There is no room here for your anger.

I had a funny experience last night. Not funny “hahaha”, more funny “wow that’s deep!”

Here is what happened.

I had put my sons to bed and a few hours later, I went to sleep also. Then, at about 3am I was woken up by my older son, Ruben , falling out of bed.  I went in and lifted him back in, made sure he wasn’t hurt, gave him a cuddle and tucked him in.

Fifteen minutes later, as I was drifting back to sleep, Ruben calls out and I go in because he needs his nose blowing (he’s got pretty bad hayfever).  I blow his nose, give him  a cuddle and head back to bed.

Before long, I’m about to totally start snoring when I hear a sound, I wake up and notice Ruben’s light come on and then off.  By this point, sleep deprivation has kicked in and I’m properly irritated.  I call out in my deep, stern “this is your father speaking’ voice and ask him what he is doing. (damn it, it’s nearly 4am I need to get to sleep!). Ruben replies ‘Nothing’ and goes quiet.

Then something really weird happens.

As I lay in bed – totally irritated and getting so totally wound up by having my sleep disturbed repeatedly, I heard this voice inside my body.  I mean  inside my entire body, not just my head.  This voice (which I still don’t recognise) spoke loudly and matter-of-factly (but not angrily).  It said “Listen, I know you’re angry but I’m telling you there is no room in here for your anger. There is only space here for love”.

What!?

The voice went on, and I could hear it as loud and as clear as though I was the only person in the audience at a stadium performance. It said again “there is no room here for your anger, there is only room for love. So, forget your anger and just let love in”.  What struck me was how resolved and reassured it sounded. Like an OccupyNewYork style activist who had occupied my heart and was refusing to let anger share the space.

At this point, I am physically super-tense and the voice coaxed me : ‘You’re tense, look at what anger is doing to you – shake it out and let it go on its way, there is no room here for anger”.
So that is what I did.  At 4am in the morning, I did a shimmy shimmy electric boogaloo breakdance move in bed to shake out the tension in my body.  I instantly felt the tension ease off. And that is when I thought I was having a heart attack.

But not really – what was happening was that my heart muscle had been so  tensed up and then very suddenly relaxed and the resulting sensation felt like your hand feels when it has been clenched in a fist for a while and you suddenly relax it.  It wasn’t painful – just weird.

A deep sense of calm came over me and the voice had gone. Slowly I get up from my bed and walk quietly into Ruben’s room , he is still awake (but barely) and I cuddle him, speaking gentle and soothing words to help him fall back to sleep. I stroke his hair and kiss his forehead, then I went back to bed and got some sleep.

When I woke at 8am, I thought it was all a dream and to be honest I have no explanation about what happened beyond what I share here.

I do know that as this voice was speaking, I was filled with a deep sense of love for my son and my family and an intuitive acceptance that it was speaking an undeniable truth (well as undeniable as you can get at four in the morning) – I don’t have space in my heart for anything but love. Not anger, not irritation and certainly not hate. I could reason with it, that anger is part of life, as is grief and as is love, but this voice wouldn’t engage me in whether those where valid, inappropriate, right or wrong. It simply insisted that I had no space in my heart for anything but love.

I am deeply grateful to this voice, from wherever it came. Its message was fully and gratefully received.

As ever on this blog and especially on this post, I want to share what you think? Have you had a similar weird but beautiful experience.

I do not have space in my heart for anger. Do you?