June 7, 2024 • 43 mins
What does healthy aggression have to do with me? Why are so many people walking around unable to tap into anger? Let's chat about it!
Sleepy Sisters podcast is hosted by Elizabeth Brink and Sarah Durham. This show is unedited and often unprepared for, so we hope you enjoy our resistance to perfection!
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:02):
Sarah, welcome back to the sleepy sisters Podcast. I'm
Elizabeth brink, I'm SarahDurham, and we are going to talk
about healthy aggression,because we keep bringing it up
in different episodes, and it'sbeen something that, at least
for me, Elizabeth, I've had iton my mind a lot lately
(00:23):
in my household, so thoughtmaybe we would chat about it
today.
Full transparency, this will bea shorter episode, because it's
also summer break here, and mykids are unsupervised
downstairs, and they have beenslightly unhinged this morning,
so I'm not sure how this will goand if they will actually make
(00:44):
an appearance.
And guess what? We're not goingto edit it out. We're just going
to go. You will hear them if youfollow me on Instagram.
Yesterday, shared a story that Ihad a consult call really early
in the morning, and one of thekids ran in to say, there is a
real emergency. I think Iclogged the toilet. It was just
one of those moments where I'mon camera, couldn't
(01:06):
do a thing about it, andthankfully, this other person
laughed. And I was like, Okay,I'll be right there. And it was
at the end of the conversation.
So they were like, Okay, I'lllet you go. I'm like, Okay, what
a nice out. If only they woulddo that for me, like when I want
them to get me out of aconversation anyway, healthy
aggression. So I wanted to say acouple things about this, to
start, becausepeople may be like, what is
(01:29):
that? What are you talkingabout? So in somatic
experiencing, there is this termthat we call Healthy aggression.
Peter Levine, the creator of setalks about healthy aggression
as life force energy. So if youthink about aggression and
anger, the fight response andyour nervous system, if you
(01:51):
think of that as life forceenergy, that energetically when
you experience anger and thefight response you are coming
into contact with this energywithin you that is fully
motivated to protect you and tomake sure that you survive, that
(02:12):
you live. And so it's it can bea really powerful energy. It can
be a really powerful source ofenergy for most people,
I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna saythat for most people, this is an
energy that is thwarted fromvery early on in your life. It
(02:34):
is disciplined out of a lot ofus, and it is culturally and
socially disciplined out of usand maybe even in our
households, if you carryidentities that are different
from mine, which mine are whiteand CIS and
(02:56):
all those things, I'm licked mybrain today. Sorry y'all but if
you are, you know, if you're aperson who has certain
disabilities, or you are aperson of color, or you
are poor or poor, like yourrelationship to anger is very
different, and so definitelywant To acknowledge that and say
(03:20):
that, you know, generationally,we are taught and passed down
how to handle this particularemotion, if we're allowed to
handle it at all, and that someof what we say and share today
may not resonate with yourexperience. And so we also want
to say for people who do have asimilar experience to us that
(03:43):
like, Hey, your experience isnot everyone's experience. Your
ability to access anger or notof your own choosing, is a
privilege, and not everybody hasthat privilege, unfortunately.
But back to speaking about it ashealthy aggression, and there's
maybe more I should say there tohedge I didn't prepare because
(04:04):
that's because we don't do that.
So I hope you can give us alittle grace and just hear that
I'm saying relationships tothings like anger and aggression
and cultural norms andexpectations and what it means
to be safe are varied fromperson to person, so
(04:26):
hopefully nothing we say isharmful, and if so, please reach
out and tell us so we cancorrect it.
Yeah, so healthy aggression islife force energy has really
been giving me a run for mymoney in my household and I,
when I started SomaticExperiencing training, the
module where we talked about thefight response and a thwarted
(04:50):
fight response, which is whenyou want to fight back and you
can't, so you just push it down,you contain it. When we had that
session, I approached ourteacher machine.
And was like, Are you saying I'man angry person?
And y'all, it was like thesecond module. So she's like, I
don't know you,but I think her response was
probably like, it depends,because that's what she says to
(05:12):
a lot of things. And but it wasso activating in my system, I
can even feel a little bit of ofit right now, a little buzzy in
my cheeks, and like there isthis energy in me, and I, even
as I'm I jokingly, kind of saidthat to her, I also, internally,
I have a sense of me as an angryperson. And I I have for a very
(05:36):
long time, I don't know if I canremember back to when or where I
first had an awareness of like,I can get angry and I can, like,
hulk out.
But I definitely in friendshipsand in dating relationships,
especially in datingrelationships, I could access my
(05:59):
aggression and my anger and allof that fury inside of me, and
could be really mean, could bebiting and sarcastic and rude or
like impatient. There's allthese ways it can look, and I
think my relationship to thathas been a lot of shame, and a
lot of that is a bad way to bein the world and
(06:23):
generally it can be harmful,right? And so when I started
learning about healthyaggression, it really forced me
to look back into the feelingsof anger and frustration and
kind of reframe them and see,like, Well, were there parts of
(06:43):
that that were healthy, or whatpart of this is like my nervous
system sending me a messagethat, like, hey, there's a
threat here, and maybe you doneed to speak up. Maybe there is
a boundary you need to set. SoI've been
practicing trying to find waysto actually discharge healthy
(07:06):
aggression, and it's somethingwe do in somatic experiencing
with clients. It's somethingI've done with my own
practitioner, and it's somethingI've been trying to do with my
family, because there's a lot ofaggression in our household on
any given day,which just generally looks like
frustration. So I wouldn't saythere is. It's not teetering
toward abuse. It's more likejust people with, you know, loud
(07:29):
voices, lots of loud, angryfeels in every direction, yeah,
yeah. And the like, guttural,like, we call it hulking out,
because it is kind of like thisguttural, like just, it's not
even always a directedcommentary, and it's not always
just the kids. So I think, youknow, this has been helpful for
(07:54):
me to think about, what does itmean to be in touch with the
part of me that says somethingis not right here.
And what do I do with that whenI get that message? And is there
a way to connect with that thatdoesn't create fear and
immobilization in me, right?
Because the habit is make thatstop and pretend you don't feel
(08:15):
that way, get that out of here.
And so that's been a lot of theexploration we've been doing.
There's lots of differentexercises and stuff we've been
trying in our house.
But that's kind of why I wantedto bring the topic here too,
because we've mentioned it acouple of times, and I think
it's something that is worthkind of playing with in your
(08:37):
mind and thinking about, like,can I access the fight response
and healthy aggression when it'sneeded. Like, can I stand up for
myself? Can I draw a boundary?
Can I speak up? And if I can't,or I really struggle or feel
really afraid, then like, maybethere's something here to be
curious about.
(08:59):
So Sarah, what do you thinkabout when you hear the term
healthy aggression?
Yeah, so a lot of this stuffthat you said resonate. I mean,
obviously we have the samefamily of origin, even though
that can vary, like even fromKid to Kid. But when I think
about it, I think about like yousaid, How can I
(09:21):
honor this feeling that's comingup that, I mean, I'm talking
about, like right now, in thislike, in the context of my life
right now,that and discharge it and, like,
deal with it in a way thatdoesn't it's not harmful to
somebody else.
And really helps me process thatemotion to get to whatever is
(09:43):
maybe underneath it, or whateverit is that its job is that day.
And I think it's really tough. Imean, I think about my house
first of all, like we did notreally have access to this as
kids. If you know, I think when.
Think back about the talkingback, quote, unquote, or like
(10:04):
the things that would come up,you know, around,
you know, fighting back, orsaying something back or or
doing something, whether it'swas to each other or our
parents, or even at school. Imean, it just it wasn't allowed.
(10:24):
And I think Elizabeth, youreally internalized that. I
mean, I feel like I had a littlemore access to that when I was
younger because of ourpersonalities and maybe
neurotypes. Butwhen I think about that now, I'm
also married to somebody whodidn't with anger was not
allowed to be expressed, right?
(10:44):
My Gen, our generation, it justwasn't. Then we have kids who
have sense of startle responsesand even like words that, like
might be firm or whatever, aremislabeled. And it just gets
very like, you know, honesty andstraightforwardness can get
mislabeled as aggressiveness. Soit gets really muddy around
(11:08):
whatever aggressiveness means,or, you know, healthy aggression
means, but when I think about itmostly, now that we've talked
about a little bit just, youknow, on our own as sisters,
outside of this podcast today,it's really about,
I need to have access to anger.
What do I want to do with it?
(11:29):
How do I want to get it out in away that's like, really going to
process it appropriately and notlike, have stuff lingering, and
what does that look like in theterms of, like my communal
household and for my kids too,because I'll be honest, I'm
working through this myself. Andyou know, when my kids have a
(11:51):
certain reaction, depending onwhat it is, man, it's really
uncomfortable. It takeseverything inside of me for my
system to ground down and beavailable way more than if they
were to be hysterically cryingor whatever the anger is really
a tough emotion.
(12:13):
It is, and I feel like, youknow, depending on the way it
was used in your family oforigin,
it can, like, for us, there wasa lot of, like, icing people
out. Like, that's how Mom,that's how her anger. It was,
like, seething and icy and like,passive aggressive. It was like,
(12:34):
totally hold this. But I wantyou to know that I'm not happy.
Yeah. Like, there was this onetime when she asked me to vacuum
the living room. And I was ayoung adult at this point, like,
I lived with her, like, into my20s, so I was, I don't know, 18
or 19, probably, at this point,and she asked me to vacuum the
living room, and I and I said,Yes, like, I will do that today.
(12:57):
And I went about my day, it wasa Saturday or something, went
about my day, did a bunch ofstuff, and I come in and she's
vacuuming, yeah, she did that tome all the time. And I felt so
irritated. And she also had thiswhole energy about her, and I
feel like it created in me thispanic of like, Oh, great. Now
she's off, yeah, and she wasbecause she wasn't clear about
(13:22):
when she wanted it vacuumed.
Like, the agreements were not inplace,
right? There wasn't that, like,I would like this vacuum this
morning. I would like thisvacuum right now. Are you
available to do that? It wasthis, like, Yes, I'll do it
today. Great. I'm taking thistask off of your plate, and then
I would come in and she'd bedoing it, or would have done it.
And then, you know, thishappened regularly, and like, I
(13:45):
wouldn't know what to do with myanger at her. I didn't even know
why I would exactly what theanger was, right? Like, I would
know I would feel angry, but Iand even right now, I can feel
it in me, like, just this, like,what are you doing? I said I
would do it, right? Well, shedidn't know what to do with her
anger, so that's why she did it.
And then she let everyone know,with the energy in the room,
(14:07):
she's dissatisfied, right? Soshe had an ambiguous boundary,
asked you to or a request,right? Asked you to do this
thing. And then there wasprobably some boundary and you
cross because you're like,my integrity. I said I was going
to do this thing, and I'm like,yo, I'm neurodivergent. I'll do
(14:28):
it when I do it, but I'm goingto, like, I'm also demand
avoidant a little, so a lot. Andso it's like, you know, I don't
like being asked to do things.
When I am asked to do them. It'slike, I'm gonna do it, but I
have to come to it on my own. Igotta do it on my own terms. And
(14:48):
that would create a lot ofconflict because of, you know
this, like it, what felt like?
Controlling, right? Like this,an unfair controlling, because.
And if you would have just toldme, I want you to vacuum it
right now. Can you do it rightthis minute? I might have said
no, or I might have said yes,and done it right then, and been
(15:08):
annoyed that I had to do itright away. But like it would
have been done, and thecommunication would have been
clear, and that that likepattern in our house
for since the dawn of time, oflike I have a need, I'm asking
for it to be met. It's not beingmet the way that I want it to be
met, but I didn't tell you how Iwant it to be met, and so I'm
(15:30):
really irritated and angry thatyou didn't meet it the way I
wanted you to. But now I'm notgoing to tell you I'm angry that
you didn't meet it in that way,but I'm going to act like I'm
angry, and then you're gonnafeel my anger, but it's gonna be
confusing, because I'm notsaying that I'm angry, so you're
it's now on you to just carryaround the burden of my
(15:53):
aggression, and that being likemy relationship to anger is like
everyone else is allowed to Haveit, and I should carry it for
them. Well,yeah. I mean, yes. And I feel,
like, with the grown ups, I feellike the grown ups were allowed
to have it because, like, itwent even, like, into holidays
where it was, like, you couldfeel it energetically in the
(16:13):
room. Someone wasn't happy withsomething,
and, like, the language waseveryone's gonna know but like,
no one's actually gonna addressit. And but I think even within
the kids, like,I feel like one of the hardest
things as a parent now is thethe fights that happen between
(16:36):
the kids, you know, becausesomeone will actually wrong
somebody else, or say somethingthat is not nice, or they both
will. And I can't tell you howmany times I'm standing in the
middle of the living room andI'm like,
I know that the pattern for ourhome was like, no one was
allowed to act that way. Go toyour room till you can
(16:58):
straighten your face, basically,and then come back. But like,
dealing withthe hurt or the or whatever was
caused, or, like, you just haveto share, or you just have to do
this or those things, don't, youknow it's like that, doesn't.
You don't get rights to likethese things or whatever. There
was no like sitting down, like,this is how you deal with
(17:19):
conflict. This is what you do,and man, that is the hardest
part of not having had access tothat healthy aggression. And
what that's supposed to looklike is parenting my own kids
and like they're yelling at eachother, or they're and I'm like,
You're y'all are bothhurting each other right now, we
(17:39):
have to take a pause, andthere's all these layers, sort
of like sometimes they both doneed a little time to
themselves, and I have to givemyself permission, of like, I'm
not sending them away. They'rejust getting time to themselves,
like we're talking to them each,like I'm not doing the same
pattern, like the agreementswithin myself
(18:01):
is so much work. And then like,well, what does that actually
look like? Do I need to watch avideo? Or, like, what do I how
do I sit down and say, like,well, you don't actually have to
share this thing. This is yours,right? And also, we're in a
community where you have somesomeone who's looking at this
thing that they really want toplay with and like, what you
(18:23):
know, what is the answer? Andit's like
talking through it and lettingthem kind of come to these
decisions. It requires so muchtime and spaciousness with my
nervous system and my yeah andpresence and presence and like,
yeah and allowing some autonomy.
And also, like the teachingpart, I mean, it's really I find
(18:45):
my kids fighting enormouslytriggering, like I find I will
find myself instantaneously inlike, a spirally mix of freeze,
sometimes fight, you know,sometimes I'll get really stern
and I'll start making threats,which is what happened just
before this callabout, you know, if you want
(19:07):
this, if you want to do that,then you have
and like that is a lot of how Iwas parented. And I get it, it's
so overwhelming.
Our parents did that ease offlooding, right? Of like, oh my
gosh, I get completelyoverwhelmed and flooded, and my
(19:28):
capacity for that is reallycompromised. As you were
talking, I'm remembering thatthis past weekend, I had a bit
of a tantrum myself in front ofother people than my family,
which was uncomfortable.
(19:49):
No, we had this cookout andinvited this group of people.
And I know you said, Oh no,because it's like an event,
right? Events? This is thepattern in our family. Is.
Like the women in our heritage,at least the tag women, when
they are hosting are not fun tobe around. Well, because y'all
take on everything. And I sayy'all because I really have,
(20:11):
like, broken this used to be youtoo, but yeah, me too, which
will take on everything, becauseagreements are not clear, that's
right? And then resentment,well, the resentment comes after
the overwhelm, right? It's likebreaking on too much, and we're
overwhelmed, and now our wholenervous system is buzzing, and
(20:33):
so then there's no capacity forthings to not go according to
plan, or for there to be anykind of questioning or pushback
or just any additional input,sensory input, right? So we had
this cookout. Cory got up reallyearly to smoke some pork butt in
the smoker, and I kept it reallysimple, like, Since covid
(20:59):
started when we host now I amlike, we're making one thing.
Like, I'm not doing a lot ofthat that I used to do. Like,
well, I should just provide allthe sides. It's so nice to go to
a party and it not be a potluck.
Yes, that's true. This is notthat. This is huge. Lots of
people coming, we're not goingto do all the things. And
(21:21):
so anyway, we also have nottaken care of this is going to
sound random, but we have nottaken care of our outdoor
chairs, and so they've beenoutside for years. And of
course, they've just all decidedthis spring to start splitting.
They're like some weird kind ofoutdoor fabric stuff. So chair
(21:41):
after chair keeps breaking. SoI'm like, Okay, we're having all
these people over. We've toldpeople to bring a chair, but
also, like, Corey and I aregetting to the point where we
don't even have a chair, becausethey all keep breaking, like
eight of them anyway. Soeverything was set. I didn't
have anything else to do. I had,like, an hour and a half until
people were gonna arise. So Idecided to go. Sarah's shaking
(22:03):
her head no at me. I decided Ipredict. Can I predict what
happened that you just had to gobuy new chairs.
I needed to go buy new chairs.
Oh, I hate you right now. Um, soI needed my new chairs, and I
have been eyeing these outdoorchairs. There's a couple people
(22:23):
at my se training that bringthem. Sometimes they're like,
fancy, they're outdoor chairsthat fold up, but they also
rock. They're awesome. So I'vebeen eyeing them. So I went to
Home Depot, which is close, andthey didn't have any kind of
outdoor chairs like that. Theyonly had, like, nice outdoor
seating stuff. And I was like,Oh, shoot. So I called Cory, as
(22:45):
I'm on my way to a different,like, local hardware store,
Sutherlands. Just give Caseylocal a little shout out. And
Cory is like, do we really needthese chairs? And I'm just still
thinking, do we need them today?
Right? Right? That was actuallythe question. And it's like,
there is still legitimately timeand I don't have any tasks. It's
not like, then when I get back,I'm gonna have to hurry and do
(23:08):
XYZ, so I'm managing. And I amnoticing, like, okay, yes, it's
tight, but I really people arejust arriving. Like, there's I
texted Cory a list of prep tasksthat people were coming early to
do and told them, like, where toset stuff up. So I really felt
like I had the freedom to, like,go and do this. So I went to
this other hardware store. Theywere deeply on sale. I was it
(23:29):
was very satisfying. I got thesetwo chairs. Only got two
I went home, and when I gothome, some of our close friends
were here, and they were doingsome of the setup, and the way
they had set things up was nothow I envisioned.
(23:49):
And y'all at this point, I'm alittle sweaty, so that's my
tell. If I'm sweaty, I'mprobably going to have an
outburst. If I don't, if Idon't, like actually cool off
and cool off my my my feelings,so I'm a little bit sweaty, I'm
a little bit rushed, and now Ialso have the pressure of all
these people who not all thesepeople, just a few people who
(24:12):
have a difference of opinion onhow things should be set up in
the backyard. And I couldn'tcope. I I came in, of course,
the kids immediately hadquestions for me, because they
just always can find a questionfor me.
And Corey was like, dealing withthe grill, and he's kind of
looking at me like, What do youwant? Where do you want us to
(24:33):
put these tables, or whatever?
And I just, yeah, I was snippy.
I was just like,was you eyeballed so you had not
done you did not have the timeand the spaciousness to make the
agreement with yourself that ifyou are going to be getting the
chairs, whatever help that yougot, and it didn't look the same
(24:56):
like you, sometimes we need.
Do that with ourselves, right?
Like, yeah. Like, I didn't, yes,I didn't negotiate with myself.
This means you will not be incharge of or in control of how
the setup will go, because evenat one point, Corey was, like,
if you cared, you should havebeen here then for that part.
And I just, like, sent him atext which was very detailed,
(25:17):
and I just assumed he wouldexecute it and tell people
exactly what I said, which itwas like, chairs on the
driveway, anyway, just anyway,very specific. Then that's not
what happened. And it was fine.
It all worked out just fine,right? But at one point I was in
the kitchen while Cory was like,Sure, ending the pork. And I was
(25:38):
just like, I really hate whenpeople see me like that. And he
and I had cooled off at thispoint, and I it was kind of, I
was joking a little bit, but, Imean, it was a honest thing I
was saying. And he was like,Yeah, I bet
that looks so uncomfortable, youknow. And I just was like, it.
(25:59):
It was a new experience ofembarrassment, because I didn't
feel like I was spiraling out. Ididn't feel ashamed. It just was
like, not how I would prefer topresent myself, as, like,
flustered and irritated and alittle bit controlling. I'm
like, I like these people too.
And so I also was just like, youknow, I am a human. I'm not
going to, like, apologize forbeing human. But also like, I'm
(26:21):
sorry that I made that tensebecause I did, like, they
weren't here for a cookout tohelp, and I was just like, wound
up. And what I just felt so muchof that old stuff, of like, oh,
this is the old how we entertainguests, and
(26:42):
that, like, I was mad that Coreydidn't have them do exactly what
I sent in the text, yeah.
And he was, like, unwilling totake ownership of my anger in
that, you know, he was justlike, that's on you. You should
have been here well. And Ithink, fair, yeah, fair. And,
(27:06):
and also too. Like, you know, Iwas just thinking about
sometimes when we have aresponse, like you had, and you
go and you start kind ofreflecting on that, like,
sometimes shame can come in,because it's like, why do I need
to have everything this way? Whywould I? And it's like it
doesn't matter. It's just whatmatters is, you know that about
yourself, and what agreements doI need to make with myself and
really mentally prep myself?
Listen, I'm all are neurotypes.
(27:30):
I'm all about like, mentallypreparing my kids myself for
unmet expectations, keepingthose things flexible. And I
think you just, next time, youjust won't do that to yourself.
If you have decide it will beanother part of your agreement.
Like, well, how? Well, hey, I, Iknow I've got the time. I don't
(27:52):
have any of this necessary prepto do. And also, if someone's
going to show up early, or ifthere's miscommunication in the
text, am I willing to like? Letit not be set up. And I think
that all I honest to god knowyou so well. And I think that
very brief conversation withyourself, I really think you
would have been fine. Oh yeah,if I had just let it go. Because
(28:13):
I think I felt, I feltresponsible for making sure they
they knew what to do like. So Iguess even the me saying that I
had nothing to do is actuallyreally not true, because I sent
Cory a list of, like, what wewere going to tell I was going
to tell people what to do,right? So it was, it was like,
well, he's there. He can dothat. He can say, put this stuff
(28:35):
on the driveway, put this tableover here.
And I think, you know, as Ithink about this idea of healthy
aggression, you know, when Iwhen I came back and I was
activated, and I was, like,clearly frustrated, and I was
really, really trying to containthe frustration. And what would
(28:57):
you have done differently? Like,I did not want to lash out at
people. But I also, I'm sure,because they know me, they could
feel that I was not okay. Andsome of the ways that I helped
to discharge, some of that waslike
I went into the house where theair conditioning was, and that
required me to kind of jog up afew steps. So just physically
(29:19):
moving my body a little bit,helping some of that energy
that, like, wants to kind oflash out, helping it move. Went
in, cooled off a little bit, gota drink. Also was just like, who
cares? You know, got someperspective pretty quickly,
because I didn't have a bunch todo. So it wasn't like I came in
(29:39):
to a bunch of tasks, and nowthis thing over here didn't go
right. It was just like, thatwas all I had to think about.
And I was like, I don't reallycare. I don't want to think
about that. And then Corey camein, and I was able to, like,
make this joke and connect,right, that connection presence,
right, where I just felt like,yeah, okay, that wasn't ideal. I
think at one point I don't knowif I was.
(30:00):
Outside or inside. He was like,What do you want? And I said, I
can't cope. I do remember sayingthat like, I remember feeling so
buzzy in my body that I was justlike, You cannot ask me any more
questions. I can't I can'tfunction right now. And that's
when I went inside to cool off,and I feel like, you know,
(30:20):
that's a new pattern, like notjust feeling like, well, you
have to function, you're here,so now just make everyone
miserable.
Yeah, like, that's the thing isthat, like, the women are
family. They just would notleave, because they still are
like, Well, I have a task I haveto do, and I'm going to sit here
and I'm going to do them,instead of, like, that's the
thing about that. I think one ofthe biggest lessons I've learned
(30:42):
from you over this last year anda half or so around some of the
somatic stuff is, like, itdoesn't actually take as long as
we think it does to just giveourselves a minute and, like, I
like the thing of, like, goinginto a room and like, doing the
full squeeze From head to toe,like, like, that, like, and then
(31:02):
just letting it kind of drainfrom me, like, but the
connection piece, but all thosethings of like, it doesn't
actually take that long andbut we don't always give
ourselves that moment. So thefact that you went in and got
cool and attempted, sometimesit's like you don't even know
what to do, but the fact thatyou've attempted to meet that
need softens your system. Do youfind that? Like, yeah, and I
(31:25):
don't even, as I'm telling thestory about that happening, a
tiny, tiny bit of activationcame up, but not a lot. And that
tells me that, like, there is alittle something there from that
day that maybe I should dosomething with. But also,
there's not a lot there. Itwasn't like that big of an
event. It was just this, likelittle mini event. That is a
(31:47):
good example of what happens tome internally a lot when things
don't go according to plan, andI feel my neuro divergence come
in hot in those moments wherethe ability to access curiosity
and flexibility is completelyoff the table, and I'm, you
(32:07):
know, hijacked by thiscombination of things, and it
happens when I'm with my kids,but it often happens when anger
is a component, and that's partof why I've been so curious in
this last year around, how canI, you know, kind of parse out
what pieces of this are anger,what am I angry about? What is,
(32:30):
what is my system trying to tellme the threat is and what else
is here? Because a lot of timesit's other stuff is there too,
and and then trying to find,like, how do I give myself
permission to say that wasdisappointing, that it wasn't
set up the way that I wanted itto be set up, and that I felt on
the spot, yeah, because I feltlike my way to set it up was the
(32:54):
best way. And so now I felt puton the spot, like I have to be
direct and tell these peoplethey have set it up wrong, which
is not exactly what I said. Ijust was like,
Yeah, I don't want to get intothe nitty gritty, because it's
not that important. But it'slike, in my mind, there were, I
(33:16):
couldn't get to the flexiblepoint of what their perspective
was, of of why they set it up inthe reverse of where I thought
things should go. So it's likethey also were doing their best
and thought it was, yeah, it'sinteresting. It would be
interesting to think about,like, what would what you
actually registered as a threatthere? I mean, I think about,
(33:36):
for me to try to access healthyaggression, right? Of like,
parsing out, like, what isactually, like, you know,
me just being completely, like,activated in a way that's, I'm
going to discharge it in a waythat's, that's not good for
anybody and and for me, like, Ido notice that, like, when I'm
(33:59):
tending to my system prettyregularly throughout the day,
um, I have a much easier timesaying the thing or saying I'm
disappointed or whatever, andfeeling like I'm still grounded
in myself, like, you know, thatkind of blended like, state Of
like, I'm okay, but like, thisis not okay.
(34:24):
But I think it's reallychallenging for me as well to do
that around big events like, orlike, huge event, but it was
like, there's all of thesethings at play, and the reality
that, like, I go on a morningwalk, I could do meditation, I
could do whatever, but then thatevent comes around, and the
thing is, you have to activatethat life force to get the
(34:45):
things done right, and thenexcited about the chairs. And
the thing is, like, all of thatis building that energy, right,
but not all of it's like, quote,unquote, like, not bad, I don't
wanna use that word, but like,it's not all, like, it's.
It's, it's all anger. It's notall anger. It's like life force.
And then it all gets alljumbled, yeah, exactly like a
(35:07):
precipice, and you go over thecliff and you're like, the
chairs aren't set up, right?
Like, whatever, you know. Andthat is also part of being twice
exceptional. And your neurotype,my neurotype of like, we have
really big feels so like, whenwe feel joyful, we feel like the
things, it's like a lot of timesit's that energetic buildup that
(35:29):
just comes on very quickly andbig, and it's floody. But like
you said, not all of it's anger.
Some of it's like, you'reexcited to see the people and
like, you're actually want toenjoy and be present. And
there's just a lot, there'ssensory stimuli, the kids coming
at you. So it's like, but theway it will come out is that
(35:51):
last tipping point of somethingthat's like, if you don't have
the time to reset or whatever,well, yeah, and then just the
whole story gets packaged intothis one thing with a title that
has something very negativeabout me in it. You know, the
time I was, uh, fill in theblank with any x, yes. And I
(36:12):
want to make this point realquick, because in that too,
like, if you had come home andeverything had been done right,
right, here's the reality oflike our neurotype, is that it
could have still not ended well.
And we see this with our kids.
Sam, okay, mywhen there's a lot of energetic
buildup, even in the positive,let's say everything was done,
(36:35):
right? Yes, he will sometimesget very agitated because of
that big influx of big fields.
Yeah, at the end, it'll belabeled, mislabeled. Like,
what's your problem? What'sgoing on with you? Why are you
acting this way? What? Like, youknow, whatever. And it's like,
well, it actually was all good,and I'm so glad that, but it's
(36:58):
still flooding, but it's stillflooding. And so then it ends up
being this kind of agitated,energetic state that he needs
to, kinda like, that's so good.
I'm like, worried about thathappening this afternoon,
because we're going to the pool,and there's been all this, you
know, sighting, but they're bothtired, and I'm like, these are
the kinds of days where thegreat thing about the pool,
though, is the sunlight. They'rein the water, and they're moving
(37:20):
their bodies. Now, I've stillseen my kids more of the after
the pool. It's the after thepool. That's right, that's
right. It's so good, yeah, it'slike, coming home is going to be
interesting. And I've alreadyprepared Corey for that. Like
they're they that is when theylook angry, right? Is when
they've had a really full,really good day and they're
(37:42):
exhausted, they have bigmeltdowns and lots of ragey
looking feelings,and it can be really hard to
interact with. It can be reallyhard to manage, because you
literally just have to get overthe finish line and get them
into bed, and they don'tunderstand what's happening in
their bodies, and you canrespond to it in a way that can
(38:04):
make it a bigger deal than itneeds to be. That makes it more
painful for everyone, and wecertainly have done that before,
too, and so I've learned, atleast in that sense, that like
it looks like anger, but it'sexhaustion.
There are so many things thatare mislabeled anger. I just
(38:25):
this. I mean, I know we probablyare going to have to wrap up
soon, but I was even thinkingjust about, like, in the
opposite end of like, even justbeing honest and
straightforward, right, can belabeled as aggressive. Oh yeah.
I mean, like, there's so manythings that, like, we just don't
know, and we want to have accessto these things, but at the same
(38:46):
time, when they are presentingto community, to society, to
other people, even to ourselves,it's a very confusing
relationship, because there's alot of mixed messaging And a lot
of different things coming in,and I don't even know if it
matter, I don't know like butis, is a really hardy topic. It
(39:09):
is, yeah, because I also thinkabout that directness and how
depends on what your nervoussystem is doing energetically
behind that direct right, canfeel aggressive, even if the
person honestly, that was myissue last weekend was I felt
like me saying, This isn't how Iwanted it set up, because I was
(39:30):
so all that life force, energy,excitement and just busyness,
was built up in me,energetically. I couldn't
control the affect with thosewords, like, I couldn't control
that energy coming through, andso it looked angrier than I
didn't actually feel angry. Ifelt like, I think I did say
(39:52):
It's just frustrating, but Idon't think I actually was. I
wasn't mad at any of the peoplefor helping. Yeah, I was a
little bit irritated.
With Corey, because I felt likehe could have prevented me from
getting that place, which is myown work, to do, um, and but it
was more just that, like whatyou're saying, there was this
huge build up, and I I needed totend to that. I needed to
(40:18):
discharge that in a way thatdidn't like come out my mouth at
other people, and there wasgoing to be no easy breezy to be
had no because I was, like,standing in front of a bunch of
people, like, there was no wayto be, like, I'm going to need a
minute. Well, actually, I couldhave done that, but I didn't
have the wherewithal to do that,because they were all asking,
like, where did you want this?
Where'd you want that? And I waslike, not in any of these
places.
(40:41):
All wrong.
Yeah, I just, I think about thisidea of, like, healthy
aggression and anger, and thenall of what you're saying about,
like, being very excitable andhaving really big feelings,
these things are, like, veryenmeshed for me, and it's been a
(41:02):
lot to try to start to pull themapart and see them for what they
are. And I have felt really in agood way, challenged by this
idea that somewhere in there isalso this life force energy
piece that and there is thisother piece where we can access
healthy aggression. We candischarge aggression in a way
(41:22):
that's healthy and safe for ourbody and for other people's
bodies. And getting reallycurious about how can I give my
body what it needs to releaseand process some of just
energetically, the legitimateanger and frustration that comes
up just being human in this,like, messed up place we live
(41:44):
in. You know,it's a trip. It's a trip. No,
we said this was going to be ashort one, and it wasn't. It
could be, well,hey, they didn't come in and
storm the gates. They didn't butI did hear the door chime, so
they might be outside.
Thankfully, they're old enoughnow that that doesn't cause a
(42:06):
bunch of intrusive thoughts forme. So, so good, yeah? Okay,
this was really good. I feellike we barely scratched the
surface, but we did, but yeah, II feel like, Yeah, but we're not
going to promise the secondpart, because we No, no, no, we
don't do that, but we might talkabout this again at some point.
I'm sure it will come up,especially because I want to, I
(42:26):
do want to talk at some pointabout embarrassment.
Yeah, yeah. And I think thatoverexcitabilities piece will
keep coming up because of ournarrative. It just will because
it's all of the things andthey're amplified, I mean, and
that varies from person toperson. But you know, the big
feels, the big feelers outthere, you know, it's,
(42:50):
it's nuanced, and it'sexhausting, and that shame just
comes right in. It's just like,ready to be like. Society likes
us to be like,chill and compliant and and
also, like, beautiful and, youknow, consistent and hard
working all these things thatrequire your nervous system to
(43:12):
be activated.
Yeah, I know, right. Soconfusing. So confusing. Like,
you can't actually do workunless there's some energetic
activation in your system, yeah?
So when you have a sensitivenervous system, it's like, oh,
we're going to fight. Let's gowhoa. I just need a little bit
(43:34):
of Yeah, just a sip. Just a sip.
All right, thanks for chatting.
I hope you have a good rest ofyour day. You love you, all
right. Love you too. Bye, bye.
Sarah, welcome back to the sleepy sisters Podcast. I'm
Elizabeth brink, I'm SarahDurham, and we are going to talk
about healthy aggression,because we keep bringing it up
in different episodes, and it'sbeen something that, at least
for me, Elizabeth, I've had iton my mind a lot lately
(00:23):
in my household, so thoughtmaybe we would chat about it
today.
Full transparency, this will bea shorter episode, because it's
also summer break here, and mykids are unsupervised
downstairs, and they have beenslightly unhinged this morning,
so I'm not sure how this will goand if they will actually make
(00:44):
an appearance.
And guess what? We're not goingto edit it out. We're just going
to go. You will hear them if youfollow me on Instagram.
Yesterday, shared a story that Ihad a consult call really early
in the morning, and one of thekids ran in to say, there is a
real emergency. I think Iclogged the toilet. It was just
one of those moments where I'mon camera, couldn't
(01:06):
do a thing about it, andthankfully, this other person
laughed. And I was like, Okay,I'll be right there. And it was
at the end of the conversation.
So they were like, Okay, I'lllet you go. I'm like, Okay, what
a nice out. If only they woulddo that for me, like when I want
them to get me out of aconversation anyway, healthy
aggression. So I wanted to say acouple things about this, to
start, becausepeople may be like, what is
(01:29):
that? What are you talkingabout? So in somatic
experiencing, there is this termthat we call Healthy aggression.
Peter Levine, the creator of setalks about healthy aggression
as life force energy. So if youthink about aggression and
anger, the fight response andyour nervous system, if you
(01:51):
think of that as life forceenergy, that energetically when
you experience anger and thefight response you are coming
into contact with this energywithin you that is fully
motivated to protect you and tomake sure that you survive, that
(02:12):
you live. And so it's it can bea really powerful energy. It can
be a really powerful source ofenergy for most people,
I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna saythat for most people, this is an
energy that is thwarted fromvery early on in your life. It
(02:34):
is disciplined out of a lot ofus, and it is culturally and
socially disciplined out of usand maybe even in our
households, if you carryidentities that are different
from mine, which mine are whiteand CIS and
(02:56):
all those things, I'm licked mybrain today. Sorry y'all but if
you are, you know, if you're aperson who has certain
disabilities, or you are aperson of color, or you
are poor or poor, like yourrelationship to anger is very
different, and so definitelywant To acknowledge that and say
(03:20):
that, you know, generationally,we are taught and passed down
how to handle this particularemotion, if we're allowed to
handle it at all, and that someof what we say and share today
may not resonate with yourexperience. And so we also want
to say for people who do have asimilar experience to us that
(03:43):
like, Hey, your experience isnot everyone's experience. Your
ability to access anger or notof your own choosing, is a
privilege, and not everybody hasthat privilege, unfortunately.
But back to speaking about it ashealthy aggression, and there's
maybe more I should say there tohedge I didn't prepare because
(04:04):
that's because we don't do that.
So I hope you can give us alittle grace and just hear that
I'm saying relationships tothings like anger and aggression
and cultural norms andexpectations and what it means
to be safe are varied fromperson to person, so
(04:26):
hopefully nothing we say isharmful, and if so, please reach
out and tell us so we cancorrect it.
Yeah, so healthy aggression islife force energy has really
been giving me a run for mymoney in my household and I,
when I started SomaticExperiencing training, the
module where we talked about thefight response and a thwarted
(04:50):
fight response, which is whenyou want to fight back and you
can't, so you just push it down,you contain it. When we had that
session, I approached ourteacher machine.
And was like, Are you saying I'man angry person?
And y'all, it was like thesecond module. So she's like, I
don't know you,but I think her response was
probably like, it depends,because that's what she says to
(05:12):
a lot of things. And but it wasso activating in my system, I
can even feel a little bit of ofit right now, a little buzzy in
my cheeks, and like there isthis energy in me, and I, even
as I'm I jokingly, kind of saidthat to her, I also, internally,
I have a sense of me as an angryperson. And I I have for a very
(05:36):
long time, I don't know if I canremember back to when or where I
first had an awareness of like,I can get angry and I can, like,
hulk out.
But I definitely in friendshipsand in dating relationships,
especially in datingrelationships, I could access my
(05:59):
aggression and my anger and allof that fury inside of me, and
could be really mean, could bebiting and sarcastic and rude or
like impatient. There's allthese ways it can look, and I
think my relationship to thathas been a lot of shame, and a
lot of that is a bad way to bein the world and
(06:23):
generally it can be harmful,right? And so when I started
learning about healthyaggression, it really forced me
to look back into the feelingsof anger and frustration and
kind of reframe them and see,like, Well, were there parts of
(06:43):
that that were healthy, or whatpart of this is like my nervous
system sending me a messagethat, like, hey, there's a
threat here, and maybe you doneed to speak up. Maybe there is
a boundary you need to set. SoI've been
practicing trying to find waysto actually discharge healthy
(07:06):
aggression, and it's somethingwe do in somatic experiencing
with clients. It's somethingI've done with my own
practitioner, and it's somethingI've been trying to do with my
family, because there's a lot ofaggression in our household on
any given day,which just generally looks like
frustration. So I wouldn't saythere is. It's not teetering
toward abuse. It's more likejust people with, you know, loud
(07:29):
voices, lots of loud, angryfeels in every direction, yeah,
yeah. And the like, guttural,like, we call it hulking out,
because it is kind of like thisguttural, like just, it's not
even always a directedcommentary, and it's not always
just the kids. So I think, youknow, this has been helpful for
(07:54):
me to think about, what does itmean to be in touch with the
part of me that says somethingis not right here.
And what do I do with that whenI get that message? And is there
a way to connect with that thatdoesn't create fear and
immobilization in me, right?
Because the habit is make thatstop and pretend you don't feel
(08:15):
that way, get that out of here.
And so that's been a lot of theexploration we've been doing.
There's lots of differentexercises and stuff we've been
trying in our house.
But that's kind of why I wantedto bring the topic here too,
because we've mentioned it acouple of times, and I think
it's something that is worthkind of playing with in your
(08:37):
mind and thinking about, like,can I access the fight response
and healthy aggression when it'sneeded. Like, can I stand up for
myself? Can I draw a boundary?
Can I speak up? And if I can't,or I really struggle or feel
really afraid, then like, maybethere's something here to be
curious about.
(08:59):
So Sarah, what do you thinkabout when you hear the term
healthy aggression?
Yeah, so a lot of this stuffthat you said resonate. I mean,
obviously we have the samefamily of origin, even though
that can vary, like even fromKid to Kid. But when I think
about it, I think about like yousaid, How can I
(09:21):
honor this feeling that's comingup that, I mean, I'm talking
about, like right now, in thislike, in the context of my life
right now,that and discharge it and, like,
deal with it in a way thatdoesn't it's not harmful to
somebody else.
And really helps me process thatemotion to get to whatever is
(09:43):
maybe underneath it, or whateverit is that its job is that day.
And I think it's really tough. Imean, I think about my house
first of all, like we did notreally have access to this as
kids. If you know, I think when.
Think back about the talkingback, quote, unquote, or like
(10:04):
the things that would come up,you know, around,
you know, fighting back, orsaying something back or or
doing something, whether it'swas to each other or our
parents, or even at school. Imean, it just it wasn't allowed.
(10:24):
And I think Elizabeth, youreally internalized that. I
mean, I feel like I had a littlemore access to that when I was
younger because of ourpersonalities and maybe
neurotypes. Butwhen I think about that now, I'm
also married to somebody whodidn't with anger was not
allowed to be expressed, right?
(10:44):
My Gen, our generation, it justwasn't. Then we have kids who
have sense of startle responsesand even like words that, like
might be firm or whatever, aremislabeled. And it just gets
very like, you know, honesty andstraightforwardness can get
mislabeled as aggressiveness. Soit gets really muddy around
(11:08):
whatever aggressiveness means,or, you know, healthy aggression
means, but when I think about itmostly, now that we've talked
about a little bit just, youknow, on our own as sisters,
outside of this podcast today,it's really about,
I need to have access to anger.
What do I want to do with it?
(11:29):
How do I want to get it out in away that's like, really going to
process it appropriately and notlike, have stuff lingering, and
what does that look like in theterms of, like my communal
household and for my kids too,because I'll be honest, I'm
working through this myself. Andyou know, when my kids have a
(11:51):
certain reaction, depending onwhat it is, man, it's really
uncomfortable. It takeseverything inside of me for my
system to ground down and beavailable way more than if they
were to be hysterically cryingor whatever the anger is really
a tough emotion.
(12:13):
It is, and I feel like, youknow, depending on the way it
was used in your family oforigin,
it can, like, for us, there wasa lot of, like, icing people
out. Like, that's how Mom,that's how her anger. It was,
like, seething and icy and like,passive aggressive. It was like,
(12:34):
totally hold this. But I wantyou to know that I'm not happy.
Yeah. Like, there was this onetime when she asked me to vacuum
the living room. And I was ayoung adult at this point, like,
I lived with her, like, into my20s, so I was, I don't know, 18
or 19, probably, at this point,and she asked me to vacuum the
living room, and I and I said,Yes, like, I will do that today.
(12:57):
And I went about my day, it wasa Saturday or something, went
about my day, did a bunch ofstuff, and I come in and she's
vacuuming, yeah, she did that tome all the time. And I felt so
irritated. And she also had thiswhole energy about her, and I
feel like it created in me thispanic of like, Oh, great. Now
she's off, yeah, and she wasbecause she wasn't clear about
(13:22):
when she wanted it vacuumed.
Like, the agreements were not inplace,
right? There wasn't that, like,I would like this vacuum this
morning. I would like thisvacuum right now. Are you
available to do that? It wasthis, like, Yes, I'll do it
today. Great. I'm taking thistask off of your plate, and then
I would come in and she'd bedoing it, or would have done it.
And then, you know, thishappened regularly, and like, I
(13:45):
wouldn't know what to do with myanger at her. I didn't even know
why I would exactly what theanger was, right? Like, I would
know I would feel angry, but Iand even right now, I can feel
it in me, like, just this, like,what are you doing? I said I
would do it, right? Well, shedidn't know what to do with her
anger, so that's why she did it.
And then she let everyone know,with the energy in the room,
(14:07):
she's dissatisfied, right? Soshe had an ambiguous boundary,
asked you to or a request,right? Asked you to do this
thing. And then there wasprobably some boundary and you
cross because you're like,my integrity. I said I was going
to do this thing, and I'm like,yo, I'm neurodivergent. I'll do
(14:28):
it when I do it, but I'm goingto, like, I'm also demand
avoidant a little, so a lot. Andso it's like, you know, I don't
like being asked to do things.
When I am asked to do them. It'slike, I'm gonna do it, but I
have to come to it on my own. Igotta do it on my own terms. And
(14:48):
that would create a lot ofconflict because of, you know
this, like it, what felt like?
Controlling, right? Like this,an unfair controlling, because.
And if you would have just toldme, I want you to vacuum it
right now. Can you do it rightthis minute? I might have said
no, or I might have said yes,and done it right then, and been
(15:08):
annoyed that I had to do itright away. But like it would
have been done, and thecommunication would have been
clear, and that that likepattern in our house
for since the dawn of time, oflike I have a need, I'm asking
for it to be met. It's not beingmet the way that I want it to be
met, but I didn't tell you how Iwant it to be met, and so I'm
(15:30):
really irritated and angry thatyou didn't meet it the way I
wanted you to. But now I'm notgoing to tell you I'm angry that
you didn't meet it in that way,but I'm going to act like I'm
angry, and then you're gonnafeel my anger, but it's gonna be
confusing, because I'm notsaying that I'm angry, so you're
it's now on you to just carryaround the burden of my
(15:53):
aggression, and that being likemy relationship to anger is like
everyone else is allowed to Haveit, and I should carry it for
them. Well,yeah. I mean, yes. And I feel,
like, with the grown ups, I feellike the grown ups were allowed
to have it because, like, itwent even, like, into holidays
where it was, like, you couldfeel it energetically in the
(16:13):
room. Someone wasn't happy withsomething,
and, like, the language waseveryone's gonna know but like,
no one's actually gonna addressit. And but I think even within
the kids, like,I feel like one of the hardest
things as a parent now is thethe fights that happen between
(16:36):
the kids, you know, becausesomeone will actually wrong
somebody else, or say somethingthat is not nice, or they both
will. And I can't tell you howmany times I'm standing in the
middle of the living room andI'm like,
I know that the pattern for ourhome was like, no one was
allowed to act that way. Go toyour room till you can
(16:58):
straighten your face, basically,and then come back. But like,
dealing withthe hurt or the or whatever was
caused, or, like, you just haveto share, or you just have to do
this or those things, don't, youknow it's like that, doesn't.
You don't get rights to likethese things or whatever. There
was no like sitting down, like,this is how you deal with
(17:19):
conflict. This is what you do,and man, that is the hardest
part of not having had access tothat healthy aggression. And
what that's supposed to looklike is parenting my own kids
and like they're yelling at eachother, or they're and I'm like,
You're y'all are bothhurting each other right now, we
(17:39):
have to take a pause, andthere's all these layers, sort
of like sometimes they both doneed a little time to
themselves, and I have to givemyself permission, of like, I'm
not sending them away. They'rejust getting time to themselves,
like we're talking to them each,like I'm not doing the same
pattern, like the agreementswithin myself
(18:01):
is so much work. And then like,well, what does that actually
look like? Do I need to watch avideo? Or, like, what do I how
do I sit down and say, like,well, you don't actually have to
share this thing. This is yours,right? And also, we're in a
community where you have somesomeone who's looking at this
thing that they really want toplay with and like, what you
(18:23):
know, what is the answer? Andit's like
talking through it and lettingthem kind of come to these
decisions. It requires so muchtime and spaciousness with my
nervous system and my yeah andpresence and presence and like,
yeah and allowing some autonomy.
And also, like the teachingpart, I mean, it's really I find
(18:45):
my kids fighting enormouslytriggering, like I find I will
find myself instantaneously inlike, a spirally mix of freeze,
sometimes fight, you know,sometimes I'll get really stern
and I'll start making threats,which is what happened just
before this callabout, you know, if you want
(19:07):
this, if you want to do that,then you have
and like that is a lot of how Iwas parented. And I get it, it's
so overwhelming.
Our parents did that ease offlooding, right? Of like, oh my
gosh, I get completelyoverwhelmed and flooded, and my
(19:28):
capacity for that is reallycompromised. As you were
talking, I'm remembering thatthis past weekend, I had a bit
of a tantrum myself in front ofother people than my family,
which was uncomfortable.
(19:49):
No, we had this cookout andinvited this group of people.
And I know you said, Oh no,because it's like an event,
right? Events? This is thepattern in our family. Is.
Like the women in our heritage,at least the tag women, when
they are hosting are not fun tobe around. Well, because y'all
take on everything. And I sayy'all because I really have,
(20:11):
like, broken this used to be youtoo, but yeah, me too, which
will take on everything, becauseagreements are not clear, that's
right? And then resentment,well, the resentment comes after
the overwhelm, right? It's likebreaking on too much, and we're
overwhelmed, and now our wholenervous system is buzzing, and
(20:33):
so then there's no capacity forthings to not go according to
plan, or for there to be anykind of questioning or pushback
or just any additional input,sensory input, right? So we had
this cookout. Cory got up reallyearly to smoke some pork butt in
the smoker, and I kept it reallysimple, like, Since covid
(20:59):
started when we host now I amlike, we're making one thing.
Like, I'm not doing a lot ofthat that I used to do. Like,
well, I should just provide allthe sides. It's so nice to go to
a party and it not be a potluck.
Yes, that's true. This is notthat. This is huge. Lots of
people coming, we're not goingto do all the things. And
(21:21):
so anyway, we also have nottaken care of this is going to
sound random, but we have nottaken care of our outdoor
chairs, and so they've beenoutside for years. And of
course, they've just all decidedthis spring to start splitting.
They're like some weird kind ofoutdoor fabric stuff. So chair
(21:41):
after chair keeps breaking. SoI'm like, Okay, we're having all
these people over. We've toldpeople to bring a chair, but
also, like, Corey and I aregetting to the point where we
don't even have a chair, becausethey all keep breaking, like
eight of them anyway. Soeverything was set. I didn't
have anything else to do. I had,like, an hour and a half until
people were gonna arise. So Idecided to go. Sarah's shaking
(22:03):
her head no at me. I decided Ipredict. Can I predict what
happened that you just had to gobuy new chairs.
I needed to go buy new chairs.
Oh, I hate you right now. Um, soI needed my new chairs, and I
have been eyeing these outdoorchairs. There's a couple people
(22:23):
at my se training that bringthem. Sometimes they're like,
fancy, they're outdoor chairsthat fold up, but they also
rock. They're awesome. So I'vebeen eyeing them. So I went to
Home Depot, which is close, andthey didn't have any kind of
outdoor chairs like that. Theyonly had, like, nice outdoor
seating stuff. And I was like,Oh, shoot. So I called Cory, as
(22:45):
I'm on my way to a different,like, local hardware store,
Sutherlands. Just give Caseylocal a little shout out. And
Cory is like, do we really needthese chairs? And I'm just still
thinking, do we need them today?
Right? Right? That was actuallythe question. And it's like,
there is still legitimately timeand I don't have any tasks. It's
not like, then when I get back,I'm gonna have to hurry and do
(23:08):
XYZ, so I'm managing. And I amnoticing, like, okay, yes, it's
tight, but I really people arejust arriving. Like, there's I
texted Cory a list of prep tasksthat people were coming early to
do and told them, like, where toset stuff up. So I really felt
like I had the freedom to, like,go and do this. So I went to
this other hardware store. Theywere deeply on sale. I was it
(23:29):
was very satisfying. I got thesetwo chairs. Only got two
I went home, and when I gothome, some of our close friends
were here, and they were doingsome of the setup, and the way
they had set things up was nothow I envisioned.
(23:49):
And y'all at this point, I'm alittle sweaty, so that's my
tell. If I'm sweaty, I'mprobably going to have an
outburst. If I don't, if Idon't, like actually cool off
and cool off my my my feelings,so I'm a little bit sweaty, I'm
a little bit rushed, and now Ialso have the pressure of all
these people who not all thesepeople, just a few people who
(24:12):
have a difference of opinion onhow things should be set up in
the backyard. And I couldn'tcope. I I came in, of course,
the kids immediately hadquestions for me, because they
just always can find a questionfor me.
And Corey was like, dealing withthe grill, and he's kind of
looking at me like, What do youwant? Where do you want us to
(24:33):
put these tables, or whatever?
And I just, yeah, I was snippy.
I was just like,was you eyeballed so you had not
done you did not have the timeand the spaciousness to make the
agreement with yourself that ifyou are going to be getting the
chairs, whatever help that yougot, and it didn't look the same
(24:56):
like you, sometimes we need.
Do that with ourselves, right?
Like, yeah. Like, I didn't, yes,I didn't negotiate with myself.
This means you will not be incharge of or in control of how
the setup will go, because evenat one point, Corey was, like,
if you cared, you should havebeen here then for that part.
And I just, like, sent him atext which was very detailed,
(25:17):
and I just assumed he wouldexecute it and tell people
exactly what I said, which itwas like, chairs on the
driveway, anyway, just anyway,very specific. Then that's not
what happened. And it was fine.
It all worked out just fine,right? But at one point I was in
the kitchen while Cory was like,Sure, ending the pork. And I was
(25:38):
just like, I really hate whenpeople see me like that. And he
and I had cooled off at thispoint, and I it was kind of, I
was joking a little bit, but, Imean, it was a honest thing I
was saying. And he was like,Yeah, I bet
that looks so uncomfortable, youknow. And I just was like, it.
(25:59):
It was a new experience ofembarrassment, because I didn't
feel like I was spiraling out. Ididn't feel ashamed. It just was
like, not how I would prefer topresent myself, as, like,
flustered and irritated and alittle bit controlling. I'm
like, I like these people too.
And so I also was just like, youknow, I am a human. I'm not
going to, like, apologize forbeing human. But also like, I'm
(26:21):
sorry that I made that tensebecause I did, like, they
weren't here for a cookout tohelp, and I was just like, wound
up. And what I just felt so muchof that old stuff, of like, oh,
this is the old how we entertainguests, and
(26:42):
that, like, I was mad that Coreydidn't have them do exactly what
I sent in the text, yeah.
And he was, like, unwilling totake ownership of my anger in
that, you know, he was justlike, that's on you. You should
have been here well. And Ithink, fair, yeah, fair. And,
(27:06):
and also too. Like, you know, Iwas just thinking about
sometimes when we have aresponse, like you had, and you
go and you start kind ofreflecting on that, like,
sometimes shame can come in,because it's like, why do I need
to have everything this way? Whywould I? And it's like it
doesn't matter. It's just whatmatters is, you know that about
yourself, and what agreements doI need to make with myself and
really mentally prep myself?
Listen, I'm all are neurotypes.
(27:30):
I'm all about like, mentallypreparing my kids myself for
unmet expectations, keepingthose things flexible. And I
think you just, next time, youjust won't do that to yourself.
If you have decide it will beanother part of your agreement.
Like, well, how? Well, hey, I, Iknow I've got the time. I don't
(27:52):
have any of this necessary prepto do. And also, if someone's
going to show up early, or ifthere's miscommunication in the
text, am I willing to like? Letit not be set up. And I think
that all I honest to god knowyou so well. And I think that
very brief conversation withyourself, I really think you
would have been fine. Oh yeah,if I had just let it go. Because
(28:13):
I think I felt, I feltresponsible for making sure they
they knew what to do like. So Iguess even the me saying that I
had nothing to do is actuallyreally not true, because I sent
Cory a list of, like, what wewere going to tell I was going
to tell people what to do,right? So it was, it was like,
well, he's there. He can dothat. He can say, put this stuff
(28:35):
on the driveway, put this tableover here.
And I think, you know, as Ithink about this idea of healthy
aggression, you know, when Iwhen I came back and I was
activated, and I was, like,clearly frustrated, and I was
really, really trying to containthe frustration. And what would
(28:57):
you have done differently? Like,I did not want to lash out at
people. But I also, I'm sure,because they know me, they could
feel that I was not okay. Andsome of the ways that I helped
to discharge, some of that waslike
I went into the house where theair conditioning was, and that
required me to kind of jog up afew steps. So just physically
(29:19):
moving my body a little bit,helping some of that energy
that, like, wants to kind oflash out, helping it move. Went
in, cooled off a little bit, gota drink. Also was just like, who
cares? You know, got someperspective pretty quickly,
because I didn't have a bunch todo. So it wasn't like I came in
(29:39):
to a bunch of tasks, and nowthis thing over here didn't go
right. It was just like, thatwas all I had to think about.
And I was like, I don't reallycare. I don't want to think
about that. And then Corey camein, and I was able to, like,
make this joke and connect,right, that connection presence,
right, where I just felt like,yeah, okay, that wasn't ideal. I
think at one point I don't knowif I was.
(30:00):
Outside or inside. He was like,What do you want? And I said, I
can't cope. I do remember sayingthat like, I remember feeling so
buzzy in my body that I was justlike, You cannot ask me any more
questions. I can't I can'tfunction right now. And that's
when I went inside to cool off,and I feel like, you know,
(30:20):
that's a new pattern, like notjust feeling like, well, you
have to function, you're here,so now just make everyone
miserable.
Yeah, like, that's the thing isthat, like, the women are
family. They just would notleave, because they still are
like, Well, I have a task I haveto do, and I'm going to sit here
and I'm going to do them,instead of, like, that's the
thing about that. I think one ofthe biggest lessons I've learned
(30:42):
from you over this last year anda half or so around some of the
somatic stuff is, like, itdoesn't actually take as long as
we think it does to just giveourselves a minute and, like, I
like the thing of, like, goinginto a room and like, doing the
full squeeze From head to toe,like, like, that, like, and then
(31:02):
just letting it kind of drainfrom me, like, but the
connection piece, but all thosethings of like, it doesn't
actually take that long andbut we don't always give
ourselves that moment. So thefact that you went in and got
cool and attempted, sometimesit's like you don't even know
what to do, but the fact thatyou've attempted to meet that
need softens your system. Do youfind that? Like, yeah, and I
(31:25):
don't even, as I'm telling thestory about that happening, a
tiny, tiny bit of activationcame up, but not a lot. And that
tells me that, like, there is alittle something there from that
day that maybe I should dosomething with. But also,
there's not a lot there. Itwasn't like that big of an
event. It was just this, likelittle mini event. That is a
(31:47):
good example of what happens tome internally a lot when things
don't go according to plan, andI feel my neuro divergence come
in hot in those moments wherethe ability to access curiosity
and flexibility is completelyoff the table, and I'm, you
(32:07):
know, hijacked by thiscombination of things, and it
happens when I'm with my kids,but it often happens when anger
is a component, and that's partof why I've been so curious in
this last year around, how canI, you know, kind of parse out
what pieces of this are anger,what am I angry about? What is,
(32:30):
what is my system trying to tellme the threat is and what else
is here? Because a lot of timesit's other stuff is there too,
and and then trying to find,like, how do I give myself
permission to say that wasdisappointing, that it wasn't
set up the way that I wanted itto be set up, and that I felt on
the spot, yeah, because I feltlike my way to set it up was the
(32:54):
best way. And so now I felt puton the spot, like I have to be
direct and tell these peoplethey have set it up wrong, which
is not exactly what I said. Ijust was like,
Yeah, I don't want to get intothe nitty gritty, because it's
not that important. But it'slike, in my mind, there were, I
(33:16):
couldn't get to the flexiblepoint of what their perspective
was, of of why they set it up inthe reverse of where I thought
things should go. So it's likethey also were doing their best
and thought it was, yeah, it'sinteresting. It would be
interesting to think about,like, what would what you
actually registered as a threatthere? I mean, I think about,
(33:36):
for me to try to access healthyaggression, right? Of like,
parsing out, like, what isactually, like, you know,
me just being completely, like,activated in a way that's, I'm
going to discharge it in a waythat's, that's not good for
anybody and and for me, like, Ido notice that, like, when I'm
(33:59):
tending to my system prettyregularly throughout the day,
um, I have a much easier timesaying the thing or saying I'm
disappointed or whatever, andfeeling like I'm still grounded
in myself, like, you know, thatkind of blended like, state Of
like, I'm okay, but like, thisis not okay.
(34:24):
But I think it's reallychallenging for me as well to do
that around big events like, orlike, huge event, but it was
like, there's all of thesethings at play, and the reality
that, like, I go on a morningwalk, I could do meditation, I
could do whatever, but then thatevent comes around, and the
thing is, you have to activatethat life force to get the
(34:45):
things done right, and thenexcited about the chairs. And
the thing is, like, all of thatis building that energy, right,
but not all of it's like, quote,unquote, like, not bad, I don't
wanna use that word, but like,it's not all, like, it's.
It's, it's all anger. It's notall anger. It's like life force.
And then it all gets alljumbled, yeah, exactly like a
(35:07):
precipice, and you go over thecliff and you're like, the
chairs aren't set up, right?
Like, whatever, you know. Andthat is also part of being twice
exceptional. And your neurotype,my neurotype of like, we have
really big feels so like, whenwe feel joyful, we feel like the
things, it's like a lot of timesit's that energetic buildup that
(35:29):
just comes on very quickly andbig, and it's floody. But like
you said, not all of it's anger.
Some of it's like, you'reexcited to see the people and
like, you're actually want toenjoy and be present. And
there's just a lot, there'ssensory stimuli, the kids coming
at you. So it's like, but theway it will come out is that
(35:51):
last tipping point of somethingthat's like, if you don't have
the time to reset or whatever,well, yeah, and then just the
whole story gets packaged intothis one thing with a title that
has something very negativeabout me in it. You know, the
time I was, uh, fill in theblank with any x, yes. And I
(36:12):
want to make this point realquick, because in that too,
like, if you had come home andeverything had been done right,
right, here's the reality oflike our neurotype, is that it
could have still not ended well.
And we see this with our kids.
Sam, okay, mywhen there's a lot of energetic
buildup, even in the positive,let's say everything was done,
(36:35):
right? Yes, he will sometimesget very agitated because of
that big influx of big fields.
Yeah, at the end, it'll belabeled, mislabeled. Like,
what's your problem? What'sgoing on with you? Why are you
acting this way? What? Like, youknow, whatever. And it's like,
well, it actually was all good,and I'm so glad that, but it's
(36:58):
still flooding, but it's stillflooding. And so then it ends up
being this kind of agitated,energetic state that he needs
to, kinda like, that's so good.
I'm like, worried about thathappening this afternoon,
because we're going to the pool,and there's been all this, you
know, sighting, but they're bothtired, and I'm like, these are
the kinds of days where thegreat thing about the pool,
though, is the sunlight. They'rein the water, and they're moving
(37:20):
their bodies. Now, I've stillseen my kids more of the after
the pool. It's the after thepool. That's right, that's
right. It's so good, yeah, it'slike, coming home is going to be
interesting. And I've alreadyprepared Corey for that. Like
they're they that is when theylook angry, right? Is when
they've had a really full,really good day and they're
(37:42):
exhausted, they have bigmeltdowns and lots of ragey
looking feelings,and it can be really hard to
interact with. It can be reallyhard to manage, because you
literally just have to get overthe finish line and get them
into bed, and they don'tunderstand what's happening in
their bodies, and you canrespond to it in a way that can
(38:04):
make it a bigger deal than itneeds to be. That makes it more
painful for everyone, and wecertainly have done that before,
too, and so I've learned, atleast in that sense, that like
it looks like anger, but it'sexhaustion.
There are so many things thatare mislabeled anger. I just
(38:25):
this. I mean, I know we probablyare going to have to wrap up
soon, but I was even thinkingjust about, like, in the
opposite end of like, even justbeing honest and
straightforward, right, can belabeled as aggressive. Oh yeah.
I mean, like, there's so manythings that, like, we just don't
know, and we want to have accessto these things, but at the same
(38:46):
time, when they are presentingto community, to society, to
other people, even to ourselves,it's a very confusing
relationship, because there's alot of mixed messaging And a lot
of different things coming in,and I don't even know if it
matter, I don't know like butis, is a really hardy topic. It
(39:09):
is, yeah, because I also thinkabout that directness and how
depends on what your nervoussystem is doing energetically
behind that direct right, canfeel aggressive, even if the
person honestly, that was myissue last weekend was I felt
like me saying, This isn't how Iwanted it set up, because I was
(39:30):
so all that life force, energy,excitement and just busyness,
was built up in me,energetically. I couldn't
control the affect with thosewords, like, I couldn't control
that energy coming through, andso it looked angrier than I
didn't actually feel angry. Ifelt like, I think I did say
(39:52):
It's just frustrating, but Idon't think I actually was. I
wasn't mad at any of the peoplefor helping. Yeah, I was a
little bit irritated.
With Corey, because I felt likehe could have prevented me from
getting that place, which is myown work, to do, um, and but it
was more just that, like whatyou're saying, there was this
huge build up, and I I needed totend to that. I needed to
(40:18):
discharge that in a way thatdidn't like come out my mouth at
other people, and there wasgoing to be no easy breezy to be
had no because I was, like,standing in front of a bunch of
people, like, there was no wayto be, like, I'm going to need a
minute. Well, actually, I couldhave done that, but I didn't
have the wherewithal to do that,because they were all asking,
like, where did you want this?
Where'd you want that? And I waslike, not in any of these
places.
(40:41):
All wrong.
Yeah, I just, I think about thisidea of, like, healthy
aggression and anger, and thenall of what you're saying about,
like, being very excitable andhaving really big feelings,
these things are, like, veryenmeshed for me, and it's been a
(41:02):
lot to try to start to pull themapart and see them for what they
are. And I have felt really in agood way, challenged by this
idea that somewhere in there isalso this life force energy
piece that and there is thisother piece where we can access
healthy aggression. We candischarge aggression in a way
(41:22):
that's healthy and safe for ourbody and for other people's
bodies. And getting reallycurious about how can I give my
body what it needs to releaseand process some of just
energetically, the legitimateanger and frustration that comes
up just being human in this,like, messed up place we live
(41:44):
in. You know,it's a trip. It's a trip. No,
we said this was going to be ashort one, and it wasn't. It
could be, well,hey, they didn't come in and
storm the gates. They didn't butI did hear the door chime, so
they might be outside.
Thankfully, they're old enoughnow that that doesn't cause a
(42:06):
bunch of intrusive thoughts forme. So, so good, yeah? Okay,
this was really good. I feellike we barely scratched the
surface, but we did, but yeah, II feel like, Yeah, but we're not
going to promise the secondpart, because we No, no, no, we
don't do that, but we might talkabout this again at some point.
I'm sure it will come up,especially because I want to, I
(42:26):
do want to talk at some pointabout embarrassment.
Yeah, yeah. And I think thatoverexcitabilities piece will
keep coming up because of ournarrative. It just will because
it's all of the things andthey're amplified, I mean, and
that varies from person toperson. But you know, the big
feels, the big feelers outthere, you know, it's,
(42:50):
it's nuanced, and it'sexhausting, and that shame just
comes right in. It's just like,ready to be like. Society likes
us to be like,chill and compliant and and
also, like, beautiful and, youknow, consistent and hard
working all these things thatrequire your nervous system to
(43:12):
be activated.
Yeah, I know, right. Soconfusing. So confusing. Like,
you can't actually do workunless there's some energetic
activation in your system, yeah?
So when you have a sensitivenervous system, it's like, oh,
we're going to fight. Let's gowhoa. I just need a little bit
(43:34):
of Yeah, just a sip. Just a sip.
All right, thanks for chatting.
I hope you have a good rest ofyour day. You love you, all
right. Love you too. Bye, bye.
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