It's not what you feel that does the damage, it's what you feel about what you feel.

If I feel sad or angry, it may be entirely appropriate, but if I give myself a hard time for those feelings, then I both perpetuate and magnify the issue.

Grief is a difficult emotion for many of us to handle. In the West we are often reluctant to express our emotions and, unlike many other cultures, we do not have ritual grieving processes. I was in Saudi Arabia when the father of a Saudi acquaintance of mine died. There was a very swift cremation followed by a 3 day ritual grieving which particularly struck me because it was the first time I had experienced the sound of many women ululating. Ululation, for those who have never experienced it, is a continuous high-pitched squeal while moving your tongue from side to side. It is eerie and uncomfortable, but it certainly releases your feelings. For an uptight westerner like me, the open expression of grief was a little embarrassing, but I soon recognised its worth. In many cultures, neighbours understand that grieving requires energy and very often call with gifts of food, usually hot and hearty. How civilised.

I had a client once who came to me with a persistent and painful shoulder. She was a very spiritual lady and had used many and various holistic practices to heal her shoulder. She told me that her mother had died the previous year, but it was OK because her mother was a very religious person, that she was ready to go and that it was a blessed release from suffering.

She had the wrong end of the stick about grief. The person who has died has gone on to the next thing, whatever you believe that to be. It is the hole in the survivor's life that causes the pain. The commonest symptoms of grief are withdrawal, wanting to stay at home, crying and getting angry. These three things are so natural and logical. The world has changed for the survivor and he may feel threatened by that. Staying at home, in your safe space, gives you a chance to regroup. Crying purges the feelings of sadness. My professor at college told me never to miss the opportunity of a good laugh or a good cry. Anger is the process by which we register that something is wrong.  All these feelings are appropriate and if we allow them to be OK, we can move through them in the appropriate order. 

The real difficulty lies in the judgments we put on our emotions. For example, "Big boys don't cry". I was horrified when I read the headlines about Gazza, the footballer, when he cried after losing a football match. If he cried it meant that the loss was important to him. I would want top sportsmen, playing for their country, to care deeply!

Some women find that in business, if they stand firm on a subject, and vociferously defend their position, their male colleagues may label them as 'angry women' and dismiss their views. While the same behaviour in a man is considered strong and determined and is much admired.

Some cultures think that anger is a bad thing and that we should be meek and mild. Jesus is sometimes referred to as meek and mild, but we must remember that he was so angry he threw the moneylenders out of the temple.

The Mahatma, Ghandi, never advocated violence, but he stuck resolutely to his truth despite all kinds of punishments and threats. His anger changed the history of India.

At its best anger is the energy to stop that which is abusive, or the energy to make what we want to happen. It is determination and insistence. It is standing up for yourself.

I think the secret may be to get curious. If we feel something strongly, before we make it wrong, we could ask ourselves why. Clarity and space may move the feeling along, leave us with ideas of how to remedy the situation, or to accept what we can't change.

Frankie x