I newly have an amazing woman as a friend on Facebook. A little pocket of the world is filling for me with these awesome girls, ladies, warriors, women. I only wish that that little pocket were closer!
So the other day this lady who is so often full of grace and patience confessed to having lost her temper with her children. Her grief and shame bled off the screen and she pre-empted our comments: that such a thing is only human, that the children would shrug it off, that things would be better the following day... that maybe she had been provoked and that children need to know and understand that they have gone too far. For once I did not comment... I have so many thoughts whirling around my mind concerning anger that I wanted her words to allow them to make their way onto paper. I also wanted to respect her ability to share a sad moment with us and respect her request for quiet.
That same respect for her compells me to try and spin the jumble of fibres in my mind into some kind of yarn. I cannot hope for a beautiful result that might make a delicate pashmina, but if my thought yarn could result in some soft socks to warm cold toes.
For as far back as I can remember, I have feared, even dreaded my anger. The loss of control that I felt could overcome me and hurt others was enough in itself to enable me to reign in those emotions and carry on. I was far from being a perfect little girl, but by and large I was quiet. I remember clearly ensuring that I must not hurt my sister, however awful she was because I would either get into trouble or lose control and really hurt her. The howls that followed any little scrap were testament to her understanding of a parent's response to cries ("Benedicte! Leave your sister alone!!!").
As I write this now, I am so careful to choose my words. I am slowly coming to understand and realise that anger is not a "negative" emotion. That emotions are simply that... feelings that well up inside us as a reaction to circumstance, thoughts, the people around us that we care about. For several years now, I repeat to myself that "behaviour is communication" when I witness and endure the awesome anger and sadness of three children who daily wrestle with a life that most adults would struggle to cope with.
With a lot of help from friends, therapy and the biggest teacher of all: life, the idea that emotions are as normal and neutral in intention as a heart that beats or a leg that rears up in response to a reflex point being tapped has begun to seat itself deep into my soul.
Sadness has been easiest for me. As painful as sadness can be, I can hold it in me and keep it safe. I can allow myself that emotion and recognise that it is a part of me, that I am allowed to feel it in all its intensity and that I can also find a place for it deep inside me and continue to live in its company while not being overwhelmed by it. Anger is much harder.
While sadness lives inside me, anger wants out. Anger held become so destructive as to leave its host quite emptied and weakened. By the time my anger had done with me, I no longer recognised it as such. It mutated, changed, altered to something quite unlike its fiery beginning. By the time I allowed myself to fall of the cliff that was my life, it was like a stalker. Quiet, so close to patience because of my life with my children, that it took me a long time to realise that anger had a very big part to play in that fall. Not least because anger had such a big part to play in the fact that I lived my life as if holding on to the edge of a cliff by my fingertips, always refusing to give up and let go.
I still do not know how to manage anger, how to live with it and let it go, transformed. But now I can recognise it, and if I do not welcome it, I at least acknowledge the validity of its existence.
That said, I have clear social and emotional boundaries and I am able to contain any anger in situations where outbursts would be unacceptable. Nor do I feel it appropriate to release that anger in reaction to a child's misdemeanour. After all, "behaviour is communication". If my child's behaviour is challenging, then in nearly all cases it is because that child has been unable to communicate a need, or understand another.
My three children all have great communication difficulties. They also lack those taboos that most of us grow up with: the fear of adults and authority, the "knowledge" that some things simply cannot be said or done, the shock that comes when a boundary is crossed without permission.
My children have also lived lives filled with pain, both emotional and physical. They have had to fight for attention more than most due to extreme circumstance. A little boy with cancer who took his mother away from his brother and sister, whose mother could not be by his bedside each day he was in hospital. A little girl who learned to wash and dress herself because Mummy had to be at hospital or managing big brother's major meltdowns. Another little boy who was regularly overwhelmed by life, but whose mother was constantly in and out of hospital with baby brother.
Anger thrives in circumstances such as these. Indeed why should it not?
And anger in circumstances such as these is a violent and untamed monster. Shouts and screams are at some point joined by name calling and gestures mimicking attack. And eventually, when circumstances such as these do not subside, shouts and screams are not enough and physical attack and violence pour out.
Many call out "unacceptable" and "he/she must not be allowed to".
I ask you, who is most at risk in these attacks? Mummy who is bruised and battered both on the outside and in her heart? Or that child who has been overtaken by the monster of anger?
Zack frequently was unaware of such incidents having occured. He once recalled one saying, "everything went dark. I could just feel how angry I was and how I wanted to hurt you. Everything was black, even the sky was black, but I could see. I could see you, but not with my eyes."
Kesia seems at times to feel the anguish of hurting me even as she is launching herself at me.
Tom says simply, "I can't help it".
These are not bad children. Nor is their anger bad. For Zack, anger at that time came from the terror of not knowing what lay ahead for him at a time when I could not homeschool anymore and we simply did not know what would happen. Kesia sees her world change at a pace that she cannot follow, and her confusion eventually overwhelms her. Then the slightest mishap leads to anger. Tom lives with the increasing understanding that he is "not like", without any understanding as to why. Sadness is a big presence in his life, so big that it translates to anger.
My question to the universe, the world, you is this: if we are together in the feeling that anger is a legitimate emotion and that repressing that anger is not a solution, how can we release that anger? And how can I help my chilren release theirs without hurting themselves or others?
This is my yarn so far. I am not a spinner... I love, admire and respect the work of spinners of all kinds who make such beautiful yarn. My yarn today is clumpy and irregular, I know this.
So the other day this lady who is so often full of grace and patience confessed to having lost her temper with her children. Her grief and shame bled off the screen and she pre-empted our comments: that such a thing is only human, that the children would shrug it off, that things would be better the following day... that maybe she had been provoked and that children need to know and understand that they have gone too far. For once I did not comment... I have so many thoughts whirling around my mind concerning anger that I wanted her words to allow them to make their way onto paper. I also wanted to respect her ability to share a sad moment with us and respect her request for quiet.
That same respect for her compells me to try and spin the jumble of fibres in my mind into some kind of yarn. I cannot hope for a beautiful result that might make a delicate pashmina, but if my thought yarn could result in some soft socks to warm cold toes.
For as far back as I can remember, I have feared, even dreaded my anger. The loss of control that I felt could overcome me and hurt others was enough in itself to enable me to reign in those emotions and carry on. I was far from being a perfect little girl, but by and large I was quiet. I remember clearly ensuring that I must not hurt my sister, however awful she was because I would either get into trouble or lose control and really hurt her. The howls that followed any little scrap were testament to her understanding of a parent's response to cries ("Benedicte! Leave your sister alone!!!").
As I write this now, I am so careful to choose my words. I am slowly coming to understand and realise that anger is not a "negative" emotion. That emotions are simply that... feelings that well up inside us as a reaction to circumstance, thoughts, the people around us that we care about. For several years now, I repeat to myself that "behaviour is communication" when I witness and endure the awesome anger and sadness of three children who daily wrestle with a life that most adults would struggle to cope with.
With a lot of help from friends, therapy and the biggest teacher of all: life, the idea that emotions are as normal and neutral in intention as a heart that beats or a leg that rears up in response to a reflex point being tapped has begun to seat itself deep into my soul.
Sadness has been easiest for me. As painful as sadness can be, I can hold it in me and keep it safe. I can allow myself that emotion and recognise that it is a part of me, that I am allowed to feel it in all its intensity and that I can also find a place for it deep inside me and continue to live in its company while not being overwhelmed by it. Anger is much harder.
While sadness lives inside me, anger wants out. Anger held become so destructive as to leave its host quite emptied and weakened. By the time my anger had done with me, I no longer recognised it as such. It mutated, changed, altered to something quite unlike its fiery beginning. By the time I allowed myself to fall of the cliff that was my life, it was like a stalker. Quiet, so close to patience because of my life with my children, that it took me a long time to realise that anger had a very big part to play in that fall. Not least because anger had such a big part to play in the fact that I lived my life as if holding on to the edge of a cliff by my fingertips, always refusing to give up and let go.
I still do not know how to manage anger, how to live with it and let it go, transformed. But now I can recognise it, and if I do not welcome it, I at least acknowledge the validity of its existence.
That said, I have clear social and emotional boundaries and I am able to contain any anger in situations where outbursts would be unacceptable. Nor do I feel it appropriate to release that anger in reaction to a child's misdemeanour. After all, "behaviour is communication". If my child's behaviour is challenging, then in nearly all cases it is because that child has been unable to communicate a need, or understand another.
My three children all have great communication difficulties. They also lack those taboos that most of us grow up with: the fear of adults and authority, the "knowledge" that some things simply cannot be said or done, the shock that comes when a boundary is crossed without permission.
My children have also lived lives filled with pain, both emotional and physical. They have had to fight for attention more than most due to extreme circumstance. A little boy with cancer who took his mother away from his brother and sister, whose mother could not be by his bedside each day he was in hospital. A little girl who learned to wash and dress herself because Mummy had to be at hospital or managing big brother's major meltdowns. Another little boy who was regularly overwhelmed by life, but whose mother was constantly in and out of hospital with baby brother.
Anger thrives in circumstances such as these. Indeed why should it not?
And anger in circumstances such as these is a violent and untamed monster. Shouts and screams are at some point joined by name calling and gestures mimicking attack. And eventually, when circumstances such as these do not subside, shouts and screams are not enough and physical attack and violence pour out.
Many call out "unacceptable" and "he/she must not be allowed to".
I ask you, who is most at risk in these attacks? Mummy who is bruised and battered both on the outside and in her heart? Or that child who has been overtaken by the monster of anger?
Zack frequently was unaware of such incidents having occured. He once recalled one saying, "everything went dark. I could just feel how angry I was and how I wanted to hurt you. Everything was black, even the sky was black, but I could see. I could see you, but not with my eyes."
Kesia seems at times to feel the anguish of hurting me even as she is launching herself at me.
Tom says simply, "I can't help it".
These are not bad children. Nor is their anger bad. For Zack, anger at that time came from the terror of not knowing what lay ahead for him at a time when I could not homeschool anymore and we simply did not know what would happen. Kesia sees her world change at a pace that she cannot follow, and her confusion eventually overwhelms her. Then the slightest mishap leads to anger. Tom lives with the increasing understanding that he is "not like", without any understanding as to why. Sadness is a big presence in his life, so big that it translates to anger.
My question to the universe, the world, you is this: if we are together in the feeling that anger is a legitimate emotion and that repressing that anger is not a solution, how can we release that anger? And how can I help my chilren release theirs without hurting themselves or others?
This is my yarn so far. I am not a spinner... I love, admire and respect the work of spinners of all kinds who make such beautiful yarn. My yarn today is clumpy and irregular, I know this.
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