I always feel contracted in front of angry men. Ugh, that word itself is contracting, but that’s how it feels in my body, like a tightness in the chest and super strong heartbeats, as if I’m entering a dangerous zone that I need to stay away from. But if I have to stay, then I really have a hard time expressing myself in front of them. It’s as if I disappear behind my fear and my whole being calls only to survive, only to survive…

I often ask myself why is it like this? I realized long ago that I grew up with an angry dad and found a thousand ways to deal with his anger, from physically disappearing to mentally disappearing, and just agreeing, agreeing to everything until the storm will pass, wishing it to pass already….

Lately, I understand and see better the difference between the girl and the woman I am, and through that I look at how it is still difficult to bring myself and the truth in front of them. See how I still fail to stand in the light in the face of their anger. Sometimes it can also be in the face of authority or overconfidence. I see more and more how I come from an open place that is ready for surprises, and when anger or confidence arises, I lose grip and straight away feel that whoever in front of me knows better, sees better and is right, and as a consequence – makes me wrong.

I hate when I’m wrong. And all I have left is to fight for my place – which is always a mistake, because it only raises more and more anger, and accordingly I disappear.

With sad men it’s easier for me because they do not threaten me or at least I do not feel threatened, and maybe it’s because they evoke empathy and a healing energy in me, and maybe because I feel I can help.

With the angry ones I just disappear. Mostly I drown in fear, that if he’ll be so mad at me, he’ll leave.

The confusion:

The thought tells me that if someone gets angry he will leave, that if I dare and anger someone, he will just choose to distance himself from me.

Sometimes that’s exactly what will happen. But even if he leaves it will always say nothing about me and will not make me someone else – or damaged – or screwed up – or not able to say the right thing – or small – or stupid.

Fear tells me that my man will leave and I will be left without someone to take care of me. It also tells me that I can not take care of myself.

Fear and belief are what actually make me hold on and contract. Nothing else and no one else.

The gate:

Once I think I need to take care of myself, I believe in conditions and survival, and create a relationship of dependence.

The truth is that the motion is to see the futility in the hope that self-preservation can lead to something other than suffering, pain and separation. I can see the impotence in the thought that a man can take care of me, so I have to be careful not to lose him.

I want to see what happens, when I believe I need protection, that there is something to be defended against. I believe that pain is dangerous. Pain is not dangerous, it just hurts. And there is really no point in being kept from it, not because it will pass and be better but because pain – like anything, is a gateway to awakening – from the endless stories and loops that the thought creates for me, from my old habits that I identify with and mistakenly think are me.

So if someone is angry, I’m still whole, even if he leaves.

The thought that a man can protect me is futile because there is nothing to protect from and no need to defend myself from anything. On the contrary, I want to be destabilized, I want to be afraid and awaken through it. I want to see my confusion and fear and know the world is inside me – I can not and do not want to be separated from it and protect myself. I want to be stupid and do irrational things out of devotion and also surrender. I want to find a way to bring tenderness to anger not through war and resistance but through love and simplicity – I want to stand in front of my angry man, to feel the waves rising from him to me, and not be taken into a swirl, not to fight the waves, but to find peaceful and loving ground that knows and is connected to the truth that anger can not dispute. Truth I know.