Beyond the Pain

One of the lingering side effects of childhood abuse is … rage!

Rage bubbles up in me … unannounced … unexpected … and uninvited!

Nay! More than bubbles: froths, pukes forth, erupts.

How can rage be a gift?

Or, is it?

It is not a gift when I vent it on those I care about … or those simply close at hand, when it bursts forth; at the least real provocation.

But, if I can use that rage to write about the wrongs, and to right the wrongs, to fuel and direct the spilling forth of words … then mayhap it will be a Gift.

I forget when I first heard the emotions stripped down to their bare essentials?

Those essentials being mad, glad, sad, and scared.

Then sometime in the past year as I began reflecting on my own experiences I felt that there was something missing. And, that the missing emotion had something to do with sex and sexuality.

So, I was pleased to find confirmation for my idea recently. It came from two sources.

I was talking about the basic emotions with my therapist Lynn Lambert and was listing them off, when she spontaneously added, "And, don’t forget Sexual".

Some time ago I was talking with my friend and colleague, Bill Astalnok, about his training at the Hendricks Institute and their work with the core emotions. He gifted me with a small bookmark that gives a reminder checklist of emotional phrases. The other day I happened to glance at it again and was pleasantly surprised to see this phrase, "I feel … ANGER / JOY / FEAR / SADNESS / SEXUAL about X ISSUE"

So, I’m on the right track.

Healing work needs to deal with all 5 emotional areas.