Into the Lost City of Rage and Shame

A commitment to a year-long archaeological dig.

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Resonant World #123

The past couple of weeks have taught me that it’s time to work on my anger, irritability and rudeness — particularly towards my wife, Genevieve.

Let me not exaggerate. Most days, I’d venture to say that I’m a fairly easy-going guy. Arguably good company, even.

But I’ve noticed a tendency within myself to over-react to perceived slights and lash out energetically at times at the people closest to me that I intend to work on more intentionally and systematically in 2025.¹

Fortunately, I now have a formidable armoury of tools and community support to do so — and the witnessing of the Resonance Council (paid subscribers) to potentiate the process.

One of the most effective methods that I’ve found so far is the ‘Trigger Diary’ — part of the curriculum in the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training on the psychological, somatic and mystical principles of trauma integration, led by Thomas Hübl and team, which I completed a year ago.

I’ve written about the Trigger Diary for

Toxic Workplace Survival Guy

, but the basic idea is to keep a record of when you get triggered, and what happened, so you can make the process more conscious. (Survival Tool#10: What to Write in Your Trigger Diary).

Though I’ve made quite a lot of progress on my anger during the training, a series of near consecutive incidents of me speaking and acting in ways I later regretted in the days before Christmas — and on the Big Day itself — showed me I need to dig deeper.

I therefore commit to keeping a Trigger Diary for the next year.

I’ll record incidents of being triggered, and make periodic reports to the Resonance Council on patterns I’m observing within myself. I’ll do my best to relate what I find to my broader arc of learning the principles of collective trauma healing, in the hope this exercise might provide useful for others walking this path.

If anyone in the Resonance Council also wishes to keep a Trigger Diary — and turn this into a shared project with mutual accountability, support and learning — do drop me a line. In my experience, for the amount of time invested, relative to insight gained, there are few easier or more efficient practices.

I hope this year-long shadow work process will not only make me a better husband and father, but also grow my capacity as a leader of men’s work with

Jacob Kishere

in our Resonant Man initiative, and advance my development as a collective trauma integration facilitator.

In both of these commitments, I find the Resonance Council to be a hugely nourishing and reassuring resource — thank you for your support.

I want to begin by offering a deeper account of my process around my anger; its apparent ancestral component; and a dream I had a few days ago that seemed to tie these elements together.

Ancestral Archaeology

The dream tells the story most succinctly.