This is going to be short.

Sometimes it is tempting to moan.

And bitch.

And complain.

Don’t!

However, it is important to move that negative stuff away- all the stuff we want to moan and bitch and complain about.

It doesn’t do to hide it  or come over all false brightness….

So what to do?

Express.

Release.

Clear.

But in a “held” and controlled way.

What do I mean by that?

Clearing the shade

Everything (and I use absolutes with care) has a dark and a light side.

Think about it.

If you are angry the dark is the distress your anger can cause but the light is that your anger is serving you- it may be a “righteous anger” that spurs you on, or it may be a message to yourself that you need to take time out.  If you stay in the dark by feeding the anger with self-righteousness or by repetition, then you don’t get to feel better, only angrier.

You might sneer at your husband or shout out your kids or not return that phone call from your mother.  (Anger becomes resentment really quickly).

If however, you can own your anger, express it in a safe way which does no harm, then you can learn its lesson and (using the example above), either harness its power to make necessary changes or give yourself a break.

Same with guilt.  Stay in the shade with your guilt and you only get guiltier and that’s ugly.  That’s the dark side.  Own it, witness  it and it stops being the bogie man under the bed and releases power you didn’t know you had.  That’s the light side.

Would you rather live in the shade or in the light?

Putting on the light

The light bulb can’t be on and off at the same time.

The truth is, there isn’t a grey area and yet we are complex human beings.  When we are in the middle of something it all seems mixed up.  But

when you start identifying parts it all gets easy.

When you break down things into parts it stops being overwhelming and starts to be doable.  You can start putting on those light bulbs one by one.

For example, if you are angry, there’s the anger and there’s the trigger.  Clear the anger and you are able to look at the trigger clearly and do something about it.

For example, to take an example from my own life, I used to get triggered when my ASD daughter wouldn’t (note the language here) hold her head in such a way that the shampoo wouldn’t run into her eyes.  The fact is, the way she feels her body doesn’t include really being able to tell her neck’s angle!  Just too difficult for all sorts of reasons!  I knew my irritation was unreasonable but it kept coming up when it was washing hair time…not nice for either of us.  And of course I felt guilty for getting irritated with something that she really had no control over.  When I cleared my anger in a safe way (ie not at bath time and not with her), it became clear that its real cause wasn’t that my daughter wouldn’t hold her head properly (!!!!) but that I didn’t want her to be hurt.  The irritation came from love.  Well, that made sense to me and since then, because I wasn’t in the shade at bathtime, it has become perfectly easy and fun.

This example is so tiny, yet that is why I used it.  This is everyday stuff.  This was such a small irritation that I never even thought to mention it to anyone, ever, yet it affected an everyday sort of activity.

Think about what can happen when we stay in the shade with more important stuff?  Ugly.

So clear your shade

Check out this post and it tells you how.

Or get in touch with me and we’ll talk.

Light or shade? your choice