Anger! It's an emotion we all experience (some of us more than others) on a regular basis. Lately I've been doing alot of self-care work in the form of overcoming negative thought patterns. I've been doing my best to recognize negative thoughts that commonly plague me regarding all kinds of things (my body, motherhood, my relationship, my character) and replacing them with positive ones. So far it's been working pretty well and I've come a long way towards no longer beating myself up for being human, and accepting faults and differences in others. However, I've discovered that I was also using the practice of taking my thoughts captive as another way of suppressing emotions. Not good. There are certain things that are good to let go and put out of your mind (like negative thoughts, self-hate, materialism, etc.) but I don't believe we should ignore our emotions.
Some emotions are a result of a negative thought pattern, like jealousy, hatred or impatience. Sometimes anger is even the result of a negative thought pattern. But sometimes, we're just plain angry. I recieved this wake-up call on Friday morning. I've been having some trouble sleeping for the past few nights because I've been feeling angry about an issue that has come up in my relationship (which I won't be sharing out of respect for my significant other's privacy, so don't hold your breath) but the reason I couldn't sleep wasn't because I was angry...it was because I was angry and I wasn't doing anything about it. I was blaming my anger on negative thought patterns instead of looking at the situation and saying "OK. I'm really pissed about this, and I should do something about it." And frankly, that's not healthy for me, for my relationship, or for the people around me who have to deal with the negative energy I'm putting out there when I feel so pissy. I didn't realize this until I woke up feeling unrefreshed and stressed, checked out my fave website (crazysexylife.com) and watched Friday's vlog about anger! Because it was so relevant not only to my life in that moment, but to exactly how I felt in that moment, I kind of felt like it was there just for me. Anyways, a light came on and I realized I was just plain pissed.
I'll break from the personal aspect of this blog for a minute to talk a little bit about anger. First of all, it's normal to be angry. It's a natural human emotion and as long as we deal with it in a positive way, it's totally healthy to experience anger. When we keep it bottled up though, it feeds physical disease, mental disease and emotional disease. As women, we are encouraged to keep emotions like anger to ourselves, to bottle them up and push them down. It's considered unattractive to be angry. We're encouraged as girlfriends, wives and partners to keep that emotion in check. We're encouraged in the workplace to keep it in check. We're encouraged among friends to keep it in check. We are constantly told by society that anger is unattractive, so therefore we should never show it when we're angry. How many times have you lied when someone has asked how you're feeling and said you were 'fine' when in fact you were seeing red? We've all done it, we all do it, and it's about time we stopped! 
I fully encourage you to take a moment to check in with yourself when you feel the rage start to bubble and ask yourself why you're angry. Sometimes we get irrationally angry because we're tired, hungry, stressed or just plain grumpy. When I find myself in those situations, I like to separate myself from everyone and just do my own thing for awhile. Nobody is going to judge you for saying "Listen, I need to go take care of myself for a bit. I'm feeling (grumpy, tired, hungry, stressed, etc.) and I am not going to be much fun to be around unless I do something about it." and checking out for awhile. You'll be doing them a favor, and yourself a favor. However, sometimes we are angry for a legitimate, concrete reason and have every right to feel that way, and to express that emotion. I don't encourage yelling at your kids or your spouse or your parent because you're angry about something that has nothing to do with them, or yelling at anyone for that matter, but it's important to recognize your anger and the reason for it, and do something about it.
Healthy expression of anger can mean talking to someone who has wronged you. It can mean going out for a run or having a crazy-intense workout. It can mean bending the ear of someone who cares about you just so you can get it off your chest. It can mean writing a letter or an e-mail to someone. It can mean going out into a field and yelling at the top of your lungs. Do whatever you have to do to get that nasty, white-hot pussy anger out of you. Just don't hurt anyone else in the process. Learning to get our anger out in the open and out of our mind and hearts makes a huge difference in our quality of life. Anger is a normal emotion, a healthy emotion, a common emotion. But it's an emotion we should acknowledge, and then kick out of our living space to make room for peace and content.
As soon as I realized that what I was so plagued by was anger and frustration, I dealt with it. I talked to my partner, we discussed the issue, made our feelings on the subject known, and then let go of it. If I had done that sooner, I would have slept this week. The huge difference I noticed afterwards in the way I felt was incredible. The perks of getting things out in the open included not only getting rid of the nasty mind infection I had been plagued with, but establishing an even deeper level of open, honest communication with my partner. It brought issues we both need to talk about to the forefront so they could be dealt with and we could move forward.
I'll end this by saying that it's okay to be angry. As women, it's our divine animal right to get pissed from time to time. But let's learn to deal with it in a healthy way, so we can kick out the negative emotions to make room for the lovely ones like love, peace and contentment.
