Tempering the Demon that is My Rage: A Playlist
Over the last few weeks, I reinstated my engagement with Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. Her writing warns us about what kind of emotions might come up for us during the twelve-week course. I was not quite prepared for the way my rage has bubbled up to the surface, despite knowing how for decades, I have been stuffing it so deeply down inside myself that my mind, emotions, motivation and body have been shutting down.
Early in the book, Cameron talks to us about our creative monsters which can look like people in our lives, societal structures, and ourselves. I have a lot of creative monsters to consider including some of the most gnarly self-created beasts.
Something I’ve learned is that acknowledgement of all we feel is the first step towards, hopefully, integration. I think that’s ultimately what we mean (and maybe should mean) when we talk about what healing is. It isn’t, afterall, just some trite saying when a loved one or acquaintance tells us that we “need to face our demons.” I mean, shoulding on me (and you) aside, my understanding of monsters and demons is that they are energies that we need to somehow directly address (don’t should on me, and I’ll try to remember not to should on you, wink wink ;).
Look. I get you. We do not always have the tools for this on our own. Community becomes paramount in these situations. So are stories, energies, people, spirits, etc. who are akin to those torrid and possibly evil situations that could devour us, and/or who have tools and support that can carry us through this process. We cannot always depend on our own inner knowing.
I always think fondly of the story about Kali lopping off the heads of the demons when the rest of the pantheon could not control them. Note: I probably don’t know this story as well as I would like to but my understanding is that the demons were acting fully in their nature. I imagine that they could not help themselves, nor did they want to be any other way. They knew who they were and they loved that about themselves.
However, in order for balance to be restored, the god/desses of the pantheon called on Mama Kali after feeling pretty helpless in the face of all the demons’ destruction. Only Kali had the tools and power to level the field. Kali is goddess, Big M Mama, destroyer of demons and frankly, a demon herself. She spawns from Durga in times of great need, and in her pure and utter and beautiful fury (this is far from your patriarchal Athena springing fully formed from Zeus’ noggin). In that lineage of stories in which Kali resides, the demons, who are mind you, enlightened beings, return and continue towards that one thing that is ALL, just like any of us, and this is why I think about integration as a goal of any healing process.
Shutting down is what I’ve learned to do to play it safe and quiet and good and acceptable and small (The warning goes: “Don’t rock the boat!”). This is what a lot of the players (when in their monster/demons, etc. state) in my life have taught me to be. Oh, and I bought it (and I’ve been broke as a result of the subscription or purchase).
This good and quietness is dubbed as success. It’s dubbed as the right thing to do. What I’ve found is that, no, this is not my nature. To be completely subdued, to push myself down, is a death I do not want, nor is it a way in which I want to exist. Not anymore.
I really felt what Euda K. Best wrote the other day: “My people pleaser is dead.” I’ve shut down a lot and ceded spaces because I wanted to “do the right thing,” not cause waves, not hurt people, and to definitely not express my rage in any shape, way, or form. In pretty much every case these in/actions while in service of others were for sure not even close to being in service of my own needs, let alone the right thing by me.
As someone who works in the healing arts, I KNOW that movement is a big mover, a big healer. I know that sounding and catharsis are important parts of healing, too. I recommend clients DANCE all the time, to move energy, to shake away heaviness, to make space in their limbs, joints and spine, and to stimulate the tissue and fluids of the body to wake up, to clear the mind, to drum up those good bio-chemicals that can drive the blues away.
I often joke that if I had found punk rock sooner, it would have saved me. The energy that comes up from a good show or even a good thrash around your living space also drums up a lot of powerful bio-chemicals. Today, I shirked my morning pages to do just that. I moved some furniture and thrashed around upon waking in the nude to songs that said, “Hey, play me, and play me now.”
So, I suppose what I’m saying is that sometimes, in order to face your demons, maybe you have to dance with them a little to see what they’re about. There are ways to hold good boundaries while you are in those states of seeing. That topic is a bit beyond my scope, as far as tutelage goes, except to say, this is my way of acknowledging my demons, all of those big baddie meaninie head monsters, and for everything I feel about them and/or because of them, there is a song.
