Dealing With Hurt and Anger

A few days ago, I talked about being angry after being wronged. First of all, thank you for all your supportive emails and messages. They were thoughtful, insightful, and uplifting. And comforting.

While I was working on letting go of my anger and choosing a course of action, I wrote my own coach, who reminded me that before I took action, I needed to spend some time healing.

It's good advice. When we are bruised, we put ice on the spot and elevate it. My spirit needed the same thing. But I'm so busy! I have deadlines! I need to . . .heal. My coach was absolutely right. How do you heal? But treasuring your creative work and spending time with it. By being creative, the sense of loss is not a sense of threat. By turning to creative work, the hole left by the sense of lack is filled with creative work, proving we are capable of it, and capable of healing ourselves.

Choosing a reaction doesn't spring from a sense of anger, it grows from a sense of boundaries and accountability. Yes, that's from Brené Brown's book, The Gifts of Imperfection. Brené says that by holding people accountable for their actions, we enforce the boundaries of acceptable behavior and can concentrate on what someone did, not who they are.

My first task today was healing. I went out to the Desert Botanical Garden and enjoyed the butterfly house with a friend. We then wandered into the garden, found a bench, and sat down to sketch. Sketching requires concentration and gives you positive results. Looking closely at something you are drawing helps you see how it's constructed. A bigger lesson at work.

So thanks to my own coach, I'm on the road to healing through creativity and setting boundaries and holding the person who wronged me accountable. I want to create a solution that is clean, ethical and simple. I think I can.

--Quinn McDonald is working through a hard time the only way she knows how–by meaning making and creative work.

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Filed under: In My Life, Journal Pages, The Writing Life Tagged: creative healing, dealing with hurt and anger, healing, postaday2012