Unchartered Vulnerability with Anger

All you need is 40 minutes to yourself to cool down. That can look like many things but in this case it looked like me slamming the car door  while screaming words and stomping upstairs right into the lobby of Celests vision therapy office to sit on a pleather black couch and stare at a tiny rock waterfall. I needed to get away from my mother. I was fuming. Mad as hell. I felt like crying and yelling all at the same time. I kept resting my head back to stare at the ceiling hoping to beat gravity from making my tears come down. I did not want to be sad just yet. I needed to feel my anger just a little bit more and so I did. Which is what I do, A LOT. I lean into anger and believe when it tells me I should feel it just a little bit more. Of course just a little bit more turns into a lot more which leads to storing away anger instead of letting it go. That anger comes out often and it is a part of me that I am terrified to be vulnerable about. I usually lock myself away to make sure that no one sees me being effected in such a way. I don’t want anyone to know of this horrible anger stored inside of me. I would really prefer people to know the gentle, sad, full of laughter parts of me. Admitting to other people that some of my deep hurts transformed into rage is unbearable for me. On my journey of today though I’ve discovered that this coping mechanism confuses and halts my growth and my healing. Allowing myself the freedom to admit my anger, to show my anger in front of friends then NOT run away of shame; to show the parts of myself that are hard and mean is SO FUCKING TERRIFYING. Its uncharterd vulnerability.

Its no secret that my family is all messed up and that my mom and I fight way more than what is perceived as normal. Its also no secret that my brothers have brought pain into my life for a very long time. My life has been really, really difficult and I have had to teach myself to survive when life hits me with a paralyzing pain. I can admit that and add that nobody could ever come out of that without having traumas still attached, which I very much do but that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to admit its true. I want to so badly be the exception. I don’t have any mean, rough parts inside, promise! Lies! Lies! Lies! Recognizing my hypocritical tendencies is a hard but good step to take. Everytime something stressful or ridiculous happens within my brothers or family my adrenaline spikes and my whole body shakes. I get defensive and the words SICK AND TIRED keep coming to mind. I get angry at my mom for treating them the way she does. DON’T CRY I want to tell her GET ANGRY AT THEM but she doesn’t so I do it for her. I have gotten so much better to not direct that stored up anger towards the people around me; to not explode at Celest for doing something-anything really. That is something I would often always do and just to even admit and write that down creates the hugest lump in my throat and I feel so disgusting. The wise gentle part of me though keeps reminding me that I have been but barely learning and that I cannot want to hate myself for acting like a child in the past because I obviously actually was one in an impossible situation. Impossible situations bring out the worst AND the best in people. I can still be a good person even with this horrifying anger inside me, right?? Yes, that.

A lot of the time when sharing the raw non-polished up parts of myself I get really scared of people looking at me and thinking how much of a broken person I actually am. I think a lot of that fear has been the control factor that hasn't allowed me to be vulnerable about the angry side of me. Even if I no longer believe that I am a broken person, that shadowy fear that follows me around still fiercely rattles me.

I am angry.

Yes, those three words terrify me because I have seen the people  that come from the same blood become nothing but that and I do NOT want that to me happen to me too. I have seen the things anger can make you believe. I have seen the destruction. I have witnessed anger seduce the very best then never lose its grip. I know the power of anger so do not try to convince me I should not be terrified for I have witnessed it all firsthand. But I also confess to you that I have this feeling fluttering somewhere deep inside my soul that makes me feel like I have the power to break through all the things anger carries me through. It makes me believe that anger won't become all of who I am. I feel it like a whisper in the wind or like a soft touch gliding across my back. I feel it pacing and hoping I won’t forget to always light up my peace flare inside myself. I feel it, I just have to begin to fiercely believe in it. 

Anger won't win.  Gotta believe in that. 

The Good or Bad Life Coin Toss

I bumped into someone I once knew last week and it revealed some important thoughts of shame about me and my life I didn’t realize I had. Shame had tackled my confidence as I spoke to this individual. You are so pathetic, I kept hearing it say. I walked away as quickly as I could and ran to my car when the coast was clear. Sure, a part of me was really happy to see them but the other much bigger part of me wanted to do like an ostrich and stick my head in the ground. I didn’t do that but I was very tempted. Instead, I drove us all to the beach because there’s nothing like the healing powers of the ocean. The beach wasn’t crowded and I got to park under a big beautiful tree which was a good start. This particular spot was full baby crabs so as Celest giggled and screamed her way comfortable I began working on the sandcastle. Something about using your hands to mold and create something that brings upon good things. I could feel my black shorts get damp as I sat down but no matter I had bigger things to tend to. Am I ashamed of everything my life has been and how I’ve overcome it all? Was I ashamed of who I was now? And was I aware that this person that I was stuffing back into a little box of shame was the same person my people celebrate on the daily? I continued to shape and mold my castle drowning out life happening around me, horrible pun intended. Celest now joined me and began shifting her small hands to pat and mold the wet sand along with me. Eventually, my Styrofoam cup broke but simultaneously settled on one question; What was there to be ashamed of?? My neck was beginning to hurt and the sun was dehydrating but I stayed regardless. Many rooms inside of myself began opening and revealing their stuffing to me. I was going back and forth trying to unravel the shameful thoughts. Trying to create any sort of platform to help me understand why I felt ashamed of my journey and how I’ve lived through it. I began to see a pattern. Have I believed this whole time that I’ve lived a bad life and so in turn I believed myself to be less than??

Yes I did and is it all true? No, absolutely not.  Lifes worth is not determined by how bad or good or how easy or hard it has been. One life does not outrank another life. Perhaps that is how society-politics-whatever else can convince us to believe but let us not be fools any longer people! Granted some people do hold other lives like children, animals, special needs, elderly, etc with special grace but that is not what I am referring to here. I am talking about the shame that comes with having lived/ing in poverty. The shame that comes with the making of poor decisions due to a lack of education. I am talking about the shame that comes with dealing or watching the cycle of abuse whether its physical harm to ourselves or the ones we love. The shame of just becoming another statistic and then there’s the shame of not getting ahead quick enough. The shame I struggle with greatly on a day to day basis. My struggle is not the definition of my worth or lack of. My life is not outranked by another life. We are all equal. That’s what I work on believing on a daily basis. That’s what I unraveled as I was making a sandcastle with my eleven year old. Tell you, this creating stuff with our hands and pain brings upon good things. My shame was rooted in how I viewed my life. My life has been hard, yes but not bad. Life will always hit hard but it will also always allow the universe to send me healing and for me healing looks like friends-dogs-pancakes- trees-the ocean. I have begun to understand that life as a whole is not a bad thing so consequently my life too cannot be a bad thing. The good and bad equally co-exist just as much as sadness and joy do. I do not believe that I am a sad person. I do believe that I feel great sadness, deep rooted peace, and joy together to which are the roots of me. Even if I may be pulled more to sadness than to joy, that is not all that makes up who I am. So I ask myself why then can’t I have many “bad” things happen in my life without them outweighing all the very good things in-between. The joy and good things always seem to wisp away much faster but if we experience them fully they can give us just enough to get by.

There shame is taken care of and out with the garbage. NOT. Oh how I wish it were that easy to just throw away my shame but nooo the universe wants me to be hands on and creative and stuff. Maybe I can’t throw my shame out with the garbage but maybe I can transform it just like I do with my pain. I see pain like a big heavy anchor and its heavy and big and loud and even though sometimes sitting with your pain is necessary staying there can be harmful so I’ve learned to transform my heavy anchor pain into fuel. I use it to move forward and maybe theres my answer. Maybe all I need to do is throw my shame in the compost bin and let it become worm poop HAH no but really maybe my shame can be transformed into much more useful things that can help me heal and move forward. Yes, that!!

I think back to my encounter with that old friend and if I could go back when he asked what my life has been like since we’ve seen each other I would say hard but fruitful and even though my life now is still really hard I have the most beautiful loving tribe living and breathing right alongside me. I would say how at peace I am with who I am or how I work hard to keep that peace on the daily. I’d tell him how much wiser I am because of my difficult experiences. I would stand up straight and smile even if my hair was horribly tangled and frizzy. Even with my linty cut up shorts and faded sweatshirt even if I hadn’t showered in days. I’d tell him that my heart is bursting at the seams with all there is to feel and its spectacular. The pain and the sadness but the joy and the peace too!! Or I could just go with “I’ve been okay” smile and walk out the door because I’m pretty sure my breath smelled of onions and my armpits were killing fruit flies with their stench. Totally missed putting on deodorant on earlier that morning. OH well. EVERYBODY HAS ARMPITS OOKAAYY! jeeeez.