I'm at a kind of turning point, having done some intense work, and then having time off while my therapist was away. But I start up sessions again this week and am torn between two things I could take up and could use some other viewpoints.

One thing that has come up is anger. I am experiencing going from irritability to frustration to anger to even rage in a rather quick sequencing. Then since I am not good with anger (who is?) I tend to not handle it well. My therapist in the past has said that anger for me is a good sign because I had to stuff it most of my life and have plenty of stuff to be really angry about. Since it is up, it seems that working with that would be the way to go.

On the other hand, because it is so volatile and powerful, I am wondering about doing something more positive and possibly helpful before I get to the anger since it does seem hard to contain. Before the anger surfaced I was thinking about how areas related to self-care in terms of playfulness or creativity were not as developed as they have been in the past or as I would like them to be going forward. (I know the reasons why so don't have to figure that part out.)

In continually puzzling over what sorts of things I could do to bolster this area of my life, I found myself attracted to the notion of "being in the zone" or "in the flow." It came from watching a guitarist just obviously disappearing into what he was doing with complete absorption and even joy. I thought that trying to cultivate things that might provide that kind of experience would be strengthening and give me avenues for release and insulation that would modulate other areas of tension and stress.

So now I'm wondering if it would be better to try to take up the more positive self-care type of thing so that the work on anger would be more contained or if taking up the anger while it is surfacing which is not typical should be more a priority. Though in principle the two are not mutually exclusive, I don't feel like I could do both together at this point. That would be a goal but not realistic now.