Yes, I Get Angry

It doesn't happen too often that I lose it. It takes lots to get me the point where one of my buttons gets pushed that far. But it does happen. It's happened twice now in the last seven months. Once was a personal fight, one was online when I felt protective of someone rights being violated and people being cruel about her.

In both cases, I felt a need to protect. See hair fly, teeth bare, energy of a huge battalion all balled up in my aura.

Anger is considered a "lead" emotion, meaning that we feel anger because we don't want to feel something deeper that is harder and more painful to feel. The reason I don't get angry very often is that I have learned to go to the thing being covered up. But....I don't always make it initially. I can still get buttons pushed.

In the first situation, I was angry and said "fuck you" to hide what was really going on...which was that I felt desolate, alone, abandoned, stressed, unloved, uncared for, at wit's end, unappreciated, unseen. The situation had built over time with me not addressing much of what was going on when it was smaller because I told myself that if I did, it would just add to the other person's stress (even though I know better). So, in this case, something that might not have been big became huge. Once I blew up, and got all that I had held back energetically out, I then went into all the other feelings that the outburst had hidden. I cried a really long time. In some ways, I'm still crying about it. But I'm not angry in the least. I would rather be, and am, raw.

In the second situation, I didn't even know the person who was, in my mind, being "wronged." The commentary on some random blog post about a woman was awful. The cruelty and justifications for it made me cry. And everyone was proceeding and adding to it as if cruelty is OK behavior. For me, it was an ethical consideration along with the wondering what it would do to this person if she discovered all that was being said about and around her. I imagined her alone with it. It drove me so nuts I left a comment on the blog then wrote a whole post on my blog (not this one) about how outraged I was. In the first version, I made mention of the "offending" blog and provided a link. I removed it soon after because the issue wasn't really about this particular blogger being mean, it was about humanity forgetting their hearts. In this case, when I went deeper with it, I realized I felt protective of her, but it was, of course, much more. I felt protective for women, for humans who look outside the norm. I remembered back to childhood when it had happened to me, I thought about the kids from Columbine and how people were cruel to them, made them outcasts and the ramifications of that. I saw this nameless woman as an innocent just living her life and being judged by mindless meanness. I felt a need to protect all of humanity from itself.

The anger diffused after I wrote the post. I still had things to say about it, will still call a spade a spade, but without the emotional hook that I had. I understood that people are just blind and everyone needs compassion, all of them. Even the meanies.

When I look at the times I've been angry, remembering times before I understood and was living a life of simmering anger, I know my anger is always about wanting to protect something in some way somehow. I do it so seldom now that when I do feel it, I really pay attention.

So, just like my ego, Anger is now my friend, too. How can I be upset and want to get rid of an ally who is only trying to communicate with me, and bring me the gift of my deep? Do I seek out anger? No. I just don't push it down or try to pretend I am happy when it wants voice. Do I want to stay angry? No way. It isn't fun, it doesn't feel good. I don't think anger is even comfortable with itself. The reason I think this is because when I access it, when I go there and allow its voice, it lovingly moves out of the way so I can become conscious of the underlying reason it showed up in the first place....which leads to greater consciousness....which makes me happier...which leads to creation, and on it goes.

Ideally I will take care of things in the moment more so they don't build. Ideally I will be less stressed so not be in a place of needing to protect as much. That would all be very nice.

And...I don't hold myself to that level of expectation, don't beat myself up when I am angry. Anger informs me, like the heat from a stove tells me that something is going on that isn't good for me. I am just a human woman, going through life, making my ways to the best of my abilities. I may fall off the track, but I get back on the trail pretty quickly. Anger, my ego, my dark all contribute. I want to embrace and be at peace with them all.

Anger by Santiago Mapache