Many of us have a person in our lives who we repeatedly notice brings up stress for us, maybe even every single time we are in their presence. It may be someone you once knew in the past but don’t interact with anymore. But just THINKING about them makes you mad, scared, or sad.
“That jerk! That *&%^$@! I can’t believe they….! I will NEVER speak to that person again! That was the biggest mistake I ever made!”
The mind races. Full of memories, thoughts, ideas, images of that mean, nasty person who was so full of BS or such a rotten, selfish jerk. Or worse.
After I had been doing the Work for a few years, I encountered a person in my life (OK, there may have been several) who brought up unhappiness inside myself constantly. Frustration, anger. It seemed like every time I talked with them, I felt irritation or fear.
“That person makes me so mad!”
When I was believing this thought, I noticed that my body felt very tense, fists clenched, it felt like hot steam was coming out of both ears like a cartoon character. I wanted to RUN AWAY before I hit something! Boiling mad!
Simply slowing down, and not getting scared because I’m angry or scared, is the first step I found towards freedom. This work of inquiry can be about taking the most tiny baby steps towards questioning what I believe. Like even just questioning the thought that the person I’m thinking of MAKES ME MAD.
Is it true? YES! I wasn’t mad a second ago when I wasn’t thinking about them! Now I’m really mad because I AM thinking about them. Jeez!!
But can I absolutely know that it’s true that THEY are making me mad? I mean….there they are being themselves, saying what they say, acting like THAT….and who is reacting with anger? Could there be another way of responding? Am I sure it’s that person’s fault that I am feeling mad?
Who would I be without the thought that they are making me angry? That what they are doing MAKES anger rise inside me? That what they are saying creates this energy of anger in my torso and my fists?
Well. Without that thought, I am curious about where this anger comes from, or what it is. I don’t attack that person so fast, as the responsible party for this uncomfortable feeling of anger or hatred. I don’t want to run away so fast. Getting away doesn’t matter so much.
Gosh. Could it be that this anger came from somewhere OTHER than that person? I look. This takes slowing way down. It’s like taking a 3-D snapshot of this moment right after that person does what they do that “created” anger inside me. I look at this moment carefully. I see my own face. I am feeling confused. I am feeling scared, maybe even terrified. I am feeling hurt.
I am thinking that I know what it means when this person does that…and it’s not good. It means they are tricking me, taking advantage of me, hurting me, not caring about me, not understanding me. It means they can threaten my happiness or peace. It’s dangerous to be in their presence. So here comes ANGER to help out, to offer protection.
If I turn around the thought to “I am making myself angry” I see the truth of this. They are simply being themselves, having their own responses. Being human. They are not handing me a ball of anger. They do not have a magic wand and zapping me “be filled with anger NOW!”
Anger is not streaming like water or light FROM them INTO me. They are not forcing me to be angry, they are not MAKING me become angry. Even if they were holding me down and sitting on me and being violent, I cannot take their anger like a vaccuum cleaner sucks up dirt. The anger has to start from somewhere inside of ME.
So where is this anger actually produced? It’s an energy that follows my thinking. I think they can hurt me, I believe it’s really true, that I could be rejected, taken advantage of, mistreated. When I believe that this is possible, my mind produces the energy force field of anger.
What if it wasn’t possible to think that this person was a threat?
I could replay the 3-D movie again, with so much more curiosity. Frame by frame, I could see where it was in that split second that I thought I was in danger. The exact second that I didn’t believe love was present, that things could be OK no matter what.
Loving what is for me starts with slowing down every moment of any stressful experience to study it, like a scientist. Where do I believe, in this moment, that this is not a friendly universe? What do I really think is true?
“This need to control the flow of life because you somehow feel your well-being or survival is at stake is universal to the ordinary human condition. Generally experienced as tension in the gut, often in the solar plexus or the lower abdomen, it’s the glue that holds together the thoughts, feelings, images, and memories that make up the illusory self.”~ Stephen Bodian
When I am separate from you, and when I believe I MUST be separate from you because you MAKE me mad, I enhance the separation. I live with anger and fear. I see these feelings as necessary for protecting my separate self, for being safe.
Who would you be without that thought that you were in danger, something about you was in danger, when that person did what they did?
What if that moment was perfectly safe, when they did that horrible thing, said those terrible words, ripped you off, ignored you, stole your money?
Can you find anything that could be safe about that moment? Even the tiniest example?
Look at the scene again where that person made you so angry. Look at it and now, tell yourself a new story that this went just the way it did and it was OK. Reality was running itself, all headed towards a loving outcome. Everything becoming balanced, everything offering beauty, gentleness, peace. Love present in any and every moment, even that one.
Slowing that moment down to as slow motion as possible, see what is there. It may change your entire experience of the same person in the future. You may not experience any anger again when you think about them at all. There they will be, doing what they do, and not “making” you mad.
Who are you, in that moment, when you drop the thoughts that you are threatened?
Open. Unknowing. Expansive, curious, waiting….trusting. Awake!
“It takes no time to be who you are”~ A Course In Miracles