Wintertime Survival Strategies

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By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I moved to Seattle in 1997, so I have been here—as my kids would say—a “fat minute.” There are a few foods, activities, and products that make life better in the wintertime that I have listed here: We need all the help we can get when the skies are gray and will be so for a long, long time.

1. Sun-a-Lux combo therapy light box: all winter long, I spend the first half an hour to 45 minutes of the day in front of mine, and it helps me feel more energetic. http://www.solarhome.org/browseproducts/SUN-A-LUX-reg;-Combo-Light-Therapy-Box-with-new-Blue-Lux–153;-Technology.html
2. Eufy robotic vacuum: I’m a robotic vacuum geek. Between kids and two dogs with a dog door and a husband, I need the floor cleaned daily.  I’ve had the Roomba, the Shark, the RoboRock, but the Eufy is cheaper and just as good. Warning: never preprogram your robotic vacuums because at least on one occasion, a vacuum that could not dock started a house fire when the lithium battery overheated while the owners were out of town.  Just turn it on when you are around and stay out of its way.
3. Houseplants: in the winter, go to the nursery or hardware store and buy yourself some beautiful houseplants and some lovely ceramic pots to put them in. Even if you have a brown thumb, you will figure it out eventually.  You may need to get a plant light in the winter depending on your window situation.
4. Hamilton Beach single serving coffee maker: Ever since a scientifically knowledgeable girlfriend told me that bottom-heated coffee makers create methylxanthine’s, a volatile chemical compound associated with breast cancer in women, I make single serving coffee, but NOT with a Keurig, because they are environmental disasters.
5. Vitamin D: the Pacific Northwest has one of the highest rates of MS (multiple sclerosis) in the world, and one possible reason is the lack of vitamin D. Consider it an immune system assist.
6. Good Quality Fish Oil: I use Jarrow EPA-DHA Balance formula. There is some research suggesting that fish oil helps with myelinization of the dendrites in our brains, making the chemical messaging more efficient. It is also associated with healthier joints.
7. Green, leafy vegetables: I try to eat Kale or spinach every day. They—like all leafy greens–are anti-inflammatory and associated with a reduction in depression. Get yourself a kick-a*& kale recipe like this one: https://www.femalefoodie.com/recipes/chelseas-kitchen-kale-salad-recipe-hack/  Even if you think you don’t like kale, one bite of this vegetable heaven will make you a believer.
8. A rain hat: okay they look goofy as hell, but if you can go for a walk in the rain and keep your head and face dry, you are more likely to get out there no matter what the weather. And if you are like me, we keep one hand on a cup of coffee when we walk so don’t want to have the other hand holding an umbrella. Embrace your dorkish side!  Be comfortable.
9. A cheap winter getaway. Here in Seattle, Palm Springs is only a 2 ½ hour flight and if you book your tickets in advance, costs around two hundred bucks round trip on Alaska Airlines. You can find affordable Airbnb’s or hotels if you avoid the Coachella/Stage Coach/Indian Wells Tennis Tournament weekends. Yes most of the restaurants there are mostly lousy (not all of them: Vicky’s in Rancho Mirage is wonderful and they have the best house band, and Farm has great food and magical ambiance) but Palm Springs is not the place for culture it’s for….Sun!

So that is my list. What are your favorite wintertime survival strategies?

Redundancy Redux

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by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I recently flew internationally and noticed a few things. First of all, the redundancy. Redundancy is not a bad thing. We have two lungs and two livers and two eyes and two ears, all in case one fails/is damaged. Engineers design for redundancy so that if one safety feature fails, another can take over.

But redundancy is annoying and extremely time consuming. To fly: first show proof of negative Covid test and vaccination and identification at the departure point at check in. Then show identification and have our bodies and carry-ons x-rayed to go through security to get to the gate. Then, show our identification and ticket to get on the plane. At disembarkation, show identification, proof of negative Covid test, have luggage checked and provide declarations of what we are bringing in or back. All of this adds about another six hours to travel time. But it’s for safety. Each of these individual steps are to ensure that the traveler is safe for the airline employees and fellow travelers to be around. They are not infected or carrying dangerous weapons or contraband.

Our brains have two systems that constantly scan for safety and make the TSA look like slackers.  They are the limbic system and the amygdala, and they have one question that reverberates in all novel situations: Am I in danger? These parts reside in our hindbrain, the old brain, the part that was around when we lived in tribes and met up with other tribes in order to trade and/or mate and/or raid and/or murder one another.  Opportunity and danger have always been twinned together.

I’ve been an eager observer and cheerleader of the Me-Too movement and its goal to increase the safety and justice for my kind: girls and women. I am an unapologetic feminist. Females are physically smaller than males. We are less strong. We are less violence prone. Each person’s safety is every person’s responsibility. The vulnerable require and deserve special protections if we want to earn the claim of being a civilized society.

But I’ve been concerned, as a mother of males, as a lover of humankind, as someone who holds fairness as my apex value, how there is now a primitive tendency to frame all uncomfortable or awkward sexual situations as the result of predatory male behavior.

Young people are dumb, dumb, dumb. Literally, as in the old English word dumb, meaning “temporarily unable to speak.” They don’t know how to ask for what they want, identify their emotional needs, set boundaries, to say yes or no in a clear and consistent manner, give or receive honest and constructive feedback, because…they don’t know.  And they have to develop self-awareness and figure out how to communicate these important bits of information by bumbling around, just like we all do.

This lack of ability to speak up effects all genders, and blaming one gender for every mis-attunement is outright unfair. It’s just as toxic as blaming rape victims for looking attractive, or asylum-seeking political refugees for being illegals.

I think we need a greater redundancy system around sexual consent. Especially because boys first and primary exposure to adult sex is via online porn. Porn is expectation poison because it depicts penetration-focused, male-dominance, clitorally ignorant sex that is exactly the opposite of mutually pleasuring, consensual physical contact. Female porn stars are actors. They are pretending to enjoy it. Just like any other actor they are paid to pretend. Entertainment is not reality. Those radio love songs about perfection and adoration don’t depict an actual relationship. Freddy Kruger is not real. King Kong doesn’t exist. And porn is insidiously fake.

Young people need to be willing to ask permission before touching, to ask before progressing from one type of touch to another, and to ask questions like “what feels good to you?” so that sexual exploration is safe and consensual. This also removes the pressure from one party (usually the male) to somehow psychically know what the other party (usually the female) wants. Remember, young people are dumb!  They need extra words between them, and extra time to find their own truth.

All of adulthood is a master class in balancing one’s personal agenda against the validity and importance of other people’s agenda. Our boss, our kids, our spouse, our pets, our friends, and our various community commitments all have agendas for our time and activities.  What we want or need is not always in harmony with these other sources of demands.

We navigate these tensions via communication.  We acknowledge when we can’t fulfill a commitment we have made. We apologize when we disappoint someone who relies on us. We figure out when to end a relationship with an overly needy or demanding person. We suck it up and do what is asked of us when that seems like the important or appropriate thing to do. We take care of our own needs even when it’s inconvenient for the people around us.

I propose more words, more checking in, more time spent planning before acting on sexual impulse. Redundancy shouldn’t just be for fuddy-duddy engineers or bureaucrats or organs. We need consent redundancy.

Flowers

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Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Spring is a special time in the Pacific Northwest. It starts with the puffy white cherry blossoms in late February. Then in March the pink magnolia trees bloom and from April on there is a riot of color: red tulips, yellow daffodils, fuchsia camellias, orange rhododendrons, pink azaleas and purple irises. Every empty patch of dirt is overrun with pretty little blue forget-me-nots. Now, even if the skies are gray the ground is a festival of color. We get more and more sunny days. Everyone’s mood lightens.

It seems like spring is the makeup kiss nature offers us for fighting through the darkness of winter.  During the dark, cold months its easy to forget this beauty is on its way.   

Spring comes regardless of our ability to anticipate it.  And so too the overbaked dryness of summer, the wet and windy autumn, and the dark, chilly winter.

American culture is obsessed with the good-time parts of life. Vapid reality shows feature small-minded hotties who have youth, beauty, fame—all the short lived, spring-like parts of existence. (no offense to the flowers—I’d take the companionship of a peony over a Kardashian any day).

The thing about spring is it cannot go on forever. Flowers are plants in heat, spring is a reproductive cycle that costs all the plant’s energy to put on this fancy show once a year. After flowering, the plant must rest and put energy into photosynthesis, growth and roots.

It is natural to delight in the parts of life that are bright and beautiful. We just need to remember that flowers, beauty and youth are all part of a cycle that includes dormancy, decay and death.  What goes on below the surface, at the root level is what ultimately determines the health and longevity of plants and people.

Hold Fast

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

It is mid-February and the nonmigratory hummingbirds have lost all their natural food sources.  I make nectar and fill the feeders, feeling sorry for the little guys.  They are tiny and live outside in the cold and have no food.  The skies are gray, the air is frigid, and the news a continual cycle of body counts and doom. Even the trees looked depressed with their mossy bare branches scratching the sky.  Covid seems to have lasted for fifty years and we now have new variants to worry about. Youth suicide up. Employment is down.  

And things are about to get better. We have two and soon will have three vaccines. Spring is coming. Those naked tree branches have tiny buds that will burst into leaves and flowers. The sun will come out. The spring flowers will bloom: daffodils, tulips and crocuses.

If you are despairing, take a deep breath and wait. Remember what you look forward to and imagine what it’s like to enjoy it.

If you are depressed, remember that practicing gratitude—even if you don’t feel like it—especially when you don’t feel like it—helps. Always.

Get outside and move.  Clean up a messy part of your house/room/garage/car. Play some saucy music and dance. Read a wonderful novel by your favorite author. Take a bath. Learn how to do something on YouTube. Solve one small problem you have been avoiding.

During the best of times, this part of the year in this part of the world sucks donkey butt. This year the donkey butt-ness is especially awful. Just remember: it’s about to get better. Don’t give up. We are in this together, even while physically apart. And soon we will be able to gather together–friends and family–and tell stories of our survival. Hold fast.

Phases of Healing

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Back in the late 60’s, Swiss psychiatrist and kick ass trail blazer Elisabeth Kubler Ross developed the five stages of grief through her work with terminally ill patients coming to terms with their own death. Those phases have since been applied to everything from death to divorce to disappointment. The five phases are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This framework for sorrow helps normalize and make some sense of the pain of loss.

In my work with trauma survivors, I’ve also noticed recurring patterns of healing.  The first phase is Rigidity and Anger. These are folks who need things just exactly so in their lives. They are often highly productive but not personable. Trauma survivors in this phase usually have more projects than friendships. They are usually workaholics because they don’t trust anyone else’s contributions. They often drop out of therapy because they are not ready for the vulnerability of being seen or having any part of their thinking or behavior challenged.

When the strategy of avoiding feeling by staying busy no longer works due to exhaustion or becoming healthy enough to start feeling the pain left by childhood trauma, trauma survivors enter the Anxiety Free Fall phase. In Anxiety Free Fall there is tremendous fear about future events, personal safety, loved ones, medical and economic vulnerability. They are downright creative in coming up with things to worry about!  They face a constant feeling of looming and inescapable disaster. People in anxiety free fall often seek therapy to relieve the discomfort from finally feeling.

Then comes the hardest phase: Shame and Self-Hatred. Just as rigidity/anger functions as an armor protecting survivors from the anxiety free fall, anxiety is a distraction (ironically a protection) against the underlying pattern of shame and self-hatred.

Why do abused or neglected children learn to hate themselves? First, let’s look at the world at large. Unlike an American courtroom where you are innocent until proven guilty, in the world at large you (and me, and everyone) are irrelevant until proven useful, or interesting, or attractive in some way. Strangers might care about others from of the goodness of their hearts, out of general care for the welfare of our fellow wo(man), but these strangers don’t actually know you enough to care about you personally. The focus of our caring starts with those we know the best, and moves out in concentric circles of distance. We feel the most investment in the wellbeing of those who we personally feel connected to.

This pattern of tribalism is okay as long as everyone is born into a household where they are flat out adored just for showing up on the planet. In a reasonably healthy family, each and every baby is the best thing that ever existed. Every child is a source of delight and wonder. This experience of being precious, worthy, special, smart and beautiful in one’s family is the counterbalance to the world at large, which says “you don’t matter until you prove your value.”

In families that are deeply unhealthy, babies are not adored. Children are a burden. And they are told this in a number of ways: rough handling, resentful or bored facial expressions, lack of touch, ignoring, screaming, pinching, hitting, etc.

An un-adored baby in a world of prove-your-worth is filled with a sense of emptiness and insecurity. There’s no tap root of knowing “I’m special” inside that person to counterbalance the world’s apathy.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we can all move towards the phase of Healing. Just as the deepest wounds are inflicted relationally–by the very people who are supposed to take care of us–the deepest healing also comes this way. In a healthy love relationship, people develop a sense of personal value. They discover that they matter to another person, and that allows them to matter to themselves. This is a slow process because it’s a total change in personal identity.  Evidence of healing is both internal and behavioral:  they take less dangerous risks but more emotional risks. They take breaks from work, protect time to sleep, eat vegetables.  As they discover that they are lovable even while being imperfect, they stop hyper focusing on their own and other people’s flaws. (Which reminds me of the perfect bumper sticker I saw this week: “Proud parent of a great kid who can occasionally be an asshole and that’s okay”)

In a healthy relationship—which can be love, friendship, therapy or any combination of the three–we can reprogram our sense of value from “nothing” to “special.” Not everyone will feel this way about us. In fact, most of them won’t give us a second thought. Because they don’t know us well enough to have an opinion.  Pop culture aside, we cannot and do not need to impress everyone. We just need to *adore* ourselves, and hopefully, have a few other folks in our lives who join our fan club, as we also join theirs.

What To Do When There’s Nothing To Do

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Pexels.com

Here in Washington state, our governor just clamped down restrictions to slow the spread of the Corona virus and prevent deaths. In this strange time, we must minimize contact with the outside world. Our winter rituals have changed. No longer do we gather in extended family and friend groups around a table filled with communal food. No longer do we lighten the dark, chilly days with the warmth of our tribe.

Collectively we are in the wilderness, looking for ways to find comfort and remember: even the longest winter ends.  And then comes spring. We are left hoping. Hoping a decent vaccine will be made. Hoping our world will return to some semblance of safe-enough. Hoping to return to our offices and schools. Hoping we can once again take up our petty concerns and stop tracking projected body counts.

When my twins were born, premature and medically fragile, I looked forward to the day I could get mad at them for stupid things: leaving socks on the floor, refusing broccoli.  Trivial annoyance meant they were safe, and I longed to be free of the terror of their deaths.  (I got my wish. So. Many. Piles. Of. Objects…So. Much. Food. Pickiness.)

We don’t think about irritation as evidence of good luck, but guess what people in real crisis are not doing? They are not thinking about who owes them a text back or how many weeds in their own yard came from the neighbor’s non-gardening.

There are some deep healing opportunities within this Covid restriction time. We live in a cornucopia of distractions: the news, Netflix, pasta, Paris, Amazon, beer, books, pot, porn, gambling, virtual farming, cat collecting, this world offers distraction 24/7.

With Covid getting worse, some of those distractions are no longer available. Loss of distractions is uncomfortable at first. What do we do with ourselves? With our time? We can comfort ourselves by doubling down on the ones that are still in our grasp. Numbing out with food and television was already a national pastime before Covid, and it’s only become more common.

Or we can try something else. With the television off and phone down, there is an opportunity to sit alone in the company of our own consciousness. Try this. Take stock of what you notice, feel, and think.

In this moment I’m sitting in my sweet little backyard office. The space heater is noisy. The amber light bulbs above my desk cast a weak ring of light. It’s still dark out, and the shapes of the tree branches shade the sky. I’m tired but also proud of myself for waking up early. I’ve been wrestling with non-writing, trying and failing to become more productive. I wish I craved writing like I crave coffee. But I don’t. I regret this.

If you want to grow emotionally, to be more resilient and kinder there is a simple way. All we have to do, in any given moment, is to notice and then tolerate whatever feelings arise. The good feeling ones and the bad feeling ones have this in common: They won’t last forever. A moment of irritation will turn into a moment of gratitude and then we might feel hungry. Or bored. Or overwhelmed. Or sad. Or playful. Or focused. Or inspired.

Today I’m going to try and tolerate feelings, one moment at a time.

The Right Amount of Responsibility

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Many of the good people I see had really rough childhoods. Their psychological diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.  PTSD usually manifests in symptoms such as flashbacks, pervasive anxiety, an exaggerated startle response, dislike of surprises, controlling behavior and a sense of coming danger, as if they are always bracing for the other shoe to drop. The public has heard of PTSD, so the label provides trauma survivors an explanation of some of their behaviors and struggles.

But today, I want to go deeper into the effects of trauma. Let’s talk about self-blame. First, some basic developmental information: all kids think their parents are gods. Because the adults taking care of them have so much more power, life experience, understanding and agency then they do, children believe they control the world. And in a small way they do: they control (most of) the child’s world. I remember having a conversation with my son when he was four years old.

“Mommy, I want you to make it stop raining.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t control the weather.”

“Mommy just give it your best.”

“Sweetie. I can’t make it start or stop raining.”

“You can! You’re not even trying!” (starts crying in frustration).

Children believe their caretakers know everything and can do anything. Parents are the absolute compass for children, ever pointing in the “right” direction. So, when caretakers beat them, ignore them or sexually abuse them, the children blame themselves for causing it to happen. They think “it’s because I’m bad.”

And the perpetrators of abuse also add to this mistaken belief. They say things like,

                “You were asking for it.”

                “It’s your fault.”

                “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

Self-blame is a perfectly reasonable survival mechanism for a young and dependent creature living in a dangerous family. It keeps the world in order. Parents remain gods. It allows them to believe change is possible: if this happens because I’m bad, well I can always change. Self-blame protects abused/neglected children from despair. It keeps them submissive and obedient to their parent/abusers, so more likely to survive and get some emotional needs met. In a dangerous childhood, self-blame makes a ton of sense.

News flash: it’s false. It never was and never could be the child’s fault that they are abused or ignored.  Even though this belief system helped children survive lousy childhoods, it’s toxic to maintain in adulthood. Self-blame keeps trauma survivors committed to partners who are dishonest or unreliable, or who consistently berate and devalue them.  It keeps them working long hours for withholding bosses.  It makes it extremely difficult for them to set boundaries and follow through with consequences when other people trounce those boundaries. Self-blame is a false belief that needs to be grown out of, as soon as safety is attainable.

On the other end of the problematic coping style, there are those who refuse to take personal responsibility. Entitlement issues are also forged in childhood. Parents who don’t feel proud of themselves convey a religious-type worship of external accomplishments and accolades to their children. These kids grow up thinking they must become Nobel laureates or supermodels or Russel Wilson in order to be lovable. Because the mark of acceptability is so lofty, they never make it.  Then they feel inferior, and hide it by pretending to be blameless and perfect. Because that is what they had to pretend to be in order to feel approved of as a child.

When entitled folks screw up, they can’t take responsibility.  This is a problem because accepting reasonable responsibility is just as important as not taking over-responsibility.

It means admitting mistakes, apologizing WIITHOUT qualification, and understanding that one’s own comfort and convenience is of equal value to others. It means playing by the rules and not thinking of oneself as special or deserving extra cookies.  People who cannot take personal responsibility often partner with…. those who take too much!  It’s a perfect, gnarly marriage of entitlement to codependence.  

We are all in this world trying to heal the wounds of our childhoods.  The good and bad news is: if you struggle, you are not special.  We all share this story of personal growth and joy and pain.

Of Plants and People

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

As the Equinox draws near, signs of spring are everywhere. Crocuses poke their fragile heads up from the ground, fat buds of future flowers weigh down the tips of rhododendrons and camellias in the garden. The snowfall and rain made the earth heavy and wet. I’ve been swapping around roses and hydrangeas, responding to new light patterns after the weight of the snow broke off tree branches that created shade.  The hydrangeas need filtered, indirect light and the roses prefer strong, baking sun.

People are like plants in the garden; different people need different things. Some people thrive best with low levels of stimulation. For these folks, a trip to the market on a Sunday afternoon constitutes all the weekend excitement they need. Others are more stimulation seeking and need social, physical and intellectual pursuits during down time.

The hydrangea is a picky beauty. She needs a lot of water and ample shade. But she’s also a prolific bloomer and one of the only flowers that doesn’t need dead-heading. Worth it! Roses, meanwhile are just as needy. While you don’t have to water them nearly as frequently, they need fertilizer, protection from leaf mold, aphids, deep watering, and plenty of sunlight. You will stab and slice yourself if you keep roses because no matter how careful you are, thorns are sneaky. But a rose in full bloom is the one of the greatest delights. Well, after puppies. And our own children.

In this time of transition, think about your needs. No matter how resilient or tough you are, if you are not taking care of yourself, you will not be able to express your full potential. Like my hydrangeas and roses, you might need a new environment or some other small or large change to be at your best. The cool thing about being human is we have both brains AND mobility. Plants, alas do not. You must cultivate your environment (relationship, home, job, friends, education, activities) to meet your needs. I wish you great success in the garden of your life!

How to Change the World

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Photo by Fabian Reitmeier on Pexels.com

A sense of personal agency—that powerful feeling of having the ability to make your life mostly the way you want it—is a historically unprecedented capacity for women and a luxury that largely belongs mainly to the privileged (Caucasian cis-gender) citizens of the western world.

Context acknowledged, most of my readers are those genetically and geographically and gender-identifying (ha! Try saying that five times in a row, fast!) fortunate Americans, so you have massive capacity for personal agency, but may not quite know it.

What does personal agency have to do with mental health?  Only everything! If you feel you can point yourself in the direction you want to go—make a new friend, finish your degree, negotiate a raise, adopt fifteen stray cats,—then you can figure out a strategy to get there—strike up a conversation with your neighbor, research university programs designed for working adults, make a list of job accomplishments and ask for a meeting with your boss, invest in an industrial sized bag of kitty litter.

Without personal agency, life is just happening to us. We are at the mercy of the economy, the whims of our boss, the vicissitudes of life.  Like children awaiting dinner and hoping for pasta, we have wants but are passive, and passivity equals powerless.

Girls in particular are raised to deny their needs. In order to be ladylike and nurturing, we are taught to take care of everyone else first and then (only if there is time) to attend to ourselves. Boys meanwhile, are taught to “shake it off” when they are physically injured and shamed “don’t be a baby” when they are emotional. Girls are raised to accommodate everyone except themselves, and boys are raised to dominate everyone including themselves.  It’s crappy social programming resulting in massive, unresolved pain and the compulsive need to escape it.

This creates a society of men and women who are completely estranged from their authentic selves, from the internal voice that knows our deepest needs and wants, and therefore has no power to fulfill them.  This estrangement and the resulting feelings of emptiness creates enormous resentment and insatiability.

It’s why we have major obesity epidemic in our country: because unmet needs show up in crooked ways and calories are comforting when you work twelve hours a day or stuff your pain down because your life fits like a too-small pair of shoes. Its why pot shops are becoming as common as coffee shops here in the Seattle landscape: because if you are hurting and don’t know how to make the pain stop, you just want to distract yourself from the pain. It’s why so many people can’t hang out alone without a television on in the background or a phone screen in their hand. Distraction is easier than taking responsibility for changing your life, but folks: Taking responsibility is a LOT more powerful, interesting and liberating.

The only way out of this mess is taking time to get to know yourself. There are a million ways to go about it: meditation, journaling, time alone in nature, reflection time over coffee, any creative practice, building things, moving slowly in silence, stillness. You need just three ingredients: curiosity, solitude and quiet. Curiosity is like an opening into the possible, it’s a deeply spiritual state. And we can’t enter into a state of curiosity about ourselves in the midst of other people or distractions of any form.

As we move through autumn, with its slower pace and gorgeous foliage, I wish for you dear reader, protected time to get in touch with yourself so that you can find out what you need deep down, below the incessant and noisy surface wants. Try saying “no” to a few demands on your calendar, and reinvest that time into yourself. Take a candle-lit bath. Go for a slow walk in a beautiful setting.

I wish you great patience with your wants and needs, and faith in your own secret strength and power.  I wish you to exercise your personal agency to make your life a beautiful, sturdy, comfortable fit.

 

The Genius of Anger

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

When I was a kid I loved magnifying glasses. They seemed like a magical portal to a secret world: like Alice in Wonderland drinking the elixir which made her shrink and grow, magnifying glasses changed everything. Ants went from simple black specks to armored warriors.  Grass became a complex, mysterious world of sharp edges and shadows. Sunlight went from general brightness to burning laser. I yearned to someday own an old fashioned, wooden handled magnifying glass.

I’ve come to think of anger as a type of magnifying glass. If that sounds random (and it probably does) bear with me. Anger offers—demands–we pay attention to our core values. We get angry when we believe that something or someone is threatening our core values. Anger magnifies our emotion to get us to pay attention to and protect our values.

Now there are folks out there who get mad at everything and everyone: the weatherman for predicting rain, the government for collecting taxes, the neighbor for taking too long to pull in their trashcans. To these folks I’d say get therapy (but not me, I don’t enjoy your kind). They also are responding to a perceived threat to their value system but like a rescue dog who bites when frightened, they lack the emotional wellbeing to tell when they should and should not feel safe.

I’m addressing this blog to the vast majority of us who are not constantly (and tediously!) angry, but who struggle with recognizing anger as a useful tool in navigating relationships.  Typically, we feel angry when we feel duped, taken advantage of, disrespected, or mistreated in some way. Likewise, we feel angry when these things happen to someone we care about. Anger holds in its flaming heart the certain knowledge that we are WORTH something, that we are precious and worth protecting. Healthy anger is the safeguard of self-esteem.

Seen through this lens, anger is a useful reaction to a threat to the safety of connection between people. Anger is fuel propelling us with courage to stand up for ourselves, to set boundaries, to name the thing that we cannot and should not ignore. Anger is a wicked cool sword that cuts through the bullshit of pandering and placating to show us our own raw truths.

Skillful communication of anger protects relationships by protecting boundaries. If I don’t allow myself to be mistreated, I can stay safely connected. If I let myself be mistreated I either have to give up my safety or I have to sever the relationship. Anger is the opposite of apathy, and apathy is the opposite of love. Anger and love are inextricably wound into all of the relationships we treasure because every deep, long term connection involves imperfect people. All of us make mistakes, have blind spots and character flaws, lack complete understanding and inevitably fail one another at different times.

So if you want love in your life, be prepared to sometimes be pissed off. Be prepared to piss off the ones you love. Allow the experience to slow you down, just like a magnifying glass in the hands of a curious kid. Anger springs from your deepest values and offers lessons about areas of yourself that you need to refine: your expectations, your boundaries, your capacity to hang in there and stay respectful. It teaches you how to meet the world without being a doormat. Anger gives insight into your own code of fairness. When you or the ones you love are angry, don’t run away, but rather magnify the moment. Be prepared to listen and to speak your truth.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com