Sacred Life Sunday: Anger is a part of life, too

I've mentioned here before that I have a horrible temper. It's not cute. It's not funny. It is a character flaw.

I know that. It's a rather revolting character flaw and I don't like it at all. When I get really angry, it's hard to identify colors. It's a seething, rocket-propelled instant trip to somewhere I'd rather never go again. Typically, it's called a "hair trigger temper". I get over it as quickly as it comes on but I'm like a raging bull for 15-30 seconds. Then I'm spent. The only good thing is that others rarely see it so I don't have to spend the rest of my life on my knees, apologizing. I have enough consciousness to leave a situation before it gets to that point.

It's a dangerous place to go. In my case, given other health problems, it could send me straight into a stroke.

For the past three weeks or so, I've been angry at someone and didn't tell her about it. I kept thinking it would resolve itself.

She contacted me this morning and I went ballistic.

Here's the issue: She was unreliable. She told me she was going to do something, didn't do it and didn't even acknowledge that she'd left me in a lurch. The circumstances are irrelevant. Let's just say that I showed up and she didn't. Then she came along a few days later, made a commitment to do something and never followed through.

Then she merrily traipsed into my world this morning, ringing my cell phone at an ungodly hour and started sweet-talking about something totally unrelated, as though none of it ever happened. She wanted me to do something.

Ugh. Argh! I was so pissed off, I saw spots. Unfortunately, I said some things that shouldn't have been said and were decidedly un-Buddhist. I snapped the phone shut.

That seems to be one of my greatest triggers. I do take responsibility seriously and I value my word. I might be late. I might screw it up - but if I say I'm going to do something, it happens. If some cataclysmic event occurs and I can't follow through, I apologize. And I mean it!

I also am very forgiving, as long as someone acknowledges that they did make a commitment and didn't keep it.

That's not really the issue though. In the larger sense, I've come to the conclusion that anger is a part of living. We all get pissed off. I don't believe anyone who says they never experience anger. Such a person is either dead or numbed out on some chemical. We all get mad.

The point is being able to use the anger to build bridges, not burn them.

I burned one this morning. And there's no repairing it. The damage is too extensive.

So.. this could be an interesting discussion. How do you use anger to create a bridge, rather than burning it?

I have a lot to learn there. Obviously.

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Hot flashes of red and yellow....

Last night, I got furious with someone.

Knock down, drag-out, clouds parting.. rage.

It doesn't matter why or to whom. It only matters that apparently there is still a store of rage within me and whenever it gets tapped, I have physical and emotional consequences. That kind of rage releases all sorts of toxins into our bodies.

It was ugly. I was ugly. I was a foul-mouthed shrew and can't even remember now the majority of what I said.

The person with whom I got so angry was asked for forgiveness and gave it.

The point is that today I have no energy. I've been entertaining myself on Yahoo Answers, mindlessly answering one right after the other, anything to distract myself from the ugliness I manifested, knowing that it came from the bowels of my being. I'm not a kid anymore and these are the kinds of things that bring about heart attacks and strokes. At one point, I could only see white spots, black and white. I thought I was a goner. I couldn't catch my breath.

I thought I'd evolved beyond this, that no one and nothing could possibly bring it out again.

And today I am spent. There's nothing left. Just the remnants. Inside of me is a war zone.. broken pieces scattered around on the landscape of who I thought I had become.
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What's causing the rage?

This morning I sat with a cup of tea and watched CNN for a while.

A man in Wisconsin, a 20-year-old Sheriff's deputy, apparently went over to his former girlfriend's house and blew away 6 people.

This kind of thing seems inexplicable.

And it's also increasing in frequency. According to various reports, violent crime has increased all over the world.

Most of us have probably felt rage. I can't imagine anyone living in this world and not feeling it on occasion. I have a temper and it is something I continually work on, knowing the reasons so that I can avoid being triggered and learning more effective ways to deal with anger. These days when I get that angry, I take a walk. A long walk. A fast walk. The physical activity clears my head.

The only real "rage" I can recall was probably 20 years ago or more. It was red hot and firey. I couldn't see color. I thought my head would explode.

But then it was over. It came and went in a matter of seconds. I can only recall one event where homicide seemed like a viable option and that wasn't based on rage. It was based on fear. It's a long and ugly story and not one intended for blogs. Suffice it to say I was being stalked and the person staling me was psychotic. There didn't seem to be another way out. Yet obviously there was an alternative .. and I took it. I left the situation and moved 2000 miles away.

It's curious to me where the line gets crossed, when someone no longer sees any other solution to a problem than to kill.

I have my theories as to why there is more rage now than in times past. One day I will write about that.

I'd be curious to hear yours though. Why do you think there is so much rage now?
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