Anger has a bad rep, but what a friend to have!
When you haven’t taken the time to sit down with Anger, it will blind you when it joins in the moment. A joy to have around, but not really an ideal daily dinner guest.
It’s with Anger that I have really learned discipline. I found that I indulged my addictions, my phone, my negative thoughts whenever I was trying to pretend Anger wasn’t there. Once it arrived, Anger cannot be ignored.
So I meditate, I come back to the situation, and still again! Surely this time around the entire house and everyone in it is to blame because I certainly did everything I could but they are being unreasonable!
No, says Anger, and takes my hand.
Look, it says.
Oh, I say.
Anger had to join because we had accidentally stepped on a landmine.
One acquires landmines throughout their lives, and as hard as I had been working on finding mine, I had not seen the one I was standing on.
I shift perspectives from one foot to the other.
As my shoulders drop, I see.
I’m not getting my way here, and that’s hard. The world is not seeing whatever I want them to see, need them to see. And that’s really hard.
The world does not owe me anything, but gifts me so much every day. The gifts the people give me are trickier, stranger to figure out, they might not show themselves in the short run.
When suffering needs to be larger than others’ to be justified, it is self-imposed.
If I don’t listen to myself I won’t feel listened to by the world. If I am uncomfortable with a situation, I don’t really want them here, I am worried about this, how dare they do that, I am not listening to my body by still being there.
Anger came and showed me the landmine after all and if it’s still here I’m still standing on it! (be it mentally or physically)
Flight is not always needed, but if it’s our pride keeping us from it we’ll be forever frozen in whatever life we’re in right now.
Everybody needs a tribe, and the love of mine can be ours.
Reparent Your Soul 