As you continue learning how to fully feel your anger, you first need to grant yourself permission to be vulnerable with yourself. Invite yourself into this reflective space by writing yourself a permission slip, and keep building your Rage to Heal playlist. Nicole’s playlist: “Easy On Me” by Adele (2021)
Download the workbook to follow along: https://www.bbqplus.org/rage-to-heal. You can also use a pen and paper or your computer to complete the exercises in the series.
CREDITS:
Written, created and hosted by Dr. Nicole Truesdell with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+).
Produced by Ronald Young Jr. of ohitsBigRon studios.
Music by The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
[0:01: Relaxing synthesizer music plays]
[00:15] Nicole: Hello everyone, and welcome back to “Rage to Heal: Finding Our Humanity Through Our Emotions.”
This limited series is produced in partnership with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies.
[00:29] My name is Dr. Nicole Truesdell, and I am a trained anthropologist focused on the project of liberatory humanity through what I call a Black decolonial lens.
[00:41] Now before we go any further, this is Episode 2 of this series, and in order for you to get the most out of these talks, you’ll be best served going in order. So if you haven’t yet, go back and start with Episode 1 and then meet me back here when you’re done.
[00:57] For those staying, welcome back! This is Episode 2, Permission Slip.
[Relaxing synthesizer music continues]
[1:11] In Episode 1, I laid the foundation for why our emotions are important for us to see, know, and feel our humanity, once again. And we’re doing this using anger as the example.
Now, in this episode, we will continue working with anger.
[1:31] But first, we need to grant ourselves permission to have a very uncomfortable yet necessary conversation. When we’re dealing with uncomfortable conversations, they tend to go better if your setting is inviting for that conversation. So we want to invite ourselves into a reflective space, and before we can accept that invitation, we need to complete our permission slip. Now, I’m going to walk you through that in just a moment.
[2:05] So the other day, I was writing my daily morning pages and listening to one of Adele’s latest singles, Easy On Me.
Go easy on me, baby.
I was still a child,
Didn't get the chance to
Feel the world around me.
I had no time to choose what I chose to do,
So go easy on me.
[2:23] Y’all, the next thing I knew, there were tears coming down my face and onto the page as those words just pierced through my skin and settled a little too deep into my heart.
‘Cause it hit me how much I had not fully given myself permission to just be me. Flawed, compassionate to myself, vulnerable – human.
[2:44] In a world that tells us who we are the minute we’re born, and that telling is through a lens rooted in our subjugation and oppression, it is easy to see how we lose our way the more we grow up and into these spaces that we call society.
As Adele said, I had no time to choose what I chose to do.
[3:01] And I really didn’t, ‘cause I was trying to just survive in a capitalist world that had told my Black ass that the only way to succeed was college, then a job, a family, and a house. And in striving for that supposed success, I had inadvertently learned along the way that I had to suppress more and more of myself.
[3:21] And that suppression led to exhaustion, and exhaustion led to burnout. And I found myself confined to a workplace, all for a title and paycheck that I felt beholden to, in order to pay off the damn student loan debt I had taken out in order to actually even have access to all this supposed success. I felt like an indentured servant on the plantation waiting for their contract to be paid off, even though I knew good and goddamned well it was never gonna be.
[3:48] Funny enough, it was only when I started to feel my anger fully and work with her did I get to the other parts of me like the vulnerability and self-compassion that helped me see where I was was not where I was actually supposed to be.
[4:05] But I had to trust the anger, meaning I had to trust myself, in that the anger was there to help burn away what was not needed, so I could see who I really was.
I had to give myself permission to talk with my anger, be present with my anger, and then believe what she told me and use that as my foundation.
[4:33] So go easy on yourselves as you start to dig into the spaces and places that hold your true voice, your inner voice – that higher self. And give yourselves permission to be truthful and vulnerable with yourself as you learn from your anger what you actually need and desire. ‘Cause this – this whole life thing – only matters if you are doing it for your highest good.
[5:05] Please grab whatever you’re using to take notes. Hopefully you still have it close by – if not, go ahead and pause this episode and grab it. And as always, go at your own pace and take whatever time you need to record your thoughts. You can pause me at any time, I’ll be here.
[Music of gentle chimes fades in and then quiets to background]
[5:33] When you’re ready, write the following:
“I (your name) give myself permission to be fully present in my body and humanity while listening to this series.”
[5:55] Once again: “I (and your name) give myself permission to be fully present in my body and humanity while listening to this series.”
Take this permission slip you gave yourself seriously because it’s for you.
[6:19] Take a moment to check in with your body. How do you feel now after listening to this episode? Write that feeling down.
[6:33] What is a song that embodies that feeling? Write that down too. This is your Song 3.
[6:42] And that brings us to the end of Episode 2. And if you’ve been recording along from Episode 1, your playlist should now have three songs.
[6:52] Join us in Episode 3, where we’ll be discussing the stories we tell about ourselves and determining if they’re really true.
Thanks for joining me!
[Music of gentle chimes fades in and then quiets to background]
[7:08] Rage to Heal was written, created and hosted by me, Dr. Nicole Truesdell, with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. It was produced by Ronald Young, Jr. of ohitsBigRon studios. Music by The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
[Music of gentle chimes fades back out]