One Sunday morning I woke up and realized that I could not continue to live with the level of anger and rage that I was constantly filled with. I finally had to find some method to help myself release it. In my very few better moments, I knew that having angry thoughts toward others was not the answer. However, I could not stop myself because my anger and rage were compulsive, and I always felt justified in being angry toward others for whatever they had seemingly done to me. This morning I reasoned to myself that rather than getting angry at people that I knew, I might try to get really angry at something symbolic. … But what exactly?
Well for a long time, well-meaning people in recovery had been telling me that I was 'terminally unique.' I hated hearing this, and would always immediately get angry. My emotional truth was that: 'I am terminally unique, since I was created unique and my emotional disease most definitely appeared to be terminal.' (Indeed, within my own consciousness, I never knew how much more of my life I was going to be able to handle).
Somehow, on this particular Sunday morning, I had the presence of mind to reason: "What if I got symbolically angry at the anonymous 'S. O. B.' that coined the phrase 'terminal uniqueness?'
I ran into the bathroom and sat on the floor below the sink. I grabbed the metal pipes and squeezed and shook them as hard as I could for several minutes, while imagining that I was choking the life out of this phantom. I gave it everything I had. It was soon time to go to my spiritual dance class. When I arrived, a close friend asked how I was doing. I knew he was safe and really cared, so I was able to say "I am really angry!" He smiled and said "Good!" Another man looked at me haltingly and began walking around me in a large circle. I entered the dance room during warm-ups and, I was suddenly struck with incredibly powerful grief. The impact knocked me on my butt, as my internal dam broke and my inner flood waters raged in heavy grief. I spontaneously screamed and cried for several minutes in the fetal position.
This experience taught me the importance of finding a way to symbolically express my unconscious, repressed negativity. I slowly came to understand that I was rarely angry for the reasons I believed. Rather, my anger almost always came from the past. My subconscious self was overloaded and constantly looking for release. On any given day, it was vigilantly scanning the environment for any situation that might seemingly justify the dumping of old stuffed emotions. Since all this was unconscious, it was extremely hard to get in touch with what was really going on, and it therefore took a very long time to stop. I would continue this inappropriate venting, until I learned ways to appropriately discover, feel, and express my suppressed emotions.