However we think about it, however we refer to it whether it’s irritation, frustration, impatience, perhaps bitterness or maybe we even experience it as rage sometimes, we’re still talking about the same quality of anger.
We call it anger but really it’s an energy. Until we actually engage with it and start connecting with it, creating a story out of it, it’s really just an energy in the body.
So understanding how to connect with that and recognizing that unexpressed - internally or externally - anger is not a good nor bad, this energy is not a good nor bad. If we know how to work with it, we can even use it to as a way of training the mind and transforming the mind.
Headspace
Transforming Anger, Day One
I’m redoing the Transforming Anger pack in Headspace to solidify some of the concepts and help me continue to survive well here back in town.
The time in Hawai’i was incredible though I came home very tired. The night noises were more than my highly sensitive body could handle and woke up multiple times every night but one. So I’m back where it’s quieter but less good energy and more stress. #tradeoffs
I have a lot to think about and process after our journey across the ocean to visit Jay’s bio mom and husband. It was one of the most unique trips I’ve ever taken. It will be something I remember for my lifetime. I’m looking forward to sharing highlights w/ the girls and just taking it all into my soul and hopefully making something beautiful out of it for myself and for others.
Emily is a beautiful soul and a spiritual person. She’s well-read and has thought deeply about spiritual topics and concepts. She shared some thoughts about that while driving to the airport yesterday morning, specifically about creation stories. We talked about that, that Jay wasn’t an accident and that things have a meaning and purpose. She talked about family and Jung and all that in a fifteen minute drive to catch our plane.
I’d like to spend like a few dozens days talking about all we’ve all learned during our transitions from a purely Judeo-Christian posture to one that’s more expansive while keeping the roots of what’s best about that tradition. I wanted to tell her how freeing it was to realize the Genesis story of Creation was to anchor a new way of a God approaching humanity, one full of compassion, love and inclusion. This story was to create a new narrative that talked about God and humans being in relationship as opposed to the angry gods that were present in the creation stories at that time. Instead, what we inherited were weak, literal and dualistic stories about gender and how women are evil because they gave the man the apple, how God had to throw people out because they made one mistake, etc. Such a loss but such a gain for me now.
Thinking to the meditation today, I wonder what my story of anger will be. What can I make out of all this pain that’s come my way, to where I am today? I’ve never thought about making a story out of my anger, but that’d be quite a redemption for me.
So on I go, back to the grind and getting things back in place.
A friend was recently admitted to the psych ward as our other friend no longer knows what to do w/ her. She’s in a deep panic much of the time and now is hallucinating. Sounds like my mom and also my dad. More common than people realize.
That trip will be something I remember and think about for a very long time.
Jay and I have both had orphan stories on many levels. I’m glad he’s gaining some perspective in these later years and connecting w/ the families he never knew.
If he had not been adopted, I never would have known him. I can see now after all we’ve been through, we were meant to be together and our struggles have made us stronger.
In some ways, seeing the brilliance of both of his parents is intimidating. It makes me feel somewhat inadequate at times in my place in life and my use of skills. It’s time to keep moving forward and reengage the brain. It’s not a great time to start feeling needy. I just need to get busy.
I’m glad I’ve had these three years to recover and go through a true dark night of the soul. I hope I have recovered to where I can withstand the rigors of new endeavors.
If I am concerned about my marriage, just being healthy and sexual are probably my best tools at this juncture.
*****
Group tonight was amazing and normal, both. We shared where we are on our journeys with coming and going in and out of what we did believe and now, what has changed.
We talked about salvation and what it is and isn’t. We talked about what it feels like to leave friendships and have the blowback be beyond what you imagined. We listened to each other’s stories and shared and moved things a little more somehow toward the kingdom of heaven and what I think it all means.
It’s everything.
*****
I’m having flares come and go and don’t really understand it much at all.
I’m hoping to do a TalkSpace story for the month of May about my own mental health journey. You list things you do to stay mentally healthy and that’s a good challenge for me right now, to synthesize what I’ve been changing and what’s different.
The main gist of what it boils down to is to primary categories: Structure and Beauty.
I’m more disciplined and I force myself to do things regardless. I have more routines and habits that I don’t question. I just do them. PTSD makes you want to not do anything you don’t want to do. I overrule that now. Beauty means I take walks and have good smelling soap around and smell flowers and take care of myself. It means I’m soft and enjoy myself and life and don’t feel things all have to be hard and tough and exhausting. I enjoy small things every single day. I’m not trying to crush one big giant goal.
It was interesting to see that come together as I thought through it.
I know that today, I spent the day unpacking and cleaning and being focused on self-care and life-care. My suitcase is empty and stored away, a record for me after a long trip. It often takes me weeks to fully unpack. Weeks. That is the beauty of health.
We’ll see!