Hi all:
Mum, I'm glad you stood your ground with that landscaper. Hopefully, he will remove the big rock and bring in the smaller stuff, and so he should. It sounds like that is something that might happen now. Great going Mum!!
The discussion of anger is interesting to me. Some ideas came to my head when I read this:
Anger is poison, but like Jacmac said: when ignored.
"Anger rots the vessel it is carried in." That's for sure!
I think I disagree with part of this. For me, anger can be a life saver. It can motivate me to act when there is what I perceive as danger or injustice. I call it a negative emotion because it's not my favorite and I don't enjoy feeling angry. But anger really is just a feeling. IMO, it has a purpose......just as your mentor and T said:
It is meant to notify us about something. We are suppose to learn something from it, DO something with.
I agree and I also think.....it's a feeling....it's human.....it's necessary for survival. And when we perceive danger or injustice......it's definately notification. The key word being "perceive" and sometimes, our perceptions are not accurate and so our anger might be misinformed.
The main thing, though, imo is not so much
what we feel but
being able to express what we feel. and especially...being aware of what is being felt. When the opportunity to do that is denied us, or we repress our feelings...........
THEN I agree......a feeling like anger might stew and ferment and bubble and cook and eventually......it might even become what I see as the real poison....
HATE (which is said to corrode the vessel within which it resides).
So I do agree, in the end, that anger can evolve into something poisonous, if it is kept inside, ignored, or repressed but also, that there are times when it might be prudent to repress, set aside until later.....big anger...or times when it could save us to use it, for all it is.
Having said all of that, I do think I understand where you're coming from in regard to not wanting to express anger, or feeling afraid to do that, or that it might not be appropriate to do so, or being taught that it is wrong to do that, etc (re those who expressed these ideas).
It can be scary. For me, especially when I've felt a great, huge, large amount of it (due to feeling greatly, hugely, and largely in danger and treated unjustly). At times like that, I think it might be perfectly correct to repress a good part of my anger. Otherwise, it may end up being a great explosion and a terrible experience for me and anyone who looks like me (
) --or looks at me!!
The trick, for me, in that case......is to let as much of it out as possible....prior to dealing with whoever I have to deal with......in what I call appropriate ways...like talking to someone about how I feel, writing stuff down, pounding on bongo drums (I just love those bongo drums), walking, screaming even.......whatever it takes to diffuse my fuse, I guess. If that is not possible, then it might be a good idea to just bury it, until I am able to do those things (but also...important to make sure I get back to it and deal with it and get it out!!).
So, I feel like I am in a better position to calmly express myself to whoever I must, if I do so without expressing great, huge, loads of anger, (with the exception of being in some kind of physical attack......in which case I would hope to skip the walking, screaming, bongo banging stuff and go straight to expressing......loudly and clearly.....or using my anger as a weapon of self defense, if it seemed like the situation warranted that).
The thing is......once I started to look at anger as just a feeling.......rather than as some enemy or wrong or weakness or handicap of mine, I felt less afraid of it and more able to express it in ways that seem ok.
I wouldn't go so far as to say....anger is your friend, although, at times, it might actually be (such as when others try to abuse you....it can save you from passivity and goad you into acting to seek help or to escape more).
Now I feel like I'm lecturing. All this just got me thinking. It's a good topic. One I think many of us can relate to. I know it was sure a different ball game for me, when I was a child. My anger wasn't allowed....was punished, or beaten into submission. Lucky for me, I joined a martial art at a fairly young age and found great wisdom in my Sensi, learned much that helped me, and was able to unleash a lot of my repressed anger, which was a good thing, and I had some good ways of releasing it to begin with, but my Sensi helped me to tap into .......anger I didn't know was there??? Repressed for years, I guess. Otherwise, I might still be carting it around.
It doesn't feel like that to me.
I can say: "I feel very angry", to someone, without thinking it's wrong, or awful, or dangerous. But more importantly......I am
aware of feeling angry. That's a big thing for me. I think, for years, I just felt.....stuff .....but wasn't really aware of, or paying much attention to....what. Sometimes, I really have to focus on that.....ask myself....."What am I feeling?". Once I figger that out, I am better able to choose what or how to express.
Sela
