When an Image Led Me Out of Anger
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Last week I was so angry.
I had just finished hours of work on a project. I had checked and double checked each step. I reformatted, I added, Subtracted. I was give the green light. I thought I was finally done.
But I wasn’t. The next bit of feedback I got was a correction. Not an addition. A correction.
I could feel the anger rising. I wanted to throw something (except that I didn’t want to break anything). It was beyond irritation or impatience. I was furious.
All that work I had done. And now there was more to do? I uttered something between a cry and a moan.
No doubt you’ve found yourself in a similar situation. I couldn’t just let it go. As I stewed in my thoughts and feelings I was like a dog with a bone. Ugly. Sharp. Biting.
Normally I’d have taken out my paints and put something down on paper that reflected what I was feeling and get some clarity. But sometimes letting images come to mind requires a certain presence, and—no surprise— I felt slightly out of control. So instead, I started looking for images that expressed what I was feeling and make a collage.
I downloaded some images that pretty much expressed how I felt. And then I started tearing papers - just because it felt really good to do that and find a way to add them to the piece.
There was something immensely satisfying about not having to be precise. The tearing matched the internal jagged feelings. I layered darker pieces first, then added the faces that expressed the feelings that were eating me up. Then I added torn white bands across the page as some form of emphasis.
Then the sharp yellow color form found its way into the center. I didn’t plan it. But something in me knew it needed to be there.
But as I kept working, letting my feelings inhabit the page, I began to see what was really going on.
My frustration wasn’t about those “corrections”. It was about the resistance my thoughts were voicing: this shouldn’t be happening. I already did all so much work. Now you’re telling me I have to do more??? I should be done.
Somewhere between all the tearing and the layering and pasting, I started to calm down. I saw what was really behind those feelings: it was all those “shoulds” rather than what I started to see were helpful options.
So the collage didn’t “fix” my circumstances or insist that I shouldn’t take the advice given. It shifted my relationship to the project that I wanted to feel proud of.
Now when I look at the collage, I can still feel the emotional energy coming through. But what transformed is how, in the process of creating it, I began to understand my anger—where it came from and why it was a normal, but unhelpful response.
This is what I mean when I say that creative expression can metabolize experience. Not decorate it. Not make it pretty. But transform the experience AND make a better response evident.
Instead of writing about the frustration, I let my hands find and express the materials that expressed it. Then the words came. But tearing paper and assembling the fragments came first. This approach adds a deeper dimension to both self understanding and seeing new possibilities.
If you’ve ever felt caught in the emotional friction between what is and what you think should be, you might try reaching for the blank page before reaching for a logical interpretation.
Not as a way to distract yourself — but to allow your truth to be seen.
My frustration wasn’t about those “corrections”. It was about the resistance my thoughts were voicing: this shouldn’t be happening. I already did all so much work. Now you’re telling me I have to do more??? I should be done.
Somewhere between all the tearing and the layering and pasting, I started to calm down. I saw what was really behind those feelings: it was all those “shoulds” rather than what I started to see were helpful options.
So the collage didn’t “fix” my circumstances or insist that I shouldn’t take the advice given. It shifted my relationship to the project that I wanted to feel proud of.
Now when I look at the collage, I can still feel the emotional energy coming through. But what transformed is how, in the process of creating it, I began to understand my anger—where it came from and why it was a normal, but unhelpful response.
This is what I mean when I say that creative expression can metabolize experience. Not decorate it. Not make it pretty. But transform the experience AND make a better response evident.
Instead of writing about the frustration, I let my hands find and express the materials that expressed it. Then the words came. But tearing paper and assembling the fragments came first. This approach adds a deeper dimension to both self understanding and seeing new possibilities.
If you’ve ever felt caught in the emotional friction between what is and what you think should be, you might try reaching for the blank page before reaching for a logical interpretation.
Not as a way to distract yourself — but to allow your truth to be seen.