Who's Really to Blame for Your Anger...
When Niagara Falls brings out the best in you.
My view this morning overlooks the Horseshoe of Niagara Falls. We arrived here last night at 11 p.m. Then, we proceeded to ‘find food’ until almost 2 a.m. Yesterday began at 4:30 a.m. in LA.
In less than 24 hours, I’ve flown from LA to JFK, cabbed to our apartment in Manhattan, where I made some final edits to my writing, napped for 20 minutes, repacked, and headed to LaGuardia to catch a flight to Buffalo. From there, we drove to Niagara (the Canadian side), and here I am, talking to you.
The view is breathtaking - unfortunately, my mood is more ‘bad breath.’
When I awoke this morning, a sliver of light shone through the blackout curtains, and I winced like a vampire at its abruptness. I’ve never experienced light so bright. It gave me a headache.
I tripped over my husband’s shoes and muttered an expletive - ‘I always trip over your shoes.’ I half-told, half-lectured him.
“Really, always?” he asked.
Of course, I knew it wasn’t always, but still, that was my story, and I was sticking to it.
Don’t blame others for your anger…I thought.
Ugh.
One of my mentors, Michelle Chalfant, set me up on this stars-aligning horoscope app last week, and it gives me some advice each day. That was yesterday’s.
I don’t do that, I thought.
But as the day went on and into this morning, I realized that, yes, I do that.
It’s so easy to blame others for our feelings, but the truth is that only you can control how you decide to feel.
I’m relatively self-aware, so I could tell I was grumpy and in a bad mood. I was taking it out on the people around me, namely Walter, who, by all accounts, clearly didn’t deserve it.
“Listen,” I told him. “I recognize I’m in a terrible mood, and I also realize I’m taking it out on you. I want you to know I see it, and I’m working internally to fix it.”
He tells me he loves me, and then we are quiet so I can begin this process of altering my energy.
Meanwhile, the Wi-Fi isn’t working, and my coffee is cold. I’m trying to keep my cool and keep my promise.
Here’s what’s going on.
Something is happening inside of me. I’m mostly tired, and my circadian rhythm is out of whack. I don’t like the way I feel—it is uncomfortable. My ego is trying to do whatever it can to create homeostasis and get comfortable again, so it’s trying to discharge itself quickly. Sometimes, the fastest way to offload is onto someone else - the cashier, the bank teller, the husband.
This is not how I want to show up in the world, and it’s not the way I want to show up for the people I love.
This means I have to deal with myself and what is happening on the inside.
I know I have to get into my body to get out of my bad mood.
This typically means paying attention to my breath and thinking of something I’m happy about—something that makes me feel satisfied. I need to get my feelings pointed in the right direction.
When your feelings point in the right direction, so goes your mood and, ultimately, your happiness.
I needed to be honest about what was really going on. In this case, I was exhausted. I needed to feel the tiredness in my body—feel how exhausted I was. Instead of fighting with the exhaustion, I needed to accept it and be gentle with myself.
Wow, I am exhausted, and my whole body feels out of whack.
Where in my body am I feeling this exhaustion? What does my body need?
Water? Food? A hug?
Now, I can separate that from my personhood. I acknowledge and honor it, then decide what I will do with it, realizing I can take care of myself in this way and keep the expression of my feelings (and ultimately my power) in the most capable hands, mine.
Ultimately, we had an enjoyable day in Niagara Falls, and I didn’t let the bad mood I started in ruin my day or damage my connection with my husband.
In the end, remember that happiness is a choice—you can be whoever you want at any moment.
What about you? How do you handle situations when you get angry or irritated? I’d love to know how you handle these situations as they arise.
Until next time -
S
I literally laughed out loud at the shoe comment. I constantly kick my husband's shoes across the room if they are even an inch in my path out of pure spite and totally uncalled for rage. This self-regulation of feeling is so powerful and yet SO. DAMN. HARD. It reminds me so much of embodiment work, as you allude to in this piece. Can we fully process the frustration, ire, rage out through our body so its just gone, released, sayonara instead of pushing it down or out or up? My husband sure hopes so! 🤣
Let’s say in the past I would have thrown the shoes that were deliberately left smack in the middle of the kitchen floor to the back door entryway where they belong. Then go on to fume. Now I calmly pick them and take some long deep breath’s. Then I practice my “I” statements. I’m concerned I might crack my head open if I trip over the shoes. He’s getting better. 😀