Containing Emotions

There was a vey angry poem  here for a few hours.

I took it down, readjusted this post.

Because it was full of the energy of anger which can be a difficult thing to read.

When someone empties themselves out of an emotion  or through an experience using writing as the vehicle  for their thoughts and accompanying energy, it can look a little confronting.

Words are containers into which we can pour our emotions. Those containers can then be set high on a shelf where they do no harm but hold our feelings safely for us.

I can look back at old poems of mine – see hurt, see grief, pain, sadness, loss, anger, love, happiness. For a moment as I read I can feel those things again but mostly I look back and feel healed.

The words which I write heal me as they go, flowing out into their containers to be labeled and stacked – colours of red, blue, green – tucked into a folder on a silver machine that sits flat and coolly in place on my desk.

Nobody would guess how many words fill it – but there are plenty and far more than what I share here on the blog.

Sometimes – our words become containers for other peoples emotions as well and when they read them they feel understood – they get to feel some of that energy. I have written poems for others that I love – when I can do nothing else, I can give them a container – a container that they can hold and feel my support, love and empathy.

So this poem (which was above) was angry and it carried some of my anger away with it.

If it were a vehicle it would be a V8 revving loudly and spitting gravel as it hissed around the corners of my mind. Yet in writing it and then looking back a couple of hours later (now) I am without any of that fire and brimstone energy with which I wrote it.

It has served its purpose.

In being able to distance myself from the anger I also created space for a solution (to this particular problem) which can then be carried out calmly and with very little fuss.

We all get a little angry sometimes, the trick is to control it. Poetry and writing provides a wonderful outlet for that purpose and whether you choose to share it or not seems to make no difference.

Peace out x

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