Girls, anger, and the Dammit Doll

In the Equine Gestalt Coaching program I'm in we deal with anger...a lot. For those of us still students, we are working on finishing our "unfinished business"in order to stay centered when the time comes that we are certified coaches and helping our clients find their healing.

Unlike many girls, my daughter Loreli, doesn't hold her anger in, it is out and in your face! In some ways I feel proud of that (although it wasn't my doing) because as women we often aren't "allowed" to be angry. We are allowed to cry but as far as anger goes, well, it's our job to stuff it, not show it.

So, yay, for outwardly shown anger...kinda ;-) Sometimes though, that anger can turn inward--and last night for Loreli it was turning inward in an icky way. I could hear her muttering that she was stupid and that she ought to be able to get it. She was working on some math homework that required a lot of focus. The math problems weren't that hard, double digit addition, but they were in this weird format and for the final answer to be correct she had to get each successive problem exactly right. If there was even one little mistake everything else beyond that was wrong too. Ugh. Loreli is a smart cookie and can usually whip through her homework in no time but last night was tough. She worked on it before dinner and then after dinner as well and held herself together admirably. Little breakthroughs of, "This is STUPID!" would pop up and I would agree with her--then she would go back to work.

After dinner she and Brad tackled it together and she was really getting pretty worked up about it. She had invested at least an hour in this worksheet and still wasn't finished. I suddenly remembered my training and asked her to go get a stuffed animal. She came back carrying a skunk! I put the dogs outside, moved everything off our couch and showed her what to do: I took the skunk by the tail, beat it on the leather couch (which made a satisfying thwacking noise!) and screamed, "Dammit, dammit, dammit! This is the WORST homework ever! I hate it! Arrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!" Then I handed her the skunk. She looked at me wide eyed, with a huge smile on her face and said, "Really?" I grinned, "Yep, go for it!" She gave the couch a few half-hearted whacks but when I told her she could say whatever she wanted, she gave it her all! "Stupid stupid STUPID! I hate this homework! DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT!!!" I jumped up and down and yelled with her, "Go Loreli go!"

After some minutes of beating the stuffing out of the couch she calmed down and went back to that homework and hammered at it until it was done.

PROUD MOMMY! Both of myself for giving her that outlet and of Loreli for allowing it!