Anger as Shadow and LIGHT

Anger is a shadowy energy in our culture, especially for women. There is very little encouragement for women in our culture to be angry and to use this strength as empowerment. Anger's gift is strength. When we deny our anger, it goes into shadow and becomes a resentment, rage or we act it out passive-aggressively. We are so conditioned to be "nice" that this energy of anger is often acted out on ourselves and others. It is a misuse of this emotion. We must eat, shop, caretake, judge, blame, gossip, compulsively clean, etc., to keep the emotion of anger at bay. This must be unlearned and then anger must be embraced. Anger offers the gift of strength and understanding that our boundaries or someone elses' are being violated and action is called for.

As women, one of the greatest and most potent interventions on our own shadows around anger, addiction and any other way we are allowing ourselves to be victimized by ourselves or others is through embracing our healthy ANGER. When we use our anger with intention, care and wisdom, it becomes a force for good.

We begin to trust our intuition, know that this emotion is providing us important information and begin to set the boundaries that are called for in our lives. Healthy anger also points us in the direction of having the communications we need to have with others and we learn to take action for self-care and self-love. This honesty with ourselves and intentional use of the energy that anger provides us creates authentic connections with others. We can not have authentic connections with ourselves or others without the ability to feel and access healthy anger.

While it may go against many if not all of the conditioning in families, churches, educational institutions and social mores that we've learned, it is a good and necessary practice that we begin to invite healthy anger into our spiritual and psychological toolbox. As we do and use it with wisdom and discernment, our relationships with self and others begin to deepen into authentic connections that inspire and empower mutually.

So with support, practice and consistency, we can begin to embrace and honor our anger. We say, "anger is my friend" and we repeat as needed.

With love,

Sally

The Lioness, Mighty and Beautiful....

I had a dream this week in which I was at my mother's home and there was a lioness trying to get in the kitchen through the screen door. I knew I had to stop her and keep her out of the house. I was successful in pushing her snout out and was able to close and lock the screen door twice. The third time, however, I realized that I could not continue with this and eventually she would win. I let the lioness in through the screen door and decided to try and befriend her. It seemed my only option and worth the risk.

I released the door, let her in and laid on the floor letting her smell me. We were soon nose to nose and I was massaging her jowls. We were admiring each other with great affection. In my dream, I felt relief and knew that she was going to be a strong ally and friend to me.

As I was telling this dream to my husband, I teared up realizing the symbolism of a lioness and of me befriending her. It was really about me befriending my own power and beauty and not resisting these parts of myself. Sometimes we are as afraid of what is grand and magnificent about us as that over which we feel shame and guilt. The lion and lioness are also symbols of aggression, power, protectiveness and domination. I know that, as a woman, I am often hyper-vigilant about offending people or appearing "too" aggressive. I know women who are strong, outspoken and in their own power are not often welcomed in our culture. The dream was a reminder to welcome all these parts of myself. It was a reminder to stay awake and aware of the ways in which I attempt to keep myself hidden and small.

The depth with which we are able to authentically love another person is the extent to which we have learned to embrace and deeply love all of who we are. Embracing our shadows~both in their beauty and in their ugliness~means the fullest expression of who we are and who we are not. It allows for us to offer the same acceptance and compassion to others, inviting them out of their own hiding. We offer courage to them as they risk showing themselves, all of themselves, to us. We can offer this to them, however, only to the extent that we have risked exposure ourselves.

Jung suggested that within our shadows, those hidden and repressed parts of ourselves, lie our creativity. Creativity means to bring something into being, into expression and existence. In order to do this with our full self expression and in our own unique way means that we must risk exposing our shadows and those parts of us we keep hidden. It seems a risk worth taking, like befriending the Lioness who becomes our great ally, protecter and one of exceptional beauty.

In service of exposing our shadows, both dark and bright,

Sally