How healing my relationship with anger led to a different outcome than ever before.

We’d just gotten out of the water after a short dip in the ocean, and in the distance, my Mister spotted a man we knew.

A lean, barefoot runner and enthusiastic guy, we often spoke of how we wished to see him at parkruns more often. And here he was.

But he seemed to be in the middle of something. With a concentrated stare, his eyes were tracking the steps of an even leaner man who was also running barefoot along the beach carpark road.

I went to change and my Mister went to see if he could jump in on the action, given that both these men were his age and clearly love running just as much as he does.

Cleaner, drier and with less sand stuck to my skin, I found them standing at the back of an open van with various thin-soled shoes scattered around, talking in animated voices about all things running-related.

I introduced myself to the man I didn’t know while our friend, let’s call him Danny, continued talking with my Mister.

After briefly swapping names with, let’s call him Terry, I asked this lean, strong-looking man about his experience running in Five Fingers.

(Vibram Five Fingers are a very minimalist type of shoe with individual slots for the toes, the way gloves do for the fingers. There was a massive craze for them after the book, “Born to Run” came out and endless people thought they were the solution to all their running problems until they started to break lower-body parts, that is.

I approached my transition to minimalist shoes far more slowly and sensibly and was able to complete multiple very long-distance events in them, making my feet and calves stronger and stronger over time. I still wear something similar when I run today, 15 years later.)

I was curious to hear how Terry dealt with the endless questions and comments that people seem to have when anyone wears these Five Fingers in public nowadays as this is the number one reason I haven’t gone back to wearing these particular shoes.

I immediately realised that Terry was nothing like our friend Danny when I found myself being talked to like a little girl who knew nothing.

Condescending, patronising, mansplaining. Frankly, I was kind of shocked.

You’d think I was a 12-year-old runner who had asked a very old uncle how to navigate the world of critical adults, rather than a very capable, highly experienced woman in my mid-forties seeking to have a light, friendly conversation.

I quickly switched gears.

I wasn’t interested in being schooled on how to do life. I was interested in having an interesting, intelligent conversation with our friend Danny and if Terry wasn’t on this wavelength, well, a different approach was needed.

As soon as there was a tiny break in the conversation, I turned to face Danny and asked him what he’d been up to. The friendly guy’s face lit up with the cheeky, intellect I knew him for and before I’d even realised it the Mister had switched places with me so he could chat with Terry instead.

While they talked about running injuries and dealing with aging bodies and how to get into marathons based on age-grade percentages, I continued to focus my attention squarely on Danny. I had an enjoyable, easy, enlightening conversation with him about everything from new running events, to changes with hiking permits in Nepal, to how he’s dealing with his highly nomadic life. It was delightful.

When I sensed it was a good time to stop, I made subtle moves in that direction and the Mister got the hint. I gave Danny a big hug and politely said goodbye to Terry, and walked bare foot back to the car.

As I reflected on the conversation, I was happy the Mister saw Danny in the distance and pursued a conversation with them both. Not only because it’s such a delight to chat with the clever and kind barefoot runner but also because being around men his own age who are as serious about running as he is, is so good for my Mister.

But the best thing that came out of that conversation was realising, yet again, how much progress I’ve made.

In the past when I would run into people like Terry, I either would have submitted to his authoritarian way of being and let him carry on about crap that didn’t interest me, pretending to agree. Or I would have got offended by his condescenion and ended up in something of an argument, trying to defend my honour and prove how clever and capable I am.

This time, I tried a quick retort to see if I could establish myself as his equal and when it immediately and obviously failed, I decided the conversation was not a good use of my time or energy.

I was only able to access this realisation because I’ve done so much healing around anger.

I now know I deserve better.

I now know I don’t need to tolerate bullshit.

I now know I don’t need to engage with people who don’t see or respect or understand me. I can just walk away.

Or, in this case, talk to someone else.

As I wrap up this post, there is a part of me that is tempted to say to you that you also deserve better if you’re being talked to in a way that makes you feel any kind of ‘bad’.

And it’s true, you do.

If you’re on the rare people who is able to read this story and take new actions when faced with patronising human beings, then great, please do that. If my story was enough ‘permission’ to step back from interactions that feel like rubbish, then that is excellent.

But I know that, if you’re like most people, you’ll be like me: you won’t just be able to hear (read) a story from someone else and then model your behaviour off theirs.

It helps, definitely. As human beings, we’re designed to learn from the role modelling of others. So role model and story tell I shall continue to do.

But I know that what I also needed was to heal my relationship with anger.

Not so I could tell him he’s a *#&%^)! but rather so I could recognise within myself:

“I don’t like being talked to this way. I deserve better. I am not going to tolerate this. I am stepping away from this person right now.”

It is anger that lets us do this. Being able to feel and access our anger—that is intimately tied to our life force energy—is what gives us the power to make different choices.

And I’m proud of myself that I’ve now done enough of the sometimes scary, almost-never-fun work of reconnecting with my anger during all those times when I could have continued doing what I always did.

Because that is what led to me being able to have the conversation I wanted to have and walk away when it was time to say ‘no’.