This month I have moved homes, and today I sat in my empty room saying my goodbyes. It was a nest I have been retreating into for the last 6 years. This space often rose up to hold the heaviness I accumulated from my various ventures into the wilderness called the streets of London. I would drag in my acquisitions in the form of material objects, feelings, aspirations, friends, and partners. A true magpie’s nest.
Today, it was all empty of objects, but still bubbling with phantom energy. I let memories wash over me, watching from the corner where my huge cheese plant called Margarine used to live. I thought that she had a pretty good angle, and I certainly supplied the entertainment. Lots and lots happened; it must have been a good live theatre experience for Marge. She thrived in that room. It was down to the glorious light, but possibly, potentially, it was because I regularly danced in that room. I think she appreciated that the energy was rarely stagnant and there was no need for her to absorb tensions and energetic knots.
Many memories paid a visit. However, there was one in particular that made a surprise appearance. About 3 years ago, I went on a date with someone I met on Hinge. During our date, it very quickly became apparent that he wasn’t into me. Not an imagined, negative-belief-filtered perception, but a highly intuitive awareness backed by years of expertise as an empath. I felt sick when he told me, 30 minutes into the date, that he would just head home rather than continue our walk.
In present reality, a guy I barely knew rejected me because I wasn’t his type. In my triggered perception, I was a 9-year-old child again, who got rejected and asked to leave for her room by her parents. Rejected for who she was. And often rejected for desperately and unsuccessfully trying to play the role expected of her.
The rejection I experienced on my date sparked old, unresolved, unsoothed emotions from my childhood: confusion, loneliness, a sense of injustice, fear, sadness, and anger. I felt an overwhelming current of anger and I began to hit myself. I was caught off guard by this, as I was at that point training to be a therapist and was long into my own healing path. I stopped myself and began to hit the pillow instead.
What came through was an outpouring of anger protesting being exiled and denied life-sustaining connection with my caregivers. Ironically, this was my punishment for refusing to adhere to the atmosphere of disconnection and dishonesty.
As a highly sensitive person, I experienced the intangible, intuitive, metaphysical, under-the-skin, under-the-carpet kind of plane just as vividly and as really as any person experiences the material realm. When everyone around me insisted on denying my reality, anger was awakened to guard my sanity.
Anger was not safe to express around my house. Emotions don’t disappear. Just as signals from the brain that prompt an action get executed, the brain expects the currents prompting emotions to be expressed. The profound anger I felt in moments of such unjust exile became self-directed. Anger, which originally showed up as self-preserving, without a safe outlet, became self-destructive.
I remembered how, as a child, I used to hit myself and poke my nails into my thighs. This isn’t a manifestation of anger. This is suppressed, unwelcomed, unhonoured anger manifesting. This is when it gets ugly.
A few years ago, I was studying the foundational guidelines of yoga conveyed through 5 ethical standards called Yamas and 5 self-disciplines called Niyamas. I remember the question we got asked by the teacher:
“Do you consider yourself a violent person?”
A surge of shaking heads rushed through the group.
“No. No. We are aspiring yoga teachers; we are not violent.”
The follow-up questions from our teacher aimed to extract a deeper truth:
“Have you ever spoken to yourself unkindly? Have you ever forced your body into an action when it begged for rest? Have you ever starved yourself or denied yourself water and nutrition? Have you ever looked at yourself through an unsympathetic lens?”
There was no shouting in my household, no swearing, no hitting, rarely a raised voice. Yet there was violence. Anger, suppressed and untended, turns to rage, violence, and pain.
Anger is the sacred fire of life. Anger is a flame to be tended with care, humility, and respect, maintaining a life-sustaining, steady blaze. When out of balance, it turns to rage, destruction, and pain.
We all have a responsibility to learn how to tend that fire that is inherently inside us, how to honour it and welcome it home in our bodies. How to walk the razor edge between full-bodied humanity and violence.
