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Making Room for Feelings I grew up with a mother who constantly invalidated, ridiculed and dismissed my feelings. One of her strongest messages was "you’re ALWAYS making such a big deal out of NOTHING!" Others were of the flavor that "you’ve got nothing to cry/be so depressed about! And, if you don’t stop that, I’ll really give you something to cry/be depressed about!" Or, she’d tell me to "Stop with the Miss Sarah Heartburn, already!" Implying (with this parody of the great Sarah Bernhardt’s name) that I was yet again being overly dramatic. |
| This early conditioning from my mother was constantly reinforced and deepened by messages from the world around me. Messages from a culture that essentially trivializes, dismisses, discounts all emotions and feelings (with the exception perhaps of men’s anger and occasionally, over-idealized romantic love!). Sometimes the intensity of my sadness, grief, sorrow and tears was so great that I’d feel as though I could die from the pain. Other times I wished that I WOULD die rather than have to go on suffering so much. Or else, I wished I could become thicker-skinned, less sensitive so that I could live more comfortably in the world. Still, I somehow always made space for myself to feel my hurts, despairs and depression. No matter how extreme or "unreasonable" their intensity might seem to me. On the other hand, until my mother’s death when I was 30, anger seemed not to be much a part of my emotional vocabulary. I’d been subjected for so many years of my early life to the devastation wrought by my mother’s cold, nasty, sarcastic and endless anger toward me. Those painful experiences made it unimaginable that I should ever feel or act in such terrifying and hurtful ways toward another human being. The closest I’d come to experiencing/expressing anger would be screaming my hate into my pillow after some one or another insanely frustrating mind-twisting episode with my mother. On the whole, I didn’t feel angry when other people might be undermining, thwarting or gratuitously hurtful to me (as she had so often been). Instead, I would feel only the pain, hurt and frustration. And, I’d immediately turn my energy to trying to make sense of the context of the other person’s behavior toward me. (Just as I had tried for so many years with her behavior toward me.) I would focus on figuring out what damage or woundedness or sense of personal inadequacy in the other person underlay their unacceptable behavior toward me. This "understanding" of their motivation would defuse what in me might otherwise have blossomed into anger. It always felt safer to "understand" the why of a person’s mean behavior than it did to feel even the slightest indignation, irritation, outrage or anger toward the "perpetrator." With this commitment to "understanding" came an enormous capacity for tolerance and patience with all people who might be undermining me, creating difficulties for me, thwarting or frustrating me. Between the patience and the understanding, I often missed reading–on any conscious level–the hostility in the energies that were being directed toward me. So, too, I missed feeling any anger toward these people. More typically I might come away from such interactions feeling vaguely disquieted, out-of-sorts, crabby or irritable without quite understanding what had happened to provoke those feelings. Sometimes, if sharing a meal had been part of the interaction, I’d come away and some hours later literally be sick to my stomach. Only vomiting out all the still-totally-undigested contents of my stomach would reduce the searing pain in my gut. My mother’s death freed me to begin to become consciously aware of the depth of my rage, at least with her/her treatment of me. Still, it wasn’t till my mid-forties that I learned that it was possible to have, feel and release rage in safe ways. That it was possible to feel rage/anger without fearing it would demolish someone in the ways I’d felt demolished by my mother’s rage. Learning to separate the ENERGY of my rage/anger from the CONTENT of the behavior/circumstances by which it had been triggered was a major first step. Finding safe, effective ways to then move and release that energy-–by myself, in private, not "on" someone–was both a scary and a remarkable process. Yelling, cursing, stomping, kicking and pounding on my bed were terrifying and at the same time exhilarating. As I could, each time, feel and release the energy of my anger, I could then find words and ways to calmly and effectively communicate what I was angry about. What was unacceptable to me. With safe ways to be with my anger and my rage when I felt those feelings, I also became more able to be consciously aware of my anger in the situations that provoked me. While I still have stayed always curious about what leads people to be mean or nasty toward me, I now can actually directly feel the hostility in their behavior. I can feel my own anger rising and choose to be with it. When I share about it, even when the other person thinks I’m being unreasonable, off base, too sensitive or not like me, I now have my own permission to feel and express just exactly what I’m feeling. (See Safe to Scream and Feelings as well as the later parts of Coming Home for more detail about all of this.) As I’ve become more accepting of and comfortable with my own rage and anger a very strange thing has happened. There are moments when, alone with myself and in response to the smallest, most inconsequential seeming incidents I erupt into towering rage! I can come in from a peaceful seeming night of sleeping in my womb-tent. I might spill some water, stub my toe or drop something and suddenly find myself wild with rage: cursing, yelling, roaring, stomping and slamming around my little sanctuary. Most often I’m screaming "I can’t take this anymore!" Or, "I can’t stand this!" Or, "I hate this!" Or, "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" The ferocity of this rageful energy often surprises and astonishes me. Yet, I am no longer frightened by or even the least bit uneasy with these episodes. I know that making space to let them just play out is important. I know that these episodes each end as abruptly as they’ve begun. I know how to "blow" without harming myself physically. And, since I told them about this propensity of mine when we first began figuring out sharing the space with each other, my neighbors on the property know that there’s nothing to worry about when they hear me storming. Sometimes, there is a teeny, tiny background voice that reverberates with the old critical, "stopper" messages about how "ridiculous, unreasonable, extreme, immature and not like me" these outbursts are. Yet, the stronger witness/Mommy voice inside fiercely defends and holds the space for me to have these enormous meltdowns. There is a deep knowing and trust that these are important, helpful experiences essential to my healing process. There’s rarely any content or context to these eruptions. No memories rise. No images of "what this might ‘really’ be about." I know it’s pointless and meaningless to try to figure out any "whys" for these episodes. I’ve learned to trust that I am letting out old, long bottled up and fermented unexpressed rageful energy that it is, just in this moment, finally safe to release. After each such episode, I feel both exhausted and cleansed. Complete for the moment. More spacious inside myself. Recently I’d had several days of exhausting meltdowns over serious, thwarting problems with my computer (See July 2003 Bulletin Board for that whole tale!) After all the exhaustion with the computer, I was feeling an enormous need for deep rest. On the way into a non-work/unscheduled week, in which I hoped to have the room for that kind of rest, my Feldenkrais/energy healer and I did some deep and intense releasing work on my stomach area. We were addressing my history of sporadic stomach pain/pressure that results in my "needing to vomit out toxicity." Then, my resting week began. Each day was filled with lolling about reading and napping my way through the hours till it was cool enough to take a long walk. And, for some brief part of each day, I would be called from inside of me to "do" a bit of something. Each day, whatever "little something" I did seemed to lead me quickly into a roaring, rageful meltdown. Each meltdown/eruption was triggered by some frustration or some feeling of being thwarted. One day it was being relentlessly attacked by biting no-seeums while trying to wash away the spider web disease from the trees and plants around the cottage. Another day it was having knots repeatedly breaking or unraveling with beads spilling all over the place as I was restringing several old bracelets that needed fixing. Another day it was having my new organic, biodegradable "non-streaking" window cleaner leave endless streaks on all the windows I’d badly spotted with hard water the day I’d washed the trees! I went from calm and placid to hysterical rage in seconds each time. The Mommy voice came immediately to talk tenderly to the distraught little one. She spoke soothingly and reminded the little one that when things go so badly and she gets so frustrated, the best thing to do is to stop whatever we’re doing. She reminded the little one that it’s okay to leave it for another time/another day when she might be feeling less raw and vulnerable. Usually, the little one feels held and comforted. She listens to the permission and stops. But, on these few awful days, no one inside was willing to stop. The little one wanted it done, NOW!" So each day I felt an enormous push from inside to just keep going and to keep on raging and screaming and tantruming and wailing. After a while I’d be done. With both the tasks and the exploding/falling apart. I’d go calmly back to reading and drowsing and napping. I didn’t spend any energy figuring or wondering about it all. I just let it go. From past experiences, I know that if there is something I need to "know" about what’s just been happening, it will reveal itself to me at some point along the way. On the day I was transitioning back into work-mode, it occurred to me that, in this intense succession of days, the old rage, grief, frustration that I’d been releasing had been a layer that had been locked in my body rather than my psyche. That the energy work on my stomach had loosened all this and freed it to find its way out. I felt so pleased, so amazed with all the work I’d just done! So exhilarated. Growing and healing seem inevitably to involve upheavals of intense feelings, strong emotions that often seem out of proportion to what is currently happening. When there is such a disproportion, it’s almost always because some earlier unexperienced/stuffed feelings are piggybacking out on the emotions that have been stirred in this situation. The psyche or the body is taking this opportunity to release what it hasn’t been safe to feel before now. It’s often extraordinarily challenging, the trusting and allowing this process to take its natural course. We can feel really "crazy," according our culture’s yardstick of appropriateness. So, it’s incredibly important to be gentle, tender and care-full with ourselves when this is happening. It’s important to make room to feel all that wants to come up without judging it. And, without allowing others to judge it. It’s important to provide safe, private space for moving through these times. It helps to remind ourselves that such times have a natural trajectory. At some point, all that can be released at this moment will have been released. We get to a more balanced place. And, we then have more of ourselves available to us than every before. We get to have the energy that had been holding all those feelings locked inside. We get to use that energy to go forward. We have more space inside of ourselves for newness to come in! Consider tenderly making room to feel whatever you’re feeling, 
P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world! © For the Little Ones Inside - All Rights Reserved The card on this page is part of a set of 64 handcolored bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside. If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form. Please feel free to e-mail me at rposin@hotmail.com. to share your reflections and responses to any or all of what you find here . I'd really like to hear what touches and nourishes you! Click here for More Like This Or, explore the Monthly Musing Archives Site Directory (for non-frames viewing)
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