Smashing Glass Breaks Through Anger

Recently the ruling came down in Canada supporting parents’ right to hit children as a means of discipline. This was the information I needed to get past my resistance to the terror around my deep core anger at being hit nonstop while growing up. One parent did the hitting, while the other
parent stood by and watched, sanctioning instead of protecting. All it took was the wrong look, the wrong tone, moving too slow, defending myself—or just not anticipating my mother’s wants and needs! It’s hard to know which was worse. Was it the pain, the shock, her success in “breaking my will”, or my father’s lack of protection?

I learned early, for other reasons as well, to turn off myself—and my body—to the pain and shame. I literally didn’t feel my body, and am still working on that one. Unfortunately, neither could I feel life: not the sun, the rain, the breeze, or the joy. No small wonder that I was one of the few who preferred to be at school and live in my head.

After being in primal therapy for a few years, I still resisted using the infamous bat. Maybe the direct hitting was too close to what happened to me. Maybe it was the “old” scare of how much worse it would be if anger (or any feelings) were expressed. Maybe it was something else entirely. I just knew it felt too violent, and I couldn’t make it work for me.

I spent many sessions releasing a lot of infant terror, anger, and rage within the safe and caring arms of containment that I learned to trust. The time to take my power back was getting close. But how? I wouldn’t/couldn’t be like my mother and hit. However, flashes of anger were surfacing more and more, so I had to find a way. Twenty-five years ago, someone suggested that it might feel good to throw a
few bottles. That was way too scary for this self-taught “Pollyanna!” I totally dismissed and forgot the idea.

Recently, however, I started noticing when movies or TV scenes showed someone throwing dishes against a wall, my internal response was, “YES!” I wished I could do that. For over six months, I curiously watched myself saving bottles and glass jars. I became more and more aware of an impulse to throw things when my anger surfaced. I made small attempts, saying that I wanted to find a dumpsite to throw and break glass, but didn’t work too hard to find one.

A dear friend, knowing I needed to throw something, and knowing you can’t be breaking glass in a primal room, made me sixty hacky sack bean bags for my sixtieth birthday. There’s a lot of anger at still having to work this hard and for this many years to get through this “stuff.” Little did I know that those hacky sacks would be the entrance I needed.

Eventually, the time finally arrived. As I packed up the car with bags and bags of bottles for a three day intensive, I was in awe as my body and soul quietly and persistently moved forward with something that my mind and emotions vehemently resisted. I even had a script ready, in the event that Canada customs questioned my “collection” of bottles: “Why, I forgot to take them to the recycling site.” But what if they confiscated them? I probably would have felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.

Halfway through the intensive, within the protection, safety, and trust of Sam, my therapist, I started the ball rolling with the hacky sacks. I might add that this was only after getting through several enormous layers of fear first. (It’s never that easy, is it?) It took what seemed forever to get unstuck. As a matter of fact, while sitting in that stuck feeling, he removed any and all breakables or obstructions! I needed him to start (again, the needed support I never had) but it didn’t take me too long to join him and throw the sacks against the wall.

That led us to the next day’s journey. Honestly, I had been relieved when Sam said, upon my arrival, that he hadn’t found a location to do the bottle breaking. Then, true to his nature, he suggested we could just start driving until “the place” presented itself. He said, “If it’s supposed to happen it will.” A large part of me (but not all) thought and hoped it wouldn’t happen.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and as we drove, pure white snow stretched out on all sides of us. The farther we went, the more it seemed that we were out there to enjoy the day and the beauty of nature. Just as I was relaxing into that mood, Sam slowly pulled the car over to the side of the road. There it was, “presenting itself” to us—the perfect, abandoned, boarded-up building. It was in a huge empty field, with nothing around it for a mile or more on either side. (Uh-oh!) He asked me to stay put while he checked it out. (No problem, I wasn’t in any hurry!) After a few minutes, on his way back to the car, I saw him packing down the deep snow with his steps, to make an easier path for me. (Did anyone ever make my path easier?) My response was very normal: “OH SHIT!!

When Sam opened the trunk, he was surprised to see that there were easily over a hundred bottles. (We agreed later that I could have used triple that number!). Then we began the long trek carrying bags of bottles through the deep snow. I had to stop a number of times to catch my breath. The inside of the building was spacious, with a concrete floor (great for noisy smashing) and a few barrels for throwing higher against. There were no little creatures to freak me out, and even a 2x4 to put across the door to shut out intruders—another significant feature. For an abandoned building it was reasonably clean—almost as if no one but us knew it existed.

We took time to get used to the place and set everything up. We decided the direction to throw, where to sit the bottles, and just how I wanted to do this—and of course, the reminder that I didn’t have to do this if I didn’t want to!

As I stood there, my throat started closing up. I had to get through more of the gut-wrenching fear—and I got through that with Sam helping me to stay on my feet. Once again, I needed his help to get started throwing the bottles. Feeling and hearing his congruent, supportive expression of anger helped validate my own anger. That was very important, as I hadn’t had anyone protecting or advocating for me while I was growing up.

It’s hard and impossible at this writing to explain all the cycles and nuances of this experience. The loud noise of the exploding anger/bottles; the force behind the throwing/releasing; the specific anger directed toward the specific people; and the mess—oh yes, the mess! It was just like the horrible mess they made of my life, a life I continued because I didn’t have any cellular or experiential knowledge of how to “do” life any differently. But oh, how I had tried! All those years I tried putting those “broken pieces” together for everyone else in my family—and I didn’t even feel the pain that no one was there to help me put together the pieces of my broken self! The unbelievable weight of all that broken glass and mess equalled the weight of released anger stored in my body. There were so many metaphors, and so many waves of feelings released; and the whole time, I could feel that I was safe,
protected, and not alone (This was BIG! BIG! BIG!).

It’s hard to describe the visual effect of all that smashed glass. It was tangible evidence of the anger that I have been storing for years! There were literally millions of tiny pieces that made a massive pile—another appropriate metaphor.

The experience proved, once again, the wisdom of trusting my inner “knowing” (even when terrified), because it felt so right—and it was so right! I also felt so very cared for, (not an easy thing for me) when Sam asked me to allow him to take care of the mess. He said that this was one mess that I didn’t have to clean up. There was someone to help—and hey, I even accepted it!

Sam said that it was like an opera—a magnum opus. I agreed! It was a phenomenal orchestration composed of the planning, the moving forward, the Zen-like exploring, the “allowing,” the primalling with all it’s cycles, the clean-up, the constant metaphors—all of it. And the glass DID sing!

If my experience speaks to your inner “knowing,” you might want to try this for yourself. However, I do vote for taking a caring, protective, and supportive friend with you. I feel so blessed and appreciative to finally have people in my life who “see” me, and have provided the safety I've needed to be able to come out of hiding. This has allowed me to take the many difficult steps to reclaim myself and my power.

I don’t pretend that I’m finished with this—don’t I wish. I’ve already started collecting more bottles! I know there’s a lot more anger, but I “broke” through a huge block and released a big chunk. I got through this with the caring protection, support, and patience this turtle needed to get there at my own speed and in my own unique way. Now maybe I can look forward to feeling more of life—my body, the sun, the rain, the breeze, and the JOY!