The Lesson I Learned From My Temper Tantrum at Our Retreat

It was day three of the retreat — what we call “game day.”

Irina and I were deep in facilitation, holding a lot.
The kind of space where people are vulnerable, emotional, cracking things open.
The kind of space you don’t half-show up for.

And yet, without realizing it, I checked out.

Not dramatically.
Not intentionally.
More like my vision went soft. Tunnel-y.
My body was there, but my attention drifted somewhere else.

Which is not like me.

My back had been in pain since we landed in Mexico — deep, relentless pain that made sleep hard and holding my head up uncomfortable. One of the women in the group is a massage therapist, and without really thinking it through, I turned to her and quietly asked if she could feel around my back and see if there was anything she could loosen up.

What I didn’t realize was that someone was still sharing.

Irina smacked my knee.
Gave me the look.

That’s when it hit me.

I apologized immediately.
Turned my attention back.
Sat there quietly.

But something shifted.

There was tension between us right away.

During the break, Irina locked eyes with me and gave me that look again. I felt annoyed. Defensive. And I said something that, looking back, should’ve been my first clue that I was already off:

“I don’t understand why it’s a problem that we teach people to ask for what they need but I can’t ask for what I need.”

We finished the game.
Everything looked fine on the surface.

But it wasn’t fine.

The Temper Tantrum

Back in our room, Irina asked me if I knew why she was upset.

I said I thought I did but wasn’t totally sure.

She told me: “You were talking during someone else’s share. You’re supposed to be there supporting the people who came for transformation.”

The first part didn’t bother me.
I was talking. That was true.

The second part lit something in me.

Fast.

It rose from my belly to my chest to my throat — that familiar tightening. And before I could slow it down, I snapped.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“As if I haven’t been doing exactly that.”
“I’m exhausted. I’m in pain. Apparently more than you realize.”

And then I threw a tantrum.

Petty.
Snooty.
Childlike.

The kind of reaction you recognize immediately and can’t stop anyway.

What made it worse was that this wasn’t isolated.

At home recently, my partner and I had a moment about unfolded laundry. One small thing. But it landed like this:

It doesn’t matter what else you’ve done — you missed this, so now everything else is invisible.

And suddenly, standing there with Irina, it all collapsed into one meaning.

I cried and said it out loud:

“This feels just like the towels on the couch. It doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve been showing up, that everything is taken care of. I make one mistake and suddenly I’m the problem.”

That was the real wound.

Not being corrected.
Not being accountable.

Being unseen, unacknowledged.

The Spiral

I climbed into my bed, put on headphones, and tried to calm myself down.

But mostly, I cried.

And argued internally.

One part of me desperately wanted to make Irina wrong.
To villainize her.
To protect myself by shrinking the truth.

Another part of me knew:

• she wasn’t wrong to address it

• I had crossed a line

• I was far more depleted than I’d admitted to myself

Eventually, exhaustion won.
I slept for an hour.

Real Life Repair

When I woke up, I didn’t jump straight into a conversation.

I checked my Oura ring data — stressed all day. Fully red.
My body had known before my mind did.

I got up, washed my face.
Looked at myself in the mirror.
Took a deep breath.

Then I walked over and told Irina we needed to talk.

She closed her laptop and listened.

I told her she was right, talking during a participant’s share wasn’t okay.

I told her what actually set me off wasn’t the correction, but the implication behind it.

“You know me,” I said.
“You know I would never intentionally check out like that.”

What would have helped, I told her, was curiosity instead of accusation.
A simple: Are you okay? That’s not like you.

She owned her part too.

We cried.
Hugged.
Apologized.

And then we went back downstairs and facilitated one of the most powerful sessions of the retreat.

Not because we’re perfect.
But because we repaired.

I don’t share this as a lesson.

I’ve replayed this moment a few times, not with shame, but with honesty.

Because the most painful part wasn’t being corrected.

It was the moment my care, effort, and commitment felt erased by a single misstep.

That’s when I went into self-protection.
That’s when I stopped being adult.
That’s when everything narrowed.

And I know I’m not alone in that.

So many people don’t lose it because they’re actually wrong — they lose it because they feel unseen, unheard.

Reduced to a moment instead of held in the context of who they really are.

I don’t share this as a lesson.

I share it as a window.

Into how quickly even capable, committed humans get child-like when belonging feels threatened.
Into how nervous systems react faster than reason.
Into how repair — real repair — is the work.

Not the absence of rupture.

Where in your life does misunderstanding hit harder than accountability?

Not as something to fix. Just something to notice.

Because noticing is usually where staying human begins.