Can you take the heat?
Posted by LeeAnn on August 9th, 2010 at 02:47pm
August in Eastern Washington is thunder, lightening and fire season. As the heat rises, so do the storm clouds over the plateau. What happens when there is heat in your life? Does heat in your life cause storm clouds on the horizon?
Mother Nature has a way of displaying heat and humans have a way of displaying heat in the form of anger. I was thinking about all the ways anger shows up in human relationships. It can be used to bully and intimidate. It can be used to keep people at a distance. It can move someone from depression to action. Anger is neither good nor bad and it is an emotion that requires conscious expression.
For the longest time I had been afraid of my anger. I had seen its destructive force up close and personal. I think I had spent years trying to practice what I would call “civil” anger. In my world, that meant trying to swallow or dissipate my anger in order to be heard. What I discovered was that my anger simply went under ground in me.
As I have been allowing myself to express fully, I have discovered there is a place for “righteous” anger. I know there are not many role models for expressing righteous anger – but Jesus will do. His turning over of the money tables in the temple was righteous anger and sometimes the only way to truly get someone’s full attention is with anger.
I have been trained to sit in the midst of anger during conflict navigation. I have successfully brought parties through the heat to new creative opportunities and yet I had not given myself permission to be the one expressing anger at situations that warranted such emotions.
People can be stuck in their navel grazing. I’ve noticed over the years that humans can even avoid being accountable by both denying and ignoring their impact on others. Sometimes it takes heat to shift a situation out of its inertia.
What is your relationship to anger? Do you avoid it? Overuse it? Run away from it? Is it time to consider a new relationship to anger in your life?
Happy Trails,
The Divine Cowgirl
Under Relationship+ With others+ With ourselves
4 Comments for Can you take the heat?
1. Kathy Salazar | August 9th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Interesting subject. I don’t respond as readily as I used to, I seem to give myself time to process which for me is a really smart thing to do. Not always though, I didn’t mention it this evening at the MM group but the economy is really taking its toll on business owners, a long time friend and business associate took a few gouges at me in front of another client on Friday. I stood my ground, stated the facts and have decided that I will not be doing business with her any longer. Too bad to. Weird, but it made me think about how I handle stress and comparatively speaking, I think I do pretty well.
Kathy
2. sandy dempsey | August 10th, 2010 at 5:22 am
Heat can be both beneficial and destructive, as anger can be, too.
We are taught to respect and manage the heat from a flame, but not the heat from our own anger.
I’m still learning…and, it’s taking longer than I would like.
3. Laurie | August 12th, 2010 at 8:11 am
I can appreciate exactly what you are describing. It is so hard to express your own truth when adrenaline is pumping and you know what you say will escalate the conflict. It is freeing to be strong enough to say what needs to be said, yet it is a fearful place. So, maybe the ‘enemy’ is not the person we see in front of us, but the feeling of fear we associate with that person, and what we think they can do to us. Overcoming the real enemy – fear – may be the real problem, and the solution to the problem. What do you think?
4. LeeAnn | August 27th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Yes, Laurie,
Fear is a HUGE. Fear if we lean in and engage we might be cut off from a relationship. Fear that we might not be liked. Fear that our needs are not important enough to be heard and valued. And yet, if we don’t express our needs, feelings, story or what we are sensing – we really aren’t showing up as us.
As children it was not alway safe to express ourselves. We learned to shut down, swallow or even disengage from our own needs in order to be safe and included. As adults, we have the opportunity to develop relationships that value the truth, even our microscopic truths. When we will no longer tolerate living in fear, we give ourself permission to learn and to grow. Our “truths” are not always the capital T truths, but in having a safe place to explore ourselves; our relationships grow because both people learn together and become trustworthy together.
I am all for giving fear the boot!
LeeAnn
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