Transforming Anger in ROCD (ft. Palak)
Kiyomi: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Awaken into Love podcast. This is your host, Kiyomi LaFleur, and we are on episode number nine. And today's podcast, I had the wonderful privilege to interview the wonderful and lovely Palak. She is one of the Awaken into Love ambassadors in the ROCD course and community. She's been helping so many people out in the community, and she's also an AIR member. I was so excited to interview her, to talk to her all about the emotion of anger and how we can show up in ROCD and also in your relationship, and how to use the emotion of anger in a way that is transformative and integrated so it can help your awakening process. So I'm really excited to share this podcast with you. I wanted to remind you all that open enrollment also starts on Monday for the Awaken Into Relationships program, the AIR program. We're really excited to welcome our second cohort that's coming in to join us, and we're really, really excited to dive into deeper, deeper work that we have already been doing the last couple of months, but we are opening the open enrollment in the program again this Monday. So if you're interested and you've already taken the ROCD course and you're ready for your next step of deeper transformation, you want more hands-on support. You want to be in a deeper, intimate community of people who understand, who really get you and you're just ready for your next step in transformation. Then I highly, highly recommend you check out the AIR program. You can join our waitlist by emailing Crystal, our Operations Manager at support@awakenintolove.com, and let her know that you're interested in getting that information and signing up if you feel called to do so. Again, I'm really excited to share this podcast with you. I have a feeling it's going to be very helpful for you, especially if you notice yourself feeling anger in different parts within your relationship and also with ROCD. As always, here's to being human, everyone. I hope you enjoy this podcast with Palak.
Palak: [00:02:04] Hi, everyone. I am Palak Arora and I reside in Delhi, India. Just like some of you, I have also been through the journey of OCD and it was really tough and was really not easy. And finally, when I found Awaken into Love while I was suffering through debilitating OCD and you want some relief, this was something that provided me a direction towards my healing. And when I found Awaken into Love ROCD course and community, it was beautiful. It shifted, transformed my entire life. And I really want to take you on this journey and talk about what happened in just a small span of time. While I worked through it, I saw myself transforming every day, not only through my OCD, but also every other thing, every other aspect of my life, my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my friends, with my career, with myself, that's the most important one. And then after, like five or six months into the course I was, I felt these epiphanies and I started. I was really active and I started participating more and then Kiyomi gave me this wonderful opportunity to be an Awaken into Love ambassador and help me support the people of the community. And I guess it's a wonderful opportunity because it grows you into a different person when you are working along with people and supporting them and cheering them up from a distance without advising them. It really shifts you into a wiser person, I guess. And then the Awaken into Love, Kiyomi and Alexis launched this amazing program Awaken into Relationships and I joined that and up until now, we have been on our toes and it has been such a huge shifting journey, I cannot thank them enough and this platform. It's just so beautiful. I think that's why it inspired me so much that I need to bring this up in my own country because India is less aware of OCD and we need more of such things, such information. This is really transforming. And it's not only about OCD, it's about overall mental health and how normal it is. It's just equivalent to how you fracture your hand. So simple. Are you just having some form of problems through your mental health? So I really want to take that up in my future and hope to do that. Thank you.
Kiyomi: [00:05:15] Yay Palak, I'm so happy to have you here with us today in the podcast, and I know that before you and I spoke, there was so much that we were thinking of talking about and kind of grappling around talking about emotions which I know that was something that you really feel passionate about and talking about today in the podcast. And I know that one thing that you really wanted to go over, which you feel would be really helpful to to go over today in the podcast is to go over the importance of anger and feeling anger. So I would love to kind of just dove into that just for a moment. If you could just talk a little bit about, as we all know, kind of going through this ROCD journey and awakening into love that emotions are such an important part of healing, which a lot of people don't know. A lot of people think, you know, it's kind of like figuring out in our mind or going through obsessive thinking, and then I'll find an answer. But truly, truly, you have been such a pioneer and leader into helping show a lot of people of how healing looks like and what healing is and awakening is. And I know that for you, going through emotions and accessing emotions, especially anger, has been really transformative for you. So I would love for us to just dive into the importance of anger. But first, talk just a little bit about what emotions are and why emotions are important for working with ROCD.
Palak: [00:06:44] I really feel attached to this work of emotions because of being a highly sensitive person, you constantly feel something, something or the other just feeling, and it's intense. It's really intense. For some people it's not, but even for those people, work with emotions is really important. Emotions, for talking in both ways, emotions are just moving energy in the body. If you see it through the lens of science, it holds frequency. So it's just energy that is moving energy. And if you really see it through the perspective of spirituality, then the prana that we hold in the core, that's where we hold all the emotions. And I guess we talk about it a lot or in the work, because even though the cause is cognitive, the target is the body usually. So even though you are going through cognitive work and you're working through the traumas or something really deep, any mental health issue you are going through, emotions are one of the contributing factors to it. So it can be stored in your body for years. And if you aren't, if they're not processed, it exists in your body, stored in your muscles, in your tissues. And because of the media that all the TV, the society, what it tells us is. To either avoid them or do either out of them, a lot of us learned to make decisions through emotions. We actually take emotions as equals to facts. So I guess if we really start using them as gifts and in the direction of that, we can help ourselves. Towards healing and they'll help you for your well-being, not harm you.
Kiyomi: [00:08:52] I love that you said that, that it is really like a gift where a lot of times with with ROCD, for some people, it's like this cut off between them and their emotions where they they don't want to feel their emotions, their emotions don't feel safe, which in a lot of cases are taught from childhood. And then for some people, the emotions, like you said, especially if you're highly sensitive, can feel so overwhelming, can feel so much. And it's almost like when the emotions come up, there's a sense of, Oh my god, what do I do with this? How do I even handle this? And something that you brought up so beautifully was they take their emotions to be facts. They take their emotions to be truth with, which is really a big part of ROCD. Like if I'm feeling this fear, if I'm feeling this, the sadness, if I'm feeling this anger then it must be because of my partner or something about my partner, you know, all of these things that we can get into, which can really ramp up the ROCD. So what I'm curious to hear from you, too, is how you see emotions, especially anger will kind of go into that. But how it plays a part in ROCD or how you see that it's really connected together, especially in a sense of anger, like how you feel anger as an emotion shows up in ROCD and why that's really important to talk about.
Palak: [00:10:07] So we were discussing this one thing that when I read about it and because why am I actually attached to anger work because I have struggled with it a lot throughout my adolescence and even in my early 20s, I was 22, though, so I still it's still early 20s. But oh, just like it was like when I was 20, 21 last year, I was really struggling to control anger. That's what the word they use control. Now I don't use it on purpose, though. But when I read about it, we were talking about how anger is a secondary emotion. We laughed that, no, it's not supposed to be a secondary emotion, why? Because it was the primary thing happening in my entire lifetime. Why is it a secondary emotion now?
Kiyomi: [00:11:02] So I just want to stop you just for just a moment, because that's such an important key part that I want everyone to hear again, which is you're saying that anger is a secondary emotion. And you said, from what I heard that for a long time you were like, Wait, I don't understand how anger was a secondary emotion for my whole life or my adolescence? I really experienced anger as a first emotion. But from what you've been reading in the research you've been doing, you realize that anger is a secondary emotion. So I just want to pause right there and just kind of have the audience reflect on that. Again, that anger is a secondary emotion. So maybe Palak like you can talk a little bit about maybe what's first or why it's a secondary emotion and how that's been really eye-opening for you.
Palak: [00:11:44] I would love to actually when it happened, I asked Kiyomi that I really faced major issues in handling my anger and because of ROCD it increases. So she said, OK, would you like to introspect what is behind it? Fear or grief. And for a second, I was. Astonished, I was really surprised, okay like something really new, and it gives you a perspective, something is behind this emotion that is morphing into this emotion. So when you dive into this work and you realize eventually that grief, sadness, hurt, frustration, rejection, violation, all these emotions are behind anger. And if you are not facing, or ready to feel these emotions behind anger. The feel, the sadness, the hurt, sometimes rejection, sometimes hurt, a lot of them then it morphs into anger really quick. And that's why we call it a secondary emotion, not a primary emotion, because it is a morphed one.
Kiyomi: [00:13:05] Beautiful, especially around the idea of grief and sadness. Like, I think for a lot of people, that's kind of a shocking, shocking statement when we say that anger is a secondary emotion and usually the first is like, you know, this sadness and this grief that may come up, especially in regards to ROCD. I would love to go into how anger can show up in ROCD, especially in sneaky ways. I know you and I talked a little bit about this before and how when we're working with it in our life or when anger comes up with those ROCD, how we can really show up and sneaky ways that a lot of people don't even recognize.
Palak: [00:13:46] Yeah. So some of the ways that it can come up is you start nitpicking on your partner, you want to control them, you are irritated. Some of the examples, great examples are there like, Oh, why didn't you call me? Or, Oh, why are you not picking out the trash? Why are you not helping me if you live together? Otherwise, there are a lot of ways you nitpick, oh one of the greatest examples that as an ambassador, I witnessed. There's this common thought chain that shows you how much anger sneaks up in ROCD that my partner is not enough in a way that I'm not attracted to him enough or old enough or something like anything, anything. You will just start finding the flaws and that enough aspect is there. So I see anger is leaking up through these different ways. And then there was this amazing, amazing quote that I read and of course, you read them throughout your teenage years and it does not apply to you. But I kind of followed it for some time. And then now that you work a lot over these things and you mature and you become resilient. And this was this quote that "if you cannot handle me at my worst, then you can't have me at my best" and I would like to say, No, no, no, please debunk, let's just debunk this one relationship. I know because it's like a chain the more you become angry and you throw anger towards your partner, either you will find that your partner can have their own triggers too. They're amazing people, and they'll come back with their own reactions so it becomes a fight. So anger can be really active.
Kiyomi: [00:15:48] So something that really happens, especially with people with ROCD, is that there's a lot of shame and guilt when experiencing anger. And I think it's important for us to just talk about how anger, just like all the other emotions that are difficult, are not bad. Just like fear, just like sadness, just like grief, just like the anger or the rage that comes up. They are not bad. In society, there is like you talked about this, this very black or white categorization around anger being bad. Don't feel anger, especially if you are in a culture that really emphasizes that anger is bad or it's something to be shameful of. I know that anger for a lot of people with ROCD is something that they might feel, or they might not recognize that they are feeling underneath like the irritation or even just, you know, different moments throughout their life. But I do think it's important for us to to go over the mistakes that can happen and how it's human and how it is so OK to also have anger to experience anger and something that I think changed my life in a lot of ways when I was doing anger work, was almost like anger is like this mama bear that we have within, right? It's like this protection. It's like, No, don't hurt me. It's actually a deep form of love to ourselves in a lot of ways. And same with fear as well. It's kind of like, Am I being protected? Right? The part that can kind of create more and more suffering is when anger really spills over. It goes into projection, it goes into obsessive thinking, that's really what we're talking about. But would you be able to touch just a little bit on how anger might have brought up shame or guilt within you and the importance of why anger is OK and how mistakes are OK as well with anger?
Palak: [00:17:44] Yeah, actually, anger has this explosive energy to it, so becoming aware about it takes time and practice. That's why when I started working on the anger, I realized that it's not a one day job. So I used to explode and I still do, because that's being human. And sometimes you will be hormonal. Sometimes you will be moody. Sometimes you're having a bad day. So when you explode through it, and especially when, because if you have ROCD and you do it on your partner. It brings up so much guilt and shame. And I used to go into this marathon of apologies. I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. I know, and he's my partner used to be, I know, I know it's OK. It's really OK. Don't be that guilty about it. It happens. But something in the oldest remains. And then what happens is that once or twice I become really guilty about something that I hold in the next time. So, the mistake that I started doing was instead of feeling it because of the shame and guilt, I started avoiding it, even the anger inside me. So I was avoiding grief. And then I was avoiding anger and it was increasing. That's what happens when you are into guilt and shame and then there is guilt in their shame around this. I should not feel angry. I must be feeling okay about it. This is not okay. Why am I feeling angry, just a trivial thing? Even if it's why did you eat much of it? Even if it's that, that most small, the smallest of all. So it's OK. Even if you're feeling upbeat, it's OK. If you scream, it's okay if you shout because you are human. And that would happen when you are validated with that emotion and you will make mistakes. You will hurt others. You will be hurt by others. And that is how we have shed off this conditioning that we should not. This should not. This second arrow that Kiyomi talks about in her story blog. It's like sadness and anger and then anger over why am I getting angry? Then you become angry. What am I getting angry about? And then this building up. So I guess we need to really be okay. And I guess it brings a lot of relief when somebody tells me every time it's OK, if you are feeling angry and just okay and I say, okay, yeah it is.
Kiyomi: [00:20:37] It's that that's that OK-ness. It's that acceptance. It's that seeing that we are OK and it is OK to have these emotions and they are so human right there. And that's really the big part of the second era, which I love that you brought that in, which is the first part. We have the emotion and then we get upset at ourselves for having the emotion. And so I would love to tie that into how we can start working with anger, how we can start having a little bit more freedom and actually using anger in a way that is more creative or in a way that can actually be so transformative and can move into a deeper form of integration for healing. So let's just go into that for a moment. How can we just start working on anger or for the people listening right now. These are just a couple of steps that even you can do by yourself. You're welcome to even write these down when anger arises, what you can do and how you can start to transform it.
Palak: [00:21:32] Yeah, so I guess society dictates that we need to control it. So that's the wrong step that we go and we do, and we escape all kinds of emotions, and especially when you are angry, you may smoke, you may go to alcohol, you may bypass entirely, you just avoid them through anything, social media scrolling and everything. So these are some simple steps we can take. And I guess we need to do them. So in order to heal at least a step closer to yourself. Just be true to yourself. So if I go and if I tell you that whenever you start feeling angry. You need to see it as a part of you is angry and not you entirely. Because when I say, a part of you is angry, it's a huge reason behind it. I'm asking you to not lead yourself your entire being with just one bit of emotion. I'm asking you to not relate, and this is the same with everything, even the toddler, how is this one part of you. And it is just a part of you which is feeling. And there are more parts of you that hold wisdom and warmth for the tiny full of emotions part. If we do this, we are able to make room for more than one emotion as well because maybe a part of you is feeling angry and a part of you can be sad at the same time. And then since it's a part of you, you are able to observe them. Now you are the one who is experiencing it. You are not the one who is attached to the emotion entirely, you are not angry. You are the one who is observing the anger going on in your body. So does that make sense that you're detaching yourself from the emotion going on and there's a pause. There's this space between this emotion and you doing it. That's the first step of awareness, that is what we need to do. Then we shift. Step two is let's make it simple. Whenever you shift the dialog from I am an angry person, to I am experiencing this emotion, dash, emotion, you have started labeling the emotion, okay I'm feeling this emotion. Exactly. So now you're labeling the emotion because you have figured it out, figured it out that it is still a part of you. Now you've labeled that this is the emotion going on. Why am I giving this importance to pausing because as I have said, that anger is really explosive. And sometimes we do not become aware of really just like it's coming and it's just you just explode. Sometimes it is that so but with practice, you'll understand that if you'll pause, it will come and it you go and you might not react about it. And then there are more steps to it that are further very simple work that I would say that we often avoid because we think that everybody advises this. It won't work out, but it does, because from my personal experience, it was the most changing aspect of my healing, entire healing. This way is we'll go move, just move down to the emotional part. I'm just asking you do move your body, just let your body be. Allow your body to feel it says you will feel your body, then let it move into its own flow and just flow with the body and let you see where this emotion takes you. Then you will see, OK, this is some dance out of emotions. And second, we can do some creative work. We can think we can draw, we can stitch, we can do craft, we can just create anything. You don't have to be good at it. I'm not saying that you have to be really good at it. Just maybe to scribble anything, that will really help because you are releasing something out of your body and it's just common. It's an energy. It's a form of energy. Only that you are doing it just don't have to be perfect. Then you can scream, I am asking you to scream, or sigh or just breathe. When you breathe, inhale and exhale with the sound of "shhhhhooooo" something like that. So just this sigh, these noises helps you to relax your nervous system, and it has a whole science behind it, whole neuroscience behind it. So it really helps you. Either you scream or you read these already really simple system. This is a very simple system of helping your nervous system to be relaxed. And really, using something workout as opposed to just workout doesn't have to be very tense, you can do simple cardio, simple yoga. Maybe anything simple like aerobics, maybe and just jump, maybe a jumping jack also. And it really helps. Work out because then your muscles are moving. And sometimes, as I said, it just is not always the scenario that emotions are stored in the parts of our body. So sometimes you feel this burn when you feel angry in your chest, around your chest. So when you workout, these things release in different forms and additional information to that. But sometimes you may burp, sometimes you may fart. Sometimes that's how it releases, you know, something leaving out of your body. And the fifth one, the most important one, I guess everybody knows this with a lot of us thinking, you know, now, how do you do that? Just the technique, I guess, is the most common one maybe and I would really like to dive into this one because there is a big misconception that meditation equals no emotion, no thought, just simply feeling, Oh, blissful. Well, no, not at all, like that. Meditation is just a space for you to observe everything that is going on in your body, maybe it's the thoughts, maybe these emotions. And so if you're really angry and you just sit down and you start meditating, maybe just a simple five minutes, 10 minutes meditation, what you are doing is you're creating the space, as I told you earlier, between the emotion and you're just observing it, just letting it move in your body, allowing it. You're validating your own experience of being angry without attaching the story to it. And the importance of story, I'm just adding to it. I was stuck in the spiral of anger throughout my adolescence because I was constantly victimizing myself. That was a story that I attached to my emotion that everything happens wrong to me. Why me? Why is it only me that was victimized that I had a part of me that was constantly feeling this way. So when you stop attaching the story to the emotion, then you come out of the biased perspective, the biased perspective that you hold from the past or from one experience. And do you create the space to let your emotions be so that's how you will come out of anger. You just bring the space to observe, and meditation really helps in it. I really advocate for this one thing: meditation.
Kiyomi: [00:30:12] Beautiful Palak. These are such beautiful techniques. And so, so so just these are techniques that anyone can use at any time, which is why we wanted to go over it today in the podcast, which is, you know, you can be on the bus, you can be at your home, you could be wherever in your life and you can use these simple steps. You might not necessarily like to dance right when you're working or anything like that, but even breathing, acknowledging and labeling is so, so, so important. The one thing that I did want to say is that anger and a lot of ways can feel really intense. It can feel a lot, especially when we're feeling it, and we haven't been feeling it for a while. So the couple of things that I do want to add is to be gentle. Right? We're talking about feeling the emotion, but it is as important to really put your toes in and then step out for your toes and then step out and to be gentle with yourself with it. OK, so one thing that I wanted to add within that is if the emotions do feel too much, if they feel a lot or you're really needing to work with someone, that's so, so, so expected. So you can definitely use these techniques and be working with a therapist or be working with a coach in order to help you kind of work through these emotions. So if you're feeling like, Oh my God, you know, these emotions are a lot and I'm feeling really stuck, please know that you're not alone with that. And that's something that's really, really important to have that mirroring or having someone be able to work with the anger as well as I just want to add that in as well.
Palak: [00:31:39] I would say that even if you are not suffering from OCD, ROCD, and all the other people who are just listening to this podcast out of curiosity, we acknowledge and we see you and thank you for this. And I would say, but just know that seeking help is really cool. It is okay. Even if you're not going through something really big or huge emotions, but you are being stuck, being stuck with something and you really want to work with that and you feel that I'm not able to go for it. I would say just just take you through sessions and just be done with it because you'll feel relaxed, you'll feel light. For the people who are going through something really tough. As an OCD, I feel, and I really love you, people, because I know how tough this journey is. As simple as talking about anger as an emotion, just a 40 minute or forty five minute podcast. And it takes like months of practice, months of practice. I am here. I am saying that healing is not going to be linear. It's not linear. Yes, you will have relapses that's okay. Because love, you are enough at every stage, you are beautiful,so allow it just as the latest post of Awaken into Love I would really like you to see that this is a dialog shift that goes on in AIR every week and we were taught. Just how would you like to see that life is not happening to you, but life is happening for you. That's what is happening. Actually, life is happening for you. See it as an opportunity to heal deeper into your life because it's a lifelong journey. That's how it's going to be, just keep going and we are there for you. And if you really want to work with some therapists, Kiyomi said and I said. I would really advise and recommend doing so. You need it.
Kiyomi: [00:33:59] Thank you so much, Palak. I really appreciate you being here. And I did want to say too that you are really one of the people who have really stepped up in your own leadership, and you are a really big example, I feel, of someone who has really done a lot of the inner work and the awakening and in. Is now able to help other people and be an example for other people. I just want to thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for inspiring others. And I love what you said toward the end, too, of using it as an opportunity of awakening, which is what we do at Awaken into Love and you showed that as an example. So thank you, Palak. I so appreciate you.
Palak: [00:34:35] Thank you for having me. You know you are my inspiration. Thank you.