"Bang!
Justin slammed the door scowling as he headed
out. He wanted to get far, far away from the
voices of his mom and dad which were getting
louder and louder. He wished he could get
in a time capsule and go at warp speed on
a search and destroy mission.
Bad news. There was no time capsule to whisk
Justin far, far away to a distant planet so
he headed for his grandmother's house. Mom
hadn't been in her happy place for a week
now and had grounded him from his video games.
Dad had been super cross lately. When things
started going down at his house Justin went
over to his grandma's house.
Grandma looked at Justin's long face. "What's
wrong? You look bummed out. Are you having
one of those sad, mad, bad kind of days? Grandma
had been a counselor and knew about feelings.
"Hmmm. Looks pretty serious," said Grandma.
"I bet it's those parents of yours. Did they
have another fight? What are we going to do
with them?"
"Yeah,
it's nuclear this time," said Justin.
"Most
families fight," said Grandma. "Some fight
with words. Some with their hands. When people
fight, everyone feels bad inside. Let's see
what we can do to let those feelings go. Do
you want to play guess the feelings?"
Justin always wanted Grandma to guess. It
was more fun when she did the guessing. She
guessed, "Are you furious?" Justin shook his
head no. "Ashamed? Bored? Snarky?"
"No.
No. No, not those feelings."
"I
bet you are feeling sad. You've got a case
of the sads today. So go ahead and call that
sad feeling out by its name," said Grandma.
Justin nodded and said, "Sad. Mom turns into
the Wicked Witch of the West and gives Dad
the death look. Then he turns into the Green
Hulk and starts yelling. I feel sad."
"What
else? Feelings usually hang out together.
They stack up on top of each other. Look further
and see what other feelings are hiding under
the sads."
He thought and thought. "Yucky."
"Bingo!
You named it. Yucky feelings are the "bads."
They like to hide somewhere in your body.
Find where they're hiding."
Justin looked to find the feelings. It took
a while because feelings are really good at
hiding out. He thought about why he was sad
and his chest started to get tight and tense.
He said, "I found them. They are buried in
my chest and throat."
Grandma beamed at him. "You are so good at
finding your feelings. Call them out, feel
them for a minute. Feelings come and go. Coming
up and going away is their job. Bad feelings
always want to move out."
Grandma
talks to Justin about his dad's anger that
started as a young boy dealing with an angry
father himself and then goes on to help Justin
learn five things to do to release his bad
feelings after witnessing his parents' argument.