emotional alchemy

a journal entry: deep dive into my struggles with anger and learning new ways of existing with it.

01/08/2023 8:00am on a flight back from Springfield, IL

Anger has been circling in the pit of my stomach for some days now. It was waiting for a turn to shine. It rose up again last night. I want to use new terminology around my feelings and the power I have over them. So no, Alex didn’t make me mad. The emotion of anger was activated because I allowed it to be through their actions. I know part of my anger stems from control, another part from hurt, and also disappointment. Either way, I’m aware that it’s a secondary emotion that is triggered by that trio. It happens mostly when something doesn’t go my way so….control or my lack of.

At first, it was a slow rise. I didn’t notice I was angry until they nonchalantly said “Ok I gotta go now” hurrying off the phone to escape my wrath, after they disappointed me. I texted

“ I’m annoyed”

“Truly”

“You asked me about it”

“Literally some days ago lol”

I tried to keep it cool by adding *lol* in a text but nothing was funny.

I have to stop texting lol and lmao for no reason. That stops today. I need to convey my emotions in the best way possible but putting lol is a form of gaslighting.

We diminish how we feel to make other people feel comfortable when we do that. We invalidate our feelings.

I was going to do breath-work to pass the emotions on because the analogy of passing gas in reference to emotions works for me.

NOPE, I wasn’t ready to pass anything.

Instead of hurting them with my words like I know how to do, I sat with the pain and cried my eyes out.

“I’m angry I’m angry” I said because I needed to acknowledge it.

The only reason I was being this rational is because I just talked about anger in therapy last week. To my understanding that’s the real reason this emotion was coming up.

It’s not enough to talk about our emotions but we have to let them come up, out, and through the body.

Anytime we’re working on something life will throw out a challenge to see if you’re absorbing the lessons or if you’re just bullshitting. Ain’t that some shit?

My heart was beating fast. My mind was set on replay as the situation ran rounds in my head like a jacked up CD player.

Another thought came to mind

“I put expectations on people and think they have to comply but people don’t have to live up to my expectations. I have a tendency to come on strong about my expectations”.

I was so ready to “ you” this person to death but I didn’t. I immediately went to my e-mail and looked at the session notes from last week.

“Assertive Communications Of Anger” that was the title of the paper.

The first thing I read was about using I statements and to refrain from “you this” “you that”. For once I took responsibility for my emotions without using that person as a scape goat because the reality is this is on me.

I’m human and I feel.

I talk about this all the time. Although I don’t walk around calling myself an empath, because we are all empathic whether we know it or not, now I know why I focus so heavily on feeling joyous.

I know my personality presents as sunshine and flowers on a beautiful spring day and that’s because I am spring.

and in the spring when it rains it pours….flowers bloom afterward.

and just like the rain, anger comes over me causing chaos to my perfectly curated world of sunshine, joy, and flowers.

but I always learn a lesson.

I focus on joy because I don’t know what to do with anger. I’m like a bull with horns out. I hate it but I don’t hate me.

I love myself. I love myself for noticing. I love myself for not retaliating. I love myself even harder during times like this.

Projecting my anger back on to myself stopped me from cursing that person out from A to Z. It stopped me from hurting someone who had no intentions in hurting me.

So next time I get angry, I’m going to do that again.

Examine the situation and see how I want to handle it instead of resorting to my typical chaotic behavior using my words as lethal weapons (sometime they deserve it, and sometime they don’t).

One thing I know for sure is that these emotions come up in my body and no one has to live with this except me.

I’m only responsible for my own actions not the actions of another.

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01/08/2023 4:45pm from my living room

I held anger in me all day on purpose. I wanted to observe my actions in anger. I wanted to try out new ways of existing with it. When Alex picked me up from work, I opted in for silence.

“I’m sorry you trusted me with something and I disappointed you. Do you forgive me?”

I shook my head no.

I had my own personal music blasting in my ear. I refrained from speaking. I wasn’t trying to hear anything. I wasn’t ready. I gave anger something to dance to while it was brewing at the bottom of my stomach. That music kept anger safe.

The front seat was filled with some of my favorite things. I smiled because I know their heart but I stood ten toes down in my anger because I didn’t want to budge that easily. I wanted to confront the emotions and sort them without bribes, as cute as it was.

When I got home I showered. I brewed tea. Lit my resin blend. I rolled out my yoga mat.

I set my space up for me time.

I felt called to do a longer breath-work session today. “Embodied Presence” that was the title. I had been doing 5 minute breath work sessions all week and saw subtle changes within myself. I figure if I do this session the emotions will come up and we’ll see what happens next.

Through every breath count, every hold, every beat I felt the anger travel throughout my entire body. I let the tears flow out of my eyes. I leaned over as it came up from stomach and through my esophagus. » Don’t worry guys «I didn’t throw up anything but the stale energy of anger had completely left my body. I laid on my back for a while.

Integration was taking place.

I was finally ready to talk.

This was liberation through exploration.

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“We can spend a lot of time worrying about what may happen

ruminating on what has happened

dancing between the future and the past

wishing

avoiding

clinging

craving

but when we are deeply present

when we give ourselves permission to be in the body

there is a freedom there

even if everything outside the body is chaos

inside their is peace

their is spaciousness

there is emptiness”

In that spaciousness I gave my anger permission to just be. In the past, I would get so caught up in the moment and getting my point across that I had never sat with anything. I always thought I knew what I needed to say in the heat of the moment. Reactions that caused more harm than good never failed to come up too. Yes it gave me temporarily relief but It always dug my character into a deeper hole that I didn’t want to be in. I don’t like explaining my actions and I hate digging holes for myself.

Be open to finding new ways to express the emotion(s) that hunt you.

Love them

Feeling the full spectrum of emotions is apart of life.

And if you’re going to be here you might as well do something cool with them.

xoxo Tiana