Tag: anger management

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Freedom To Be Angry

He is soooo bad at planning! So irresponsible! What was he thinking?! ARRRRGGGGHHH!

These thoughts were running through my mind two days ago when I went to pick up my son from his dorm check-out ending his second year in college.

Dorm check-out is when yellow-vested staff come through with a clip board and examine the empty, clean dorm room for damage, and to make sure every lamp and piece of furniture is intact.

Notice the words “empty” and “clean”.

His check-out appointment was set for 1:45 pm. I arrived at 1:25 after a 90 minute drive knowing it would take about 20 minutes to load his all his things in the little pick-up truck I had borrowed.

Opening the door of his room, I saw my son, I saw the bed piled with his rumpled bedding…..

….I gasped.

I saw a completely lived-in NOT packed room. Not one thing packed for moving out.

All the clothes in his closet on hangers, the dresser still full, his bookshelves piled high, his desk covered with books and study materials, the mini-fridge containing food, the wall still covered with posters, the cupboard full of kitchen items, his stereo and speaker system still hooked up for music.

Not. One. Thing. Packed.

Stunned, I went into high gear problem-solving mode. After saying with shock in my voice “you didn’t pack yet? I thought we talked about that you would have everything in boxes last night!!!”

I left out the *you moron* part at the end.

As I started stuffing pillow cases and his laundry basket full of his things, I said firmly to my son to go find some boxes and get his bicycle into the truck.

I could feel the pump of anger coursing through. I had an important meeting I planned on attending back home in 3 hours and very determined to be there on time (ha ha fat chance).

As I dashed back and forth between room and truck parked in loading zone outside I noticed other parents, and their sons and daughters.

Those parents look happy! Their kids didn’t do this. Those other kids were packed. They are enjoying this end-of-year moving out moment.

When things like this happen, it can be both infuriating and discouraging.

You are enraged at someone you absolutely adore.

And on top of it all, you might think you shouldn’t be so angry, you should relax a little, right?

This is an interesting place for inquiry.

I need to stop being angry, I really should. Nothing can be done anyway. 

Is that true?

Long ago when I was really into my first two years of doing The Work I was doing what felt like the same worksheet over and over again on a man. Don’t get me started!

I asked Byron Katie how to get over it. “I’m still so angry!” I told her.

She said “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are!”

Oh! It’s normal to feel anger? Oh!

Anger rises, in this human being. Nothing wrong with it, it is part of reality.

The way I react when I think I should NOT be angry, when I am, feels like an inner ongoing battle.

Hold it in, don’t express.

But who would you be without that thought that this energy called anger is unacceptable?

Feeling it, freely.

Noticing I don’t start calling anyone names, I’m not killing anyone, I don’t need to overeat or drink or smoke (these don’t even occur to me in fact). I’m simply on fire and watching fears and inconveniences and reality collide within.

And below it, the whole entire time, seeing everything is absolutely wonderfully OK….even amusing.

In the truck, later, I say to my son “this will be really funny story later on.”

He leans his head on my shoulder and says “sorry mom, I won’t ever do that again.”

I turn the thought around: I don’t need to stop being angry, and I shouldn’t (until I am). Anything can be done (it’s not hopeless).

Some time between the discovery of the unpacked room and an hour and a half later driving away with a fully packed truck, the anger dissolved.

The energy had been used perfectly for moving fast, furiously, lifting, carrying, jogging down the hall, in and out, holding doors, piling boxes.

Feeling how strong I am.

“I’ve found that the truth of who we are can and does use all the emotions. Anger is an energy that can be used in a wise way. Mostly we experience anger out of divisiveness, a battle between two opposing forces. But one can experience anger that comes from wholeness rather than division. Once you’ve experienced it, you know the difference. We don’t need that energy very often, but when it’s needed, it will come.” ~ Adyashanti

Resting in whatever is happening, now, and noticing how amazing it all is, even in the middle of hot frustration, is so exciting.

And it’s the truth of who you are. Noticing all is well, no matter what.

Even if you got all pissed off about something.

Halleluia.

Much love, Grace

 

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Are You Trying To Handle The Master Carpenter’s Tools?

I have had many questions recently about how the teleclasses work and what it’s like to participate logistically. Like, “do I need my computer and do I need to watch something online?!”

The good news: all you need is a telephone. Any kind of phone will do. I haven’t gotten fancy yet with webinars or slides or something actually online…although that’s probably coming. But this option is quite simple. You dial in to a regular 9-digit US phone number and then enter a code, and we’re all on the phone together!

Many people like to use Skype as it is then free from their foreign location. This DOES require a computer and the use of the free software by Skype. I am amazed at all the wonderful people calling from Australia, Japan, Germany, Spain, Peru, Mexico. Truly incredible!

And speaking of technology….MY HARD DRIVE CRASHED! ARRRRGGGGH!

What was that? Did you say I might want to do The Work on this situation?

Oh, now that you mention it…I DID notice a moment of exploding thoughts about gizmos and gadgets and hard drives not working. I WOULD call that stressful, yes.

In my Friday Horrible Food Wonderful Food teleclass, the effort to establish the group forum initially didn’t work either. Arrrgghh again.

These moments are so fascinating for watching the mind that wants control, or believes it HAS control, or believes it NEEDS control.

It has such a hissy fit. It should be going THAT way, not THIS way.

This is the landing place of angst, frustration, resentment, suffering. I want it to look like that, I think it should look like that, I need it to look like that…in order to be happy.

I will NOT be happy until it looks the way I think it should look.

  • my hard drive shouldn’t break
  • all data needs to be retrieved
  • this program should work
  • this shouldn’t take so long
  • I should understand this. Yesterday.
  • whose fault is this? Attack them now.

With computers and technology, I find the frustration is so minor, my mind brushes it off as inconsequential. Unimportant, not necessary for investigation. I quickly find that the data I thought I needed is not needed at all.

However, this is absolutely fantastic training ground for awareness of the thought process, since there is not so much invested, according to my mind. The feelings are not very strong, so I can see how the mind works when it’s incredibly self-oriented and all about ME.

Busy finding fault with those people out there who are doing it wrong. Those hard-drive builders, that data-retrieval company, my teenager who dropped the thing in the first place, the people at google or apple who are updating everything so freakin’ fast I can’t keep up.

This mind will do the same thing on seemingly much bigger issues, the ones I care about a lot more.

Like…my body should be like THAT, not like THIS. My girlfriend should be like THAT, not like THIS. My job should be like THAT, not like THIS. The political scene, the corporations, money, traffic, my child, my mother, my father, time, energy, my health, my job, my living situation, that other country, the government, chocolate, the weather.

One of my favorite things Byron Katie says is “who needs God, when we have your opinion?” 

But. I can’t be mistaken, could I? That would be alarming. Confusing. Weird. I mean, wouldn’t I lose all my volition, my energy, my push, my drive? If I am not 100% RIGHT then what will I do? I won’t know what to say, think, feel, dream!

I won’t be able to come up with my PLAN for this situation and how it should be handled and managed. I’ll be too passive!

[We interrupt this Grace Notes post to let you know that right in the middle of writing it, half of it suddenly disappeared from the screen with a message about unusual technical difficulty right here in this moment].

I am now laughing!

What are the advantages of having things vanish, break, disappear, get lost, become unretrievable?

I notice that suffering occurs, on some level, every time I think things should be different than they actually are. I also have believed that if I accept WHAT IS, then I myself will become nothing, mean nothing, and not matter. And nothing will ever change (and it needs to, remember?)

What are the advantages for losing my work, losing my hard drive, losing my memory, my former husband, my childhood, my family the way it once was? What are the advantages for losing my health, my youth, my job, my house, my money, my hard drive?

I am here, now, in the present. I notice there is now, and a new thing to think of or do. I notice I don’t need all my recordings on that hard drive, I don’t need the wedding pictures (there are plenty more from other people), I don’t need it to run my classes, I get to buy a new laptop that is new instead of very old.

I notice everything is moving and changing. Nothing is stagnant.

“Our life’s work is to use what we have been given to wake up. If there were two people who were exactly the same—same body, same speech, same mind, same mother, same father, same house, same food, everything the same—one of them could use what he has to wake up and the other could use it to become more resentful, bitter, and sour. It doesn’t matter what you’re given, whether it’s physical deformity or enormous wealth or poverty, beauty or ugliness, mental stability or mental instability, life in the middle of a madhouse or life it he middle of a peaceful, silent desert. Whatever you’re given can wake you up or put you to sleep.”~Pema Chodron

For me, I am nodding off when I start in on those people, that technology, or this situation that is BAD and needs to be FIXED.

There she goes, falling asleep into the irritable, intolerant, anxious, sad, all-about-me mind!

I remember, at some point, to question my thinking.

Because I find over and over again that without making war on a situation, amazingly, it seems that it’s actually MORE likely to change.

Well, it usually does anyway, whether I’m trying to get it to change or not.

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren’t afraid of dying, there is nothing you can’t achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place. When you handle the master carpenter’s tools, chances are that you’ll cut your hand.”~ Tao Te Ching #74

I used to cut my hands over and over again. They were a bloody mess. OUCH. Just so unhappy and so full of thoughts about my predicament being terrible. Life seemed sooooo hard.

But with The Work, letting go of the outcome, turning my thinking around to the opposite, finding advantages for my present situation….my hands only appear to have little nicks and scratches on them.

And today, with this technology “break down” thing, I notice my “hands” are pain-free. In fact, they look pretty lovely. They look fascinating! Who made these hands? What made these hands? Who or what do they belong to?! Freakin’ Incredible!

Love, Grace