This was me earlier today, putting my “stuff” on paper.

I can’t breath. This happens regularly.
It’s the whole “beautiful women” thing. Again.
And since forever.

If God had given me a machine gun, there would be no more beautiful women on this planet.
Seriously. None.
Zapped out of existence.

Oh, you thought working with your stuff was a pretty business?

Perhaps you bought in the… “aesthetic lies” told to you by myriad pictures of beautiful women doing yoga, amongst the flowers and beaches?

Working with your stuff is not pretty.
Not even slightly.
You have to encounter the stuff that makes you look like a monster.

You think I’m kidding when I say that I would be quite happy if I could gun down every beautiful woman on the planet?
I’m not.
That’s exactly how I feel.

And it means I can’t breath.
And I want to burst into tears, for the zillionth time.

Because despite having cried for, oh, I don’t know, THE ENTIRETY OF MY LIFE, I am still not done.
There are still tears.
Forever and ever.
Crying tears that beautiful women have never cried. Because beautiful.

I don’t like being lied to. And I am very sensitive to non-truths.

Say it, damn it! Say it!
“Beautiful people have it better”.
There. Martha Beck has said it.
SOMEONE has said it.

Lots more people need to say it. Because it’s true.

Truth. Truth heals.

No more “is this in my imagination? It must be, because whenever I express some kind of hurt over the fact that I’m not beautiful, people shut me down with “but what is beautiful”, or “but you are beautiful” or whatever bollocks.”

Lies. All lies.

It would be easier for me to call them “lies” if I had more confidence in myself. If I had strong enough boundaries that stated “my truth is my truth is my truth”. And sent everyone else’s truth packing.

But I struggle with that. Which is why, even though my truth is that “my life has been shit in no small part because I’m not beautiful”, I am somehow not able to stand strong on this truth. Because it appears to just be true “for me”, and whenever I articulate it out loud, people deny it.

Well, enough of that sh!t.

What is true for me is true for me.
My life has been considerably sh!t because I’m ugly.

That’s been my Truth.

And anyone who tries to deny it will get punched. Like, seriously, seriously punched. And kicked.

I will personally inflict considerable physical pain on anyone who dares, who fucking DARES to deny that my life has been quite shit because I’m ugly.

There.

That’s my boundary.

Charming, huh?

And now, I’m gonna explain 2 important things.

Acknowledging your shadow side

Working with your stuff means acknowledging your “shadow side”. The stuff hiding inside you that makes you feel like a monster.

The stuff that has you saying things like: “If God had given me a machine gun, there would be no more beautiful women on this planet.”

You have to bring this stuff into the light. Yes, even if what comes out is entirely unpalatable.
The dark and twisted, the messy and effed up.

If you don’t bring it to the light, it will stay inside. And that’s considerably worse.

Acknowledge it. Put it out on the page. Share it with your Imaginary Monster.

Whatever it is you do: put it out there and tell yourself you are putting it out there.

The reason why I share my darkest feelings with you is because I truly believe that when someone shines a light to their shadow, they make it easier for others to shine a light to theirs.

If you ever find yourself wanting to kill beautiful women, you will at least know that you’re not alone. That someone out there has acknowledged it and had the courage to put it out on her blog.

And it’s my hope that you will think of your dark feelings as “bad, but not all that bad”. And that will make it easier for you to heal.

As for me: I get my strength from reading Jennifer Pastiloff. It’s an inspiration for me to see her write her darkness out into the world. I strongly suggest you cozy up to her and soak in some of her brilliance and courage.

Anger and boundaries

Boundaries are those things you cannot understand the first 10 zillion times you read about them. So give yourself time.

Karla McLaren, who works with emotions (and who is amazing, and whom you should be checking out right now) calls anger “The Honorable Sentry”.

She says that anger arises when our boundaries have been crossed.

But what on Earth does this mean?

In my case, I have a strong pattern of disbelieving my *own* perception of reality, in favour of *other people’s* perception of reality.

And so anger shows up. To remind me that my own perception of reality is legitimate. That my truth doesn’t have to be anyone else’s truth. That I am allowed to think the way I think, even if that’s different from other people.

It’s like the boundaries that separate me from others vanish. And their truth appears in my head.

Remember when I said that a way to establish boundaries was to go “this is my stuff, this is their stuff”?

Today’s version looks more like this:

“This is their life, this is my life”
AND
“This is their opinion, this is my opinion”
AND
“This is their truth, this is my truth”
And that’s how I establish boundaries.

I hope this inspires you to work with your stuff. And if you fear running into the seriously dark and twisted stuff inside you, know that you’re not alone.

And if you want even more support, you can read Havi’s post on the “twisted fantasy” and how it relates to writing on your blog.