Tag: Anger

Come On Ladies. Let it Go!

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forgive-forgiveness-study-chart-depression-psychology-health

Notes:

  • Source and read more at: wsj.com: The Healing Power of Forgiveness
  • Post inspired by: “It’s hard to move on if you don’t forgive,” he said. “It’s like trying to dance with a lead weight on your shoulders. The anger can weigh you down forever.” ~ Diane Chamberlain, Pretending to Dance
  • And inspired by: “I have simplified my life to just three principles, which I try to practice. I cannot say I have mastered them. I attempt. I fall, I falter and I attempt. I call my spiritual rowboat Surrender — complete surrender to the will of the Greater Power. The act of surrendering is so important that Who or What you surrender to becomes insignificant. It is the surrender itself that is important. My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude — gratitude for the gift of life. I get angry, I get mad, but as soon as I remind myself to put my oars into action, I forgive.” ~ Balbir Mathur

 

It’s been a long day

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hair-photography-portrait

Why does my blood rush
into a hell of tumult
at a few words?

~ Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Notes:

I was wondering why so many people had turned out, when suddenly: an electrifying moment.

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forgive

“On a weekday evening in early September, more than 400 people, from their late teens to their early 80s, crowded into a standing-room-only event on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The topic was not politics, film, fashion, celebrity or any other subject that could be expected to draw such a crowd. The topic was forgiveness. Sitting in the audience, I was wondering why so many people had turned out, when suddenly: an electrifying moment.

About halfway through the discussion, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, a speaker and the author of “Jewish Literacy,” asked this question: “In how many of your families, at the level of first cousin or closer, are there people not on speaking terms?”

Two-thirds of the people in the room raised their hands. I, along with everyone else, gasped.

“I know,” he said. “It’s a staggering figure…

~ Bruce Feiler, How to Ask for Forgiveness, in Four Steps 

Notes: Quote – Thank you Susan. Photo – Stefano Corso.

that hot itch of indignation

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olena kassian drawings dressing 1, 36- x 36-

In this era of information overload and PC, authenticity is a beacon which cuts through the din.  Here’s Sandy Wyatt with an excerpt from her wonderful post titled The Hot Itch:

The daze turned to anger before I left the parking lot.  Are we in the Middle Ages, I fumed.  What was next?  Burning at the stake?  Dousing?…I met with my meditation group later in the day and felt righteous satisfaction in their outrage as I told the story.  It’s a hot itch, indignation.  It gets under the skin and festers. So, as we sat together in silence, I took a step back from what I was feeling.  I called up the part of me that observes my thrashing around with gentle curiosity.  What happened? I saw that I’m not as tolerant as I like to believe.  What does it matter anyway?  I tried to look a little deeper. My ego hates to be misunderstood.  It hates to be dismissed or categorized.  And it really hates to be discredited.  I’m proud of how hard I’ve worked to regain some functioning in the world.  Proud. Ah … If I could nudge my ego aside, there might even be A Teaching Moment. Coming home from meditation with my friends, I turned up the music and sang down the highway.  The ego is a stubborn little cuss.  Mine can be paranoid and hysterical if the mood is right.  Anything can offend it, and it defends itself with teeth and claws.  But, like a mediocre poker player, it has a tell—that hot itch of indignation.  When I feel that under my skin, I know it’s time to back up and look again.

I’m glad for that signal, and I’m glad I know what to do with it.

Thanks, Ego-Girl.  Keep raging.

~ Sandy Sue Wyatt, The Hot Itch

Drawing: Olena Kassian

Squirrels. Cardinals. Bumble Bees. And Me.

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CADDYSHACK, Bill Murray, 1980. (c) Warner Bros./ Courtesy: Everett Collection.

It’s difficult to understand how an innocuous  glance out the window could start a cascade of nonsense.  But, it did. And it does.

It’s Tuesday. I’m home on a late evening conference call. I see him through the window in the backyard.  He’s chubby-cheeked, hanging upside down, and clutching the iron cover of the bird feeder.

My call continued. And so did Chubby-Cheeks. The bird feeder is swinging from the pole. He’s shaking the cr*p out of it. And gorging on prime seed intended for goldfinches.  Had I been outside and not two floors up, I would have run the S.O.B. down.

My call continued.  I watched him. And wondered how this creature could manage to raise my ire.  This man, a college educated adult, 210 pounds (and counting)  vs. a foot-long squirrel weighing a pound or two.  There he was. Blissfully feeding. And I’m clenching a pencil between my teeth, tasting graphite on my tongue.

The call ended.  I ran down the stairs and out the door to find that he had vanished. Squirrel 483. DK: O.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning.  I’m heading out the door to walk to the train station.

There he was to my right.  Staring at me from the base of the evergreen tree in the front yard. Beady eyes.  His under carriage dragging on the grass, belly bursting from the bird seed. Continue reading “Squirrels. Cardinals. Bumble Bees. And Me.” →