Tag: anger

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ “Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.” – Amelia Earhart

No matter when we have “popped into existence” we are always on the cusp of the next latest technology and societal progressions, which are right around the corner. Life is immensely interesting at any point, if we let our curiosities supercede our fears.

+ For all of my readers out there who have been called “too sensitive” more than once in your life, here is yet another reminder that your sensitivity is your strength. Below, in bold, is an excerpt from an article written by the scientist, Sarah Quirk:

  1. In every ecosystem there are Indicator Species that are, effectively, “too sensitive.” They are deeply and quickly impacted by minor environmental changes. Scientists closely measure their populations specifically — like a vital sign — to understanding of the health of the overall ecosystem. They act like the canary in the coal mine for biologists to know when something is wrong that may affect everything else in the future.

2. Sensitivity is not just subjective. It is also becoming objective. There is a growing body of research that is showing the genetics of SPS (sensory processing sensitivity), a trait that indicates high levels of environmental sensitivity. It has been correlated with traits like ASD, anxiety, depression, higher levels of emotional processing, ability to read others’ emotions, and more. It’s estimated that 10-20% of studied human populations contain the SPS trait. (As such, maybe we can imagine caring for ourselves in the way that other genetic predispositions require: like fair skin needing sunscreen; sensitivity needing to find the people who want to (to your points) talk it out, reassure you that they love you, learn more and more about themselves.)

3. The evolutionary benefits of having highly-sensitive individuals in your community cannot be overstated. These were people that first noticed environmental changes in taste, smells, sounds, lights; emotional states, potential conflict and danger. These were people who could sense and warn their communities. (My unproven guess is that they were also probably the storytellers, the healers, the guides that led others through the darknesses of being human.)

If you have shut down your sensitive parts, allow them to flow again. They are a gift, not a curse. We all need your precious sensitivities to help guide the way.

+ I was listening to a podcast the other day that talked about the fact that many women deny their anger. In society, we women have learned that “our anger is bad” (and the flip side of this, men have been conditioned that anger is the only acceptable “negative” emotion for them) It is vital to remember that all of us, no matter what our sexual orientation is, feel every emotion on the behavioral spectrum, because we are all humans with complex brains and bodies, living in a complicated world. If you are a woman who is not connected with your angry parts, remember the “Mama Bear”. There is nothing more fearsome and fierce than her. It is important to note that it is vital to allow your own inner “Mama Bear” to protect you, yourself, every bit as much as your own inner Mama Bear protects those who are in her care. You are your own cub.

+ My husband and I were boating over the weekend, and where we usually go boating was overrun with boats and swimmers with red flags, who were collecting scallops, since we are in the middle of a few weeks of “scalloping season” here in our town in Florida. In case you are ever a contestant on Jeopardy, here are a few interesting facts about scallops: Scallops are the only bivalve mollusks (oysters and clams are other bivalve mollusks) which can jump and swim. Scallops cannot shut their shells completely. Scallops are made up of 80 percent protein and low in fat, making them one of the healthiest shellfish options to eat. Scallops have been around since at least the Triassic period. Scallops have many eyes (up to two hundred) Hope I didn’t ruin dinner for you!:

photo credit: Popular Mechanics

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2615. What color combination do you love together? (Mine is red and aqua. My two favorite colors look divine together!!)

Monday – Funday

Credit: @woofknight, X

Kidding. Kidding. I am about 85% done. But that 15% that’s left is the toughest, and it’s all gifts that I need for men. I think that men are the hardest people to buy presents for, don’t you? Probably the grocery store is my best bet.

At my birthday bequest, my husband, daughter and I hunkered down on the couch (while a tropical storm whirled around outside) and watched Pixar’s Elemental. And of course I found a “keeper quote” in the movie. Here it is:

Wade Ripple: “Sometimes, when I lose my temper, I think it’s just me trying to tell me something I’m not ready to hear.“

The kids’ movies really know how to pack a punch and say it like it is, don’t they? A wise person once told me that during bouts of grief, anger sits right on top of depression. Anger is really a form of sadness with more energy. The next time that you get really angry, explore it for some sadness and for some truths which you may not be wanting to face. Our emotions are always our guideposts to ourselves and our thoughts and beliefs.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

(D)anger

I love this meme. Of course, it makes it seem so simple and easy, though. Just intellectualize your angry feelings and then calmly, explain and express them. You know, just stay rational. Ha! Anger has a ton of energy. There is a reason why anger is often symbolized by a raging fire. Anger often torches everything that comes in its path and makes no apologies while it is doing it.

What the meme is really expressing is to explain your anger as it comes, when it is still a little campfire, made out of just a little pile of kindling (frustrations). Of course, the hardest step is admitting to yourself that you are angry. We have turned anger into a mean, bad, crazy, hurtful, ugly emotion, but that’s because we bottle it up too much. Any emotion that is bottled up comes out ferociously. Rarely, does a bottled emotion just dissipate and evaporate. Instead, it eventually uncorks and overflows. Even bottled up happiness can look a little crazy and unhinged when it is finally expressed.

A great way to truly get to understand your own emotions, is to explain and describe them. This does not mean to explain and describe what situation that you think created your emotion, it means to describe and explain the actual emotion which you are feeling.

This morning I feel serene. Serene feels peaceful. My body feels rested. I don’t feel rushed. I feel “in the moment.” I am slowly and easily breathing. Having described what the feeling of serenity feels like, I can then explore what got me to this moment: a good night’s sleep, my husband bringing me coffee, an unscheduled morning.

This thoughtful exercise can work for any emotion, even anger. We notice physical pain in our bodies. In this same way, we can notice what emotion feels like in our bodies. By doing this, we get really familiar with ourselves, and our reactions. We can better control our emotions, when we understand them. We can better respond to situations that we understand, versus just randomly reacting with bottled up emotions that finally just explode outward from the pressures surrounding us.

Emotions aren’t bad, not even anger. They are just signals for us to explore our needs. If we treat our feelings with interest and dignity, they help to guide us to what is best for us, and for our relationships. We just have to remember to use our emotions as telling, introspective tools, versus maniacal, out-of-control weapons.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Rhonda Real

I have a good friend who reminds me of so many of my other good friends (and even myself) . She is generally upbeat, positive, excited and always looking for the silver linings, but lately she is struggling. Her life is feeling somewhat “exhausting” and overwhelming at times lately, and she is upset with herself for not feeling like her usual chipper self. When we had lunch the other day, she apologized for being “Debbie Downer.” I said, “You are not Debbie Downer. You’re Rhonda Real.”

Why do we women apologize so much for the moments in our lives that we don’t feel 100 percent amazing? Why do we feel so responsible to be happy and cheerful all of the time? Every time I have a friend who is going through a tough time, I notice a trend (and I notice this in myself, too). She puts on a brave front and expertly covers all of her cracks, until she finally breaks down. She takes forever to admit that she is going through a tough time. Next, she apologizes profusely about going through a hard time, and then she apologizes even more so, for venting her emotions about what she is experiencing, as if she has control over either experience. And then she finally clams up, like a little crab that is embarrassed to have shown her vulnerable little legs of emotion. Why do we women feel like we have to apologize for being human??? I read something recently that makes a lot of sense. Negative emotions are only poisonous to us, when they are blocking out all other emotions. But most of us feel all sorts of emotions, all day long. There is no shame in feeling negative emotions. There are four general states of being: glad, sad, mad, or scared. Ideally, we would prefer to stay in “the glad” category all of the time, but that’s not realistic in a healthy (versus numbed out) human life. Sadness is necessary to process grief. Fear alerts us, and it keeps us safe and anger inspires us to do something about a situation that we perceive as being wrong or unfair. Anger actually has a lot of energy. Bottom line, if you choose to block or numb out all of your feelings, you block out the good ones, too, and that’s not the goal. The goal is to experience our feelings in the “glad” category for a lot of our times.

Perhaps if we weren’t so horrified and judgmental and apologetic about our lesser emotions, we would suffer less. If we can accept that sometimes we will feel sad, scared and angry, and just notice these painful emotions and accept them (without wallowing in them), they can be used as tools to get us back to our better feeling “glad” state of being. What are our emotions telling us? If we are scared, what can we do to feel more safe and secure? Are our fears truly valid or have we exaggerated them in our minds? If we are angry, what action can we take or boundaries can we put in place, in order to not feel used and abused? (Another interesting thing I read recently, is that science shows that the physical effects of angry or scared emotions, only last 90 seconds in our bodies. If we breathe through the emotions, instead of feeding them more fuel with angry or scared thoughts, the physical aspect of the emotion will pass and we can make more rational choices about what to do next. So don’t count to ten, instead count to 90, the next time that you feel angry or scared, as long as you aren’t in serious, imminent danger.) If we are sad, we can nurture ourselves, like we would nurture our loved ones going through a hurtful moment, knowing that unprocessed grief will cause more damage to us in the long run, in the way of physical ailments and mental breakdowns. In short, if you get curious and detached about your own emotions, you realize that all of your emotions have their place in your life, and they are actually quite useful. And also realize that we all love Rhonda Real, because she authenticates our own living experience. She helps give us permission to be our fullest selves. And she is so lovable, no matter what state of being she is currently experiencing!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Worst Feelings

I’ve been trying to understand my own obsession with following this awful situation in Ukraine. I’ve come to the conclusion that it reminds me of the various difficult times in my own life when I have felt pretty helpless watching loved ones struggle in their own lives, whether it be with disease or with another physical affliction, or with addiction, or with mental struggles, or with a toxic relationship, or any combination of the above, and I have been unable to “fix it” for them. I have been unable to be the dashing lifeboat, that I so desperately want to be. It is a devastating feeling. And most of us have felt this stabbing pain of powerlessness at one time or another, once we have reached this middle stage in our lives.

The heartache is particularly fervent and desperate and sad, when like Ukraine, the loved one, whom we are trying to help, is doing everything that they can to help themselves, too. The person with cancer, is taking their treatment and their health as seriously as possible, the depressed person is earnestly trying with therapy and medication and exercise and prayer, the addicted person is working the 12 steps and keeping in regular contact with a sponsor, and the person in a toxic relationship is taking serious steps towards safety and independence and self-worth. Like most of the nations in the world are feeling and expressing about Ukraine, we naturally want to help those who are earnestly trying to work themselves out of tragic circumstances. We are so inspired by their bravery, and their resilience and their belief in themselves, in the most trying of circumstances, and this inspires us to do everything that we also can do, in order to support their cause. However, in the end, we can’t be their saviors. Sometimes they can’t even be their own saviors. For those of us who have religious and spiritual beliefs, we know that something greater than us and this world, will save those whom we love and who are struggling, but it may not be in the form that we think it should be in, or in the pretty little Hollywood ending that we would like it to be. Our limited minds can’t see the highest views of eternity. That’s why we call our highest virtues besides love, “faith and hope”. We have to believe in something greater than what we are witnessing with our extremely limited human experience. If we don’t believe that all of the many, many good things in life are worth fighting for, and are worth living for, then we will all just despairingly give up, and we will quickly perish. And that’s just not in our collective DNA. Our Higher Creative Mind hasn’t programmed us to give up. So sometimes, we stop and we take a moment to feel the feelings, even the darkest feelings of helplessness and anger and anguish, but then we rise and we put on our boots and we soldier on . . . .

Quotes About Feeling Helpless. QuotesGram
TOP 25 HELPLESSNESS QUOTES (of 211) | A-Z Quotes

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Name ‘Em

“Name your feelings to tame your feelings.” – Holiday Mathis

The holidays are upon us and everything gets amplified at this time. Lights are brighter, food is richer, decorations are more ornate than ever, and there is more of everything coming at us at every angle, and loudly. SALES!! BLACK FRIDAY!! ANOTHER HELPING OF STUFFING!! GUESTS!! PARTIES!! JINGLE BELLS!! LIGHTS AND LIGHTS AND FLASHING LIGHTS!!!

With this amplification of our material lives, often comes the amplification of our interior lives. What has been lying low, deep below the surface, often gets jostled awake by the sensory overload happening all around us. In short, the holidays can be A LOT. They can be a lot of fun, a lot of merriment, a lot of celebration, a lot of excess, a lot of planning, a lot of mess, a lot of memories, and a lot, a lot, a lot of feelings coming to the surface.

Feelings are not good or bad. Our feelings are just our natural compasses to remind us to do course corrections when needed, and to soak in, and to bathe ourselves in our moments of our internal peace and happiness. Feelings just are. But we often try to avoid our feelings at all cost, especially the ones that we deem to be “bad” feelings. Ironically, that just makes our feelings more powerful. Avoided, unobserved, repressed, suppressed, denied feelings end up controlling us, and at worst, hurting us by stagnating in our bodies, which can later cause unrest and disease. But the way to control our feelings, is to face them head on, in a detached matter, and to notice ourselves feeling our feelings. (see quote above – “Name your feelings to tame your feelings.“) Just like we have the ability to notice our thoughts, we can easily notice our feelings. When a feeling arises and catches our attention, we should take a pause and name the feeling. Anger. What does anger feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of anger happen in my body? Happiness. What does happiness feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of happiness happen in my body?

I read a book recently that said we could take this “notice your feelings” activity even a step further. As we feel the sensations of our feelings, we should then feel love for that particular feeling, and love for the power of that particular feeling in our body. Finally we should feel love for ourselves for feeling that particular feeling and all of our feelings. This activity ends up disciplining us to notice and name our feelings, to feel our feelings, and then to alchemize all of our feelings into love and acceptance for ourselves, and for our natural state of constantly shifting feelings. (Credit: Arnold Patent)

When you take this activity seriously and you make a conscious effort to do it, what has become really obvious to me, is just how quickly the feeling moves on. It’s like the feeling is saying, “Okay, thanks! Thanks for feeling me. That’s all I needed. I just wanted to be noticed and acknowledged! Thank you. I’ll be moving on now!” But if you deny or ignore your feelings, they become like indignant children in the middle of a tantrum. Their intensity grows and sometimes they get out of control. They will plant themselves firmly in place and scream, “Don’t you ignore me! LISTEN TO ME!!! FEEL ME!!! I WILL BE FELT!!!! KA-POW!!”

The next time you hear “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, playing in your local grocery store for the 16th time before Thanksgiving, as someone muscles you out of the way for the last tube of sausage on the shelf, stop. What are you feeling? Where are feeling it? Love the feeling. It’s intense, isn’t it? It’s powerful, isn’t it? Aren’t our bodies amazing messengers? Love your body and yourself, for being so amazing and full of sensation. Now notice how quickly the feeling has passed. (on an aside, if the feeling isn’t passing, you may be ruminating in your thoughts and your judgments. Notice those thoughts and judgments. Are these thoughts and judgments even really true and objective?) At this point, after fully feeling your feeling, you don’t even have the inclination to ram someone with your shopping cart anymore. In fact you may even hum a little bit to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, or perhaps even sing it out loud, as you are experiencing your new feeling of holiday cheer. What are you feeling now? Where are you feeling it? Love that new feeling. Most importantly, love yourself for the best gift that you are giving to yourself this holiday season. You are giving yourself the presents of presence. And that is a priceless, serene gift that you and all of us, absolutely deserve.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

(D)anger

I have sciatica that has been acting up lately, particularly on my left side. I’ve been doing stretches. I have tried massage and acupuncture and ibuprofen. What I haven’t admitted to myself is how much I have the tendency to repress my anger. Repressed anger often manifests itself in our hips.

It’s easier for a lot of us (especially us women types) to admit that we are sad, than to admit that we are angry. Anger sometimes gets labeled as “a bad emotion.” When anger is used to lash out at others, it can be scary and dangerous and ruinous. Therefore, we often repress our own anger, in order to “protect” ourselves and others. However, when we repress anger, these angry feelings end up hurting us deeply, in internal, physical ways. Also, ironically, the build-up of pressure from angry feelings that we are trying to keep inside, makes it more likely for us to have uncontrolled damaging outbursts that we regret, leading to the vicious cycle of continuing to deny and to repress our anger.

Sometimes we are not actually angry at any particular person. We can have anger about situations that aren’t in our control, such as the pandemic. We can feel angry at ourselves for not doing, or saying something, that we wish we had done. We can have a lot of stored up anger in our bodies, starting from the times when we were very young children.

In order to be healthy in mind, and body, and spirit, we have to feel all of our feelings, and then we have to let them go. Anger scares us. It makes us feel out of control and despicable, so anger is often, one our most suppressed feelings. Nonetheless, there are safe ways to express our anger, but first we must admit to ourselves that our anger even exists. Anger is an emotion full of energy, so finding a private place to scream, or to hit something safe, like a pillow, or to have a private tantrum/meltdown are all ways to release anger, in a healthful way. Taking a brisk walk or run, keeping a journal, and being present with your thoughts which are causing your anger, and perhaps challenging the validity of these thoughts with a different perspective, are all ways to process anger safely. The bottom line, is it is important to allow yourself to acknowledge, and to feel your anger, or it will inevitably cause bigger problems in life, in regards to your precious bodily health, and your meaningful relationships.

Top 50 Quotes About Anger and Frustration - Quotes Yard
21 Quotes About Anger And Frustration With Pictures - Picss Mine

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Tent Pole

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Sometimes people ask me how I hold it all together. I’ve watched and witnessed other strong mothers, and I’ve often thought the same thing about them. Facts are, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I fall apart. Sometimes I cry until I think that my eyes will fall out, and sometimes I scream so loud that it hurts my chest. Sometimes I act so crazily sad and angry all at once, that I am a witness of my own craziness, in the bewildered eyes of my own family. And it scares me.

My husband made the dire mistake of saying that I wasn’t being “helpful” in a family conversation which we were having at dinner last night. For a woman, hanging on by a thread, and who has devoted her entire life to her family, that was not good wording to use at that moment (even if it was the truth). After the aftermath of the scourge of my outrage, I am sure that he wished that he could have eaten those words the minute they carelessly fell out of his mouth. Have I mentioned that I am a fire sign (through and through)?

This morning, I read a tweet today by the Wise Connector. He put this out to his followers:

What do you tell yourself when you’re having a bad day? This could be helpful to someone today.

I looked at the hundreds of vast responses. A lot of them answered that they tell themselves that “things could be worse.” Of course, things could be worse. Death is the worst case scenario, and if we are still here to complain about our bad days, than things could be worse. We could be dead. Sometimes I, too, make myself feel better with the “things could be worse” thought, but sometimes that thought just pisses me off. It sets me right off. “Things could be worse” discounts my hurt and my anger and my frustration and my fears. It makes me feel bad for feeling bad.

One person answered the tweet with, “Still I Rise” and I liked that. I envision myself rising mightily from the ashes of my anger and pain. Anger is not necessarily a bad emotion. It has a lot of energy to it. My dogs and I got an extremely brisk walk out of my rage, yesterday evening. It was a “heart healthy” walk. That walk was a good outcome of my anger. Screaming at my family was not a good outcome of my angry feelings. Anger can often be a hard guy to manage.

I vented to some friends last night on our text chat. Only other mothers can truly validate moments like these. My one friend said that she realizes that she is the family’s “tent pole”, always holding everything up, for everyone else. I got the reminders, from my friends, to take care of myself, and to do things for myself. My one friend loves to kayak. My other friend raises beautiful butterflies. The truth is, I like to write. I can’t tell you how cathartic it is for me, to be writing this blog post right now. My cousin read my blog yesterday, and she told me that she couldn’t believe that I could have that kind of clarity while I am hurting like this. I told her that writing is my therapy. Writing is my clarity. Writing is what I do for me. If it resonates with others, then that is a blessing. But writing is what I do for me.

These are the answers to the “bad day” tweet, that resonated the most with me today:

“You’re doing your best. And that is enough. And remember, your ‘best’ will look different every day” – Brianna

“Today I’m not okay, but that’s okay bc I know I’ll be okay.” – Jojo

“If you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill

“It’s life, chances are tomorrow will be better. Keep moving forward.” – Linzee In Heels

And this was my all time favorite:

“I want to see what happens if I never give up.” – SweMikeMedia

Tears

Image

I was discussing sadness with some of my friends the other day. We talked about how when you hold emotions in, there is always going to be huge pressure building that is bound to end with a negative outcome. When you hold in anger, inevitably an explosion occurs when it can’t be held in any longer, and often innocent bystanders get attacked by that force of emotion. When you hold in fear and anxiety, the results can end up in things like panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. Stress is one of the biggest causes of disease and discomfort in our bodies. And when you hold in sadness, the dam that is holding back all of the tears, will eventually buckle under all of the pressure, but in the meantime the building up of the sadness inside of a person, becomes all encompassing, like a vast, quickly rising, swirling body of water, making it hard to breathe and giving the sensation of drowning. However, if you use God’s natural release valve, and you cry some tears, there is less pressure on the inside, because the tears let the sadness flow out, and eventually the rivers and the streams of tears of sadness, dry to just a trickle.

Whatever we are feeling (and 2020 has certainly been a harvest year for feelings), let’s find healthy, positive ways to release these feelings. When we hold in any one emotion, that emotion has a tendency to take up the whole of us, and doesn’t allow room and space, for the variety of emotions (and a lot of enjoyable emotions) which we are meant to process and to experience, every single day. When we feel the ease of a peaceful conscious, we have open gates and open dams which allows all of the different feelings and sensations that we experience on a daily basis, to freely come and just as freely, to go. When we can accept our feelings as just part of being human, we don’t have to hide them and store them and let them build up inside of us. We can just quietly notice our natural feelings, allow our feelings to be, and process our feelings, in natural, healthy ways (like crying tears) and then just as peacefully, we can let those feelings go, leaving lots of space for happiness and tranquility to seep in.

Fair Warning

Never pick a fight with a woman older than 40. They are full of rage & sick of everyones shit.

One of my friends texted this meme to our group chat yesterday, and we all heartily related to it. I sent the meme to a different friend group chat and there, I also got a very enthusiastic response. The most relatable response from one dear friend (we are all in our late forties), was this . . . . “Hell, yeah!” My friends are all lovely, fun, interesting women. I wouldn’t accuse any of us of being typical “Karens.” People like us. Or at the very least, we like each other.

However, realizing that I had hit a chord, I decided that this would be a good topic to blog about, so I started looking up articles about female rage in middle-aged women. Unfortunately, though, everything that I perused on the internet, just made me feel more annoyed and irritable than ever. Supposedly, hormones are often to blame for our collective seething anger, and many articles gave suggestions to take hormone therapy (while risking breast cancer) or to take anti-depressants, but with the warning that these medications often have the side effects of more weight gain and decreased sex drive, which are some of the biggest complaints that middle-aged women have about aging, in the first place.

I personally think that there’s a whole lot more to the story of middle-aged female rage, but finding the solutions lost my interest. . . . quickly. Anger can be a very fun and energizing and empowering emotion, when channeled appropriately. In the meantime, others (of different ages, sexes and categories) should take the above warning very seriously. We women of a certain age tend to be highly combustible, and none of us seem to find it particularly necessary nor prudent, to justify why we are this way. Nor are we particularly interested in finding a solution to it and changing it, any time soon.

“Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely, sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this is it.”
― Soraya Chemaly author of Rage Becomes Her