Who knew? I have discovered that anger blocks my writing.
Or rather ...
I should say: shame about my anger blocks my writing.
What is it with this anger thing?
As an early childhood educator, I know cognitively and emotionally that anger is simply one of all of many feelings human beings experience. It is not good or bad. It just is. Indeed, anger is necessary to feel, in order to make a stand about being hurt. I teach teachers about accepting children's anger and helping them to express it productively. I write for teachers about learning to recognize and accept their own anger, while, at the same time, helping them to express it productively.
And yet ...
When I sense even the smallest twinge of anger in myself, for any kind of injustice large or small, I immediately become ashamed and blocked - paralyzed in any kind of action, developing headaches, and even becoming depressed.
Thus ...
... blocking myself in expressing it.
Thus, becoming unable to write.
And so, I think I am developing a New Year's resolution.
I want to allow me to become my own supervisor - a friend to my Self. I want to look at myself from a distance, as if I would a fellow teacher, a family member, child, colleague, or friend, and treat myself as I do others. I want to teach myself how to accept my anger, while at the same time helping me to express it productively.
I realize this will be difficult, for very early in my childhood I learned to feel ashamed of just about any of my emotions, especially anger. Indeed, shame creeps up and into me almost immediately, thus blocking me from feeling angry, or, and this has been a most amazing discovery lately, even joy and pride at my accomplishments! Unlearning what I learned in my earliest childhood will be tough indeed. For, as my therapist reminds me, undoing "brainwashing" ain't easy. Especially since I have discovered, I was a diligent student when I was young, and what I was taught to feel, stuck - stuck hard and deep!
So, this coming year, 2013, starting this morning, I am going to take my "inner child" by the hand, and gently and compassionately help little "tamarika" accept that she is, like all other humans, allowed to feel uncomfortable feelings - especially, and including anger.
At the same time, perhaps, drive away the dark shame that blocks and binds me to ancient, early childhood fears.
A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Blimey, what a year that was
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