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I don’t know if this is a true memory or if it’s a memory of a dream. I am imagining myself as a 6-year-old in McAllen, Texas where I spent my early years. I walk into my parents closet and I put on all of my father’s t-shirts. There are layers upon layers of all sorts of shirts from his after-work-haunts that span from the Troy Aikman Superbowl era (back when he said the NFL was honorable) to free shirts given by volunteering at the local church. Each shirt is worn-in and thin from serving their time as the weekend attire while dad fixes the lawn mower or unclogs the drain. I try on every single one until I’m wearing his entire closet of shirts at the same time. It’s a ridiculous image thinking about me as a child with all of these on because of the contrast between the cumbersome nature of that many Large sized shirts and the tiny boy under them all. My child self tries walking around the room and can’t stop laughing. I fall on the floor and I'm giggling like no boy has ever laughed before. It could be a sound bite.

This is a safe image in my mind to represent a journey to the Self or the inner child. Throughout life we develop negative patterns that weigh us down-- defense mechanisms or adopted roles that appear like larger than life t-shirts on a child too small to hold all of them. Sometimes these t-shirts are put on intentionally like wanting to do everything in your power to be a good man/father/brother/son or a good woman/mother/sister/daughter, but even these righteous endeavors can get us caught up in “shoulds” rather than negotiating what is right for us. What happens when one adopts the idea of a good woman is silent or men aren’t allowed to talk about their feelings? These t-shirts stop the individuals from getting closer to their True Self, let alone a tragedy for the rest of the world who want to hear what the girl thinks or how the boy feels. Beyond our desire to hear your voice, it is simply unproductive in furthering the ever-evolving expansion of human thought. We want to hear your voice.

More often than not, these t-shirts are unconsciously adopted. An example of this is our attachment wounds of being hurt by partners from our past and thus developing a coping pattern of either overworking for love or leaving as soon as possible for fear of being harmed again. For musicians like myself, the mopey t-shirt of “no one understands my art so I may as well quit” is perhaps one of the most well worn in our wardrobes. Yet all of these t-shirts always end with the same message-- we want to hear your voice. You are different than your neighbor and that is good. There is no competition but only collaboration, curiosity and honorable differences of opinion.

What makes you, YOU? Why are you a different hairdresser, bartender, artist, waiter, chef, etc than the next person? Truly, the only way to answer this question is to subtract that which does not serve us and stops us from celebrating the inner child-- the playful self.

The True Self.

There is a road to mental health in which we use the concept of addition by introducing more time spent focusing on your body, meditation, and sketching out time in your schedule to do things toward personal growth. But the treasure is in subtraction in the sense of taking away roles and ideas that no longer serve you. The addition is what our Western society wants. Don’t worry. I’m sure you follow enough Self-Help instagram accounts to tell you what you need to add in your life to be successful. In a world full of stimulation thrown you way, the more interesting thing to ask is what needs to be subtracted? What t-shirt needs to be taken off so as to get one piece of cloth closer to the heart of that inner child? After all-- we are not human-doings. We are human-beings. So, just be.

“Cool concept, Andy. Now what do I do with it?”

Noticing is the first step in taking off our t-shirts. That process goes like this—“Okay I spent the money on this book. I am now trying to be more self aware. I am going out in public and when I notice that there is a conversation with my partner or friend in which I am defensive, I wonder what t-shirt this is. When did I put this shirt on so as to protect my inner child? Did I create intellectualization to outwit my older brother? Do I raise my voice because my father raised his voice at me?” Once we notice these T-Shirts that we put on at some point, we create moments of clarity and moments of understanding. What we know about the brain is that when we make connections, there are physical neural pathways forming between the connection and our reaction to it. Neurons that fire together, wire together, and so we can couple the feeling of noticing a situation, and then meeting it with exhaling and breathing into it. Eventually the nervous system relaxes and we feel a sense of calm.

The goal is to, as much as we can, take off these shirts. I find it interesting that when I first recalled the T-shirt memory, the clothing is from my father. CG Jung says “The burden of the child is to take on the unlived life of the parent”. In this attempt to take off these shirts, we are unwinding those defense mechanisms that were modeled for us throughout life. The unlived life of the parent is the journey of unraveling their modeled behavior that we learned.

This is where I might get in trouble with the conservative Christian community-- I do not believe we are born evil (I just lost my sponsorship with Focus on the Family). Someone asked me once “Do you ever see someone and say that’s just a bad person?”, my answer to that was “No. But I do wonder where they learned what they learned”. Taking off those T-Shirts of what we have learned brings us closer to curating an environment of growth.