Is Your Inner Demon Actually Your Friend?

Do you think we moaned too much? I think we moaned too much. Maybe we should have put more tips and joy in there. Sprinkled some joyful nuts amongst the rageful milk chocolate
 
Today’s first time mother by choice podcast got me thinking about my relationship with anger and so-called ‘negative’ emotions this week and my past self really needs to hear what I have to say on it
 
Many of you reading this are similar to me, my current self, my past self, and I’m sure my future self (sorry if that’s bad news for your Friday I promise to make it better within the next 2 minutes of your life) so alas here we are, sharing my thoughts yet again with my favourite people – you
 
Thank you as ever, for giving me 2 minutes of your Friday (2 minutes is rarely all we need unless we’re reconnecting with our bff from lovehoney in which case I bet we 2 minutes is overkill)
 
I got pretty rageful this week, which I know is really hard to believe since I constantly bombard you with an angelic, peaceful, non-opinionated vanilla demeanour. Do your best to imagine that not always being the case, that in fact I, on occasion, can get somewhat… ratty
 
The stimulus doesn’t matter, the response is what interested me (we are nothing if we’re not curious about our responses). Post rat-trigger, I felt a dark cloud infiltrating my body, residing in my chest and heart space and like the quicksand that nearly enveloped and sucked me under as a kid, seeping throughout my body, creating waves of tension and heaviness
 
I had to get it out of me
 
I sent angry voice notes. I shed a real tear (I know it’s very hard to believe). I wrote down my shitty first draft (a Brene Brown favourite):

The first story we make up is what we call the “shitty first draft,” or the SFD.
 
Capturing your SFD means putting those initial thoughts on paper, so that we can
better examine the story we are telling ourselves. This version includes all of our
fears, insecurities, and worst-case scenarios.
 
What we often discover by writing down our SFD is that we have filled in the story
with false information—suppositions, confabulations, and conspiracy theories.
 

We figure out which parts of our story are true. 

I had to get this weight of heavy emotion out of my body. For want of a better term, I needed to purge it
 
This is where food  (*insert other numbing strategies e.g. over-exercising, over-working, alcohol, red-flagged sex, spending etc.) comes in
 
Past me would never have had the somatic awareness to identify an emotion in my body. After years of external food rules, over exercising, restricting, overeating, over working, under resting, I could barely identify a sensation in my body
 
I remember learning about this term called diabetic foot. That when diabetes is left unmanaged, nerve damage can occur and I was given an example of a man who stood on a nail and didn’t feel it because of the nerve damage, subsequently losing his foot because he didn’t recognise the initial pain
 
I used to be a diabetic foot
 
Past me would never have outwardly admitted anger (unless she’d consumed one too many £1 shots at the student union in which case anger came in response to the most menial triggers like an ex I no longer cared about or someone being remotely rude)
 
Anger, much like any other ‘negative’ emotion, was shameful
 
One must be positive at all times, friendly, nice, approachable, amenable
 
Surprisingly as a real-life human being, not experiencing anger was virtually impossible so instead, I squashed it with my numbing tools. My tools of choice? Dairy milk caramel, a tub of ben and jerrys and a share bag of salt and vinegar kettle chips and a daily 10k run, followed by as many days of restriction as possible. 
 
Back to this week, when the dark cloud-release cycle occurred
 
At the time I felt like my baby was being suffocated by emotion and it was my responsibility to just get it out of my body, away from him
 
And then I realised, that’s why I’m a big angrier and bit more honest of late
 
I now have an additional reason to get these emotions out of my body in a healthful way, and my baby is more important than societal expectations of a ‘nice woman’
 
I’ve known this for years and have shared with you many reasons to feel your feelings – this isn’t new information
 
Toxic positivity, toxic zen, it’s the driver of so many of your unhelpful habits 
 
To do this, we have to remove the idea that certain emotions are ‘bad’ whilst others are ‘good’
 
Emotions are data
 
They provide insight into our situation and direction for awareness and action. They’re neither positive nor negative. They are simply a part of our healthy lived experience
 
This weekend, I wonder if you can get curious about your spectrum of emotions
 
What do you feel?
Where in your body do you feel it?
What habits do you want to change?
When do they arise?
How often, objectively, do you feel emotions that you deem ‘negative’?
How often, objectively, do you feel emotions that you deem ‘positive’?
 
There is too, the possibility that you in fact avoid ‘positive’ emotions. A fear of being happy (often, at the risk of it being taken away, or indeed, driven by an inherent belief that we don’t deserve it) is another potential driver of these habits and states
 
If you made it to the end of this email, thank you for baring with me
 
And if you relate, maybe it’s time to work on your awareness, your body connection and your unhelpful habits 
 
Which you can of course do with us, at our body connection event or working 1-1 with us
 
I’m always here,
 
Em