Rage isn't very lady like, is it?

Hey! It’s Paige.

Your pocket sexologist. Pocket philosopher. Pocket rocket, if you will. This is The Midday Tease, where you’ll find weekly micro essays on sex, lurrve, and modern spirituality.

I knowww. I skipped a week. Lame from me. I don’t like breaking promises but hopefully this newsletter will illuminate why I’ve been so unreliable.

Before we kick off, make sure you safeguard my emails by either marking them ‘not spam’ or dragging from the ‘promotions’ folder into your inbox. (More info on how to do the techy stuff here.)

Okay, so…

A few days ago, I was doing an illegal-time-saving-turn in a parking lot when another car, whose path I was blocking, beep-beeped at me.

In the safety of my little, orange, hatchback Subaru, I responded to their request for me to move.

I yelled, “F*CK OFF!!!”

I didn’t yell it loud enough for the occupants of the beeping car to hear, but it’s resonance was so powerful I reacted to my own words how I imagine they might have if they’d heard. The phrase just poof!-ed out of me, like a genie poof!-ing out of a lamp. Torrents of thick, baby pink smoke, explosively venting from the narrow spout of my mouth.

Come to think of it, a few obnoxious phrases have been poof!-ing out of my mouth lately.

Earlier in the week, I was trying to buy something online when the website’s payment system began to glitch. Every time I hit the ‘pay now’ button, the confirmation page would lag and I’d be left percussively tapping my foot on the hollow floors of my office. Every time the buffering wheel displayed, my patience would wane and my click fury would dominate. I’d refresh the page only to start again with my name, address, card details…

The third time the page was loading, I transferred my attention over to my emails and noticed I’d made the purchase three times.

To that, I shrieked, “ACTUAL C*NTS!” at my computer.

(Ironically, I was buying women’s herbs prescribed by my naturopath after I’d mentioned feeling particularly emotional during my last cycle. Perhaps the triple dosage was necessary.)

In addition to my profane outbursts, another peculiar quirk has been making itself known – a tightness in my jaw. For the last few months, I've woken up most mornings with the sense that I had been clenching my teeth throughout the night. This feeling comes from either the dull headache I endure for the rest of the day or the sharp, lopsided tension I feel when I yawn, which happens regularly when I've been clamping down rather than catching z’s.

If you’re a woman, repressed rage can sneak up on you. There are no safe places for it to go, so it stores in the body and simmers, waiting for an opportunity to seep out. Sometimes it’s so close to the surface it’s present in every gesture; materialising in physical symptoms that can’t be ignored. Sometimes it’s hard to detect because a woman has learned to shroud her indignation in grief, or quietness, or communicate it passively. Eventually, so much rancour builds up that it’s hard to see where the hatred ends and the human begins.

We’ve all crossed paths with a cantankerous Karen. Hardened by life’s misfortunes, waiting to spit venom at the first person who gives her lip. But Karen wasn’t born a wench, she was made into one by a culture that does not provide women with the practices or spaces to ceremonially expel their wrath. As a consequence, anger gets warehoused in our DNA and passed down through our lineages.

Karen, has a child, named Kylie, who was also never initiated into the full spectrum of her emotions. Instead, she was modelled a version of womanhood that excludes opportunities to express healthy aggression or hysteria. Kylie, now pregnant, will soon have a daughter named Kayla, who will grow up in a world so technologically mature that her favourite artists and creators will be Artificial Intelligence. I wonder, will these robots and language models have the capacity to express emotions like us? Will they be able to connect with our delicate souls in a way that gives us permission to feel (and free) what we keep hidden?

How will the intergenerational anger in Kayla’s body be normalised, neglected or neutralised?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. But I do know that making a scene out of minor inconveniences, like beeps and buyers blunders, in order to express the fragments of what lies beneath is not a sustainable way for me to process my rage. I don’t want to turn into a cantankerous Karen. I want to be soft and open. Like a rose. So this week, I saw a somatic experiencing (SE) practitioner who utilises craniosacral therapy (CST).

For someone who likes to ask questions, I did very little research into what this might entail. I knew, vaguely, what the word ‘somatic’ meant, and explicitly, that something in my body needed to be experienced.

I arrived to my appointment immaculately on brand: frustrated and full of sass. The practitioner, patient and calm, invited me into her treatment room and then, with gentle cues, into my body where all the information we both needed was waiting.

I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone such personal details about my past, or confessed to the shameful and messy memories still lurking around the grottos of my psyche. As I lay face up on her massage table, I was somehow able to look down on my body through my mind’s eye and inside the vessel that’s been with me 32 years; the one I can’t keep any secrets from. My body keeps secrets from me, though. And she won’t reveal them until I am truly listening.

After careful integration, I’d like to share more about this session. More of the mechanical details (for those interested) and more of what seems to be percolating within my consciousness as I welcome more stillness into my life. Some of it is quite warming. Some of it feels dark and ominous, like I’m on the precipice of learning something about myself that I’ve intentionally forgotten.

For now, if you feel anger in your body – in your hands, your shoulders, your womb, your jaw – just know that I, along with all the Karen’s out there, am right here with you.

With rage-realising gratitude for your time & attention,

Paige xo.

P.S. If you think there is someone who might like my stories, send ‘em this link to subscribe 💟 https://paigeleacey.beehiiv.com/subscribe

P.P.S. Some other trinkets for you below…

Podcast I loved this week: Jay Shetty & Esther Perel on why your ego is ruining your relationship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkgtwMxbnLw

Song I’m moving to: Inside by Project Closure & Subsets
https://open.spotify.com/track/4EJ9AUv4VEJ4qHfY1eVbbK?si=5c0fd18667684508

Upcoming comedy gigs (I swear I’m funny, too):
Tuesday 23rd THE SCOTTISH PRINCE (QLD) 7pm
Friday 26th MADOCKE BREWERY (QLD) 7pm
Friday 3rd MADOCK BREWERY (QLD) 7pm