This weekend I attended a vulnerability workshop. I had the opportunity to share the room with a group of strong, courageous women. We came together in our path to become more ourselves. Having such wonderful company is always a fantastic way to dig deep down into my heart to find the pieces of myself that are hidden, I found a few new ones this time. Those pieces I found are not exactly new tho, I just saw them from a different perspective. I have had trouble with my temper most of my life. I used to think I had a problem with “anger management”. This weekend I figured out the problem is with shame. I was soooo ashamed of my anger it made me spin out of control. I always thought I was a “bad person” because I had a bad temper. I finally understood my downward spiral is because I didn’t think I had the right to get angry. I thought that is not what “good” people do, that it destroys lives and happiness. Now the question is what do I do with this new piece of information? The issue is not the anger, the problem is the toxic reaction to the anger. The more ashamed I felt, the more I wanted to suppress my anger, the more it exploded!! I am working on accepting and expressing my anger, this is a practice. In the best of days I can feel the rage building up then I snapped, afterward I sit and feel my body shaking uncontrollably, sometimes I cry, and I just let my body move back and forth allowing the tears flow. There are days when I retreat to my “old” habits, if I am lucky I catch myself blaming and I reel back .. I recite something like “I am angry and that is ok” until I am able to think what to be grateful for in that moment. If I am not lucky the shame, the toxicity comes back … I am working on allowing myself to feel all my emotions. I am a complete, complex person, as we all are, with a full range of emotions. I am learning to love myself, all of me, all the pieces even the “inconvenient” ones … to show up in the world just like me, as my full, complete self ….