Anger. If you’re human (and I assume you are if you’re reading this– but any Martians, please identify yourselves in the comments below) then you will have felt these emotions at some point as they are part of the human condition. We have ALL felt them.
And that’s the trick: not rejecting those emotions, but embracing them, learning from them and figuring out how to process them in the healthiest way possible for the given circumstance. Use them as “signposts” to guide you to issues you may wish to further process vs. signs that you are flawed.
Albeit, while the decidedly “negative” emotions are far less comfortable to feel, they are just as important to us as the poster-worthy emotions like joy, gratitude, and contentment. You may not want to Pin the less celebrated ones on your Pinterest board or put them on your Tinder profile but they exist, and they do serve a purpose. They are all here to tell us something. They’re like our own gut-wrenching internal billboards and we must look at them more deeply to discern the message. Sometimes the message is that we need better boundaries. Or, we have old pain that hasn’t been fully processed. Sometimes they’re indicators of something we really want deep down, but we’ve failed to acknowledge or allow ourselves. Sometimes they signify that we’re afraid and acting defensively.
Not until we take the time to honor these emotions can we benefit from the beauty and purposefulness of our inevitable duality.
We will remain unable to love ourselves in our entirety
until we embrace both sides of our humanness.
Our ying and our yang.
Our love and our hate.
Our light and our dark.
In doing so, we release some of the self-loathing that leads to outer judgment. In better accepting our whole selves, we make room to accept others and their foibles. We create an environment where others can better accept themselves as well.
This is not an exercise in lowering our standards and celebrating “bad-behavior.” It’s the direct opposite: It’s raising the bar by asking ourselves to embrace the duality of human behavior; to love ourselves more completely so we can do the same for others. It’s allowing ourselves the opportunity to find the life lessons and actually learn from them– so we can grow, increase our own resiliency, and have healthier behaviors when warranted. While doing so, we teach others how to do the same.
It’s like a game of tag, but with an element of self-forgiveness, discernment, self-love and a plan for doing better the next time, if warranted.
Thus, anger is not the enemy….it’s what you choose to do with it. Loneliness need not immobilize you if you can let it be the guidepost that leads you to connection. Jealousy does not have to steal your thunder or make you spiteful if you can use it as the tuning fork that directs you to your deepest desires and helps you form beautiful dreams and actionable goals to achieve them.
As long as you are human, you will have these emotions. To deny them is to be on the losing side of the bet. So bet on reality, truth and humanness instead.
Fully embrace being human
while you still have the chance
and you fully embrace
the gift of life
There’s something comforting about that…
(Imagine that: deriving comfort from something that would have otherwise been considered intolerable.)
I help clients reboot and invigorate their lives! I do this by guiding them as they gain clarity on what they truly want in their careers/ relationships/ lives; by coaching them as they create actionable plans to achieve their goals, and by supporting them as they create sustainable habits that lead to more meaningful, purpose-driven, healthier lives!