Today’s post comes from Girl on Fire, Christine Claire Reed. It’s a powerful sharing and I thank Christine for her openness and I am so grateful that she has danced her way into our space this month.
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From the time I was very small, I learned from those around me that “love” included violence in many forms. I learned that love was scary. I learned that we hurt those whom we claim to love.
Throughout my teens and into my early twenties, I was directly told that if you really love someone, you get passionately angry with them.
That it you don’t have knock down fights, you aren’t really in love.
I didn’t believe this (and yet, I also did believe it). I don’t know how, but I believed there was a better way. I believed that love was, well, more loving this. I had a vague idea that love was supposed to be, gasp!, unconditional.
I worked very hard to repress, then, feelings of anger, and like all things repressed and avoided, anger would explode and I would end up ashamed, having behaved far too much like the people who raised me.
Marcy and I have been together for seventeen and a half years, and for much of that time, I was fighting depression, otherwise known as repressed anger, sadness, and grief. Time and again, this repressed emotion, all this built up shadow, would erupt out of me.
Marcy is the most patient and unconditionally loving being on this planet. For real. And she, over time, has taught me through her actions about love and anger.
Unconditional love, for example, is so very unconditional that you can get mad at the person whom you love and still love them.
This is a lesson I am still working on. I get so frightened still by my own anger or someone else’s that I worry it means the end of love.
But it does not. It just means we are human. Humans get frustrated. Humans have dark emotions. These emotions will not, cannot be denied, and they can exist in the same space as our loving, positive emotions (though some new age types will tell you otherwise; they are wrong).
As a young person, I confused the violence of my parents relationship with the emotions of it.
Violence is how we react out of those emotions when they feel like they will overwhelm and engulf us.
Violence is the action.
Anger is a legitimate emotion and how well we love one another determines how we act it out.
Sometimes there might be raised voices, and I have finally learned… unconditional love can take it.
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Christine spends her days teaching healing, intuitive dance to women, ages 18 to 80. She guides women to find their inner lost girls and reclaim their passionate, purposeful lives. You can find her at http://www.girlonfiredance.com.
Tina is a Transformation Travel Guide helping you drive your life in the direction of your desire.
From figuring out where you are starting from, through traveling down the road to your goals, she combines the practical with the energetic for a transformation on every level.
She is an artist, animal lover, and spiritual explorer, who delights in finding beauty in unexpected places.
This is a great post.
And yes. You can get angry at the ones you love. They can get angry at you too. Its ok. Anger means you give a shit. If you didnt care, you wouldnt get angry. (Though we may not *know* exactly why we are angry). Its not the dark emotions. Its the reactions we have to them. Love can withstand anger. Violence though, is very destructive – and not all violence is physical.
Interesting thoughts you’ve got my brain ruminating on.
Blessings
Christine! Thank you so much for being a part of this Leap into Love series with such a powerful story.
<3
Yes… I struggle with anger once in awhile. Struggle with suppressing my own. Struggle with fear when others express theirs to me. A lightbulb went off as I read this, and I really need to work on this.