Peace, be still
Emotional noise, healing from powerlessness, and three lessons learned
All my life, my anger has been a source of difficulty, the greatest being that I had no healthy way to express it. Heightened emotion was dangerous in my childhood home—only the strongest were free to indulge it—and I was often praised by those outside the family for my ability to hold it together, even in the midst of catastrophe.
The result was emotional disorder. People telling me I was nice when my thoughts were anything but. Smiling when I wanted to shout. Crying when I wanted to rage. Saying yes when I wanted to say no, fearing always that a negative response would mean confrontation, and confrontation was the nuclear option. I used to think that if I ever really let my anger go, it would run me down until there wasn’t any of me left. That it was a monster, separate from me, which I had to contain. So, I sealed the bottle, and said nothing but yes for years. I was a doormat, but to those around me, I appeared to have obtained silence.
Being unable to throw a punch is not the same as choosing peace, and being incapable of seeking revenge is not forgiveness. Powerlessness is not silence or inner quiet. It’s a mental cacophony of regret, self-loathing, victory-fantasies, and resentment.
I’m trying to learn to close my eyes, to create a quiet place in myself where I can hear God, but there was a time, not long ago, when it didn’t take much to shake me from that quest. One mischance, one upset, and it was back to the usual noise, reaching for food and screens, distractions and pleasures, always numbing myself, trying to stuff down the kaleidoscope of feelings I couldn’t do anything about and instead drowning out God and the will to write.
An unused creative drive is a deadly force. Couple that with unresolved resentments, and you have a disaster.
I don’t know when I woke up and decided that I had to be true to myself, whatever the cost, but when I did, philosophies and ways of life which had before been invisible came into focus. It was probably around the time when I left college, when none of my endeavors were taking hold. There’s no alarm bell quite like disappointed dreams. Failure has that true-love’s-kiss effect. The benefit is taking much longer to play out in real life than it does in the stories, but I rejoice to say that the breaking of my sleeping curse is ongoing.
Of all the lessons I’ve learned, these three have been the most valuable to my life as a writer seeking silence:
Set boundaries, even with yourself, because if you can’t say no, your yes doesn’t mean anything. Weak boundaries are prime soil for resentment, and resentments are nothing but noise.
Control is largely an illusion. Do what you can, as well as you’re able (always minding the boundaries), but remember that life is beyond your ability to steer it.
Be conscious of your coping mechanisms. These can be loud enough to block out everything else if you let them. Remember that an impulse gone bad is just a broken version of what it was meant to be. Offer it to God in your own way, and He will heal it, if that’s what you desire. One way of helping this along is by making sure not to leave a vacuum in your life. Get rid of the harmful habits, but have a plan for how to fill that empty space. It’ll make a perfect doorway into the Friendly Darkness, and when storms come, whether or not you’re granted any control, you’ll be much more able to weather them.
Last week, I encountered the kind of problem for which there is no solution. I won’t go into detail, but for all my husband’s and my efforts to solve the issue, power lay in the hands of a third party, and Third Party had plans opposite to ours.
Worry, time, and effort were all wasted. I cried and had a headache most of the day, not least because my head was racing with what I should’ve done, what I wanted to do to stick it to Third Party, and all the potential effects this disappointment had on the future.
Before my recent efforts, I would have gone down an internet black hole and not come up for air until bedtime. I won’t lie, I did a stint in front of the TV with a bag full of cheap Chinese food. But when the show was done and the food was gone, my heart put out its hands for the next thing, and that was writing.
As I wrote about in my fourth post, I abandoned my unhealthy use of YouTube in an effort to make room for the craft, and here was the experiment, playing out in real time—a success.
One victory helps the next. After a slow start to this blog post, I watched a video on the benefits of writing by hand, something which I’d almost abandoned, and decided to try it. I don’t know if it improved my technique, but I enjoyed it far more than I expected and—dare I say—far more than typing.
Even as I approach middle age, I still struggle to apply these principles, to walk the road. Some days I can travel a mile. Some are two-step days. But in learning to close my eyes and sit with the Friendly Darkness, I can rise to touch the core of my anger, to see and free the hurting child at the center of the raging storm. I can write, and by writing I can begin to uncork the bottle and pour out the miracle of my tears turned to wine.
Saving this. It's so strange to see echoed here in your words, my own inner experience of anger and resentment after years of being 'the quiet one'. It's shifting something inside me, poking at the parts that call out for healing and attention. And how true it is that so much of this only comes to the surface when our 'dreams' have been disappointed or let down!