End The Pain

The 'Gift' Of Rage

One of the lingering side effects of childhood abuse is ... rage!

Rage bubbles up in me ... unannounced ... unexpected ... and uninvited!

Nay! More than bubbles: froths, pukes forth, erupts.

How can rage be a gift?

Or, is it?

It is not a gift when I vent it on those I care about ... or those simply close at hand, when it bursts forth; at the least real provocation.

But, if I can use that rage to write about the wrongs, and to right the wrongs, to fuel and direct the spilling forth of words ... then mayhap it will be a Gift.

The Five Emotions

I forget when I first heard the emotions stripped down to their bare essentials?

Those essentials being mad, glad, sad, and scared.

Then sometime in the past year as I began reflecting on my own experiences I felt that there was something missing. And, that the missing emotion had something to do with sex and sexuality.

So, I was pleased to find confirmation for my idea recently. It came from two sources.

I was talking about the basic emotions with my therapist Lynn Lambert and was listing them off, when she spontaneously added, "And, don't forget Sexual".

Some time ago I was talking with my friend and colleague, Bill Astalnok, about his training at the Hendricks Institute and their work with the core emotions. He gifted me with a small bookmark that gives a reminder checklist of emotional phrases. The other day I happened to glance at it again and was pleasantly surprised to see this phrase, "I feel ... ANGER / JOY / FEAR / SADNESS / SEXUAL about X ISSUE"

So, I'm on the right track.

Healing work needs to deal with all 5 emotional areas.