WHERE DOES A MAN PUT HIS RAGE? + Invite for ALIVE | Love Letters From Flora | 31
You are invited to ALIVE - a free live online experience. 9/29.
Part practice. Part transmission, teaching, story telling. Part your questions. Fully present. Fully alive.
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ALIVE
You are yelling, the words come out of your mouth way faster and louder than usually. Or your fist already punched. You raised your voice, your hand. Or you are pressing your teeth together, forcing the corners of your mouth up into a fake smile. In case your body awareness is there, you might notice churning, contraction, nauseating rage bubbling up in your belly. You get angry, fucking mad. All you feel is heat, you can barely see anything, your vision blurs. All you want to do is destroy, punch, go to fucking where. Where do you turn all that? Where do you put it? Where is it even welcome, celebrated, wanted, needed? Coming back to my hypothesis, good guys don't get angry. Except, of course, they do. Anger is a super valid part of being human. Boundaries get crossed. We feel threatened, violated, frustrated, competitive, protective, hungry, unloved, and this primordial consciousness to kill takes over. Let's agree on one thing here: rage exists. Anger exists. Fury exists. Question is: where do we put it? Where does it go?
ALIVE
THE STORY
I'm taking you back to Austria, Law 2.0. During this period of my life, as a matter of personal sanity, I attended some very powerful, insightful nervous-system presencing trainings, which highly inform my methodology to this day. Let me se the room for you. A remote former ranch in the Austrian countryside in December. The air is still and cool. The group of around 50 people is gather in the seminar room for a lecture and practice. I'm seated on a couch, people beside me. Our teacher is speaking. I have no memory of how we got there, but we did. He speaks about the suppression of anger in men because of the lack of healthy outlets. There simply are no places really in society in general for being angry and expressing it. So, once again, we learn to suppress it, shove it down, ignore it, brush over it, pretend it's non existent, it's not a big deal. He kept on going, I will never forget the tone of his voice, the gravity, as he said, "Suppressed anger can sometimes emerge sexually." Something in me was so hit by that. I felt heat crawling on my skin. My centre of gravity lowering. My legs heavy like led and simultaneously figedy. I wanted to disappear into that couch. Somebody asked a question. And I left. My hearing stopped working. The only sound I heard was my own blood rushing in my head. My life force left my body. A yelp emerged from my mouth. My body slid down the couch. Something in me died. I felt a hand on my knee. At the speed of light, my teacher had lunged towards me and kind of brought me back into my body, a little bit. And that was an extremely uncomfortable place to be in. It began to shake uncontrollably. I was unable to speak. I kind of felt shame, for having interrupted everything, but also not, because there was simply no other way. We had some kind of conversation, which concluded in me asking to be outside, and accompanied by a woman and a man, I requested those two humans specifically. I wanted to lay down on earth, cool, damp. I let my back sink into her. And I was shaking, trembling, still uncontrollably. My breath was like a dragons. It was the only way I could do this, feeling something far larger than my individual story. I did big work there.
ALIVE
My body knew how to do this work, my hand held, my foot held by friends, my body held by earth. All I could do was allow for it to move through me. There was no question, no hesitation, no making less or smaller. There was simply no space for that. This was way more powerful than me, or my cerebral choice. My body led the way, and all I could to was let her, trust her. We stayed out there for a long time. An hour, or two. I got to release some of that anger that was pushed into me, sexually, not only myself, but women. Women of my own lineage. All women. They were right there with me, encouraging me, thanking me.
My mind heard a teaching. My body heard far more than that, and responded to exactly that enormity.
I am grateful for my capacity. For some time, I held a grudge against my teacher, for having it let come so far. Ultimately, I did find solace and reconciliation for this moment and time, having one of the most visceral experiences of my nervous system I can remember, and the space to feel it and heal it in this environment.
THE PATTERN
Where does aggression go when it has nowhere to go? We weaponize it, against others or ourselves, harming ourselves, or the ones around us. The fist goes through the wall. Or into a face. The other extreme is suppressing it, swallowing it, internalizing it and letting it fester in our bones. Neither teaches us how to actually be with anger. There are some fine and important distinguishes to be made here: anger does not equal violance. Aggression does not equal abuse. Intensity does not equal danger. You see, it truly is a question of the external expression of internal experience. A strong No can show up as anger. It means enough. Back away. A boundary was crossed. I need protection. I need space. I am fucking here.
ALIVE
And, crazy thing, anger and Eros are both life force. They both fiercely protect our aliveness, or life. They are different expressions of the same fire. Sexual energy says: I want. Fuck. Anger says: I don't want. Fuck off. Consciousness to fuck. Consciousness to kill. (This is a highly advanced practice I teach clients who've been working with me for an extended period of time). Perhaps you even notice them in your body in a similar way. A trembling, a shiver. A repellant push, a magnetic pull. Both contain tremendous charge. Both can be suppressed. Both can become destructive when unconscious. Both have a certain reputation, and are so often not wanted, shamed, shunned. But also, both can become sources of puissant power when we build enough capacity to stay present with them. Allow for the charge, feel its charge without being possessed by it. Here comes to Erotic Intelligence in its highly sophisticated expression. Once again, capacity is the expansion and the key, not elimination.
Do you have any idea how often I kick and punch pillows?
ALIVE
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