Hello Loves, It is my first week back at work and I have to tell you, I am tired AF. On a completely random note, I also feel a bit of tension starting this post off with a note about my life because I feel the pressure to just jump into the content, but I'm also learning to get comfortable with the grey space of QLQ because it is a hybrid of my personal life, but also the lessons and tips I have learned. But, anyway, exhaustion and confusion aside, I want to tell you a little bit more about something I have been thinking about. In a previous post, I mentioned that I was struggling with difficult emotions and accepting my humanness. But I want to dig a little deeper and explain that the emotion I had been struggling with the most was anger and resulting aggression. I am a firm believer that what other people think of you is not your business because it is reflection of them and their current circumstances and beliefs. As such, I also make it a point not blame anyone for how I am feeling/what I am thinking (even if they're involved). I take full ownership of my own emotions and reactions and try to understand why I am feeling this way. In learning to decode my anger and behavior, I had to accept something I have known all along. All emotions serve a purpose. At its root, anger is a defense. If you think back to like survival got to run away from that big thing that's trying to eat me times, anger probably served as a way to assert yourself, scare away the enemy or be brave in the face of whatever you were facing. Now, I won't generalize anger for everyone, but for me, I find that I use anger in a very defensive way. While anger can be a very toxic emotion to feel, it is a lot easier to feel because I can push it away from me. But when digging deeper, I found that anger often arose when I was feeling especially vulnerable or afraid that I would lose something I subconsciously thought of as necessary for my survival. For example, if I was mad at my coworker for saying whatever, the anger was actually coming from the fear that her words would put my job in jeopardy (it wouldn't), so in fact, the anger was fear based. Or if someone was coming into my life, I would get angry because I was afraid they might hurt me, so I tried to create distance by being prickly. And how exactly did I learn to figure out the emotion that was hiding behind the mask of anger. I had to think back to what was the split second of emotion I felt before the anger snapped back up. So, while anger is a completely natural emotion, I do encourage you to dig a little deeper and question why anger is presenting itself to you in this specific situation. Doing this has been one of the biggest ways I have not only discovered my limiting beliefs, but learned to overpower them. Until next time loves! Join the epiphany email list Connect with your fellow queens in the EXCLUSIVE QLQ community Share your thoughts on what QLQ should bring out in 2019