I have noticed in my blogging life I have been lacking a little inspiration to write lately. This week has been a challenging one as I am facing more deeply wounds in my heart without defences after managing to touch base with a lot of rage and anger over the weekend.
I actually ended up injuring and wounding myself yesterday. I was gardening and took branch off my cherry tree and next thing I cut open my little finger with the secateurs. It was a nasty shock and there was a lot of blood. I started to go into a negative downward spiral of pain and self criticism but my mindfulness practice worked as I just nipped the mental trauma loop in the bud. I remembered to breathe and then just dressed the wound. I felt the pain but reminded myself it would pass and it did though my finger was really throbbing last night and it got me to thinking about how important it is to treat our core wounds with care and love, to notice the sore spot but not keep re-enacting it, noticing when and if it may be being triggered and taking steps for self care.
On contemplating how angry I had been over the weekend I see what triggered it was worth an outburst so I am not really apologising. I’ve had a lot of raw deals in my life and having a background of emotional neglect always meant I didn’t really know how to love and nurture myself, so instead I pushed and fought hard and that is something my therapist always reminds me has got me through in the past. However when the time comes to drop defences and understand the pain under the anger so I don’t pass it on to innocent bystanders that is very important work because I don’t want it to block a new chance at love and I have noticed at times my reactions are very contaminated with historial anger or rage.
I explained all of this to the person I raged at on Saturday and luckily they understood and when I had to set another boundary they actually ended up apologising, so for once I didn’t sweep my true feelings under the rug. I was authentic. And this issue is something Brene Brown addresses in her wonderful new book Braving the Wilderness.
The main theme of the book surrounds our hunger or need to belong which is a difficult and at times thorny issue for those of us raised in situations where we didnt feel connected, were emotionally neglected or got in trouble for being ourselves. Trying to fit and belong out of a wound of feeling like we never did belong or were good enough never ends up working as we never find true belonging in that case and just feel more desperate and empty. When we aren’t being authentic and dont have the courage to be vulnerable we cannot truly connect anyway and we may carry anger and deeper scars over this which make reconnecting difficult.
Brown also makes the point that some of us can hide our pain and vulnerability under a lot of anger. It may be easier for us to be angry than to feel our sadness or pain, what I would call our Core Wound. At the same time this is not to deny that legitimate anger is important to face for many of us traumatised or disabled in true authentic self assertion and truth telling.
I was really happy this morning to come across the following piece of writing in Brene’s book on the subject of anger and pain and healing. I thought I would just like to share it for readers. When I feel less tired and emptied out I am sure my inspiration to write and blog will return. But for now I am going to share some words of wisdom from other writers on this current issue of anger and pain in my own life
Pain will only subside when we acknowledge it and care for it. Addressing it with love and compassion woud take only a miniscule percentage of the energy it takes to fight it, but approching pain head on is terrifying Most of us were not taught how to recognise pain, name it, and be with it. Our families and culture believed that the vulnerableity that it takes to acknowledge pain was weakness, so we were taught anger, rage, and denial instead. But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain.
Sometimes owning our pain and bearing witness to struggle means getting angry. When we deny ourselves the right to be angry, we deny our pain. There are a lot of coded shame messages in the rhetoric of “Why so hostile?” “Don’t get hysterical.” “I’m sensing so much anger!” and “Don’t take it so personally.” All of these responses are normally code for Your emotion or opinion is making me uncomfortable or Suck it up and stay quiet.
One response to this is “Get angry and stay angry!” I haven’t seen that advice born out in this reasearch. What I’ve found is that, yes, we have a right and a need to feel and own our anger. It’s an important human experience. And it’s critical to recognise that maintaining any level of rage, anger, or contempt (that favourite concoction of a little anger and a little disgust) over a long period of time is not sustainable.
Anger is a catalyst. Holding on to it will make us exhausted and sick. Internalising anger will take away our joy and spirit and externalising anger will make us less effective in our attempts to create change and forge connection. It’s an emotion that we need to transform into something life giving: courage, love, change, compassion, justice. Or sometimes anger can mask a far more difficult emotion like grief, regret, or shame, and we need to use it to dig into what we’re really feeling. Either way anger is powerful catalyst, but a life sucking companion.
Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate. Anger that is never transformed becomes resentment and bitterness
“..if we are confined in the narrow shells of egos, and the circle of selfishness, then anger will turn out to be hatred, violence, revenge, destruction. But if we are able to break the circles, then the same anger could turn into a great power.” (Kailash Satyarthi)
Ideally after an outburst of anger we get a chance to do some inner work and figure out what action is really being called for. What needs do we have which were not being met? What past issue is being raised for our attention? Is there a better way to address this, to raise this issue, to express our feelings? And most importantly what needs to be addressed or let go of so that we can feel more at peace? And even more importantly where can our assertive energy be channelled for a higher good due to lessons anger had to teach us?
Emerging From The Dark Night 