I Sat down with My Anger

I sat down with my anger because I wanted to befriend it.

I sat down with it to finally hold an openhearted space for it to share with me about itself.

To tell me who it is,

To tell me what it is doing for me,

To understand why it is doing what it has been doing for me all my life…

I sat down with it without trying to get rid of it, without shaming it, without acting out on it…

I held the space for it

With patience,

With compassion,

With acceptance,

With curiosity,

With warmth…

I sat down with it until it opened up to me and said these:

One of my names is sadness.

The other one is fear.

The third one is hurt.

Another one is grief.

My fifth name is pain.

The sixth one is shame.

I have so many more names.

I am also guilt, rejection and embarrassment…

I am anger and I look ugly, but I am not what I look like.

I might look like an evil but in reality I have angel like intentions.

I am one of your protectors.

For instance, I work extremely hard to cover the sadness, hurt, shame and fear you feel.

When you feel insecure, ashamed or guilty, I have the impossible task of making sure that you do not feel overwhelmed by these emotions.

I hate what I do, but I do it anyway because I do not trust that you can protect yourself. I also don’t believe that you can protect me. I am always ready to protect you but never get appreciated for what I do. I am always put down ‘for being destructive, for being embarrassing and for creating too much regrets…’

I protect you from pain, but I am blamed for causing pain.

Although I never get appreciated, I never give up on you because I am an angel.

I protect you from injustices of this world,

I protect you from violence and being disrespected.

I protect you from heartlessness of others.

I protect your boundaries so that you are not used, abused or treated like shit.

I work extremely hard to do my job, but I usually am not very good at what I do. My skills do not serve you as much as they once did and this is scary to me. I know I need to chill a little, but I am not able to do that yet…

But please know that my intentions are always good. Please treat me kindly and help me get better at protecting you.

Celal Aydemir, MA, LPC

(EMDR and IFS trained Therapist)