Fear of Aggression

March 10, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

Picture 10When I felt trapped and stuck in a life direction that I didn’t want and believed I had no other choice but to be in, I often dreamed of the Incredible Hulk smashing his way out of a cement box.

That dream was a gift because it gave me a visualization and metaphor that I used when I found myself in situations and circumstances that I couldn’t stand but couldn’t find my way out of. I got pretty good at smashing my way out of bad relationships, jobs, partnerships, crises etc. But the problem was that another would always pop right up to take its place.

So I tried other things like fighting harder for control over people and things in my life, setting more boundaries, screaming at the top of my lungs in my car, punching the pillows, plotting revenge and trying mostly unhealthy means of escape and distraction. But unlike Einstein’s, my universe remained an unfriendly place and I got tired.

Eventually I realized that my Incredible Hulk dream was showing me how to break out of the cement box of my own resistance and ego. The people and things trying to do me in and hold me back did not exist “out there” but in me.

Much later still, I learned to discern the difference between natural aggression and the typical way we think about it which is some form of “aggression is bad”. Natural aggression is absolutely fundamental to life: birth, love, creativity, art and change. I really got that at a gut-feeling, non-intellectual level when a read a passage from Florence Scovel Shinn about an impromptu pre-dawn visit with a friend to the Prospect Park Zoo:

A faint pink streak appeared in the East, then suddenly we heard a most tremendous uproar. We were near the Zoo and all the animals were greeting the dawn.

The lions and tigers roared, the hyenas laughed, there were shrieks and howls, every animal had something to say for a new day was at hand.

It was indeed most inspiring. The light slanted through the trees; everything had an unearthly aspect.

Then, as it grew lighter, our shadows were in front instead of behind us. The dawn of a new day!

Our shadows are in front of us now. An extremely powerful emotion is arising, individual and collective. Its natural aggression that Seth Roberts described as:

“the creative loving thrust forward, the way in which love is activated, the fuel through whose agency love propels itself.”

Denying natural aggression distorts it and turns it against ourselves. Everywhere we see the evidence that shows up as scarcity mentality, ultra-competitiveness, greed, excessive consumption, obsession with others’ transgressions and even violence and abuse.

I see and hear firsthand how hard it is for people to not attempt to escape and avoid these intensely powerful feelings despite their equally intense desire for a greater self and bigger game.

Because here’s the thing: these wild feelings are valuable pointers to the unrealized wild power within us. Now is the time to bust through the concrete walls that trap and distort it. Like I told someone earlier today: you’re going to bust-out anyway so why not roar, laugh and howl for your new dawn now and save yourself a lot of head-banging.

Filed under: resistance, shift
Tagged: ,
Comments: None