Covid quarantine. What? Me? You expect me to stay home, in a kind of lockdown, and I’m claustrophobic. I can’t do that. And, by the way, I’m an extrovert, so this just won't do on any level.

I’ll just go to work, go to my office, and hang out there. I’ll keep my distance, I promise! I need to be around others so I don’t have to think or feel too much, that’s what I’ve always done.

I’m used to running from one client to another. I’m used to being just a minute late for the next meeting because I'm so busy. I’m used to having to schedule when I go to the bathroom because there’s so much to do. What to do with all this space? When I’m not racing to... anywhere. Now what?

"Stay at Home Orders" & Anxiety

Then the messages from our Governor’s and newscasters: Stay home, stay home, only go out for essentials. And, if you live alone, you’ll learn to cope with the isolation.

We are a culture of isolationists, aren’t we? 

Maybe not, maybe there’s been more social interaction out there then was realized. It’s just the way it’s been done is different. Not better, not worse, just different.

And now, oh wow, the pulses are beating, denial is walking around, do you hear it? This can’t happen to me. I’m young, I’m immune, this virus won’t touch my friends or family. Until it does. Until all of a sudden, some people you know don’t feel well, they complain of feeling tired, or having no sense of taste or smell, and then there’s that little nagging fever that just won’t go away. 

And now, denial, as much as you want to partner with it, just won’t cut it. What’s a person to do? 

We’re facing a variety of complex grief. This virus has invaded our thoughts, our peace of mind, our savings, our financial calm, and rocked who we thought we were. A few days off, I can get into that, but when it  turns into a week, or two, or more...

I can’t think beyond this, and my heart is racing, not because I’m busy, not because I've got to get to the next patron, or make the next batch of coffee, or get to the next meeting. My heart is racing because when denial can’t be my best friend, then anxiety slides in next to me and says in an alluring voice, “Hi there. I’m gonna make you feel things you may have never felt—like your heart racing for no reason.”

Like sweat running down your back, and it’s not because of a fever. This anxiety is a nasty little bedfellow, and it likes to take your breath away. Yes, it can make you feel like you are not getting enough air, like you are not breathing. Well, if you are reading this, you are alive, you are breathing. 

Take a deep breath. No, not that little one you just took. I’m serious, take a long, deep breath. Ok, thank you. Now let’s talk!

Breathe Deep to Help Reduce Anxiety 

Take in another breath, as much as you can, and hold it for 10 seconds. Release it. If you were able to hold and release it, GUESS WHAT, you are breathing. You are alive. 

What anxiety and grief do is make you feel as if you can’t get enough air, and then you go into a “I can’t breathe” panic mode. Grief, in light of this virus, can capture the best parts of you.

But we are not going to let it do that. This virus has put rules out there for social engagement, but there are things you still control. Focusing on your breath is one of those things in your control. 

If you do this breathing exercise six times a day, you will regulate what feels dysregulated. You are working your brain, telling your brain you have enough oxygen and not to panic.

Anxiety & Grief During COVID-19

Yep, grief. That emotion we’d rather not feel. An emotion we think only happens when someone we have loved dies. Or we lose someone through divorce or separation.

But grief in all its forms is showing up big time. No one is happy because this pandemic breaks the ways things are supposed to be. This situation ranks along with the Big Gs of grief, like the loss or sickness of a loved one or not being able to see a parent who is in assisted living.

The rules have changed, and grief is invading our homes. Behind closed doors, fear feeds the anxiety. For some, panic sets in. The panic is fed by the narratives and stories we tell ourselves. This is where you get to be an interrupter of the storyline. As Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says: “Stay with the data. Stay with the facts.”

Calm these narratives, these stories, by staying with the data. Part of what makes this a pandemic is that EVERYONE around the world is affected. Financial woes are not a statement of your worth or of your success. Everyone’s portfolio, if you have one, is being seized because of this virus closing the doors of many businesses.

This is an opportunity to rethink, regather, and reassess. And to clean house.

Maybe you’ve always wanted the time to create a new business plan. Do it now! Maybe you’ve wanted to get out of the busy, hectic life you’ve been living, and maybe now is the time. Maybe you’ve wanted to be more engaged with your kids, or your partner. Now is the time. 

Reconnect. Calm your inner critic. You are not alone. 

Now is time to ENJOY THE SPACE NOT THE RACE! Find your community at home.

I mean, there’s some imagined switch that’s supposed to go off. And suddenly—poof!—like a magic dragon landed on your life, things are gonna be different, or they’re gonna turn around, or some desired or demanded resolution will have life-altering effects. By the way, a resolution would be a promise you make to yourself and probably won’t keep or address or adhere to (do I see a smile on your face?).

Broken Promises & Failed Resolutions

I keep asking myself: Why the promissory resolution? Is it because a new year allows you to hope for something different or new in your life? Is it because we summon hope when we have a date in time begging us to turn over a new leaf or be somehow different or strive for a dream that, up until now, has only been a dream?

And how come these resolutions don’t usually pan out? I mean, they really don’t work.

Why New Year's Resolutions Do Not Work Out

Just look at gym memberships. They spike in January, and by mid-March, those costly memberships are just taking money out of your account on a monthly basis. You might even forget about the automatic deduction, at least for a while. And those gyms that overbooked or seemed too crowded in January—well, by March they’re back to the diehards who have probably always taken it seriously.

It seems the New Year’s Resolution is more about how we want to be. I cannot tell you how many times I swore I’d go on that diet, or take a trip, or have that conversation I’d been meaning to have, and gave it over to the resolution of the year.

Gift Yourself the Gift of Intentions, Not Resolutions

That is until... Until the resolution and the idea of the resolution stopped. Yeah, it actually had to stop! What replaced it was a game-changer. I stopped the demand inherent in the resolution quagmire.

I realized, wow, I want to gift myself with a shift. I want to have greater integrity in my life. I need to set up the road to success. One step at a time. One gift at a time.

And the gift could not be about the archetypal people pleaser, or the critic, or the judge. It had to come from the archetypal lovers or the cheerleader or the magic held within that is too often not acknowledged or tapped into.

How Intentions Differ from Resolutions

You see, when you stop the resolution, it doesn’t take your power, your innate abilities, or your yearning for a life yet to be discovered into its grip. A resolution too often leads to disappointment and grief. The gift to the self, you can leave it, take it, listen to it, hold it, consider it, and finally, if you choose, enjoy it! It can sit idly, and you can shelve it, and smile when you are ready to engage with it.

And this is the deal. It’s your secret. The gift, the intention of the gift, isn’t shared with anyone. It belongs completely to you. No one is watching, judging, or wondering are you gonna do it this year. What a relief.

The gift is not to be shared. The gift is sacred. The gift is a giving to the self.

Make it a year of… not for me to say!

Isn't it time?

In a culture where being in the moment is heralded as the key to inner peace and joy, isn’t it curious that people tend to create a road map of resolutions for the New Year? The talk of losing weight, joining a gym, finding a relationship, and changing jobs are just some of the promises made to the self, the family and friends. How often do people actually follow through with resolutions?

Being Real About New Year's Resolutions

Edy Nathan MA, LCSW, gives an example of New Year resolution “fibs.” Let’s look at the statistics of gym memberships from January to March. Having bought their memberships in December, most newcomers arrive January 1, and by March most are out the door—never to be seen again. Though the intention is there, the follow-through is not. It is the follow-through from intention to integrity that ultimately creates a platform for success in the New Year.

Too often a year is left behind without much thought. To be successful in the New Year it’s helpful to understand the hurdles faced and the accomplishments made in the previous year. This creates a map for success in the new year.

5 Tools for Understanding Last Year

1.  Make a list of all accomplishments made in the year.
2. Are there any regrets? If so, what are they and is there anything that can be done to clean them up? If there is, then do what is needed to reverse the regret into regrowth.
3. What was learned in the year?
4. What is the truth about how prior resolutions were handled? After the resolutions were made, what actually occurred?
5. Specify what changes were made that affected the mind, body, social interaction and work life. Did the shifts encourage life transitions or were they compressing?

5 Tools for Beginnings & Success in the New Year

1. Be realistic about what can be achieved.
2. Tell the truth about the goals desired.
3. Create a calendar of what will be accomplished. Set up reminders about the dates, times and outcomes desired. This can be done on any of your mobile devices.
4. Picture the desired outcome. See it, plan it and make it happen. When obstacles get in the way, be a spontaneous problem-solver. Paths can take many twists. That does not mean the ideal is dead. If one way does not work, try another.
5. Push beyond the zone of comfort. If it’s comfortable, and it seems the goal is diminishing, find ways to re-energize. This includes bringing others into the creation of the goal. Remember: This is about your integrity.

And remember what Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

When babies fail to thrive it’s often because they haven’t been touched, spoken to, or noticed. In a time when there’s so much social media, it’s amazing to see how lonely and unconnected many folks feel. No matter how old you are, from elders to youngsters, there is a hunger, a noticeable craving for connection.

Connection. Person to person, heart to heart, feeling another person’s charisma or energy or admiration or angst. This is all part of connection.

Social Media & Connectedness

Funny that we have a social media platform, LinkedIn, that’s all about connection and relatedness, yet it links us within business, it links our platforms, but does it link us, does it help us to relate to one another, does it help us relate outside of business?

What it does do is feed our egos, especially if we have lots of connections on that platform. Facebook was supposed to connect, and it did, to some extent, re-establish the long lost high school friend, or the college friend who you’d lost touch with, and yet, it became a place where people looked happy, involved, and connected, when in fact, so many folks falsified how good things were, and the fun and connection they seemed to have was really absent.

Put it up, put it on, and what happens when the mask comes off? And really, if you’re recording all the fun you’re having, how much fun are you having? Connected to the reaction of others, rather than really connecting. When we’re behind our phones, when we’re on the other side, we’re not really present.

Loneliness & Connection

In a 2018, New York Times article, the topic of loneliness was discussed as an issue in the workplace, at home and is taken with such seriousness, that the U.K. has appointed a minister of loneliness. Perhaps they need to appoint a minister of connection.

It’s not just social media that leaves one feeling the lack of connection. The aloneness factor happens in grief, when you’ve lost a loved one, throughout the aging process, or when you’ve lost a sense of curiosity, of culture, ritual, and of family. What happens to our bodies, and our minds and our souls while facing this dilemma? Health issues, mental stress and even dementia, are part of the effects of a lack of connection.

Isolation & Getting Reconnected

The effect of isolation and loneliness on the body, the  mind and the soul are undeniable. And guess what? It’s reversible in small, little, incremental steps. And you have the power to find your warrior when it comes to getting connected.

Here are two ways to get reconnected:

1. Friendship. So important to tackling the need for connection. Reach out to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while, take a walk, share a book you’ve read, or share stories. We know that story telling allows for intimacy, and reminds everyone of where they’ve been, the people they’ve loved or liked or even disliked.
2. Exercise. Yes, regardless of small town living or big city living, there are ways to find people who exercise together. In China, you’ll see hundreds of folks doing Tai chi on a big lawn. Tai chi is one of those universal exercises that can reduce stress, help you find others who want to be in touch with their bodies and there is really something to universal energy.

Suicide is an epidemic that is endemic. The thoughts of taking one’s life doesn’t just happen overnight. It is like an enemy at the door that keeps on knocking. Knocking. Screaming to be let into the psyche, and it’s literally breathtaking when it wins.

Its potent presence is something we’d rather not think about. Once in the impulses of the brain, there’s no relief from its call.

It’s true, there are people who don’t take the call, they know it’s there, and they choose everyday not to take the bait. Its call is not unlike the addictive quality of an opioid.

Fighting Suicidal Tendencies

Recently, Pastor Jarrid Wilson took his own life. I didn’t know him, yet his story is certainly compelling. If you read anything about him, his fight to blast the internal voice to end his life, was made public by him. He took it to the people he supported. He took it to his beloved church. He made it his cause.

Because he knew. He knew he had to attempt to quiet the internal angst by bringing it out into the open.

Externalizing what we want to hide often quiets the potency of its presence. When people experience anxiety attacks, one of the greatest fears is being seen in a moment of emotional duress. Yet, when the fear of embarrassment abates because they’ve chosen to share what’s happening with them, the anxiety often quiets. The anxiety is fed by a projection of how others will react or fear of losing control or feelings of humiliation.

Fear, anxiety, and suicide love partnerships. They are part of the emotional feeding frenzy of pervasive thoughts. The suicides we hear about in the news will often occur in clusters. As was the case with Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. Permission given. One minute, the pastor is eulogizing a woman who suicided, and it seems he found his partner, perhaps his permission giver, and the cry could no longer be ignored.

What a valiant effort to help others find relief while he struggled.

Support for Suicidal Loved Ones

Suicide is an epidemic that is endemic. If you have a loved one who struggles with life, please know that when someone makes up their mind, and the brain has latched onto the thoughts, it is hard to be released from those desires.

Keep talking to them, without begging them to be different. Be curious about what is going on in their brains. They are yearning for something, they are hungry, and even when there are offerings of food, they cannot eat.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, or have a sense that life is too hard, seek help. If you have a friend or loved one who you are concerned about, don’t do this alone. The 24 hour National Suicide hotline number is:1-800-273-8255.

Recently I’ve been watching “Masters of Sex.” It’s a series that was aired a few years ago, it depicts Masters and Johnson, who were the pioneers and scientists in the study of human sexuality. In the 1950s, they were the two most influential people daring to explore and talk about sex. Against all odds, they broke the puritanical societal convention by publicly discussing and conversing about sex, desire, and the body. What’s curious is how little we used to know about our bodies, our souls and our psyches in the realm of sexuality. 

Sex, Relationships & Intimacy

At our fingertips, we can find information about sex, yet it seems there’s still a lack of understanding about having and maintaining relationships in intimacy. How few of us really want an “Into Me You See” relationship. With the interruption of phones up to our ears, eyes peering into computer screens, and lives that are so busy it’s hard to just sit and be, it’s no wonder that true intimacy is more of a fantasy than an achievable interaction. Somehow the culture does not beckon us to stop the constant movement to reach into the depths of knowing the self.

Understanding One's Self for a Better Relationship

How do you know the self? Superficial drama and the stories you tell yourself may calm you and feel self nurturing, yet do they really allow you to meet the soul that lives within?

The journey to understand the soul and the psyche requires the internal desire to peel away the protective layers that have been created by you. If you want to look at yourself in the raw, it is like peeling an artichoke. The outer layers are both sweet and prickly. When you get through each piece of the artichoke, you eventually get to the heart. It is soft, sweet, tart and belongs to you.

It’s never easy to choose to be in personal pain to grow. Yet, when you take yourself on, which means to go into the darkness and hunger of the soul, you find enlightenment and enrichment.

Liberating Your Soul & Sexual Self

One step at a time, when undressed, you will move from a kind of false self to a self that is more substantial. Through this spectrum of movement, the sexual soul is no longer annihilated by you for lack of attention paid to it, rather it is liberated. What the autonomy does for the soul is it attracts other autonomous beings who are up for the challenges that being in intimacy present.

What is this journey for you?

Imagine the liberation of your soul. What would be different?

Life expectancy is higher in 2019 than ever before. Americans are living longer, celebrating longevity, and questioning how they want to live their lives. The depth of this personal inquiry often results in questioning their intimate or not-so-intimate relationships.

In this time of change, there is a movement of unhappily married baby boomers who are choosing divorce over staying in marriages that are emotionally annihilating. Faced with maintaining a partnership fraught with unmet desire, boomers are freedom seekers.

What they discover in their choice to take on life without a partner is that there are pros and cons to that decision. With the adage of 60 is the new 40, is 70 the new 50?

The Pro's & Cons of Divorce

The folks of the 1970’s “Me Decade” generation were powerful change agents. Losing sight of their power, many have gotten waylaid in partnerships that are no longer fulfilling, ultimately causing many to opt out of marriage. Hungering for a life that reflects the limitless promise of their earlier years,  many are now faced with  the prospect of tackling the unknown as they enter the winter of their lives—an exciting and terrifying sense of mystery.

The Pros of Divorce

They acquire greater autonomy that enables exploration of new dreams and desires. New friendships are developed and perhaps old friendships even reinvented. Self-esteem is enhanced with this new adventure. They get to learn how to create a sense of calm within the self through the shift in relationship status. And part of the self-soothing might show up as they discover a new sexual self, an exploration not possible before.

The Cons of Divorce

Leaving a relationship can foster a sense of regret. The fantasy of what life would be like without their partner may have been more embellished than the reality. People who find themselves in this dilemma may have thought their discomfort was about their partner. Yet, when alone, they realize they’re part of the issue. It’s often hard to recognize and to reconcile. A kind of identity crisis may ensue because there’s no one to blame for their unhappiness.

For women who leave, financial strain can be more of an issue than for their male counterparts. So, if you’re planning to leave, think about the new financial picture and be prepared for the sticker shock. It may be a costly decision with significant financial repercussions!

Also be aware that family and friends may not understand your choice to leave. They might side with the partner who was left behind. Grief and fear can accompany making the big change to leave a longtime relationship or marriage.

The Bottom Line When Considering Divorce

Leaving does not necessarily make everything better, as you had dreamed it would. If you were an angry or anxious person in the partnership, there is a good chance those emotions will follow you unless you’ve worked them out in therapy or a support group. As Buckaroo Bonzai famously said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Big decisions create transformation. If you are a baby boomer on the move and you’ve been thinking about leaving for a long time, it’s important to reflect upon the following: Plan for the disengagement from your partner. Make sure you have resources to support the decision to leave. Set an intention to take the time necessary to decide where you will live, who your support team will be, and if this is really the correct choice for you. Prior to leaving, couples counseling can help you make the break with integrity.

When you properly prepare for leave-taking, successful reconstruction of the life you want to live is possible!

The lost relationship begins a relationship with the self.

When an intimate relationship ends, ceases to be and the dream of what could have been is vacated, a deep, mournful grief often follows that end. Grief is all around us. When touched by it, all we want to do is flick it away. Yet, when a relationship terminates, either abruptly or in slow, discordant moments, the emotional residue can lead to, and are not limited to, confusion, anger, obsession, relief and anxiety. All potent pieces of grief’s mosaic.

Begin a Relationship with Yourself

What my broken heart has taught me during times when it’s on lock down and blocked, is to take time to be with me. Especially, during this time of loss. It can sound a bit corny, the idea of having a relationship with the self and with the psyche, yet, what we tend to do is quickly find another to replace the yearning, and the now vacant role we had as a partner. This type of grief invites and demands the depths of personal confrontation. It’s far easier to do the jump from one relationship to another. Serial monogamy is better than meeting and dating the self.

Take Time to Mourn the End of Your Relationship

I’ve learned how important it is to take a social time-out and mourn the end of a relationship. It’s never easy to confront yourself, especially when the desire is to blame or accuse the ex-partner for the downfall and ultimate end of the relationship. What if, the first person to assess is the self. It’s the “I” quotient, looking at “me” as the first course of action, rather than being in the rampant role of executor and proctor with a watchful eye toward the other. Perhaps the answers to what went wrong lie not within the blame, rather through a solitude and reckoning with what happened to you as the relationship went south.

Take Time to Meet Yourself

One of my favorite quotes about meeting the self as it shows up after a break-up is from Amy Tan’s book, The Joy Luck Club: “Then she told me why a tiger is gold and black. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between the trees, seeing and not being seen. Waiting patiently for things to come. I did not learn to use my black side until after the bad man left me.”

Take Time to Nourish Yourself

The leave-taking within a relationship offers an opportunity to nourish parts of the self that have been hidden, put away or ignored. In working through relationship grief here are seven questions to ponder. I find taking tiny moments in my day to be inquisitive about the receptors of loss within me, allow for revelation and ultimate freedom.

7 Questions to Ask Yourself After a Break-Up

1. What physical, emotional or psychological similarities did your ex have with other folks in your life? (Think parents, siblings, aunts, uncles) There’s lots of information here!
2.  Identify what feels lost within you. When the relationship ended listen to the parts of you that got shattered? What are you grieving about? (Go deep into the self’s soul on this one.)
3. What is your tiger’s gold side? What is your tigers black side? (Referring to Amy Tan’s quote)
4. How did sex change as the relationship changed? Did it get better- that sometimes happens. Or, did it become non-existent?
5. What role did sex play in the relationship: did you use it to diffuse issues, use it to manipulate the partner, or use it for power? (How else was it used?)
6. What attempts did you make to reconcile or change the relationship? Was this a real attempt or an attempt out of choosing the status quo?
7. If blame is taken off the table, what part of you participated in the break-up? (Take a look in the mirror)
8. If dating yourself is an opportunity to understand the choices made in the future, what kind of time needs to be devoted to dating the self before moving on to real dating? (How long can you keep a plant alive?)

Grief Can be a Gift

You have many choices in how to handle a break-up. There’s a learning curve here. You can continue to repeat the same pattern or do it differently. Don’t stay in the fear and despair. When darkness of grief appears, there’s a gift, actually a golden opportunity to meet illustrious parts of yourself that are either unfamiliar, unidentified or yet to be discovered. Allow for the journey of grief to unfold and meet it head-on. The grief becomes a place of learning and evolution. Move from Grief to Grace!

The following is excerpted with permission from It’s Grief: The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss by Edy Nathan ($24.95, As I Am Press, 2018)

As a powerful survival instinct, anger is integral to defending your inner core. We use anger to fight for boundaries and to communicate abject fears. These are the necessary and healthy aspects of anger. When feeling threatened or scared, you have probably used anger to defend yourself or to be heard.

In the mourning process, anger is one of the emotions that moves in and out like the tide. Sometimes it envelops you like a flood, and if you respect its power, you can learn more about how and why it operates.

Instead of avoiding it or letting it mold you, you want to tap into the ability to converse with its core: Identify what fuels it and gain insight into what quiets it.

Respect Your Anger

Respect anger’s capacity to help you heal, while also understanding how anger can contribute to losing your sense of self. The experience of being lost in anger can feel like emotional whiplash. It can surprise you and rise within the body without caution or warning. The rawness of your anger filters into your life with a sense of chaos and emotional states of disarray. It can be frightening to be consumed by this seemingly destructive emotion. Naturally, you desire to disengage from its clutches. Do you ever wonder what would happen if you weren’t afraid of anger? If you actually allowed full engagement with it, what do you imagine would happen within your psyche?

Anger is one of the phases of grief. In this phase, two distinct impulses surge within you. The first impulse is to externalize the anger by lashing out aggressively to show others how you feel (and almost forcing them to feel it with you). The second is to internalize the anger by attempting to keep it hidden. The fear of letting the anger out may occur because you believe that once out, it cannot be concealed or controlled. You would be exposing a part of you that is volatile, explosive, and perhaps unmanageable.

Either internalized or externalized anger will result in the same sense of drowning and emotional deregulation, which can leave you feeling unstable. Whether you act out your anger through aggressive acts, or try to hide your anger, neither option resolves your emotional response. If the soul is not allowed to tangle with anger as part of the mourning process and anger is not given the reverence it deserves, this unresolved, internalized anger will erupt into rage, and despair will surely follow. When this happens, the abundant internal chaos takes up space and doesn’t want to leave.

Anthony's Story

Anthony is a 42-year-old man who shared his thoughts on the anger he experienced while facing his adoption:

I have never reacted with the degree of anger I have in my bones right now. My throat is tight, I am in a blind rage, and if I were an animal I would want to bite off someone’s head. Some of it is not rational, I know this, yet some of it makes perfect sense to me. Once I’m in the cycle, it’s a place of no return. My jaw is clenched, my nerves are activated, and I am just plain mad, mad, mad at everything! Frankly, I’m exhausted from being so angry. This is not who I used to be. I wish my birth mom had not given me up for adoption and then tried to contact me.

Though the scenario of adoption may not be part of your experience, does the degree of rage resonate with you? Is it possible that Anthony is more afraid than angry, yet anger is the emotion he is connecting with and expressing?

Stay Connected

One way to disconnect from this type of raging is to delve into the initial experience of your anger; especially if no one has taught you that anger is allowed. When you experience anger, often the first instinct is to hide it or shield yourself from it. However, this particular dance requires going into the depths of the soul so you can become aware of other emotions that serve as feeders to the anger in your grief. Fear of the unknown can lead to despair and may be a feeder to rage. Rage can be easier to express than fear.

Anger is on the opposite end of the spectrum from anxiety. When you are overcome by anxiety, if you think about and engage with your anger you may find that the anxiety disappears. Understanding anger as a tool for anxiety relief is critical to exploring any resistance you may have to expressing your anger.

The Release

Your initiation into this part of the dance is discovering that what has angered you is directly related to the sense of helplessness you may be feeling. In any loss, the lack of power to change what you’ve lost, how you were traumatized, or how you could have reacted differently is directly related to a sense of despair. It can be helpful to write in your journal/notebook as you begin to examine what may be feeding your anger by exploring what fears or anxiety have left you immobilized and feeling ineffective.

No one likes to experience powerlessness. Once the anger is recognized and established, anxiety will often dissipate, and the anger finally comes out of hiding.