Have you ever experienced an emotion that you have tried to push away, only for it to get stronger? How about a behaviour that you promised yourself you wouldn’t have, only to break that promise?
As humans, we have a very tricky situation on our hands. On one hand, we have expectations of ourselves and others to do the absolute best we can; and on the other, well, we are human.
Life could be so much simpler if we didn’t have that human aspect to contend with. We are emotional beings, creatures of habit and we are prone to pushing back when we are pushed or provoked. Even from ourselves.
What happens when a pot of boiling water starts to boil over? Do you just tell it to stop or do you acknowledge the boil and move it from the burner for a moment?
What I’ve noticed from a lot of people is that when they start to boil over themselves, when they let themselves down or when they don’t meet their own expectations, they get angry but then quickly squash that feeling down because its not good to be angry with yourself.
I’d agree with that statement for the most part. It is not good to be angry with yourself on an ongoing basis. Some people have a pattern of self-anger – and this pattern might be a part of something bigger. However, some people have a pattern of blocking or limiting their permission to feel emotions about themselves, specifically negative emotions.
Enter my life. At the end of last year I took stock of an aspect of my life and health; my weight. I’m by no means obese, but I am overweight. My clothes don’t fit right, my energy levels are not as high as they could be and I’m not as strong as I’d like. Some of you might recall from an early post in 2012 that I started a social group. Well, the efforts of a year of socialising without much change in exercise put me at 10 kilograms more than a year ago. That’s a lot of weight to put on in a year. So, I decided to do something about it – something that put me out of my comfort zone and gave me a sense of accountability. Social Media.
Almost a month ago I created a private list on Facebook with about 30 of my friends, family and colleagues who I deem as ‘safe’. I post video and written messages about my journey of losing some of my weight. I tell you this because of what happened yesterday.
Anger happened.
I was at the gym for the first time in a very long time doing a Hot Power Yoga class. Not only was it very hard, I saw my body profile in the mirror and began to feel a frustration that turned into anger that turned into rage. I’m not sure if you’ve ever attempted to do Yoga in a rage. It doesn’t tend to work very well. Everything that should be a bit lose is quite tight.
My first thought was like many people’s – push it back. Keep it down. No need to get angry – you’re doing something about it now. Just breathe. But the anger kept coming. Then I thought “Heidi! You are good at state management! Just manage it!â€. Then, while in child’s pose – the tears started to run up my forehead – I realised that the anger and rage I felt was about me and I realised that the best thing to do is to just accept my feelings. To embrace them even.
Every emotion is useful in some context.
Without needing to really explain why or where my anger stemmed from, sometimes the best way to handle big emotions is to feel them. To acknowledge, embrace and live through them. To welcome them. As Steve Gilligan puts it “hmm, interesting that you are here… welcomeâ€.
So that is what I did. I welcomed the rage. It didn’t make for a pleasant Yoga class, but, it did get out what I was probably pushing down. Today, I felt much more empowered and in control. Still peeved at myself a bit, but that is OK. After all, I’m human!