Hello beautiful people. It’s time to dive in on our topic for April!
This month is all about Your Relationship with Anger. Come on, Aries season! We’re gonna use that fire, that ire, that bubbling-up-from-the-depths RAGE that we’ve been pushing down for decades and invite it out.
Don’t fear this. I know it can feel too risky to even entertain that anger… we’re not going to put conditions on its purpose or its existence. I’m REALLY excited to tackle this with y’all.
Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
You’ve heard me (and presumably others out there) talk about secondary emotions. Even tertiary emotions. Those hitchhikers that pile on when we have a primary emotion. Those layers to our feelings that make experiences stickier than they may actually need to be in our lives.
Welp, we don’t actually develop the ability to HAVE secondary emotions until we’re about a year old. Meaning, the development of the human brain — something that continues until we’re nearly 30 years old — cannot sustain something as sophisticated as a secondary emotion until we’re a year old.
*blink* *blink* *blink*
Anger — a secondary emotion that split off sadness in our first year of life — is actually something we feel in response to something ELSE (usually sadness, or shame) that we’re not allowing ourselves to express.
And depending on how anger was dealt with in our first years of life, we may not have that great a relationship with anger.
If you’re like me, you had a parent whose anger was terrifying. And you knew — from a very young age — that the worst thing you could do would be to create a reason for that anger to express itself. So, not only would you not develop an understanding of anger as a more sophisticated expression of other emotions, you’d possibly not allow your own layered emotions that could best be expressed through anger to come up. Ever.
My first question for you — for your journal or for below, in the comments — is this: When do you first remember discovering ANGER? Can you recall an incident? Was it your anger? Someone else’s? Can you remember what it felt like in your body when that label or recognition or understanding began to develop?
Okay, that’s more than one question. š I’d like you to use the curiosity of Aries to poke around at some of those early memories and discover what might be there.
So, give yourself space to process. Have tools like EFT and bilateral stimulation and Mind Gems at the ready. Drink lots of water. Journal. Nap. Let the experience have its way with you… reminding it that this is a process of reparenting and that your relationship with it going to be transformed when we’re through.
A Story About Yelling
Early in my relationship with Keith, I had to learn not to freak out about yelling. Let me explain.
Keith grew up in a big family, lots of energy, lots of yelling. No big deal. I, on the other hand, grew up the only* child of a suddenly-single mother whose yelling didn’t come out often, but when her yelling did come out, it was terrifying. (* = I’m not an only child; my brothers, 18 and 16 years older than me, were grown and gone by the time anything I have memories of happened in my life.)
When Keith and I didn’t agree about something early on in our relationship, he didn’t hesitate to yell… and boy oh boy would that shut me down! I would insist his anger meant he didn’t love me and that he should just move out!! It was rough.
He tells the story — some of you have heard it — about how he had to teach me how to fight. Not because we fight all that much, or even fought all that much back then! But because when we DID need to express anger about a thing, my version of that would be avoidance (Hai, avoidant attachment style!) and his version of that would be something that caused me to literally cover my ears and scream back, “Stop yelling at me! I can’t take it!”
As far as my nervous system was concerned, I couldn’t take it. That was true.
I’d never built up a muscle for expression-of-anger to be OKAY. And I certainly hadn’t built up a muscle for looking beyond the anger at whatever it was that lived under it. The mere concept that there’s a primary emotion for which the anger is doing the heavy lifting is one that’s fairly new to me. In case it’s new to you, know you’re in good company. Heck, some folks live their whole lives never knowing anger is a secondary emotion.
Turns out, it’s a really helpful one in many ways. But/and it’s awesome when we can know it’s not the primary emotion at play, because then we can dispassionately label that anger, know it’s got a purpose, take a look at what’s under it, and reconcile that as necessary.
I had the chance to do this Sunday night watching the Oscars, of course. We all did. Something that is being treated by lots of people as a moment of unchecked rage, or at least the expression of inappropriately-timed anger, actually didn’t look like anger to me at all. It looked to me like an upper-limit problem wrapped in the pressure of decades of staying “Hollywood-appropriate” cloaked in the machismo of so many moments boundaries were NOT honored (or even drawn) about entanglements and vulnerability and living so transparently while also being forced to play by all the dominant-racist-homophobic-misogynistic-consumeristic rules, all intersecting with a Mercury-in-Aries flashpoint of opportunity, resulting in “the slap heard ’round the world.”
There was no anger there. There was fear. Shame. Fatigue. Exhaustion. Frustration. A fed-up-ness of all the pretending. And some testosterone + adrenaline + millions of eyes watching, of course.
When we’ve never been allowed to feel our feelings fully, they can show up all over the place. Causing all sorts of collateral damage. (I seriously weep for the Williams Sisters, Questlove, and so many others whose experience was diminished and whose wins will forever be coupled with something so very… overshadowing.)
The Abraham-Hicks Emotional Scale
You know this one from Day 51 of Get in Gear for the Next Tier, of course. It’s the Abe Scale, and it’s so dang handy.
If I asked you to identify the primary emotions that ANGER might be covering for, using the Abe Scale, which words around it might you highlight? Feel free to share in the comments below. š I didn’t actually ask you to, but I could have… so if you have thoughts about that, let’s hear ’em! (Or read ’em.)
Mark Manson has a pretty cool graphic to break down the flow of emotions that result in anger (and three others).
Anyway… when you look at this simple flow chart, does it properly represent the flow of the emotional output that is anger? What other emotions could be run through such basic steps?
And, to keep it light, when it comes to options… here’s an emotion wheel for dogs.
Unexpressed Emotions Get Trapped in the Body
Bear with me, for this part. It’s transcribed from an interview with Dr. Keesha Ewers, whose work largely centers around autoimmune issues and the role of our early emotional upbringing in our adult health. Where this part begins, she’s talking specifically about her training in Ayurveda.
10,000 years ago, this medical science actually said we’re all different, which was revolutionary to me. And also that autoimmune disease is undigested anger. And I remember thinking, like, “Oh, but I’m not an angry person.” And then thinking the next thoughts right after that, and maybe that there’s something there to that: the fact that I can’t recognize or have permission for feeling anger, that maybe my body is storing something.
And I thought, “Oh, auto means I’m doing this to myself. I’m destroying myself. When is the first time I wanted to die?” And that was interesting, because I didn’t want to die at the time I was sitting there meditating. And so I traced it back and found this little 10 year old girl version of myself that was being sexually abused by the vice principal. And I looked at her, and I thought she wanted to die. Like, that part of me definitely wanted off this planet. And I thought, “This has to be connected. My cells are just saying, OKAY.”
It turns out that science does say that these past childhood traumas are connected to our adult health in some very compelling ways. And I knew that back then, before the ACEs study was done, just by looking at her face.
Now that I have a fully developed brain, I can go back and I can take a look at these meanings that I created. And adaptive behaviors for a child that may not be so adaptive for my adult version.
Specifically, autoimmune is definitely associated with unresolved anger, unexpressed anger that we turn towards ourselves. And so it’s often the people that are the people pleasers that are the really nice ones that actually have this anger that they just turned toward themselves, rather than expressing it.
So, in the beginning, we’re little children, and we don’t have a fully developed brain yet; we don’t have that adult prefrontal cortex that’s fully developed that does our executive function and makes good choices for ourselves. There’s a lot of this reptilian, amygdala, survival part because we’re little beings trying to figure out how to be big beings. And the big beings are running the show, and they’re the ones telling us if we’re good or bad.
The little-t traumas are the ones that are the most prevalent, and they are equally as important as the capital-T traumas, in the developing brain. So, what happens is you go to school, you go to a friend’s house, you go on a ball team, whatever it is, you’re at home, different things occur that you can’t understand what just happened. And that’s it right there. Like, it doesn’t have to be a giant thing. Like, maybe you asked to have the potatoes passed to you and your dad ignored you and passed them to your brother instead. In that moment, if you trigger to it in that moment, and you go, “Well, why did that just happen? Am I not important?” In that moment, you’re going to have an emotion. And it can be that you failed your first test, you didn’t make it to the top of the rope in the presidential challenge in PE, it can be like you didn’t get picked for a ball team, you messed up a word in the spelling bee. It can be the tiniest things: you get hand-me-down clothes, and your older sister or older brother gets all the new stuff and you get the hand-me-downs. It can be anything that you trigger to. And that triggering process is going to be an emotion that is felt. And it will be sadness, anger, fear, panic, terror, any of those, and then that’s going to trigger that nervous system response in what we call the autonomic nervous system, your sympathetic response.
Now for children, this is most of the time FREEZE, because we’re not powerful people; we can’t fight and we can’t flee. So we freeze. And so in that moment, that emotion gets frozen in a part of your body, and you start a nervous system pattern happening at every activity. Right in that moment, with your undeveloped child brain, you make up a meaning. A meaning that explains to you what just happened and it makes sense to you and your child brain. And then that becomes a belief system that you carry forward for the rest of your life, and you attach an adaptive behavior to that belief. And then that adaptive behavior becomes oftentimes a maladaptive behavior when you’re in adulthood.
Okay.
So, let’s look at that: Even the lowercase-t traumas we experience as children create emotions we don’t express, and because unexpressed emotion — especially in the developing brain — shows up as DANGER SIGNALS, there is cellular memory created around the unexpressed emotions. Our FREEZE response actually locks in the “truth” of the trauma, and when, as adults, we experience things that remind that part of the brain of those early truths, we’re right back in that fight-flee-freeze-fawn loop.
And it can have nothing to do with what’s actually happening in the moment.
See: Will Smith gets up out of his seat, climbs the stairs to the stage, and slaps Chris Rock during the Academy Awards.
Related: The Energy Has to Go Somewhere, written by me, three years ago.
And this:
Finally, I came across this trailer for the latest Disney/Pixar movie, Turning Red, and can I just say that I am swooning for this kind of content, being available so early in kiddos’ lives these days? What a GREAT convo to have about our emotions and their complexities!
Love.
All right, beautiful ones, let’s hear all about it. Where is anger in your life? What’s its role? What primary emotions does it show up for, the most? What early messaging (whether lowercase-t or capital-T trauma-related) may have caused anger to drive inward or become stored with your most primal responses to perceived danger signals?
And for everyone: What will your focus be, this month, when it comes to Your Relationship with Anger? For me, I’m gonna explore where I’ve not been allowed to be angry and ask the “good girl” what she’d really LIKE to say or do. And then get some of those angries out. Whether IN the situation at hand or via some physical workout or other dedicated energetic expression, I’m gonna let some of this Aries season FIRE light me up a bit!
Could be quite a fun experiment! You in?
Aligned Hustle Calendar
This is an especially powerful new moon since it’s the first lunation of the zodiacal year! Seeds you plant now are for manifestations you’d like to see by the Aries Full Moon six months from now. Make ’em count, y’all!
All my ninja love,
This month’s LIVE interactive Expansive Capacity meeting is happening at this Zoom link at 12:30pm PDT on Tuesday, April 19th (translate that to your time zone here).
You are welcome to go on camera for this mastermind session, or simply unmute yourself to participate live audio-only. Yes, we will be recording the meeting and putting its replay up here for you to consume within 24 hours of the meeting. Hooray!
If it’s possible that you’ve never Zoomed before, for sure we recommend you get all set up *before* our meeting. Zoom is free, and there’s info on how to get going here.
Here is the replay of our April 19th deep dive. Enjoy!
The glorious chat is here. Y’all so rock!
As we finish up our deep-dive on Your Relationship with Anger, here are some goodies for you.
Ready?
I know you are. (Help me out by hitting this survey, please. THANK YOU.)
Same Zoom link as always *and* your Aligned Hustle Calendar for May is on the WELCOME page. š Woo HOO!
I love you beautiful people! Make the most of this magical month and let’s jam in the comments ’til our time together on the Zoomy Zoom Zoom! Stay inspiring!
Okay, a little askeert but dove in. Iāve been waking up to varying levels of anger since Aries season began. Itās actually a bit jarring; this monthās exploration is well-timed (as usual).
I had to take a sec upon learning that, developmentally, anger is a secondary emotionā¦ that was a little mind-breaking. But it makes sense when I think about how it manifests in my body, and how often it is accompanied by tears.
When it does show up, Iāll find myself angry that Iām angryā¦ often specifically angry at myself for becoming angry. Thereās a definite judgment on the emotion thatās really not cool. Iām not sure what question I need to ask to gain a little air in that space just yet, though. Something to explore, because itās a relationship Iād like to adjust.
Aside from a woo explanation that my natal retrograde Mars turns the pointy anger sword inward anyway, I find myself treating anger like a problem to fix and control, versus fixing the actual problem the anger is signalling. I donāt recall learning this, but it is a default. Perhaps that’s another version of the societal blame game: somethingās wrong with YOU, not the system. I do recall experiences in school where I was made fun of for being angry, where I repeatedly heard ādonāt get upsetā, and where I saw other students removed or punished for getting anywhere close to angry. (At the risk of sounding Hermione-esque: anger = getting punished, or worse: expelled.) I still have a sensitivity around being āyelled atā. So yeah, I guess Iām a sword-swallower.
My intentions for the month are to see if I can gain a little space between the emotion and the judgment, and to explore what activities could help me better work with and dispel anger. Exercise isnāt always the answer (dance has complicated that relationship, lol), so Iām open to seeing what else might feel useful beyond my usual swallow-seethe-and-subvert tactics.
Okay, here comes about 1234567890 words hopefully slimmed down to mere hundreds. š I have a LOT to say in response to your awesome kick-off comment here.
First, re: waking up angry all Aries season — see if that won’t cool down a bit starting today. Venus has been held captive in Saturn-ruled signs for MONTHS (way longer than usual) *and* it’s been besieged for the past few weeks, making it really weak and incapable of helping us as much as we’re used to in the love, money, and enoughness departments. Today marks a big sigh of relief. See if you feel it.
Yeah, the anger as secondary emotion thing… I played with that for a while to be sure it tracked and sure enough, I’ve not yet met an angry feeling that didn’t have another, non-angry emotion at its core. Which then, of course, can make me angry. š That’s a good ol’ tertiary expression of that secondary emotion, which you spotted, and BOY does Gloop love it when we layer on tactics for keeping the endless loop of clever trick-or-treaters well-fed.
I’ve found space in that simply by envisioning the Gloop process, giving the kid a “Good job” attaboy type thing, and then checking to see if I still feel as tight about it all. I usually don’t. Yay, space!
For SURE the response of problem-solving — where the problem is the anger, not the primary emotion or the situation that caused the primary emotion — is well conditioned, taught, praised, etc. And especially in female-identifying people, you’d better believe it’s important we NOT get angry. Add to that being a “hot-tempered Latina” or an “angry Black woman” and hoooooooo, boy, do we get into some BIG societal teachings about how WRONG it is to feel anger… and downright DANGEROUS to express it!
So because we want to be “good” and we don’t want to cause trouble, we’ll do what it takes to solve the problem of anger and it’s really just a form of actor busy work at this point… it’s something to keep US busy (fixing a non-problem) so the powers-that-be (white supremacy, patriarchy, cis-het straight male, consumerist, capitalist, materialist, blah-blah-blah) get to do what they want to do, unbothered by our attention on what’s really wrong. Sort of like the talent agent who gets our eyes OFF the fact that they have no relationships and no pull in our target casting offices by sending us out to buy social media followers, lose 10 pounds, and shoot new headshots AGAIN.
Did you read Judgment Detox when we talked about it before? That could be helpful. But even without it, you’re on the right track with just creating space between the anger and the judgment about it. The path I would take — aside from what I described, above — is to identify the primary emotion during that space in which I identify the anger in the first place. That gets any judgment that is accustomed to showing up focused on the primary emotion, rather than on the anger. And that’s not actually a bad thing! Especially if instead of judgment it’s more like dispassionate labeling. š
And, hey, feel the anger! Allow it. See what comes up about that. Could be amazing!
Lol! You know I love words. Iād never come after you for lots of ’em, Bon. <3 (We also know if it can be said in 10 words, I can say it in double and accessorize with a metaphor for funzies. Ha.)
I look forward to some of that Venusian relief. Come to think of it, my first clocked emotion wasnāt anger this morning. I admit it was second, lol, but thatās an improvement considering itās Tuesday/Mars Day. Iāll see if I can keep tabs on the cool-off.
The iceberg graphic is especially resonant for me, with some very specific words that were heavy gut-yeses. I suspect those are behind the anger parade, so I will give the Gloop approach a shot. Thank you.
A definite yes to the conditioning and praise and aaaaalll the labelling. Blech. What an interesting reframe, likening it to actor busy work, though. Feels accurate! Iāll have to play with that one more.
In my mental wanderings today, I did come to an agreement that, occasionally, being able to swallow the anger is useful. Say, preventing road rage accidents, keeping level in an emergency, exiting a situation that does become too much. Sometimes ānot causing troubleā is the survival answer. (This is me employing a tactic as I work to not make the anger, nor my attempts at controlling it, wrong.)
I read the Judgment Detox a couple months before it came up in Expansive Capacity, so it may very well be time for a revisit under this lens. I do think that wee bit oā distance could be a great point to cultivate for me, and for where I am now.
Iām both terribly curious and rather hesitant to loosen the reins and allow any anger. Of course, thatās two sides of the same coin, the curiosity and the anger of Aries. It could be amazing in both the dictionary and colloquial definitionsā¦ eep. Thank you for all the words, the shares, and the path suggestions. Iāll give āem a go and report backā¦
I was journaling on the prompts, and here is what I gathered:
– Similar to Bonnie, I have a hard time being the subject of — let’s just say — *passionate* feelings being directed at me. Additionally, when I think of *myself* experiencing/expressing anger, it’s very foreign and cut off from me because I am so avoidant of it. Like I feel cleaved from the solar plexus down.
– I *feel* like I’m generally not an angry person, but it could also be that I’ve removed myself so far from it because of early childhood experience that it’s hard for me to go there.
– Further journaling revealed that the aforementioned discoveries had to do with anger with a capital “A” because I do experience/express anger with a lower case “a” all the time. Using the scale, I realized the feeling underneath it was a feeling of helplessness/powerlessness that came from what I was perceiving as a lack of agency.
– I tend to be more of an emotional wallower than a rager, so my expressions of anger tend to be very few and far between, but when they are realized, they tend to be short, explosive, and violent, whether in the words I use on myself or some kind of expulsion of energy, because of the pushed pressure I feel, kind of like a cornered animal. I was going to say the latter was definitely learned, but I think the former was learned too.
– I definitely tend to be a blamer because I think that helps my ego feel more in control and safe, but — and here’s the kicker — I’ve noticed when I take accountability, even when it feels like I am righteously the victim (hello, Cartman’s triangle — I know it’s Karpman, but Cartman makes me laugh and is also so apropos), that gives me the agency/security I need. It’s funny how the thing you’re afraid of is what you need?
LOL on Cartman’s triangle. LOL
Yes. I actually have written on my whiteboard: “The key to wholeness is the thing you’re avoiding.” Yup, yup, yup.
Remind me where Mars is, in your chart, Q? And in the meantime, let me ask you to interview your anger. Ask it what it’s capable of. Ask it if it feels cut off from your whole system. Ask it what IT would say about YOU, and the relationship you co-create.
See what comes up.
just remembered to check here!
I love that quote! I LOVE the idea of interviewing my anger to ask what it’s capable of!!! ahhh, what an interesting reframe!
my mars is in leo and the 9th house — what does that mean? no worries if it’s too individual of a question to ask!
Mars in Leo is a LOT of fire!! Fire planet + Fire sign… AND the 9th House is right up there at the top of the chart, so it’s fully in the sun, where fire gets REALLY going. 9H specifically is higher learning, international travel, philosophy, religion, astrology — anything that feels expansive and growth-oriented and exploration-based. So, to have Leo there already means you need to be SEEN in those high-growth areas. And then the Mars means it’s super passionate energy — and anger when your ego isn’t feeling appreciated for what you know or what you’ve experienced.
Looking forward to our zoom and hearing what is happening in your universe. Anger has been surprising for me ā I went through it last month with those three tantrums. Each time I shouted my throat raw – so now when I think of anger, I go to the memory of that in my throat and it takes me to the real emotion/cause ABANDONMENT and sadness. The definition says it perfectly for me. “Abandonment (emotional), a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded.” Discarded is the hardest word of all for me.
Iāve been āwithingā it all and Iām changing, Iām understanding more. Its being abandoned. Iām hoping to embrace that being without a boyfriend can be okay. The anger has subsided and shame and blame and several of the other words in the Anger Iceberg are bubbling up over and over in me.
The NY trip let me know I donāt have to be out in the world again I donāt want to be, I want to be home ā I donāt want to be on a plane or in a hotel and luckily, I live in paradise like you two. I want to be satisfied with my world and I want to get over my shame and blame for being abandoned. I know those arenāt rational thoughts but they are the ones that persist. The shame and blame disguise themselves and fool me over and over.
I just finished the 100 days GIG ā Iāve been through the program several times now ā this time I took a pledge to read through it each day and do as much as I chose. Bonnie, I love your guidance and all the paths you send us on. My weakest link is in relationships ā I took the Relationship Track but havenāt really done them yet, I know what they hold and itās hard. My first goal is to attract people to come visit me at home. Its tough feeling like Iām enough because it gets so stressful thinking of how to prepare for and what to have for people. I have made a couple of social reach-outs this month but I was clumsy and I can get better I know.
I willing to be different, I can get my back up too fast, I want to listen more to the people Iām around. The Fair is coming back this summer I do have some set people who will come at that time. Iām taking some action and getting into a small group restorative Pilates class, I need to be in class to get stronger. Iāve really eased up with myself about time planning I like itās covid related and I donāt mind writing it off to that and letting a new normal come back in. Iām sleeping more than I ever have in my life. I can take a nap at 7pm and still go to bed at 10:30 and sleep fine.
Life is good, I like it, I feel grateful, so much is playing out in these years that my husband and I thought about and planned for in our forties and fifties. Iām a lucky lady, and so grateful to have all of the insights from you Bonnie and each one in the group. It makes all the difference.
I *really* love how much space you’re inviting into how things go in your life, Judy. That’s a beautiful bit of grace and it’s lovely to see! I remind myself that we’re all made up of trillions of cells that are CONSTANTLY changing and regenerating and BECOMING NEW! We physically are CHANGING at the cellular level, every minute of every day. When I think about that, it allows me to invite in space for all sorts of new versions of me to exist, and soon if I want them to show up soon! š
I’m with you on the not traveling thing, Judy. I feel like it would take something REALLY special for me to eagerly hop back on a plane or a cruiseship or whatever at this point. Not because I’m afraid of COVID or anything; because people are a LOT right now. That energy is very taxing to me. I’m sticking to my safe and gorgeous and wonderful life here at the beach. Of course, I’m open to changing in the future, but right now if you asked me to book a SMFA tour to New York (something I’ve been passionate about doing regularly for many years), I’d say, “I’m happy to Zoom in for the convo.” LOL
I love you, Judy. You’re doing such good work! Hug yourself.
I’m hugging myself right now. I love I’m taking a different look at my life. I’ve dropped all the outside dreams of travel I see I will have to be more in reality – that’s good. I’m a phoenix finding my way.
I just got an audition from my agent (at 11:40pm here no less!) and it’s due Wednesday morning and that means I need to work on it tomorrow and I’m afraid I’m going to miss you beautiful people for our Zoom. I’ll look forward to catching you on the replay! (and Bon, you were prescient about me, in your response in Aligned MCs “in case I get an audition and have to miss” but it came a day early! ha-I’ll take it:)
I grew up in a family where anger was and still can be the main way of communication. My inner child wanted to be heard and the way it would only be noticed was by causing a disruption that was so out of line I would then be seen. As a teenager that was easy by swearing as many times as possible before a conversation since my parents would never like foul language. āI said fuck enough timesā¦now hereās what I wanted to say since I have your attention.ā š Iām fascinated to discover the emotion that is underneath it-frustration and being under appreciated.
One thing I really like is when Iām on the lower end of the Abe emotional scale Iāll allow myself to get angry since itāll bring me higher up the emotional scale in the moment. It feels freeing to get the angries out especially in the comfort of my car while Iām by myself.
I *love* this use of anger as a leap-frogging to a higher point on the scale. That’s amazing, Aaron, and SUCH good awareness. Love it! Love you!
I grew up in a family where the only person who was allowed to “get angry” was my dad. All the rest of us had to bottle it up and “be nice.” If we showed any anger at all, especially around my mother, she would abandon us and go to her room for hours on end. So, I grew up with the idea that it wasn’t okay for me to get angry. Oh, once I became an adult and got very, very comfortable with someone (like Dave) I could “blow up” occasionally — I mean, the frustration had to have an outlet, right? But true anger? Umm… nope. Too scary. I mean, REALLY SCARY. Life threatening. So scary, in fact, that I developed chronic back pain because… well, all those “feelings” had to go somewhere. And if someone got angry around me? I just shut down. Kathi just disappeared.
I’m finally dealing with everything with a very good therapist now. Whew! A lot of re-parenting and allowing ALL the feelings that I was never allowed as a child. Is it scary? Absolutely. But the back pain is getting a leetle bit less every time I have a session, so there’s that.
i LOVE that therapy is helping you, Kathi!
reading this page, i realize how much my therapist helped me–he helped me extricate my anger from the mire. it took a long time. there was a lot of expression (finally!). and yes, my body paid for it in the interim.
Dr. Ewers is BRILLIANT! oh my goodness, she says it all!
not only do i see better my own patterns, anger, & autoimmune issues, but i also see far more clearly what happened to each and every one of my sisters. their suppressed anger & fear is so clear & telling.
i love this month, not so much for what it says to me specifically (though there’s plenty of that, too), but more for helping me wrap my brain around the angry, fear-filled, blamey, stressy people i know.
clarity is everything, right?
my ding, ding, ding is i recognize that because of my conditioning–how the people who raised me dealt with their anger of how they were treated in the South–i work REALLY HARD to prove myself. REALLY HARD so as to make things “happen” (as if i have any control!).
Bonnie & i are talking more & more about my taking on EASE & after a coaching today–lightening bolt! EASE has been serving me lately. taking care of myself and EASE. maybe i don’t have to work so hard. OH MY GOD! the world won’t collapse. i can let go of that attachment/manifestation of taught anger.
this concept is still a little on my fingertips. it’s not totally inside me yet. it’s going to take some time to absorb & practice, but i like it!
so many smooches, y’all – !
Isn’t that the kicker? Working REALLY HARD to prove ourselves? As if that would change the way those people around us growing up treated us? I, of course, did the same thing. I was trying SO HARD to be perfect — hoping that would get my parents to accept me. And, of course, it translated to trying to be perfect or trying to be THE BEST in everything for a LOT of my life in order to be accepted, not realizing that I was absolutely enough just the way I AM. Thank goodness for therapy and SMFA (and BON) for getting me closer and closer to that truth. I’m not totally there, yet. But I feel like I don’t have to prove anything anymore (most of the time anyway) and the ease around that is just so much… easier and better.
150% the kicker!! love you, Kathi!! so happy for the awareness you’ve gained. smooches!!
Love this. For me, when I feel that overwhelming, overdeveloped muscle for perfectionism taking over, I pause and ask, “Where am I not feeling safe?” and deal with THAT. It’s NEVER the same place where I’m clenching for control, trying to be perfect, working HARD to prove myself, etc.
But because we have so much practice using that method to feel safe in our lives, when we feel unsafe about ANYthing, it’s likely we’ll trend toward using those good ol’ overdeveloped muscles.
Ain’t this work grand? I love being on this journey with y’all… and I’m so grateful for all we’re co-creating, always.
You’re integrating. It’s so beautiful.
thank you, darling!
I love this, Kathi. Just knowing the relief that comes from letting the sweet body parts that held the emotions for us LET GO… ah, it’s so lovely. Have you read Permission to Feel? I know we’ve talked about it in here, but that would’ve been before you started up with the mind-body therapy. It’s so helpful, especially for reparenting this stuff.
Have not read that book. I have several on my MUST READ list right now that I’m currently reading, but I’ve put it in my cart and it’s next on my list to buy. I adhere to Ramit’s rule of “if it sounds interesting–buy it” for books so I will definitely buy it on my next Amazon run. Thanks for this recommendation!
And yes, the relief that has come in less than a year of doing this specific type of therapy is mind-boggling! I mean… just picking a therapist “out of a hat” so to speak (okay, not really — but from that list) — my intuition was firing on ALL cylinders that day because I certainly got one that was just right for me. She has been awesome, especially having never worked with a therapist before in my life.
How wonderful! I love hearing about people having POSITIVE therapist experiences. My first therapist was such a monster I could’ve been scarred for life. Luckily, I was young enough and willful enough to say, “He’s an ass!” and decide to work with a female next time… and from there, I’ve had 3 therapists (2 of them, I still work with), each of whom I’ve worked with for YEARS. It’s so incredibly helpful and I’m so grateful I didn’t let that first experience spin me out too much. REALLY thrilled you’re having such a positive experience!
Kathi I’m so happy you’re finding relief! I too have found therapy to be incredibly helpful, we are so fortunate when we attract the right ones. I love the back drop of the room where you zoom from, it looks so peaceful – well you always look peaceful and calm to me. I hope you’re loving your move and feeling at home.
I love that you think my room looks peaceful and calm, Judy. It still feels a little chaotic to me because just out of sight are a few boxes that have yet to be unpacked. BUT, I plan on getting to those soon and I’m thinking about rearranging the room so I can look out the window when I sit at my desk. For some reason when we set everything up we set it up so that my back was to the window. Weird! And certainly NOT the best view (looking out the door into the hallway) Hah! So, it’s time to move some things around and change the view!
Ooh, fun Mercury retrograde activity!!
I’m so behind, and I’ve been so very angry so I had to listen to this month’s Zoom.
And OMG. This Zoom. Wow wow wow, and I’m only halfway through!
Kathi’s statement of “Feeling your feelings gives you power” blew my mind! Thank you, Kathi!
So to answer Bon’s question of When do I first remember discovering ANGER? Whose was it and what did it feel like in my body when that label or recognition or understanding began to develop? I remember being very little and being very afraid of the dark and crying and crying and I was LOUD, and my parents shook me in anger.
And I feel SO ANGRY now, thinking about that. WTF was wrong with these people?
And where would I label this anger? In my heart. In my throat. In my gut. And as a ram, my head.
I had lots of headaches when I was kid. No wonder! I wasn’t allowed to be angry. I had to be NICE. Fuck that.
So where does my anger get me now? It gets my attention when I am putting myself in the nice box.
Louise Hay wrote that anger was a sign we’re seeking to empower ourselves, and that takes me back to Kathi’s “feeling your feelings gives you power.”
I am more powerful than I’ve imagined. And like you, Bon, “Iām gonna explore where Iāve not been allowed to be angry and ask the ‘good girl’ what sheād really LIKE to say or do.” HELL YES!
I love this, Laura. My therapist (who I LOVE) has helped me feel so much of my anger (and other feelings) that I wasn’t allowed to feel as a child, much like you, it sounds. She has helped me find the power in feeling all of these feelings and allowing them to be there — fully. And it IS a powerful feeling to be able to fully express ourselves, instead of hiding and shrinking back to being the “nice girl,” whatever those feelings may be. For me, I’ve always felt I had to squelch myself in order to “be” the perfect, little Kathi that my parents (and by extension what I thought everyone else) wanted me to be. What a waste! I am coming into my own now, though! It feels good.
Celebrating you! Full, no-more-nice-girl Kathi!!
How’s this experiment going, Laura? I envision you feeling that anger and trying to stop yourself and then remembering the SHAKE from childhood and saying, “New choice!” and no longer shaking yourself to stop the natural flow of emotions. What amazing things that must be illuminating for you!
I love yous so much, no more NICE Laura!