Pivot to Passion - Anger: How I worked through and processed.

In this podcast episode, the speaker, Deanna Byrne, talks about her personal journey with anger and grief following the sudden death of her husband. She discusses how the pandemic and lockdowns affected the grieving process and the emotions that lie beneath anger, such as sadness, loneliness, and insecurity. Deanna shares her experience of dealing with anger, including using somatic meditation and an anger diary to process and understand her emotions. She also reflects on the importance of self-care and setting boundaries with others, emphasizing the need to prioritize one's own well-being. Deanna concludes by discussing the power of words and the importance of showing kindness and acceptance towards others. She offers resources and support for those on their healing journey. Hi there, my name is Deanna Byrne, creator of Meditate with Deanna. Welcome to Pivot to Passion, which is a branch off of the Meditate with Deanna podcast. Today I want to talk about anger, the unpeeling, the unveiling and the dealing with. The reality is, is anger, it can be such an incredibly debilitating emotion or it can be a powerful emotion. What I want to talk about today is what 24 hours looked like for me. For those of you who have followed my podcast, you are aware that my husband died suddenly in January 2020 of a brain aneurysm. My life completely changed the moment he took his last breath. The next two years were something that the world had never seen before. We went on a worldwide lockdown, we were in a worldwide pandemic. Things were being done that limited social interaction and social connection. So somebody who is grieving a loss or lost somebody during this period of time are seeing what is now called delayed grief because you were not exposed to the normal triggers that you would be exposed to in a normal grieving process. Those grieving triggers will bring things to the surface for you to feel, to deal and to continue putting one foot in front of the other, rediscovering your new you, your new life, what your world looks like today without your loved one in it. It teaches you how to be strong and how to move forward and helps you to fully understand and walk within your new normal. I've been doing exceptionally well over the course of the time since my husband died, I thought. I was really discovering who she was and pulling out those facets of her, the new her, the strong her, the warrior her and all of those things. This year, 2022, for me personally has been a year of tremendous growth, tremendous sadness, all sorts of things. I want to talk for a minute about what the anger iceberg looks like. A lot of times from the outside looking at an angry person, you only see it when the tip of the iceberg hits its moment, hits the point of no return, hits the time where you can simply, you have to deal, you have to face this head on and you have to make a decision. Many people choose to not deal with it. They'll either lash out and have an anger release or they will tuck it back in, usually with things like smoking or drugs or alcohol or medications even, suppressing those emotions. The anger iceberg, what you don't see are the issues under the water, the part of the iceberg that is not visible. Those emotions are sadness, disappointment, loneliness, being overwhelmed, being embarrassed or hurt, feeling helpless, physical and emotional pain, being very frustrated, feeling very insecure, hungry emotionally and possibly physically, deep grief, anxiety, stress, feeling threatened, being tired, feeling contempt or guilt, feeling jealousy, being scared or feeling shame. Those are very, very powerful emotions that sit underneath the water in the iceberg. Over the course of the last couple of years, I have felt all of those. Anger for me was a relatively new emotion. I would always talk myself through it but I never, ever, ever allowed myself to sit with it. I would do something to release it but I never honored it and listened to it. A couple of days ago, I had a trigger that set me into an absolute rage and I can't even remember what the trigger was. I just knew I was mad and I was angry. You need to understand anger can be defined as that pivotal moment where you can choose to stop being a victim and start being a warrior, start fighting back, start understanding. A part of what I do with my clients in my coaching world is what's called somatic meditation. I take them through the process of feeling their body, feeling where pain may be, feeling where there's any discomfort, feeling where there's any disharmony. It's a very powerful, powerful guided meditation that's very effective in pulling trauma to the surface and dealing with it. So I made the decision to do that for myself. I sat down and I took myself through a guided meditation, talking to myself, feeling where the pain was, feeling where the physical pain was sitting in my body. How was my breathing affected? Was I sweating? How were my heart palpitations? What was my pulse like? Were my eyes fluttering? Did I have a headache? Was I dry in the mouth? All of those sorts of things. Ringing in the ears, all of those crazy things that tend to happen when you go into an anger episode or anxiety or anything like that, really. And I started feeling it and then I started peeling away the layers. And then I started really understanding. This took hours. I really had to work through it. I really had to feel it and I had to peel it away. My whole life, I have been a giver. Always, always, always. I would give my time. I would give my insight. I would give my experience. I would give my love. I would give my compassion. I would give, give, give, give, give, give. And I never, ever, ever, ever expected anything in return, really. I've always been the kind of person that felt that giving to your neighbor, giving to your community was part about, it takes a village, right? I was brought up to be caring and compassionate, to help your fellow neighbor and to really never ask for anything in return. And when I started my business a few years ago, it really gave a lot of my heart and soul only to have judgment, criticism and hatred thrown towards me. To have helped individuals only to be thrown under the bus was a lot for me to handle. And I buried that. And then I rolled into the death of my husband, which was a whole other level of sadness and emptiness and loneliness. So I never really dealt with any of that. For three years prior to my husband's death, he was actually, had moments where he was quite sick. He did have kidney disease and he was on dialysis. His death was not related to any of that, which was why it was so hard to handle because he had fought so hard to live. He had fought so hard to get on the transplant list to get a kidney and to live. He was a young man. For me, I buried all of those emotions of having taken human beings as equals. It didn't matter if I was their boss, if I was my position in any company, it didn't matter who I was in life. If I felt that I had something that could help you move forward, I gave that to you. I opened doors for you. I wanted to help you become the best you could be in whatever aspect of life we were connected in, whether it be personal, business, it didn't matter. I was always the kind of person that wanted to help others and give of myself however I could. When my husband was sick, I spent many, many hours being a caregiver. I would do it all again tomorrow because I felt that that was part of my role. When I took my vows, they meant something to me and I gave a lot of myself through that journey. But there were so many facets of it that were absolutely beautiful and incredible. To be able to sit with him during those moments of vulnerability and weakness is something that I will treasure and hold deep within my heart forever. To be able to give him a peaceful transition into death privately with just family, with no machines and no beeping and nothing, where he could gently and easily transition through again was such an incredible gift, not only to him, but to us as well, those who loved him. Again, giving and giving. Part of that is also deflecting reality. The next couple of years after his death, I also went into the giving mode, the giving, giving, giving, giving, and not really feeling anything. There were moments that I was vulnerable and I needed help and I had wonderful friends that would step in and help and I will always, always be so eternally grateful for those people that have come into my life. Then hit 2022. Wow. The world was open again. It was all about reintroducing humans to each other, finding kindness, finding connection, finding community, living again. The problem though was the previous couple of years had created a whole lot of emotion in people, fear, anger, frustration, divide, segregation. I can go on and on. So that really changed people to their cores. People that we knew, people that we loved, people that we spent many years together with forever changed, forever. Now it was a time about we had a decision to make. We could decide to find the good in the world around us and push forward or we could decide to not and to sit within our own misery, anger, frustration and not. If you chose the first one, the reality is that many times throughout that journey of discovery and rediscovery, the new you and the new world, the slang of your dragons would awaken the dragons in others and you would own that as that being a you problem. In reality, it was never a you problem. It was a them problem, but you owned it. You see, part of what we're taught growing up is we are obligated. There's an obligation to family. There's an obligation to friends. We are taught there's an obligation. We are never taught that if these relationships hurt you, take away your peace, fill up your Coke and cup, harm your soul, that it's okay to walk away, that it is okay to bless and release, that it is okay to love yourself first, that it is okay to do what you need to do to survive. So here we are, 2022, the world's reopening, a world of discovery, a world of reconnecting, a world of learning what a new normal looks like in a post pandemic world full of a whole lot of angry people, full of a whole lot of fearful people. How do you get through that? So you continue to stay connected to those of you to those who were part of your life prior to that. What I discovered during my anger peeling away ceremony this week was some of those people during my process were more harmful for me than helpful. And I don't want to say that in a way that I'm hurting anyone because this is not my intention. My intention is not to hurt anyone or to call anyone out with this podcast. My intention is education. My intention is to allow people to understand that there are times in your life when you do not need to own other people's shit. And we keep doing it over and over again, even though it is not good for us. During my transition of blossoming and growing into my butterfly, I was a hot mess. I'd fall down and get back up. I'd fall down and get back up. I'd fall down and get back up. I decided I was going to try dating again. Well, that's a whole other podcast series, let me tell you. But that opened up and sparked things inside of me that I had not felt in years. And I was expected by those around me to handle all that stuff with grace. When all of a sudden I'm a hormonal hot mess who doesn't even know what day of the week it is. I had to figure that out. I had to figure out who was real, who was genuine, who was an asshole, who was a player, who was a hustler. Oh my goodness. It is craziness. The landscape is craziness. And people are so full of advice, so full of wisdom, so full of criticism, so full of hatred. I was told during this process by a couple of people that I was a lot and I was selfish and it was all about me. You know what? It was about me. It really was about me. The reality is they didn't have to stay to blame me for me choosing finally in my life to make it all about me. You see, you need to make it all about you to figure out who you are, what you need, what you want, what truly fills your soul cup. How on earth can you do that if other people continuously tell you, A, you're doing it wrong, B, you are a mess, C, you are vain, you are selfish, all those sorts of things. People need to understand words are energy. When they say things to you and you are in a vulnerable position, even if you're in a strong position, even if your foundation is rock solid, those words will eventually peel away layers of you, go to the inside of your core and hurt you. Hurt you because they make you question who you are as a human being. They make you question those of you that you have confided in, that you have allowed yourself to be vulnerable to, that you at the depths of your most vulnerable open and raw, let them in. That is an honor. For someone to let you in in those moments is an honor that should never, ever be thrown in someone's face. Ever. After I sat with my anger for several hours, I felt like it was peeling me towards people and situations, but I needed to really work it out. I'm a visual person. I need to use my hands and my brain. So I started playing with an anger diary. This is a very, very important tool that is used in therapy all the time. Therapists use it for trauma cases. Coaches use it to help people figure things out and peel away the layers. It's simple. What was the trigger, if you can narrow it down? Were there any warning signs? What was your anger response? What was the outcome? It is best to do this a couple of times for a situation. Five events tend to really help you peel away the layers. So that's what I did because when I did the first one, I looked at the trigger. I tried to define what it was. I couldn't necessarily define it, so at what point of the day, what was I doing in that moment? Did I have any warning signs? All of those sorts of things. What was my response and what was my outcome? By the time I got through the five different logging of that particular situation, then I looked them over and I analyzed if I noticed any patterns related to that particular anger. How would I like to react to that differently? I talked to myself. How would I like to react to that differently? When I realized that a lot of my anger was from words that had been said to me over the last few months, criticism of how I was choosing to walk my path, anger because my personal life was being talked about amongst strangers, people that I didn't know, anger because people that I trusted to be vulnerable with took that trust and took that to other people where I became a coffee break conversation. That anger was so deep within me because the words that I was told I was being selfish, I had to step back and understand that I had given and continue to give so much of myself, so much of myself, but I wasn't giving to that particular person, how that particular person expected the giving to be. I was angry because I tried to give. I was angry because I had worked so hard to crawl out of the depths of hell where I could finally look at myself in the mirror again and I could love who was looking back at me. I loved her. I loved her look. I loved her with makeup. I loved her without makeup. I loved her with her hair done. I loved her with her hair in a bun. I loved her in sweatpants. I loved her all dressed up. I fucking loved her, man. And to be criticized for who she was, for being told I was vain, for being told I changed my Facebook photos too much, all of these sorts of things, those things hurt to my core because I connected the work that I had done to the words being said by these people as a direct attack, like a bullet to the chest, really. When you let people in in your deepest vulnerabilities and they criticize who you are becoming was such a tough lesson for me to realize they were never really friends in the first place. You thought they were, and maybe together you thought you were, but then you realize in life you get to a certain point where people change and you can never ever go back. So for me, the anger trigger this week was allowing me to process and deal with this particular relationship and a couple of others and fully understanding that sometimes we can never go back, that sometimes we have to process and accept and understand and to also own the fact that we should never have to apologize for trying to survive, ever. If the way you choose to survive is offending someone else, it is okay to bless and release. And honoring and accepting that people are also going through their own stuff. The world is so heavy right now that it is okay to realize that sometimes you really don't have enough to carry anybody else, and that is okay. Hold space in your heart for them. Give them space and allow them to work through their own process. The world has changed a lot and it is really defining and understanding who we are in today's world and today's landscape. And one of the hardest things to understand is that your social circle and your tribe may look very different than it did two years ago. And that is also okay. It may be smaller, but it is more loving. It is more genuine. It is more truthful. It allows the inner light in you to shine brightly. You get at a point in your life where you only want people who nourish your soul, who vibrate at the same energy frequency you do, who understand that we are all going to make mistakes as we are rediscovering who we are in this new world. And some of us are rediscovering ourselves at different levels, none being any more important than anyone else's, just different. We need to step back and understand and honor acceptance and love and kindness. Realize that obligation is a very unhealthy reframing of our programming that we need to reevaluate and look at. Understanding that sometimes it is okay to bless and release, even though it doesn't feel like it. And understanding that you are worth it. That whatever it is you have to do, whatever pit of hell you have to crawl out of, whatever fear, whatever the universe has thrown at you, you have two choices. You can fight back or you can't or you don't. You can choose to allow that anger to sit so deep within you that it changes your vision, changes your thinking, changes your perception. That you can convert that anger into assuming that you are all powerful and that those around you should change to your belief systems, to the way you see things, to what you do. Those are all choices you can make for yourself, unfortunate ones, but you can. The way you choose to live your life and the way you choose to accept people in it is up to you. But the one thing I want to end with is to fully understand that gossip is a negative energy. Gossip is one of the most hateful, disrespectful things anyone can do to another person. If you genuinely care about someone, you honor who they are, you don't talk about them. You don't criticize and judge how they are choosing to live their life. You can either walk away and realize it is not for you or you can be there with acceptance, love and kindness. Those are your options. That is where we are. I hope you got something from today. For me, it was an amazing process that I will continue to use again and again and again. It was very effective. To visualizing my anger as an iceberg and to understanding that all of those emotions under the water were so incredibly powerful for me, but then to also understand and look at going through the anger diary. I will have both of these documents available on my website for free download for anybody who needs help. DeannaByrne.com. If you look in the upper toolbar, there is a free download section for some things that you can tap into to help you on your healing journey. I really hope these work. If you would like to have a coaching consult, we can certainly look at that as well. If you just want to grow, please consider joining my Empower Hermann Sister Circle where we tap into all of those amazing bits within you to help you become the most amazing strong woman you can be. To not only help you shine your light, sister, but to light it with you. Take care everyone. Thank you for stopping by. I do always appreciate your support, your feedback. I hope you got something from this today. Take care and have an amazing day.