I love to write but as I train to be a Psychosexual Therapist I get told off for my weblog because it is honest and open about me ( bizarrely, that is not allowed. I am supposed to be inhuman and beyond reproach! Yikes. Not much chance of that.). There is much I do not tell, and I have learned over the years to be careful. I am constantly surprised by who reads it and so adjust the version of my reality that makes it’s way into the ethers. It is not always the whole truth.
But it is time to write again and the subject is a badly behaved one…………..Anger.
An interesting topic and one that is very challenging to deal with.
Ask a room full of women “who is angry?” And I kid you not, the whole room will raise a hand. Ask the same question in mixed company and a different result will transpire. Most of the married women will look down and most of the men will laugh, uncomfortably.
Anger is an inappropriate emotion for women to express. The responses are many and not very varied, mostly along the lines of bitch, cow, slag….. an angry woman is seen as a frightening creature, one that is shunned, vilified and largely, ignored. We are taught, and propound this odd reality by not expressing anger appropriately, nor are we seen as angry in the media, that an angry woman is a bad thing to see, experience, know, be in a room with.
I had a phase of looking at the newspapers to see the images of women, how we are portrayed on a daily basis and it is not good. Anger is expressed by soldiers, Muslims, footballers, politicians (who are mostly male apart from the stunningly angry and out there Australian Prime Minister), and all women shown are either Angela Merkel, bikini-clad or incontinent and selling Stanner Stair Lifts.
We, those of us who admit to anger are few and far between. Personally, I am often extremely irritated, frequently annoyed and at times, down right furious. I have learned not to rage, though. Such unpleasant after-shocks, I have no truck with it in myself or anyone else. And having lived with a rager for 20 years it leaves me cold.
So now an interesting combination of realities: divorce, selling my house because of a court order, single parent with precious little maintenance, mother of a teenager and Oh, yes, running a business under the aegis of a Conservative Government in a recession…. I have a sense of humour, clearly, but boy, do I get irritated.
Of course the short circuit is “oh, you must be menopausal….” So I looked it up.
Symptoms, anger, irritation, mood swings. Seems that being female is actually a diagnosable pathology and if I choose to, I can let it all get swamped in the umbrella of “The Menopause”….
I thought those were the side effects of being female in the 21st century. I did not realise they meant I was unwell. Does it help that my anger can be justified and swallowed by menopause?
No, and actually, why can’t I be angry?
The banks are bastards, the law is an ass and a female mid-life crisis does not seem to lead to a bright red sports car, but hours in run down National Health clinics waiting for blood tests and doctors to say yes, you are old and grumpy. Oops, sorry, menopausal.
Now where am I left at the end of this? Honest, open, aware that I am talking heresy here, and actually not saying don’t be angry, get cured, take HRT, but I can lead you to interesting meditations, and practices that make the feelings bearable, give good boundaries so you can be angry without it making you feel morally reprehensible, and all are tools for empowerment.
Frankly I think a lot of anger is highly appropriate right now towards all of those mentioned above, the soldiers, Muslims, footballers, and politicians who are behaving in ways that are seriously affecting all of us.
So the empowerment lies here: A good meditation to calm anger is Sitali Pranayam.
A meditation for Conquering Inner Anger
My Youtube Channel is a vast resource. There are loads of meditations, techniques, yoga sets etc there….