WHEN NO STILL FEELS DANGEROUS
When the mind has moved on but the body is still obeying the old rules
There is a strange thing that can happen when you have done a lot of work on yourself.
You know better.
You understand the pattern.
You can name the behaviour.
You know you are allowed to say no.
You know you are allowed to disagree.
You know somebody else’s disappointment is not automatically your responsibility.
And yet…
there you are again.
Explaining.
Defending.
Bracing.
Getting angry.
Trying to make somebody understand.
Trying to get them to accept your decision before you feel completely free to make it.
And sometimes the most frustrating part is not even what the other person is doing.
It is the fact that you are still responding to it in the same old way.
You find yourself thinking:
For God’s sake. I know this.
Why am I still doing this?
Why am I still getting so angry?
Why am I still affected by this?
And that irritation can very quickly turn inward.
We start treating the reaction as evidence that we have failed.
That we should be over it by now.
That all the work we have done apparently did not work.
But perhaps that is not the most useful way to look at it.
Perhaps the reaction itself is information.
To borrow a well-known phrase, sometimes you discover that the body is still keeping the score.
And that does not necessarily arrive as some dramatic flashback.
It may not even arrive as a conscious memory.
Sometimes the score appears in much more ordinary ways.
The clenched jaw.
The knot in the stomach.
The immediate urge to justify yourself.
The anger that rises when somebody questions a decision you have already made.
The feeling that you somehow have to make the other person agree before the matter can finally be settled.
That is where the human experience becomes interesting.
Because consciously, you may not believe for one moment that another person has authority over you.
But the body may still be operating under an older rule.
If they are unhappy, I am in danger.
If they disagree strongly enough, perhaps I need to change my decision.
If I resist, there will be consequences.
If I say no, I may lose connection.
And sometimes what emerges from that is not compliance.
Sometimes it is pushback.
Strong pushback.
Anger.
Defiance.
That immediate internal response:
You are NOT telling me what to do.
And that can feel like sovereignty.
Sometimes it is sovereignty.
Sometimes pushback is absolutely necessary.
But sometimes pushback is also evidence that the old authority structure is still active.
Because if somebody else’s behaviour immediately throws me into defence, resistance, argument or rage, they are still having an enormous influence over my internal state.
They may no longer be controlling my decision.
But they may still be controlling the conditions under which I make it.
And that changes the questions we need to ask.
Not simply:
How do I stop this person behaving like this?
Because we cannot control the people around us.
Some people will continue to overstep.
Some will continue to give advice that was never requested.
Some will continue to insist they know better.
Some will continue to behave as though love gives them access, influence or authority that it does not actually give them.
We can set boundaries around that.
We can reduce access.
We can walk away.
We can say no.
But if I am still having to push back, defend and explain over and over again, perhaps there is another layer worth exploring.
What is happening inside me when this occurs?
What does my body expect will happen if I do not explain?
What do I believe will happen if the other person remains unhappy?
Why do I need them to understand my decision?
Why do I need them to agree that my boundary is reasonable?
What happens if I simply make the decision and allow them not to like it?
That can be an uncomfortable question.
Because many of us learned very early that good relationships require agreement, approval, accommodation or emotional caretaking.
And when that learning runs deeply enough, disagreement becomes much bigger than disagreement.
It may feel like danger.
That can show up in all sorts of ways.
One person becomes extremely compliant.
Another automatically appeases.
Another freezes.
Another becomes intensely defensive.
Another has to prove that they are right.
Another experiences rage whenever somebody questions them.
Different behaviours.
But perhaps sometimes there is a similar question underneath them:
Is it safe for me to remain myself when somebody else does not approve?
And this matters across a lifetime.
Because if these patterns are never examined, they can harden.
The woman who has spent decades swallowing irritation may eventually become permanently irritable.
The woman who has spent decades being overruled may become reflexively oppositional.
The woman who has spent decades overgiving may become resentful.
The woman who has spent decades explaining herself may eventually become furious that anybody is asking anything of her at all.
And then we call her difficult.
Negative.
Bitter.
Bitchy.
The angry old woman.
But perhaps sometimes what we are looking at is not simply a bad personality.
Perhaps we are looking at years of adaptation that were never properly examined.
Years of saying yes when something inside wanted to say no.
Years of managing everybody else’s feelings.
Years of believing that love required accommodation.
Years of giving people access because saying no felt too costly.
Years of pushing back against authority without ever becoming completely free of the authority structure itself.
That does not excuse harmful behaviour.
But it may help us understand where it comes from.
And understanding gives us somewhere useful to work.
One of the questions I find particularly interesting is:
If I already know I have the right to decide, why does part of me still behave as though I need permission?
That is a very different question from:
Why am I still doing this?
One is accusation.
The other is enquiry.
And enquiry gives the system room to answer.
Maybe what appears is anger.
Maybe guilt.
Maybe the urge to explain.
Maybe the fear that the other person will punish, withdraw, criticise or leave.
Maybe it is simply the old bodily expectation that authority lives outside me.
That somebody else knows better.
That somebody else has the final say.
That somebody else’s certainty somehow outranks my own experience.
And if that is still operating, arguing with the other person may not resolve it.
Because the deeper work is not convincing them that I am entitled to my authority.
It is allowing my own system to discover that their agreement is no longer required.
That is a very different kind of freedom.
It is quieter.
Less dramatic.
Sometimes almost anticlimactic.
No declaration.
No battle.
No triumphant speech.
Perhaps simply:
I heard you.
I understand your position.
I am still making this choice.
And perhaps most importantly:
I do not need you to like my decision in order for it to belong to me.
That does not remove interdependence.
It does not mean other people cease to matter.
It does not mean we never seek advice, expertise, support or guidance.
It means that information can come in without ownership coming with it.
Love can come in without ownership.
Expertise can come in without ownership.
Relationship can exist without disappearance.
And perhaps one sign that something is beginning to change is that you no longer need quite so much pushback.
Not because the world suddenly behaves itself.
Good luck with that.
But because you are not required to fight quite so hard to remain inside yourself.
You notice the reaction.
You take it seriously.
You become curious about what it is telling you.
And rather than berating yourself for still having the response, you begin asking different questions.
What old rule has just been activated?
What does my body think is about to happen?
What am I still waiting for permission to do?
What would happen if I allowed another person to disagree with me without making their disagreement my problem to solve?
That is where irritation can become useful.
That is where anger stops being merely something we suppress, discharge or feel ashamed of, and becomes information.
And perhaps that is one way we avoid becoming the classical angry old woman simply because decades of accumulated frustration have finally overflowed.
Not by becoming endlessly agreeable.
Not by becoming nicer.
And certainly not by swallowing more.
But by noticing earlier.
Questioning differently.
And bringing authority back into the body, not just the mind.
Because knowing that you are free is one thing.
Discovering that your body believes it too?
That is another journey entirely.
With steadiness and wonder,
Shamarie
