking up for the underdog, she did not give a fuck. 

Excuse my French but it’s difficult to tell this story without a handful of F bombs.

Consider yourself warned.

I, on the other hand, have long struggled with my need to be liked. My quick analysis always points to my life as a military kid. Ironically for me, in contrast to my mom, being liked was my survival. While she couldn’t let the desire to be liked get in the way of her quickly advocating for the best situations, care and education for her children, being liked for me meant social survival. Survival was scanning the room on the first day at my new school, finding friends by lunch time so I wouldn’t have to sit alone and staying in their good graces for the next year or two before we moved again. When kids were mean to me, I would brainstorm the ways I could quietly maneuver, behave, coerce them to like me. If someone mistreated me, it unfortunately was not a red flag, it became a personal challenge. A challenge to get them to change their ways, soften and realize, I was worth liking. I was worth loving. It became a blueprint for some pretty unhealthy social skills I’m continually learning to unlearn.

Along the way, I had a number of experiences with female friends ending our friendship without notice. Numerous times I had the experience of coming to school and discovering I hadn’t been invited to the weekends’ party and a friend who I had been close with the week before had all of a sudden stopped talking to me, no explanation. I’d hear second hand how they were upset that I had taken attention or friends away from them, didn’t like that I got the solo in choir, or some other excuse or reason I was unsure of how to resolve. In my early 20s, I had a co-worker who went from sharing lunch break every day, looking for apartments together to be roommates to then avoiding eye contact and giving me one word answers. No falling out had happened, to my knowledge. At a restaurant job I had, the owners’ daughter came to visit one day and wouldn’t speak to or acknowledge me the entire time. It was so overtly uncomfortable and hostile that her mom, my boss, later apologized and said she was jealous because of how much they had grown to love me and talked about me. I was continually baffled. Was I doing something wrong? Am I likable only to a certain point? Am I unlikable for being likable? Do women in particular just not like me?

These experiences didn’t make me weary of female friendships. Whenever I heard a woman say, ‘I just don’t get along with other women,” I’d bristle. I love women. And even when I focused on the hurts, I couldn’t deny the long list of great female friends I have had throughout my life. It only made me want to love my female friends more. But it also made me want to lean in and win over those who didn’t like me for some reason. I could show them I’m not a threat. I could show them that I’m worthy of their kindness and love. It became my new challenge.

just a handful of my true blue, ride or die, deep soulmate female friends (there are many missing! but it's dinner time and I want to send this!)

In my late 20s, early 30s I made a new friend. Our friendship developed relatively fast. She was charming and hilarious, we laughed and joked together like we were school girls, texted each other daily, went on walks, nights out or just hung at each other’s homes almost every week. She introduced me to her other friends as her “best friend” even though we were grown women. She empathized with me when I shared my story of lost girlfriends. “Oh Michaela, I’m so sorry that has been your experience! That doesn’t make any sense!”

And then…she stopped talking to me. She stopped calling, stopped texting, her responses to my outreach were few and far between with minimal words. Was this really happening again? I won’t go into details of how this carried out other than that I pushed hard to try and find out what I had done to cause this without receiving much clarity. It had to have been something I did, right? What do I keep doing that motivates these friends to wake up one day and say, “oh Michaela? The girl I’ve been the best of friends with for the last however long? Meh. I don’t need her anymore.”

Don’t real friends communicate and work things out? Don’t real friends clear up misunderstandings and hurt feelings, allow each other the chance to apologize and move forward with a deeper bond? 

This particular friendship breakup has probably been the most painful and the hardest to move on from. I grew paranoid and started polling my long term girlfriends. Was I self absorbed? Did they feel like I listened to them when they talk? Do they feel like I support them? Am I there for them as a friend? Would they tell me the truth? Will they tell me if I do something to hurt them? Will they give me a chance to apologize and make it right? Are there ways I could be a better friend to them? Who was going to throw me away next?

Years later, I was still hurting from this experience and I was lamenting to my mother on the phone. I’m sure I had seen something on social media or heard about a hang, party, get together that my former friend was involved in with many of my current friends and I yet again was left out of. (I am so thankful I didn’t have social media when I was growing up. The wounds would be that much deeper.) I was waxing on about not understanding what happened, what could I do to get her to like me again when my mom interjected,

“Jesus Fucking Christ Michaela! You and your mental masturbation!” 

Huh? 

“I just don’t know how to help you anymore because I would always much rather be alone without friends than keep subjecting myself to someone who makes me feel less than.”

Okay, sure. But easier said than done.

She continued her rant,

“When you were little and we lived in San Diego, I had ONE friend. She started criticizing how I parented and one day I just looked at her and said, get the fuck out of my car and the fuck out of my life.”

No. Really? You REALLY said that? That takes balls.

She wasn’t done,

“And then I didn’t have any friends the rest of the time we lived there! And your dad was gone all the time! But I would prefer to sit my ass alone on the couch every damn night than ever change myself or subject myself to someone who hurts me. You gotta decide!”

I burst out laughing. My mom is a motha fuckin G. 

But I also heard her point.

Side note:  ‘mental masturbation’ is now a beloved term I use often. Even my therapist uses it in our sessions, and now you can too! You’re welcome, from my mom.

Years past that pivotal conversation, I must admit, I still mentally masturbate. A lot. I still dwell, obsess, I pick, I pour salt in my wound over and over again. It is exhausting. I still can’t quite seem to figure out how one moves on from a hurt you don’t understand? How does one decide to choose themselves over vying for the approval, love, friendship of someone who shows no interest? Why is it such a human tendency for some of us, to focus on, the negative, those that doesn’t return our same energy, vs all of the good people, things, experiences we have in front of us? 

What I’ve witnessed in my mother, the root of her perceived ruthlessness, is that she knows her worth. Maybe she was born that way, maybe she learned it, or maybe it’s a combination. Regardless, she has long lived aligned with her integrity: she is generous and treats people well, so when someone treats her poorly, she doesn’t ask why. She just chooses herself. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the mental fortitude my mother has, but I see how watching my daughter move through the world could help build that. I see how, when it comes down to either my need or desire to be liked or my what I see as protecting, caring for and prioritizing my daughter, she will always win. And I see how, when it comes down to it, my own need to be liked is slowly dwindling as I gain my confidence and strength in learning just how to protect and prioritize her. 

As her mom, I have a birds eye view of her little life. Something I don’t have of my own life, but that my mom has had of mine. From way up here, I can see how minimal a role some of these characters may play in her life, the same characters that she may at times give the power of a starring role. I can see her own character, her kindness, her desire to learn, listen, apologize when needed and grow but also how she may be misunderstood at times, make an honest mistake or hurt someone. I can see when some interactions, harmful or not, may have nothing to do with her, because I have the privilege of perspective. Something we can struggle to have in our own lives. 

Maybe that has been my mom’s point all along. Maybe that mental masturbation comes when we are too deep in the weeds of our own selves and lives. When we can’t zoom out, we can’t see our life from the birds eye view and therefore we give undue power to those who should be playing minor passing roles in our lives. 

Maybe the trick is, next time I find myself mentally masturbating, caught up in the weeds of my mind, I can crawl out, fly up to the trees and take in the view from above. Maybe then I’ll see the real, whole picture. Maybe then I’ll see everything else that is in the picture: the flowers blooming, the birds chirping, the grass growing, the tomato plants reaching up to the top of the wire, the loving friends and family around me, who’ve seen me at my absolute worst, but have never thrown me away.

Maybe then I’ll see that some of these minor characters that I feel responsible for so many of the hurts, the disappointments, are just that: minor. Maybe it’s all for me to decide, how much power I give it, how much weight I allow to determine how I feel about myself.

Or maybe,

this is all just more mental masturbation…. :)

Curious, how good are you at letting things go or do you like to turn them over and over in your mind?

Wishing you all peace and ease from mental masturbation!

Mama told me don’t give away your power I listened but instead I’d rent it out by the hour

from my unreleased song, He Never Thought I’d Be The One To Tell

As always, thank you for being here. These are written quickly, from the heart, without a proper editor. My compulsion to write feels progressively addicting. I’m starting to hear these essays in my head more often than songs. Thank you for reading and responding with your own stories. And special thank you to my paid subscribers. I’m planning on sharing a song next week (I do still hear them), so if you’ve been considering becoming a paid subscriber, it’s a great time to do so.

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NEW SECTIONS

Part of this newsletter is to share what is going on in my professional/creative world as well as places/ways we can connect more. So from now on, I’ll be including in every newsletter, what’s coming up and what teaching opportunities I will be offering if you are interested in that. I’m also working on some offerings for my cherished paid subscribers! If you are a paid subscriber and have a wishlist of something you’d like to see, please message me or comment!

Performances coming up…..

• Meadowgrass Festival in Colorado Springs, CO next week!

• Northeast house concert tour in June! Message me for dates and details if you are around Lancaster/Philadelphia, PA, Connecticut or upstate NY, but info coming soon.

• Rocky Mountain Folks Festival and Song School in August!

• announcement coming soon regarding a Northwest festival

Music coaching (Online)….

• 1:1 Songwriting Mentorship program: I am taking applications! If you are interested in having accountability in your life, learning new writing practices, deepening your craft and your access to your own creativity as well as generating more songs than you typically do, this is the type of program for you. You can apply here.

• Private vocal technique, piano and beginner guitar lessons: I am classically trained in piano and have a degree in Vocal Performance as well as three published instructional books on Voice. I have a holistic approach to vocal coaching, working on the physical anatomical technique as well as the mind/body connection. You can apply here. 

• Two Part Songwriting workshop in June: For two Sundays in June, I’m offering a group songwriting workshop. While we discuss song form, tools for writing and write an actual song, we also explore our relationship to our creativity with the intent of gaining more access and freedom to write with real honesty. You can sign up here.

Currently reading….

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I love Taylor Jenkins Reid’s writing. I think this is the 4th book of hers I’ve read and they’re just fun, easily engrossing novel. And even though each book is a very different story, there’s a thread connecting each of them with character references. Logistically this is something I’m very curious about - did she plan it from the very beginning?

Currently watching…

• Still nothing! Proud of myself for managing my sleep better! I did watch Mother of the Bride starring Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt on Netflix while visiting my parents over the weekend. Visits with my parents are always a mix of great joy and fun and a heavy weight of sadness and exhaustion because of my mom’s condition from her stroke and how drastically different their house is now. So a lighthearted romantic comedy can be incredibly soothing. And it’s the only movie we were able to watch and get through with minimal yelling from my almost 3 year old “I want to watch Frozen! I want to watch Ms. Rachel!”