Category Archives: anger

07.16.22
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Muting the trigger

A Facebook post by my friend, Tami, woke me up this morning. She is “healing” from back to back years of family deaths including her husband who was her soul mate, her love and Half of Her. Over the last few years she has included her authentic healing thoughts and fears and anger through her blogs and to and with her friends. This morning she posted the song, Dirt Road Anthem by Jason Aldean. It wasn’t a song I knew even though I think it is a decade old. But to make a long story shorter, I YouTubed it and these two lines stuck out to me:

“Memory Lane up in the headlights. It got me reminiscing on the good times”

I have meaningful loving experiences on a day to day basis. Often when I take a memory photo of my experiences, I feel like I am one of the luckiest people I know in spite of the hardships and the mental fears of the future that I continually give energy to as I go into battle with them. But I often look back at my younger years…say my early 20’s or 40’s and have wistful longings for the good ole days.

…..and I know I’m not the only person who lives a good bit of life in my memories….including the hateful ones I have not yet healed from. Tami’s post hit a trigger nerve and brought clear realization that I love to think about those good times but when I have a negative memory pop in, I often immediately go to anger and hatefulness and then realize I’m doing it again and Force myself to STOP thinking about it…but, maybe the answer is to just sit with the emotion for a few moments. (Not the story but how it made me feel). Perhaps then I can mute the trigger.

The good memories…let them come, I love to smile and laugh and remember those who made me feel love and joy!

Namaste

01.08.22
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Just because I’m breathing…

does not mean it is mine to do.

From an early age (childhood) I learned that I had responsibilities. Not for just cleaning out the dishwasher but to rinse the dirty dishes, load the dishwasher “correctly”, run the dishwasher, empty it and begin again. This duty was not totally my responsibility but a metaphor for my childhood. From an early age, I felt responsible for my mother’s happiness and if pledge and dusting the living room furniture every other day was what kept her mental health intact then that’s what I needed to do.

Fast forward 6 decades. I’m very responsible. I do what needs to be done. I people please. I consider myself an empath and wear other peoples moods and emotions under my own clothes. This is a curse or a gift depending on how I experience it in my life.

A coffee date with a couple of girlfriends (who are like my Siri navigation giving me options of which route to take) reminded me that I need to set boundaries. I need to listen within to navigate what is mine to do. What brings me joy and contentment? What causes me to want to run fast toward or away from experiences….and the best advice….to seek answers from my inner guides before I close my eyes to sleep. So many life decisions are made as we slumber, when the ego is asleep and the deep inner soul has peace and quiet to figure it out.

What is mine to do?

Namaste

01.05.22
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Playing with building blocks

Recognizing the emotion. I remember myself and my history as having 3 recognizable emotions and I knew what to do with them…Sob/cry, let it all out laugh, and that feeling in my forehead of rage which I would not normally let out. Everything else (the initial build up) just felt like discomfort…and most of the time I was able to distract myself from that feeling by eating…yes eating….that always felt good….

It wasn’t until I learned and started applying “new thought” “Unity” principles to change the way I think that I began to notice the uneasiness that normally preceded one of the described emotions. The little tickle of laughter as I began to smile was easy because I could belt out a loud laugh that could be heard round the world (it used to embarrass me because it was loud). Second came recognizing the irritation and anger….that was also easy because I carried it around so often and for so long before it burst….but the uneasiness that would make me cry…that was different.

The uneasiness of violence (perhaps because of my mother and the yardstick), witnessing sadness in my beloveds and the world, witnessing murder and death of animals (this is actually the most difficult for me). This uneasiness I felt this morning watching the geese on the frozen pond and thinking…just stop….it’s time to go where it’s warmer…why won’t you go?

It brought that feeling of fear, uncertainty, grief, this doesn’t feel right to my heart. I snapped this picture, stepped back and was grateful that I was actually able to identify the feeling/emotion so that I could stand with it a moment and release it rather than letting it be the first block in the tower of emotional blocks that could/would stack up in my day until I burst free with sobbing, laughing or screaming about something that had nothing to do with anything!

If you are doing the work…working through habits and emotions…you are not alone….sometimes feelings hurt but ignoring them does not make them go away. Eventually they burst forward!

Namaste

12.19.20
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What is the Question?

I think the real question we need to ask each other and ask ourselves is this…..wherever we are in chronological age, do we have the same moral compass, the same opinions about other humans, race, sex, love and war that we did even a decade ago. How often and what exactly is the process for changing our opinions?

Without rules or an agenda today, my mind entertained me with questions and “answer” periods which seemed more like flashes of understanding. While I don’t really apologize for opinions I have honored through the decades of my life….they are illusions, anyway….thoughts and illusions of how I saw things based on how I showed up in each moment. These thoughts and illusions have changed often and each new declaration of opinion has been a barometer of my life…often liberating and somewhat painful.

I’m not really sure where to go with this thought process right now. I wonder if the answer is looking deep within ourselves individually and as a society in order to uncover what has made us angry, intolerant and hateful. When did we forsake humanity for selfishness and fear of “the other guy”? When did it happen in our personal timeline….when did fear become the prevailing emotion? Where, when and how does it stop?

I’ll think about that between the crunching!

Until next time….

11.25.20
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A cream cheese frosting trigger

I write this with a sticky thumb from the sticky knife I’m using to eat from an old cream cheese frosting container as I goop it on saltine crackers. It all started last night and I knew it was going to be a serious one because I don’t eat sugar…so not only did I know that it was going to be unhealthy, mess with my blood sugar and cause sickening sugar heartburn, I gave in. I was actually rather irritated that I couldn’t use the graham crackers in the cupboard that I bought for a graham cracker crust for Thanksgiving day dessert…..because you see frosting and graham crackers have always been a go-to for triggers. So the story I told myself to make it better was…see…..I do have SOME discipline!

I am learning that triggers are reactions to discomfort within. Something or someone irritates me, or causes me to feel discomfort (sad, envious, hurt) down there in my heart or in my head and I react with either bitterness or hatefulness, profanity or a number of articulate sentences meant to hurt the person who hurt me….and thus “it” (which I believe is instant karma) begins.

I respond…it hits a wall….the response exacerbates already tender emotions and I respond …. and as the volley is returned, it brings with it the memory of another “something” I reacted to which moves even deeper into my body damaging and disrupting everything in its path until, there just doesn’t seem to be any choice left other than removing the lid from a brand new container of cream cheese frosting….

Now that’s not exactly how it worked last night…last night I felt lonely, I felt frustrated because of the pandemic, I felt very sad that I will not be with my loves on Thursday and I felt intense anger that there are people out there too damn selfish to put on a mask to save someone else life.

But here we are…..

10.20.20
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I went a little bat shit crazy, Dear Diary,

on the phone this morning…..This is really the first time I can remember that I’ve lost control with a business on the phone. But I know it happens after 30 years as a 911 dispatcher.

This business was in charge of sending me medical supplies in June…I received them in August because they were shipped to a different person in a different city who happened to be different gender. A couple phone calls to their business office, I learned that I was wrong because their records showed that the supplies had been sent and received by me because their computer said so. I finally was able to make my case with someone with “service skills”.

But the story does not end there. They send me a bill but had not filed with my insurance….said they had…but my insurance company said nope, no they haven’t. 2 phone calls and 3 emails later, I gave up because their business office told me I was wrong because the computer said so. Ok. Whatever. I didn’t feel this was my problem anymore. I had my supplies, they didn’t have the money and I had kept documentation of correspondence.

Until the phone rang at 8am this OCTOBER morning from the company telling me they were having trouble filing my insurance because they had the wrong information for me.

My kind and professional demeanor moved to the back seat as I let loose unloading on “Tara” what I thought of the company, their lack of public service and my frustration level which seemed like she could probably figure out depending on what her computer told her. The anger just flowed very smoothly from my mouth to her ear and you know what…I felt better. I’m sure “Tara”, NOT wearing HER public service voice, did not go to work armed for rampage this morning. I remember how it felt to start my morning with a yeller, but my guilt is only about a 2 on a 10 scale. And so, I leave the frustration right here, right now, Dear Diary. I don’t need to carry it with me…

The end

09.27.20
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Embracing Uncertainty #susanjeffers

I’m learning to opt out of participating in human drama whether it be in my own head or participating with all of my senses with everyone else here on earth. This has actually brought me some peace of mind during the pandemic as I have removed myself from politics. I read the headlines in order keep up on what is going on in the country? What I am finding is when I actually “click” on the occasional news story nothing has changed from the last time I clicked. There is only fear-generating expressions of opinions!

Each fall, members of Unity Village Chapel read the same book….individually, then many of us join together in small groups to discuss the book. This one, Embracing Uncertainty Chapter 3, had me overwhelmed with insight. Thus the cut and paste project I worked on last night. It was a very effective way to concentrate on energetic phrases from the chapter to cement them on my heart and in my soul.

“Expectations create attachments…a hope something turns out a certain way”

Often we are unable to let go of our expectation….

“Expectations carry disappointments rigidity, anger, impatience and obsession”

“The moment expectations appear in the form of hope, desire or a wish, close your eyes, take out the imaginary scissors to cut the cord of expectation. Release it like a balloon drifting away from you.”

Namaste

09.26.20
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Healing the mind in conversation

Our Spirit Group facilitator, Mary, helped me through an emotionally challenging, teary discussion by having me switch to referring to myself in the 3rd person rather than as I. Using this process (while cumbersome at first) really works in taking the sting out of words. Later on, during a counseling session, a therapist used the same method with He and I which made honest conversation easier to acknowledge.

Here’s an excerpt from an article I found from Psychology Today:

“When using third person or “non-first-person” pronouns during self-talk, you do not use pronouns such as I, me, or my. Instead, you speak to yourself (either in a hushed tone or silently inside your own head) using pronouns such as you, he, she, it, or your own first or last name. In recent years, a wide range of studies has found that third-person self-talk can improve emotion regulation and self-control by facilitating self-distancing and reducing egocentric bias”

Years ago while learning to cope with and live with my relationship with my mother, I began to refer to her in conversations by her given name. While I absolutely did not have the gonads to call her Helen to her face, I recall the feelings of less lethal emotions when I gave myself permission to not refer to her with the beloved name of Mom. Of course, mom wasn’t actually the name she preferred…it was Mother. It’s highly likely that Mother is a loving name spoken from children to their beloved. But in my case it was a “formal” expectation which was another knife wound that separated mother and daughter.

In a FB conversation with a friend this morning, I referred to mom as Helen….and that’s what brought this whole train of thought coursing through my brain like a slow meandering stream. Use it if it feels good. We all have uncomfortably charged conversations

Until next time….

08.22.20
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I highly recommend crying your eyes out

I was recently on the receiving end of tears…I wasn’t really sure why I was crying but I knew I was triggered because something needed to be healed. I started writing things down and found myself here..at the blog space. There are sadness tears that fall, say, funeral tears or just extreme loss and sadness tears.  Those tears don’t seem to need anyone to “control” them. I just need to hold a space for them until they dry up.

There are anger tears. Anger tears seem to have a purpose for me. I think of them more as rage tears. Rage Tears deserve their honor in a place of respect, cleansing and healing. I welcome rage tears because they protect me from myself…its really hard to keep a volatile situation volatile when one person is crying and not contributing to the dark energy.

Sometimes there are those incredible laughter tears…for me, those are usually accompanied by the inability to breath and sore stomach muscles because it is just that funny.

And there are love tears…empathy tears, I have such deep feeling tears.  Those tears may start and end abruptly or they may lead to a softening which often leads me to music and a feeling of gratitude.

The embarrassment of crying in front of someone has it’s home in your ego…your small self…the fear that you will appear weak, emotional, any of the society’s stereotypical label. Crying is not a girl thing, women’s work, unstable, not masculine…crying means you are strong. Not feeling embarrassment about tears means you are a warrior! I am strong and I am sensitive and I know how to love!

Namaste

01.06.20
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Kindness

I grew up with a “hurt” mother…she spent 53 years mentally hurting me. After several therapy sessions and a lifetime of turmoil and guilt about how I felt about my mother, someone told me that hurt people hurt others. 4 little words that gave me profound understanding. I worked 30 years as a 911 dispatcher…it’s ironic that the skills I learned to deal with my mother aided me in being a compassionate and caring dispatcher. MOST OF THE TIME. It also fed my cynical nature that people are just shit! Seriously! In spite of frequent verbal abuse, I learned how to take it and be firm but also kind.

These experiences taught me from childhood to retirement that people treat you better when you are kind. Better being an operative word. There are a lot of angry and “hurt” people out there. Many would not define themselves as hurt…they are just tired of perceived shit. So they are angry at everyone else and I’m sure many of them haven’t the slightest idea that they need to go into themselves and find out where it all comes from…all of the pain, years of being slighted, years of never being good enough, perhaps years of physical or mental abuse.

I have found that when I am around “hurt” people, it does no good to repay anger with anger. It is much easier to just remove myself physically and mentally and be kind. I used to think just being kind when being treated badly just caused me to be a doormat for others to wipe their feet on. I realize that is only the case if I get caught up in the mistreatment and allow it to continue. If I walk away AND release the negative emotion I’m feeling, I will not become an angry and cynical being. We can always be kind.

Until next time….