The Farts of Wrath

Do I know the Behind the Hashtag community well enough to tell The Farts of Wrath story? I’ve concluded that if the word fart in the title switches you off, you’ll quietly walk on by this article. If, however, you want to learn more about the physical price your body can play for being a people pleaser, this might be helpful.

At the heart of this life lesson for me is the impact of years and years of pushing down what I wanted ‘in service of others’ (might sound familiar to many of you) and the power of finally finding a safe space to let go of stress.

In the 5+ years leading up to my “aha” moment, I’d been living a very stressful and unhappy life. In particular, the 18 months before my breakthrough had included a marriage breakdown, house move, family illness and my own physical burnout. I was a lady much in need of stress reduction. A feeling I know many of you are experiencing right now with all the current additional life stresses.

The light on my horizon at the time was a wee break coming up with wonderful friends from my hometown – we’d been partners in crime since our late teens. I’d actually NEVER been on a girls holiday – 50 years old – and this was my first one! I’d NEVER been on a relaxing, read books all day by the pool kind of holiday. For almost two decades, my holiday experiences were the perfect manifestation of my people-pleasing. Imagine you dislike theme parks and are petrified of rollercoasters … but find all your main holidays are at Disney? What the hell! People pleaser on steroids or what!

I should say that subsequent trips to Disney with just my daughter Iona has helped change my experience massively – not always easy (Would you kiss Mickey Mouse with that mouth?). I have now reframed Disney for me with some beautiful memories.

This shift in the holiday scenario was significant. It was when I realised the damage that the people-pleasing had done to my body and soul over the years.

Determined to not crawl into this holiday with the current exhaustion levels I was experiencing, I decided to finally take the advice of a very dear friend and see a kinesiologist. I found a wonderful local practitioner who proved to be a game-changer for me.

As I experienced it, at the heart of kinesiology was finding out what my body was holding within. Every experience you live through – good and bad – goes into your body. One of the key things that showed up for me was the impact of years of “pushing down” my own needs. I expected some’ anger… it turned out to be way more than anger. Apparently, I had full-blown WRATH! Marvel movie, end of the world, levels of WRATH. No wonder I was exhausted.

Armed with some natural remedies and meditation affirmations, I set off on holiday – already feeling better. The blast of laughter with my beautiful friends before we’d even left the airport proved to be brilliant medicine too.

The joy of sitting around the table laughing, sharing, crying, eating and laughing some more was incredible. A holiday that restores your energy versus exhausts you! Who knew? I’d shared the story of the wrath within me as we were catching up. Everything just felt lighter from sharing.

Then the strangest thing happened. After a few days of relaxing, sleeping, feeling completely safe ‘to be me’ and taking all my natural remedies from the kinesiologist – there was a shift. It was a very audible shift. Unfortunately, it seemed very appropriate that my wrath was working it’s way out of my body – in the form of thunderous farts!

I’m not exaggerating – Thor himself would have stepped back in awe at these bad boys. The first day it happened, I didn’t realise the noise had travelled from the ground floor to the top floor of our four-story townhouse. As I stepped out on the rooftop terrace with my morning coffee, my dear friend Rhona, who didn’t look up from her book, commented, “seems you’re wrath is finding a way out there, girl”. Who knew? Not the most sociable way to process your stress – you need some very loving friends to embrace this particular outcome.

But fart humour aside, holding stress in your body is incredibly damaging. I’m still working on ways to make sure I look after myself – I’m midway through reading Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski and learning how to complete the stress cycle. When we can’t control the stressors in our lives, we can minimise the impact of stress on our body. More to come on this topic in weeks ahead, and I look forward to hearing from the Facebook group on ‘What is working for you?’.

I leave you with a “try this out” and a question – What might you be pushing down into your body with the stress in your life?

You might find a body scan helpful to try…