“I am honestly not looking forward to seeing her” I told Kevin.

“Really, why not?” he asked.

“Honestly, I just don’t like her aggressive energy” I responded.

“Yeah” he said with a question in his voice. He knew me well and he knew that there was more to the story. 

I stood staring out the window and realized that I had been lost in my own thoughts, standing frozen in my body. What specifically did I not enjoy about her energy? An even better question was why was I avoiding her energy? I recognized that my nervous system had been in a freeze response which meant that something was really overstimulating for me. I had two choices, I could continue to avoid whatever was happening in my nervous system and emotionally, or I could take the time and space to really BE with whatever was coming up for me. 

“I am going to go meditate” I said as I walked towards my office. 

“Ummm, ok” he said. He knew me well enough to know that I needed to process something and that I realized there was something more to the story.

I sat in silence as I began to tune into my body, allowing myself to be present with what was happening for me. What didn’t I like about her energy? Sure, she was aggressive in the way that she moved through the world, but why did that bother me? She could move through the world anyway that she wanted, why was I allowing her energy to impact me? What wound inside of me was she triggering? What mirror was she showing me? What was I not looking at?

I noticed that I wanted to pull away from the sensations that were happening inside of my body as I thought about her and all of these questions. Rather than pulling away, I relaxed into feeling what I was actually feeling. As I settled into the truth of what was happening inside of my body, the answer showed up like a freight train. I was making myself small. When I was around her, I made myself small in response to her alpha energy. I didn’t like that I did that. I didn’t like making myself small. There was no reason for it. But, why? Why was I doing this? Immediately, I went back to a memory of an interaction that I had with a teacher in a program that I had taken. She had been wildly aggressive and angry at me, over something that I didn’t do but that she had been told that I had done. In the moment of that experience, I stayed completely calm and allowed her to realize that she was dealing with inaccurate information. What I wanted to do was to meet her anger with anger, that is what the mammal inside of me wanted to do, I wanted to fight. I realized that I had not fully processed that experience and decided to give myself the gift of doing that work. I imagined myself fighting back, defending myself, saying all of the things that I wanted to say, all of them and then I felt a huge relaxation happen inside of my body. Tears rolled gently down my face as I really allowed myself to feel the calm that was washing over my body.   

Later that day, I crossed paths with the woman who I was wanting to avoid and I noticed that there was no part of her behavior that triggered me anymore. I didn’t make myself small. I didn’t pull back or lean away and I didn’t meet her aggressive energy either. To be fully transparent, I still don’t enjoy aggressive female energy but I took a moment to celebrate that it didn’t trigger me.