Your text touched me. It was good to read. I appreciate your honesty. I have a similar history with anger. I have been denying it for such a long time, thinking a good person is not supposed to have it. Owning it, too, came with the price. It would just burst out of it, me having no idea I had it and I had so much of it. I'm just learning to live with it, to befriend it, to see it showing my boundaries, to appreciate it. Mostly, to listen. There is a reason, there is an anger. Your boundaries have been crossed, your values have been neglected. Thank you for the email.
As always, I just feel so seen with your writing. My sister and I were recently verbally fighting and our dad got so angry. He hates seeing us fight. And I was really proud of my sister for telling him that it was ok for us to disagree and express that. That we were different people just trying to figure it all out, even in our 40s. I thanked her for that. And thank you to you.
I am having a similar problem. There’s so much anger toward so many different entities and it’s so hard to sort out what is productive and what isn’t. Even worse when some of that anger is directed to those we love and we have to decide whether to honor those relationships or set them free. Thank you for your honesty! Anger is a hard emotion to face, especially when it doesn’t always bring out our best selves.
Love all of this and completely identify with the process of knowing that you may never fully know what to do with all of it. I am personally dealing with anger this very moment after having experienced a wave of a very passive but dismissive form of misogyny that I had not realized was so prevalent in my life for most of my life…so passive that the very spaces in which I was standing were invaded and the expectation that I would move to accommodate this man -whose very purpose is always paramount to whatever I may be doing-because he is fundamentally, psychologically more valuable as a human than I am … This sounds petty, I realize but it is not on my part. Only on his. I needed to read your newsletter today to know that I am justified in feeling this way & for being angry. Thank you.
Working this out in my own life in big ways. Feels so good to hear your own articulation of it—your words help my feeling take more tangible shape. Thank you! Also...amazing pic of you!
Omg I resonated so hard with this! “The thing is, I’d rather be perceived as your enemy than be an enemy to myself.” hit particularly hard. It’s a lesson I only recently learned. I used to think that if I couldn’t make the other person feel what I felt and understand where I was coming from there was no point in expressing my anger to them. But I recently realized it’s still helpful to express it, if for no one else than myself, to put it out into the world even if nothing changes. My feelings are worth being expressed even if they fall on deaf ears. And the release of pressure in itself is worth it.
I’m not prone to yelling either which my mom criticizes me for that I should just “let it out” more often. But it’s just hard for me, it literally takes so much effort to do. But I also had been making the assumption that it would hurt others as much as it hurts me to be the recipient of anger which I found is actually not the case. I expressed anger to my mom recently about things that happened in my childhood and she wasn’t crushed like I thought she would be. It just rolled off her back like I said the sky is gray.
Which in a way I’m glad. Sure she didn’t take any accountability and nothing came from me confronting her, but just her being able to handle me expressing anger toward her as no big deal was hugely relieving in and of itself. I guess you can’t have it both ways. If she could feel what I felt she would be crushed and I’d have to live with the guilt of causing my mom pain, or my pain doesn’t transfer to her body through my words for her to empathize with me but because of that I don’t have to feel bad about causing her any pain. There’s benefits and loss to both sides.
Your text touched me. It was good to read. I appreciate your honesty. I have a similar history with anger. I have been denying it for such a long time, thinking a good person is not supposed to have it. Owning it, too, came with the price. It would just burst out of it, me having no idea I had it and I had so much of it. I'm just learning to live with it, to befriend it, to see it showing my boundaries, to appreciate it. Mostly, to listen. There is a reason, there is an anger. Your boundaries have been crossed, your values have been neglected. Thank you for the email.
As always, I just feel so seen with your writing. My sister and I were recently verbally fighting and our dad got so angry. He hates seeing us fight. And I was really proud of my sister for telling him that it was ok for us to disagree and express that. That we were different people just trying to figure it all out, even in our 40s. I thanked her for that. And thank you to you.
I am having a similar problem. There’s so much anger toward so many different entities and it’s so hard to sort out what is productive and what isn’t. Even worse when some of that anger is directed to those we love and we have to decide whether to honor those relationships or set them free. Thank you for your honesty! Anger is a hard emotion to face, especially when it doesn’t always bring out our best selves.
Love all of this and completely identify with the process of knowing that you may never fully know what to do with all of it. I am personally dealing with anger this very moment after having experienced a wave of a very passive but dismissive form of misogyny that I had not realized was so prevalent in my life for most of my life…so passive that the very spaces in which I was standing were invaded and the expectation that I would move to accommodate this man -whose very purpose is always paramount to whatever I may be doing-because he is fundamentally, psychologically more valuable as a human than I am … This sounds petty, I realize but it is not on my part. Only on his. I needed to read your newsletter today to know that I am justified in feeling this way & for being angry. Thank you.
Working this out in my own life in big ways. Feels so good to hear your own articulation of it—your words help my feeling take more tangible shape. Thank you! Also...amazing pic of you!
Omg I resonated so hard with this! “The thing is, I’d rather be perceived as your enemy than be an enemy to myself.” hit particularly hard. It’s a lesson I only recently learned. I used to think that if I couldn’t make the other person feel what I felt and understand where I was coming from there was no point in expressing my anger to them. But I recently realized it’s still helpful to express it, if for no one else than myself, to put it out into the world even if nothing changes. My feelings are worth being expressed even if they fall on deaf ears. And the release of pressure in itself is worth it.
I’m not prone to yelling either which my mom criticizes me for that I should just “let it out” more often. But it’s just hard for me, it literally takes so much effort to do. But I also had been making the assumption that it would hurt others as much as it hurts me to be the recipient of anger which I found is actually not the case. I expressed anger to my mom recently about things that happened in my childhood and she wasn’t crushed like I thought she would be. It just rolled off her back like I said the sky is gray.
Which in a way I’m glad. Sure she didn’t take any accountability and nothing came from me confronting her, but just her being able to handle me expressing anger toward her as no big deal was hugely relieving in and of itself. I guess you can’t have it both ways. If she could feel what I felt she would be crushed and I’d have to live with the guilt of causing my mom pain, or my pain doesn’t transfer to her body through my words for her to empathize with me but because of that I don’t have to feel bad about causing her any pain. There’s benefits and loss to both sides.