Healthy Aggression? You are asking?
I know there was a time that I sure was!?!
How could aggression be anything other than horrible, wrong, bad? I asked Leslie in a session one summer afternoon after my son punched the neighbor kid.
When it happened I was immediately embarrassed…worried…I felt a rise of energy in my body…
Close your eyes… she said.
I did it…by now I knew she was about to rearrange the furniture in my brain.
Imagine your boy- you know him… he’s out there on the yard, playing…
I see him so clearly as she recounts the story line I just spilled to her through helpless tears…my desperate wish that my boy would be seen good, held in high regard, not outcast.
See him there, feeling the same sense of helplessness, of powerlessness to get what he most needed in the moment.
You know he doesn’t hit unless there is something coming in hot and fast, unless he is in a vulnerable place, like helplessness. It’s age appropriate when he’s engulfed.
Yes…
And consider, what are the benefits of him hitting?
Benefits? Are you kidding me?- I say.
Yes, she says- stay with it.
He felt helpless, he felt powerless in that moment…
And it came over me like a wave of warm water…
He took care of himself!!!!
Yes…and what else is true if he took care of himself?
That he knows his limits.
Keep going…
And so on I went, listing the benefits of my son hitting the neighbor.
I’ll be honest by the end I was sort of giggling to myself at the practice.
Not that someone was hurt, right? I was all along holding that point in my loving kindness, but this new part was also staying with my child, by staying with what was coming up inside of me.
By the end I noticed my heart was light and I was ready to come alongside of my boy. I got curious about his sense of helplessness, of powerlessness- of options and creativity we could practice going forward.
That one moment taught me a magic mama trick I use often and I’m going to share it with you.
You see, I was fixated on aggression being bad.
So I started playing with taking the other side and said, what if the aggression was serving something- what if it was good?
And in brought me to the middle, he aggresses and he is meek.
(Quick tip- google: What is the opposite of (insert- trait/behavior/feeling)
I do it with traits too.
The kids are being destructive, I say.
What’s the polarity? Creativity.
We are destructive and creative.
It’s relative.
In order for us to have one, we must be willing to see where we also possess the other.
Most recently I’ve been practicing finding things I hate.
Why? Because I LOVE to love…and my love is only as true as my hate.
It’s liberating, to be honest with myself.
I am never only nice and not mean,
I am never only fair and not unfair,
I am never only sweet and not spicy,
I am never only happy and not sad,
I am never only cheery and not glum,
I am human, and my soul is here to experience all of it!
When I am willing, to tell the truth of my inner world, of these traits and feelings in my SacredSeat, I discover my true nature and parent from there.
I recognize that I am all the things and it just becomes energy, life force- and then I get to choose how I behave.
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