I am powerless over my emotions.

I am powerless over my emotions.
Last night I went to an Emotions Anonymous meeting. This is the spell they cast, the mantra I was supposed to speak, and everything in my body felt wrong about it.

Every word we speak is a spell. A mantra we send out to the universe. I believe in speaking the words of the life and self I want to be. But I understood the sentiment. To come face to face with the darker parts of yourself and admit that maybe, just maybe, you have no control. Maybe you are powerless. And there have been many moments in my life where I felt this. Zephyr’s birth. My childhood. Moments where I felt completely powerless, not over my emotions, but over life and the decisions being made for me.

Nonetheless, I attended the meeting because my truth is that I speak vulnerability. I speak motherhood with a baby and a puppy. And mostly the puppy has brought anger out of me that I feel shame and guilt about. The truth is I get so angry with Valentine for not listening. And I feel guilt and shame because I love and adore that dog so deeply. But he only half-listens, only sometimes comes when you call, and it’s not always optimal to carry around meat treats, and half the time those don’t even work.

The day before yesterday you could find me hysterically crying, I mean hysterically crying, after a hike in the cold beautiful forest. I walked both my boys back to the car and went to put Zephyr in his car seat when Valentine saw a dog and went running, sprinting to play with him. I stayed calm at first. I calmly kept calling, “Valentine, Valentine, come. Valentine, come.” And then my calmness turned into louder and louder calling. I found myself walking away from the car back into the forest, where with guilt and shame, I consciously, intentionally grabbed his collar and said in a very loud voice, “You come when you’re called,” and put his leash on.

I felt so much guilt and shame because I screamed and got aggressive with my dog son in front of my human son. I didn’t want to be that kind of mother. I don’t want Zephyr to ever see me raise my voice or get aggressive with Valentine. I don’t want to feel that, be that, or show that. I don’t want to teach Zephyr that it’s okay to treat animals or anyone like that.

I am angry that Levi claims to want this pleasurable society where people don’t slave their time away for a job they hate, stuck in a 9-5 that he himself says is destroying humanity, yet he refuses to live the world he dreams about. He won’t quit or even choose fewer hours or more flexibility. I’m angry because I want the freedom to write this in the mornings before he leaves for work like I have been. I want to stay in my writing flow without stopping and dropping everything to go back into mama mode.

Because the truth is motherhood is flexible. It depends on when Zephyr wakes up, what he needs, how he needs it. And I need Levi to work a job that works around his life, not the other way around.

I am angry. And the truth is my anger, Levi’s anger, everyone’s anger in Emotions Anonymous is valid. Because maybe the anger isn’t personal. Maybe the anger is the society fuckery we’re all navigating. Maybe the problem is not us. Maybe the problem is the system.

Our anger is not bad. Our anger should not be something we shame or guilt ourselves over. Our anger is a normal human emotion. When you don’t get what you want, the inner child in you gets angry, just like our toddlers do when they don’t get what they want. We want what we want. And our anger shows us what we don’t prefer, so we can adjust our environment into something that actually supports what we do prefer.

I’m not angry that Valentine wanted to run and play. I’m angry that we live in a society where I can’t let him run and play all day because I have responsibilities I have to get home to.

In the same way, when Zephyr has anger or big emotions and wants what he wants, I never shame him. I never tell him his anger is bad. Because anger is not bad. It is powerful. Instead of telling him he can’t do something or has to do something, I change the environment so he can do what he wants or not do what he doesn’t want. I give him autonomy.

I don’t think any parent wants to control their child. What we truly want is safety. We want to feel safe. We want to do what we want, when we want, how we want, without limitation. We want to follow the beat of our own drum without society telling us what we have to do.

Our children are the same. We control them because society controls us. We think we need to prepare them for the “real world,” but what if we created the real world we want them to live in?

What if we stopped shaming our own anger and sadness? What if we stopped feeling powerless over our emotions and instead recognized our emotions as our greatest source of power?

Then maybe we could finally stop shaming our children for their anger, their sadness, their storms. Because our emotions are nature. Weather. Rain. Thunder. Sunshine. The weather is not outside of us. It is us.

When it rains, we don’t scream at the sky and demand it stop. We grab an umbrella, take shelter, protect ourselves. But with our children, we try to control their storms. We tell them not to be angry, not to cry, not to feel. When instead we should treat them, and ourselves, like weather. Let them be rain. Let them be thunder. And take precautions to keep everyone safe.

But first we must feel safe with our own internal weather.

We must not feel shame or guilt for our emotions. Or if we do, we must remember that even shame and guilt are powerful emotions telling us what we don’t prefer.

Instead, we observe. We feel. We ask, “What is this feeling trying to tell me?” And we teach our children to do the same.

Maybe people aren’t powerless over their emotions.
Maybe people are powerful in their emotions.
Maybe our emotions are our greatest power.

Maybe when we finally see the power of our emotions, we become empowered by them. And we can lead the world and our children to do the same. To create a society radically different than this one. A society where no one goes to Emotions Anonymous because there is no shame. Where anger, sadness, happiness, frustration, excitement, all of it, is worn proudly.

Because if you want to stop being angry, you have to stop trying to control the anger. You have to let go. You have to let yourself feel.

I let go of control and proclaim, “I am powerful in my emotions.”
And I invite you to proclaim the same.

This is Unconditional Love

Love Always,

Genna Rose

12/3/2025