Loving all parts of the Self

I have a tendency towards anger. Since I was a young girl, I have had a rather direct route to rage in response to a stressful or overstimulating situation. It’s something that I’m ashamed of and have tried (miserably) to hide. And it seemed that the further I tried to push that aspect of myself away, the more that aspect of myself would become amplified.

So, what is there to be done? If I don’t want to exist in a certain state anymore, how do I go about making a change that would result in something… different? What changes need to be made? I’ll make them! I’ll do whatever lifestyle change and bend this way and stretch that way. I’ll take the supplement and I’ll do The Work. All the journaling and meditation and yet. There’s still this rage that exists.

I found Ram Dass shortly after I discovered Alan Watts about 2 years ago. And then rediscovered both after I got pregnant.

I had been alone through much of the first trimester of my pregnancy. After living with a bunch of people and dogs and activity in Southern California. We moved to San Andreas and BOOM. I was alone. And E was still working in Southern California and living out of a bag on a friend’s couch and I was here learning this 100 year old house that we bought, but all by myself. And he comes up every few weeks but it’s just months of this. Alone. I had Tex, and thank God I did. The best “doula dog” there ever was. But I had all this time. And the house was so quiet. And it gave me a lot of time to think and read and listen. And I would listen to Alan Watts lectures as I was falling asleep at night because the night time was the worst. I could handle living alone for the most part but in the evenings things got quiet and dark and still. And my mind would start to get restless.

It was Alan Watts in the beginning but gradually as I went through my pregnancy and grew closer towards birth, it became Ram Dass. This constant voice. I would listen to hours and hours and hours of these two voices. And a good friend of mine said to me the other day that “The great wisdoms of the ages have to be constantly retold in modern voices because otherwise they would remain inaccessible to the modern ear.” and that is why we have so many different types of translations of, essentially, the same overarching themes of information. There are reoccurring messages, great truths and understandings throughout history, culture, time. Some things just ‘are’.

There is a Ram Dass lecture that I listened to recently that deals with the concept of self love. But not in the very popular marketing campaign way of selling lots of delicious bath products, but more in the way of knowing, seeing and accepting all aspects of yourself.

I have, of course, heard this concept before. Love thyself. Know thyself. Again, there are certain themes, or tropes that persist through time and history and culture.

But there was a point in the lecture where he says “if you’re a real son of bitch and then you become enlightened, then you will have become an enlightened son of a bitch.” He then explains that line by walking through his own experience of realizing that the different versions of himself were all there with him still. All of them. And they weren’t going to cease. And that really, the only option was to just love them.

Fear can be a similar thing in this way. The parts of yourself that are afraid are indeed parts of you and by all accounts those parts are really only trying to protect you and keep you safe. That’s what fear is for after all. But, often, we don’t need those parts of ourselves to hold vigil for our unknowns. It’s okay, and we can kindly tell those parts of ourselves that we don’t need their help here. And it can be as simple as that. No need to get angry or upset with ourselves for being afraid, or different than we want to be in some way. Just see it, hold it, and love it. Because it’s you. It’s all you. You are whole.

So, how do I love the part of me that is anger and rage and raw emotion? If I stop trying to change it and just hold it and accept it for what it is. It will always be here. But I cannot let it bubble out for fear of how it can hurt those around me. Don’t try to change it, just love it. Love yourself. But I get distracted. And start picking at myself again. Why am I so angry? It doesn’t matter. It’s part of how you’re wired. You can’t change it. So just love it. And eventually, you will be love. You can house something inside of you that so seldom gets exercised that it starts to grow smaller and smaller. Those neuro pathways become less trodden and the need to reach for that tool becomes less second nature. It’s still there. It’s just not the hammer you try to use in the place of every other tool.