🌍 Anger is Present
Seasonal Menu 📖
🗣️ Appetizer: Shoutouts 🌍 Chef’s Special: Down to Earth Podcast👀 Main Course: Anger is Present🫠 Dessert: [PAID] How to Get Un-Stuck (ft. Amanda Goetz)
🗣️ Shoutouts
Good morning! ☀️
Let’s kick today off with shoutouts to a few loyal readers.
🌐 Jamil Ricks, Matthew Segarra, Ana Gonzalez, Emmie, James Meyers, Gabriella Wright, msjman1@yahoo.com + many more are thrusting this newsletter off the ground with their support.
For this, I am eternally grateful.
We celebrate yet still, there is much more to do.
🌍 Down to Earth Podcast
Guys – guess what?
I’m starting a podcast.
A wild, brand-new concept. I know.
But don’t worry. No gasbagging about politics or sports betting on this podcast. Rather, we’ll be hearing directly from the Down to Earth community on what they love and feel. Have a listen! 🎙️Episode #001: ☀️What is Happiness?
Hey! Want to be a part of the next podcast? Reply to this email, and we’ll get in touch!
Subscribe nowAnger is Present 🧐
I don’t like to label things.
“She’s the worst. This is boring. This weather sucks.”
Labels are things you put on cookie tins when they’ve graduated into sewing kits.
They can only mean one thing – so matter of fact.
We naturally reject being labeled. Try labeling a little kid as tired and see what they clap back with. I’m not tired, I’m just resting my eyes!
Similarly, when Grandma calls Grandpa rude, Grandpa might resent that notion!
Labels are both exclusive and exclusionary. They restrict nuance and discourage room for flexibility.
Labels are temporary.
Real life doesn’t come built-in with labels. Nothing is set in stone. Sure, an infection can mean sickness. But your mindset and approach can always select for positivity while sick.
Smile through pain, limit the challenge 😄
I stay far away from labeling my own emotions. I may feel them, but putting a name to my current emotional state can confine me to that state.
I like to believe that I’m never sad. I just experience feelings of sadness.
Here’s What I do Instead of Labeling My Emotions 📝
Picture me getting ready to leave the house. I’ve been spinning around like a typhoon, packing my bag, charging my laptop, and prepping my meal for the day.
If I take another five minutes, I’ll be behind schedule.
No worries – I’ll skip the brief coffee routine.
Great. I’m outside, hitting my stride toward the subway when I feel a pit in my stomach. I halt to pat my pockets.
My wallet. My f– sigh.
After all the theatrics in trying to make good time, I have to turn back.
Almost instantly, I’m flooded with neurochemicals that are telling me how to feel.
My consciousness interprets them as anger, frustration, doubt, guilt, fear, regret, and more negative associations.
But for what? How does this negativity aid in the quest to retrieve my wallet?
It doesn’t. Instead, it puts me in a box. Now I’m “angry” because my brain said so.
Fear of retribution, punishment, or provocation has tilted my emotional state toward a vulnerable and self-destructive frame of mind.
Worse, these fears could end up motivating my behaviors.
Fortunately, the cure for this is simple.
When I am angry, I say I am not angry.
I say, just for the moment, anger is present.
Unwelcome emotions lurk around like someone trying to sell you a mixtape in Times Square 💿
What do you do in those situations? Give in and buy the CD? No! Just keep it pushing.
Being “cold” in this sense is invariably useful.
You have a goal or a direction you’re heading in, right? Continue with that.
Emotions can envelop your perceptions and alter your behaviors.
When we choose not to internalize these emotions, we cultivate stress-resilience, mindfulness, and all the other good stuff.
So, are you angry? Are you really sad? Or are these emotions simply present?
This quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune illustrates the transience of emotions 🚂
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
8 Tips For Getting Un-Stuck 🤒
The stencil of life is traced with ups and downs. How you respond to these fluctuations becomes your style. Your emergence from the mud becomes your hero/villain origin story, defining your character in parallel.
Get the motion going with these 8 tips from Amanda Goetz, author of Life’s a Game newsletter.
