Honour your anger

When you're on a path of spiritual growth and enlightenment, you start to have all sorts of new awarenesses. Sometimes these are welcomed awarenesses and sometimes I catch myself thinking that ignorance really is bliss - HAH!

Having a heightened awareness of my feelings and being mindful of them is a whole new world for me. I am used to using anything and everything to escape. So sitting with my feelings is quite the treat! 

I find I struggle the most with anger...

Growing up, I always believed that I never got angry. I am a highly sensitive soul and I often mistook my anger for sadness. Instead of experiencing what I was really feeling (anger/disappointment) I always thought that I was sad … so I would just feel sorry for myself without ever experiencing my true feelings. 

Today I understand that sometimes I get angry and that anger and sadness are definitely linked for me. However, I still find it difficult to accept the anger part (and I want to default to sadness) because I hold the belief that if I am angry, I am being mean. Can anyone relate?

It is especially uncomfortable because it often involves someone else, and I don't like to feel anything but love towards others (again, I don't want to feel mean)

This is not realistic though because people suck. And we do shitty things. And we are selfish and self-seeking, often at the expense of one another. 

When someone behaves in a way that is selfish and self-seeking, it hurts and I feel angry. And it also can leave me feeling less than. 

I don't want anyone to ever know that they hurt my feelings - however, my feelings get hurt, all. the. time. So there you have it.

I believe the solution to move through your feelings with Grace and dignity is honestly sharing them with someone else. It doesn't necessarily have to be to the person that hurt you or made you angry, it can be anyone you choose, as long as you aren't keeping the feelings to yourself. 

It is also important to recognize the times that we, ourselves, have behaved in the same manner as whoever hurt us. This allows us to cultivate compassion for the person and their actions, and to have a better understanding of where they are coming from AND it helps us to understand that nothing anyone else does is ever about us. It is always about them. 

Think of a time you behaved in a way that hurt someone or made someone angry … what was going on for you in that moment?

Allowing yourself to have compassion for the person who hurt you is a good thing, because we can then have more compassion for ourselves as we experience the hurt/when we cause the hurt. This doesn't take away the pain, and it definitely doesn't take away the anger, but it helps to understand that we are all one. And we are all capable of behaving in ways that are less than stellar! 

I would advise you to go ahead and feel this shit now! Express yourself!! Just don't lash out.

Honouring yourself means behaving in ways that align with your morals and values.

Just because I feel anger, doesn't mean I have the right to spread that anger around… it just means I must acknowledge my feelings for exactly what they are in order to move forward.

Once I have acknowledged my feelings, I can then look at MY PART in the situation and this opens me up to the lesson :)

Life is one big learning experience :)

Thanks for reading this and helping me to move through my anger and disappointment.

You guys rule.

After writing this, my anger has pretty much lifted, the feelings of disappointment are still lingering, however, I am positive by sitting with them and speaking about it, I will let that go too!

It works if you work it!! 

Hallelujah!

Love, Kylie

xx

Wild

Sitting here in the window of my local coffee shop writing this blog, I realized that it is just one day shy of a month since my beloved Rob left this earth and I am still here. I am sipping my double americano, watching four retired gentlemen catch up over their morning coffee and I find myself experiencing an overwhelming sense of joy in this moment.

Years ago, my life right now would have terrified me. I don't have a full time job, I don't have a lot of money, I lost one of my best friends and I never know what I am going to do with myself on any given day. I have no structure and by the standards of our society, and what I used to believe, this is definitely all wrong, yet I find myself trusting the process entirely, with my whole heart. I am completely content. 

This moment is absolutely all that we have, and it is all that I want. In each moment, we choose happiness or we don't. We choose whether we recognize the beauty that is all around us, in the every day, simple, even meaningless things or we don't. I believe that everything is woven together in a perfectly laid out plan created by God and with that belief, I allow myself to experience joy.

The last couple of months have been crazy, this last one in particular has been the most difficult of my life, losing someone that I love so deeply is something that I would have never chosen for myself, however, it happened, and I am in awe of my ability to handle it. I am learning with each day that passes, that I can bare the unbearable. WE can bare the unbearable. As human beings we are resilient, we have the ability to overcome the most painful situations with ease IF WE ALLOW ourselves to. 

I believe it is in the allowing that we can actually live. It is in the letting go that we can experience life for what it is actually all about; the moment. 

In letting go, we actually take our power back. In loosening the grip we have on people, places and things and our innate need to control, we can give ourselves the room we need to breathe and actually experience the joy that is all around us.

This in no way means that we don't have goals, or plans, or dreams … of course we do, the Bible teaches us that "Faith without works is dead" and I absolutely agree. However, in my humble opinion, we need to shift the focus away from the striving, the controlling and the getting, and put more emphasis on our faith. Because it is with that faith that we can gracefully work hand in hand with God to create the lives that we have always dreamed of and it is ONLY with that faith that I am personally able to survive and find meaning in the suffering. 

Death taught me, without a shadow of a doubt that I have no control over anything other than the way I choose to act. Death is teaching me how to be a better person, how to not take people, places, things and moments for granted. 

Death has taught me to let go, to trust.

Letting go of my career, letting go of my apartment, letting go of my friend… 

Death teaches us how to live.

I was watching the movie 'WILD' yesterday and what Cheryl says at the end of her journey across the Pacific Coast Trail really hit me … 

"How wild it was, to just let it be"

Amen.

How can you practice letting go today?