Editor’s Note: this post was originally published in 2010. New posts on the C2C will return on May 6th 2013.
“I thought that keeping who I am to myself was the same thing as being myself quietly. I discovered it is not.”
-Mark Nepo
It’s evening, about six months ago.
As I write, I feel a burning in my heart. I try to ignore it at first. I have to finish this chapter, anyway, and I fear that expressing this burning would only get in the way of my work.
But as I write, the burning increases and increases. My muscles start to fill up with an excited static, and I can’t sit still.
Something pissed me off earlier in the day and now my response to it is slowly rising from the pit of my stomach. I fear that I will look crazy if I start to express my anger. I fear it will make me look like a bad person, or a person who is not in control of himself.
But then I remember: anger is a perfectly natural emotion.
Recalling this truth, I quickly jump away from my laptop, grab a pillow nearby, and start hammering away at the surface. The energy pushes through me, and the force of my anger hits the pillow.
All the excited static starts to dissipate. The burning in my heart decreases, and decreases, until it is extinguished. I relax.
There is a knock at the door. I open it. A loved one at the other side looks at me with concern and asks:
“Are you okay? I heard someone punching something.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m just getting out all my anger by punching this pillow.”
The loved one looks at me strangely, nods, then walks away.
“She probably thinks I am crazy,” I think. Continue reading
