there is anger
Like most people, I should probably go to therapy. But since finding a matching therapist without waiting for years in Germany is like spotting butterflies in Antarctica (impossible), I embarked on my own self-help journey.
Years ago, when the first ever lockdown hit, I had a phase of reading self-help books - or rather, excessively spending money on them without actually reading them and calling it a journey of self-discovery.
Years went by and I continued without the desire to improve anything in my life, with little exceptions where I suddenly felt like flipping my whole life upside down and wanting to improve in every area of my life until I felt exhausted and overwhelmed and went back to what life looked like before.
Anyways, my journey of with self-help resources has been quite rocky – that´s why I´m certain therapy would benefit me a lot.
Recently though, I started watching self-help videos online every now and then.
The other day I came across a video, it was made for kids with the intention of teaching them a healthy way of dealing with emotions.
No emotion is anything. Good or bad. It´s just an emotion that wants to be observed and felt to then let go, like clouds pass by without reading anything into them.
What stood out the most to me was what the protagonist, a teddy bear, said next.
By saying “there is anger” instead of “I´m angry” I create a gap between myself and the emotion. Suddenly, there is space in between me and anger, a tiny room that wasn´t there before. Because I am not my emotions. Anger is valid, it´s allowed to be there, and I can learn to observe it without drowning in it.
Anger is like a storm passing through my body and then moves on. But I´m good at drowning in it, in continuously and obsessively thinking about whatever made me angry until it ruins my whole day.
In the video, they used the metaphor of throwing a rock into a lake: after a while, the circles painted into the water disappear naturally and the surface of the lake flattens, same with anger. I just have to stop throwing rocks.
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Well, I just felt like sharing that. “There is anger” changed something in me and my thinking. Maybe it´s not groundbreaking, maybe it is. I´m in the process of trying this for myself and making It work. I´ve had situations where this actually helped me, and I had other situations where I completely forgot about it. It´s an ongoing process, I guess.
As always, feel free to contribute your thoughts in the comments below.
Take care, and I´ll talk to you soon.
