Boiling With Anger at the Beach

I was walking along the beach…boiling with anger.

My oldest had just thrown a ball at me as hard as he could and it hit me in the face. After I quit the game, sat back down next to my wife, and the kids came over, my wife blamed me for the situation. (At least that’s how it occurred to me in the moment!)

I was fuming. I wanted to yell at everyone, say mean things, and thrown things into the ocean...actions that would have a lasting impact on others and myself.

Yet I didn’t really want to react from that anger.

I also know that shoving emotions down is unhealthy for us emotionally, mentally, AND physically, so I didn’t shove the anger down either.

I walked. I consciously breathed. I spoke to my anger: “You’re okay. You’re welcome here. I’ve got room for you. Take your time. Thank you for looking out for me.”

I told myself to “Feel it out. Be with it. Let it be. Don’t resist it.”

While allowing the anger in these ways - and exploring the feeling of it physically and removing my judgments, desires, and dislikes from the picture - I walked to the boardwalk and filled up my water bottles.

Yet I wasn’t ready to return to the family.

So I sat on a bench and continued being with the anger. That’s when I realized that although I was being a Pro in allowing the anger and giving it room, it wasn’t dissipating.

I then took a deep breath, committed to moving beyond the anger, and began one of the most powerful spiritual practices I've ever come across. It begins with “I’m sorry…"

Within moments of beginning the practice, I saw exactly how I was 100% responsible for the anger that I was dealing with - it wasn’t my family's fault AT ALL.

Yes, they behaved in certain ways that triggered me, but I was the one who got triggered!

I saw that my angry reaction to getting hit in the face by the ball was actually a reaction to my sense of being disrespected, unliked, and unwanted by my son.

I saw that my anger towards my wife’s comment was actually a reaction to feeling abandoned, isolated, and unseen.

I was originally so sure it was their fault I was feeling this way - and it was their responsibility to get me out of this feeling!

It was me the whole time.

You see, I was abdicating responsibility for my emotions to my 15-year-old son and my wife. I was also forfeiting my own freedom to connect authentically and lovingly with my family.

Poof, the anger disappeared.

When I got back to the family, my son kicked off the conversation by apologizing for hitting me with the ball. Because my anger and blame were gone, he had room to share with me why that happened and his own insecure thinking that bubbled up. And I could be there for him and also share myself.

Look, I know this may sound unrealistic, unlikely, and not replicable. It certainly wasn't easy! I really really really really really really wanted to keep blaming them. But once I unlocked the actual source of my anger, which is ALWAYS a vulnerable emotion, the anger was free to dissipate.

I'm grateful for powerful tools, the willingness to practice using them, and for forgiving and generous people in my life.

Much Love. ❤️

The Grace We Give

It’s an honor and a blessing to engage with people at the level I get to engage with them. This week, as I was coaching a couple, 50 minutes into the conversation I shared a thread I had been picking up on:

Grace.

There are two types of grace: the grace we receive and the grace we give.

The grace we receive is infinite and abundant. More than 99% of our lives and experience are the result of the grace we receive.

Vision, hearing, thinking, feeling, smelling, and tasting. Trees, animals, planets, stars, and galaxies. Minds and ideas. Relationships and conversations. Atoms, molecules, and cells. Breath, blood, smiles, tears, skin, and bones. The beingness of the universe.

The vast majority of the grace we receive comes from the Divine. The other grace we receive comes from the people in our lives. Our friends. Our spouses. The way they trust us, show up for us, honor us with their love, time, effort, concern, words, and generosity.

The grace we receive we mostly receive in ignorance. Yet, every single moment and every single part of our experience of life is given to us generously and continuously.

The second type of grace is the grace we give.

We give grace through our being.

Grace creates space. Grace softens the hard edges. Grace is a gift to the self and to the other. Grace is a gateway. Grace is an invitation. Grace is necessary.

There are two beautiful, powerful, and profound ways we can easily give grace: how we listen and how we speak.

We can listen with grace by assuming the best in the other. By assuming we don’t know what they’re talking about and listening very carefully. By listening like we’ve never heard this person speak before. By listening not defensively, but freely, courageously, vulnerably, and compassionately.

Listening with grace is one of the most generous and impactful gifts we can give.

To speak with grace is to speak with kindness. To speak with care. To speak with gentleness. To speak with love. To speak while also listening to how we’re being heard.

In our coaching conversation this week, my couple client found a new level of Love in their relationship by finding grace - and not in the obvious place we always look, which is in receiving grace from our partner. No, they accessed a new level of Love by learning to access a new level of giving grace - in their listening and their speaking. And they created a powerful mantra to remind themselves of this powerful distinction.

If you got value out of this post, consider sharing it with someone who might benefit!

Much Love. ❤️

Don't Be Cheap Like This

Our default way of thinking and being is cheap. 

It doesn’t take effort. It doesn’t take time. It doesn’t take soul.

It’s cheap to judge. It’s cheap to criticize. It's cheap to condemn.

We cheapen the value of others with the way we think and talk about them. We cheapen the value of ourselves this way too.

This cheap, default thinking and being is junk food for the soul - in some way it feels good (or else we wouldn't do it), yet it harms us and it harms others.

We’re just so used to it. We were raised in it. Our culture surrounds us with it. We’ve practiced it for years.

To be fair, most drama we enjoy as entertainment wouldn't exist if it weren't for our propensity to bull-crap ourselves and others with cheap, judgmental, and condemning thought and action.

The truth about this default "thinking" is that it’s not actually thinking at all. Default "thinking" is merely thoughts that happen to us.

It’s much more accurate to say not that we have these thoughts, but that these thoughts have us.

Here’s the intention of these default thoughts: to dress up the false self. To dress up the ego. To dress up the scared, lonely, unworthy, and unhealed parts of ourselves.

To cut others down in our minds so as to make ourselves seem taller. 

To protect ourselves as much as possible from the fear of looking bad.

To distract ourselves with cheap ways of being (judgmental, critical) to avoid having to generate ourselves, be a little vulnerable, and make a positive difference in our lives and the lives of others.

Hate is cheap. Insult is cheap. Judgment is cheap. Anger is cheap. 

Love and Creativity, on the other hand, are expensive. 

They take will. They take courage. They take humility. They take generosity. They take vulnerability.

They require real thinking, with the mind and the heart.

So do compassion, authentic self-expression, peace of mind, freedom, and faith.

Let’s agree to stop cheapening our lives with judgment and condemnation of ourselves and others. Some things are worth paying for.

Much Love. ❤️