Anger can be useful; helping us create and maintain boundaries, as well as stand up for ourselves and others. But enough generalities. Getting personal without oversharing is a vulnerable and challenging task for me.
I grew up in an environment where my feelings were ignored, overlooked, or flat out shut down. I’d rate it zero out of 5 starts, do not recommend. Anger especially had to be hidden, as it would be punished. So I learned that my feelings weren’t important, they could be ignored (even by me), and I could just stuff them down. This strategy created many smoldering embers, waiting inside. Eventually I had too many smoldering embers, no skills for processing my feelings (my life), and was old enough to be on my own. Soon enough I found not embers, but a raging fire waiting to be stirred up and fired up by any passing breeze of emotion, conflict, upset. I flared into anger at the slightest provocation.
As I graduated college and worked through progressively more responsible and stressful jobs, my struggles with anger intensified. Little sleights by clients, coworkers, or bosses would get ignored or stuffed, until suddenly I hated my job. I went through a lot of wonderful friends, moving on and moving on and moving on, because I didn’t have the sense or skills to recognize and resolve conflict very well.
Not only did I lack the skills to process my feelings, I had zero positive skills in managing stress. So, I pushed down and ignored the stress and did my best version of work hard play hard. I would work incredibly hard at work and come home to do nothing but crash. Playing hard evolved into drinking, mostly.
The stress I ignored and stuffed attacked my body. I cracked a couple of my molars, developed carpal tunnel syndrome, struggled to sleep well, migraines worsened, and had my first autoimmune flare-up.. All in the same timeframe. It was a loud and compelling call to change, but I wasn’t even remotely aware of what needed to change. See, I didn’t think my job was that stressful. I didn’t think I had an emotional short circuit.
But I heard that yoga might help with my wrist, my migraines, the jaw clenching… So I tried it.
I had worked out at gyms before, but being on the floor and breathing out loud in a room full of people I didn’t know, then laying down at the end and closing my eyes was awkward and awful, in the moment. But then I got up to leave and realized that I actually felt good inside. It was new and different and so much better than I ever felt leaving a gym.
Yoga was one hour, twice a week then. It was cheaper than therapy, and I didn’t have to tell anyone what was wrong with me. I had no intention of going to therapy, but I was starting to understand that yoga presented me with opportunities to learn about myself, places I needed to grow, build life skills, befriend my emotions, and cool my jets. Plus, as I got stronger and more flexible I felt more at home in my own body. Maybe for the first time in my life.
The anger still shows up, in real-time now. It’s not the default setting. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, plain old frustrated, scared, and vulnerable. Rarely do they show up dressed up in fiery anger.
When I was a teen, when asked how I feel, I would often respond with, “I don’t know.” It was better to not know. It was safer to not know. It was easier to gauge what was acceptable for me to feel, or if I could just pretend not to feel at all.
My ability to be present, to show up for myself, was impeded by my losing touch with my feelings. Calm and steadiness of mind were not my norm, especially when at any moment the squished down feelings could have burst free and swamped me. The distance between reacting and acting was not only unknown to me, but totally insurmountable. I couldn’t see or feel a difference.
When I started practicing yoga, I didn’t do it every day. I wasn’t always fully present. Nobody waved a wand and magically transformed me. Many things were said that went right over my head, because I simply didn’t have access. When I asked my teacher, she said, “Don’t worry about it. Those things weren’t meant for you.”
Over time, by showing up on my mat as best I could, I learned how to reliably downregulate my nervous system. I learned how to show up and stick around, even when things got messy, when my feelings were overwhelming, when I was tired, or disappointed. I learned how to do it on the mat, with low stakes, and I carried it into the rest of my life.
I’ve live by these ideas now: show up, do the work, don’t worry about where it will get you or how quickly, slow down, get to know yourself, figure some stuff out, and enjoy your life more. Maybe that’s why I’m willing and able to meet you where you are, and walk with you along this path for a while.
