Eliza, I love these words so much and want to quote this whole piece! You articulate this so beautifully. This is so important, and especially so for many of us women who've been raised to suppress and fear our healthy anger. Thank you for giving voice to it with so much wisdom and clarity 🙏
Aww thank you! Yes there is so much suppressed anger amongst women. It's soo powerful when we can learn to process and feel into this emotion. (Speaking from personal experience here!)
This is exactly where I am sitting so stuck in my therapy right now…I don’t know how to feel anger and love; to hold anger and love simultaneously with respect to my parents. My body turns it back on me as guilt and shame and tension and pain.
Erin, thank you for sharing your experience here. You are definitely not alone in feeling guilt and shame around our very real and understandable anger, especially towards parents who maybe did not give us the love we needed growing up. That pattern of arising guilt and shame is there for a reason, whether it's to protect you from possible/perceived abandonment or isolation, or simply as a mechanism of being a woman who was taught to not fuss and be a "good girl." What if your body wasn't "turning it's back on you," but rather doing it's darnest to try and protect you? How can you show love to these parts for it's hard work?
(Of course I don't know your particular circumstances and this is not intended as therapeutic advice...just sharing what I've seen/experienced as a therapist myself).
It sounds like you're doing the very hard yet necessary work of building your capacity to hold the "both/and" of it all <3
Thank you Eliza for your response; an alternative way of thinking is always welcome! Guilt and shame feel so uncomfortable. These negative feelings therefore get a negative association. They are feeling so counterproductive now that I don’t need the protection anymore. The frustration that I seem to be turning back onto myself comes from how hard it is to teach our tissues the lessons our minds have already figured out.
Thank you for the reminder that everything inside of me has been created for protection rather than what feels lately to be annihilation. It is life’s hardest work to undo established patterns of being.
I’ve read this a few times this week. It’s helping me with how my anger elicits people pleasing parts immediately. I’ve been seeing a lot spiritual bypassing type pieces coming out and it makes this reaction pick up speed. What you said about the misapprehension that anger and compassion being mutually exclusive is really helpful.
Thank you. This really helped me to see the essential nature of anger... it's energy that needs relating to (and not running away from) I am a big fan of welcoming all parts of us so what you say makes perfect sense!
Eliza, I love these words so much and want to quote this whole piece! You articulate this so beautifully. This is so important, and especially so for many of us women who've been raised to suppress and fear our healthy anger. Thank you for giving voice to it with so much wisdom and clarity 🙏
Aww thank you! Yes there is so much suppressed anger amongst women. It's soo powerful when we can learn to process and feel into this emotion. (Speaking from personal experience here!)
This is exactly where I am sitting so stuck in my therapy right now…I don’t know how to feel anger and love; to hold anger and love simultaneously with respect to my parents. My body turns it back on me as guilt and shame and tension and pain.
Erin, thank you for sharing your experience here. You are definitely not alone in feeling guilt and shame around our very real and understandable anger, especially towards parents who maybe did not give us the love we needed growing up. That pattern of arising guilt and shame is there for a reason, whether it's to protect you from possible/perceived abandonment or isolation, or simply as a mechanism of being a woman who was taught to not fuss and be a "good girl." What if your body wasn't "turning it's back on you," but rather doing it's darnest to try and protect you? How can you show love to these parts for it's hard work?
(Of course I don't know your particular circumstances and this is not intended as therapeutic advice...just sharing what I've seen/experienced as a therapist myself).
It sounds like you're doing the very hard yet necessary work of building your capacity to hold the "both/and" of it all <3
Thank you Eliza for your response; an alternative way of thinking is always welcome! Guilt and shame feel so uncomfortable. These negative feelings therefore get a negative association. They are feeling so counterproductive now that I don’t need the protection anymore. The frustration that I seem to be turning back onto myself comes from how hard it is to teach our tissues the lessons our minds have already figured out.
Thank you for the reminder that everything inside of me has been created for protection rather than what feels lately to be annihilation. It is life’s hardest work to undo established patterns of being.
This might be my most fav thing you've ever written Eliza... wow. SO GOOD. Thank you!
Aww thank you Sam! Xx
I’ve read this a few times this week. It’s helping me with how my anger elicits people pleasing parts immediately. I’ve been seeing a lot spiritual bypassing type pieces coming out and it makes this reaction pick up speed. What you said about the misapprehension that anger and compassion being mutually exclusive is really helpful.
(So appreciate the mention of my piece on rage)
Thank you. This really helped me to see the essential nature of anger... it's energy that needs relating to (and not running away from) I am a big fan of welcoming all parts of us so what you say makes perfect sense!