I have always seen myself as evenly tempered, an excellent diplomat.
I also have challenges not giving herself away on a poorly managed series of facial expressions.
In the last week, I discovered I could stop telling myself that story.
It is time to admit I have been carrying my own personal reserve of unexpressed anger, and I am allowed to burst into flames going forth.
It has been a long kind of “HAHA!” moment which started in fairness a week ago.
Last week, the first thing that happened was that I had my first ever tantrum.
No idea whatsoever what was going on with me because, as a child, I never had tantrums. I was the silent child, the quiet one, the accommodating kid.
This was a totally new energy space for me with no frame of reference.
There were tears, anger, pain, confusion, a sense of loss, fear of not knowing how to handle this, frustration with myself and the world around me.
I am a coach, I am an earth healer, I am a spiritual practitioner, I am a dream enabler. I do work on myself all the time.
I am getting coached at least once a week to be coherent in my coaching practice and ensure that I deal with my crap with the same gusto as my clients.
I have a coach who holds space for me on the mundane aspects of life.
I also have a magical spiritual coaching/mentoring duo in Vincent and Catherine. For the past 8 months, they have been challenging me to step into more mature energy, embody my true self and, step into eldership.
So, I texted Catherine, feeling like a bit of a failure at the whole eldership thing, to be honest, describing what was going.
She simply replied, “sounds like you are having a good old-fashioned freak out”, in her calm, typical way.
How many of you have a clear memory of having a childhood tantrum? Or an adult one, for that matter?
I felt feelings coming out of nowhere and was hell-bent on rationalizing what was happening in my head and body.
As Catherine challenged me to go deeper and to get out of my head, again and again, I very honestly felt like telling her to take a very long jump from a very short pier.
It annoyed me because the thing is that unless you allow yourself to feel deep, how can you live an experience fully.
For me, the felt experience became quickly all-consuming, all-encompassing, raging like a wildfire, and to a point debilitating (there might have been a duvet day involved).
So I followed the grown-up suggestions and did breathe a lot; I grounded myself few times over. I sat with my feet in Epsom salts and drank a lot of water. I still felt horridly unsettled.
But I decided to stay with the feeling. Yes, I will admit to consciously sitting with it and letting it burn out for a whole 4 days. It was a rather splendid tantrum.
In my professional life, I have always been an observer first. I will look at what is at play and assess how to get the best result for everyone involved. Only when I know how to best manoeuvre, I will unleash my creative mind into finding solutions.
In my personal life, I have often had “plan Bs”, just in case.
After being born by a cesarian, because I did not present correctly (yes, I decided bum first was the way), I have somehow concocted a lifetime of avoidance.
I must have decided in-utero that there was some wrong with going headfirst and heart instead into situations.
I had been doing some release work with Catherine recently to allow myself to bundle into life head and heart first because to be who I am, I don’t want to hold back.
The Universe/ Fate/ God/ The Creator/ whatever you want to label what you believe in has a funny way to offer us opportunities to learn and practice.
As it happened last Tuesday, a few things went awry for the business and me personally. My reaction was, “ what the absolute f**k is going on?”.
Over the next few days, I also realized that I have not allowed myself to get appropriately angry at people by constantly trying to mediate and accommodate.
Because if you are trying to look for the best outcome for everyone else, you are seldom the one you put first. It becomes hard to get appropriately angry at people.
So today’s first lesson for me is that living head and heart first requires a dose of healthy selfishness.
This is followed by an excellent reminder to make space for the new by letting go of the old.
Today I took the time to sit down and explore what anger am I storing in my body to release it.
I spent a moment journaling thinking about all my relationships in life and focusing on those with pain and the intention of letting go of that anger as it does not serve me anymore.
I added to my little cauldron sage, sweetgrass, cedar and few other herbs to create a transforming and healing ritual. I said little scraps with the names of those I held anger against written in red ink to ground the energy and infuse it with love and kindness.
I feel better about it. I think I allow myself to be angry if it is what I need. I allow myself to have a tantrum once I also take the time to understand what is behind it. I allow myself to ask for help. I indulge in the magic-making as it helps me move energy along and connects me to the earth I walk on.