embodied Rage is the way

I have been following a lot of Joe Hudson’s work lately and stumbled across this video offering this counterintuitive idea that RAGE is actually the path to calmness and clarity. 

Joe Hudson is this top notch coach to highly functioning executives at Apple, OpenAI, and Google. 

There are many of these types of coaches out there but he is very different!

He is driven by an obsession with understanding himself through experience rather than through the mind, and because of this life long exploration he has this incredible sense of humanity balanced with a fierce truth reflector which gets right to the pain point blockages in his clients. 

He does not fuck around! 

And, he does it within a deep seeing of the others essence - heart felt humanity… which is what makes him so rare and likely why he has shot to fame so rapidly.

He knows and is skilled enough to rip the illusion of what his clients have been plagued by for decades by reaching into and shining a light on the core of their unseen patterning.

He helps them process decades of misunderstood blocks (blocks to fully experience life) through felt experience rather than a mental process - an emotionally felt embodiment. 

Why did it land so deeply, in such deep truth? 

A year ago I asked a close friend and very skilled coach for some help. A big shift for me to ask for help! 

I had worked intellectually for decades, into my old familiar pattern of procrastination and inconsistency when it came to my work (acute only in that aspect of my life) 

I was at a familiar point, again - despondent at the same pattern, same results, same feelings and same thoughts. AGGGGGGHHHHHHH

The symptom being experienced - I had little resistance to managing my emotions. They were volatile!

And I had no idea WHY.

Rob for a long period, has been focussed on embodiment practices - which as I understand them are what Joe Hudson is known for which is about feeling in the body rather than thinking in the mind, as a form of pattern and emotional release.  

I scheduled a time to go “talk” with Rob through what was going on and to play what might be the reason behind these. My focus was clear - to understand why?

As I arrived he smiled at me, turned to his 4 foot high JBL speaker with double base function, turned it on and blew some heavy metal music at 9 out of 10 volume

He handed me a large drum stick and put a bunch of pillows in a pile… 

Rob - “destroy them with every ounce of anger that is in you”

Brett - “fuck off, I am not angry - I am confused and anxious”

Rob - smiling “destroy them!”

And in true Rob style he jumped in and modelled what he was asking of me.

It took me faking anger for about 4 minutes, until this RAGE rose in me beyond anything I had allowed myself to feel, in years if not decades. 

For 15 minutes I raged against those cushions, destroying one in the process.

After the anger and rage dissipated, following my body's exhaustion.

Lying on the ground panting… I was instantly overcome with deep sorrow and grief. 

The tears streamed down my face for about half an hour… 

I could not resist myself being overwhelmed by these emotions which reached in so deeply, it felt like my soul was crying.

… with not one word spoken. 

Rob witnessed me, said nothing but held me literally and figuratively.

Some time passed and all emotions dissipated leaving me deeply calm, clear of mind and so much more space to breathe. 

I had no idea what that anger or grief related to - no idea. It was so strange and unfamiliar.

A week later the emotions I had felt before my “chat” with Rob were even more unruly and problematic and just seem to rise without reason.

I called Rob and asked if we could chat - and I meant chat. 

He could make time the next day.

I walked into his place and saw the speaker.

Brett - “Fuck off Rob - I am not doing that again”

An hour later I had RAGED and cried again, arguably deeper this time and then walked out with no noise in my mind or tension in my body. Just still…. Deeply still!

And still no friggin idea what all that performance related to !?!?

I got braver and decided to do round three to see what would happen seeing as it just seemed to clear so much shit in my mind and tension within my body - something was deeply powerful within the process. 

The same cycle ended up happening but it got way deeper, with more comfort in being consumed by emotions and deep trust in Rob to witness me without judgment.

ANGER was the first layer

SADNESS the second layer

SHAME surprisingly sat below them both

I didn’t know truly what embodiment work was until I had gone through three rounds of it and realised in suppressing and denying my anger, I denied unfelt sorrow and grief, and in denying grief I unlocked unfelt shame. 

What amazed me, and still does - is the realisation that in denying these “bad” emotions, I also deny others like Joy, like Love, and the big one - a deeper connection to others and myself.

Basically: when I supress any emotion, I supress the fullness of my life experience.

Yip! Let that sit a little.

Another amazing realisation was that I can feel emotions and not have to associate or judge others or myself. Yip! Even bigger ;-)

Anger needs to be felt and not justified in another being wrong and me being right, or me being wrong and them right. 

Sadness also does not need to be a story, it just asks for some room to breathe.

And Shame…. Oooooh the trickiest one of them all. It also asks to be felt and not used as judgement against myself. 

The irony though is quite hilarious as years before this, I created an offering called FEEL IT and have run it monthly for 4 years now.

This models the difference between reading the books and understanding - vs - experiencing that knowledge as an embodied experience. 

The result is an integrated wisdom - experientially learned (the difference between understanding and knowing). 

Emotions ask to be felt - as their primary function. Understanding or lived wisdom, only lands once the emotion is allowed. 

I knew this from all the books I read, but always tried to understand my emotion in order to allow it to be felt.

And my culminating truth - emotions give information, but only when allowed. When blocked they fuel stories, judgement and result in a denial or resistance expressing as tension stored in our physical cells, which affects our physical health. 

I work with the Enneagram and with people recovering from dis-ease. There is a disarming or empowering pattern, depending on your perspective, I am seeing in that different types of cancer cluster in particular enneagram types. This is not a new association that how we relate to and allow our emotions, deeply affects our physical health! Deeply!

How do blocked emotions affect what we eat, how we move and how we see and treat ourselves?

Worth a ponder ;-)

This embodiment work - this is the way ;-)

Caveat: In my experience, we must be witnessed and held in this work by someone trusted. Someone who has done the work so wont reach to “fix” or soothe us - just love us back to ourself as we let go of the tension we didn’t realise we have been holding. 

Deep love and courage