Fighting fire with a bigger flame
I think I've probably looked for more ways to justify my anger and meanness this weekend than I have in a very long time. I'm starting to believe that there's a "bi-polar" extreme to my niceness and anger. When I'm good to people, I am REALLY good to them. They can get pretty much anything that I have to offer with little to no hesitation on my part. When I am angry with someone, however, they would fight hard to have space to breathe in my presence. It's been bothering me that I can be so angry with a person that I couldn't care less about their well-being. It worries me that I can get so angry with a person that I would want to hurt them any way I possibly could.
I don't know that I do EVERYTHING I can to avoid becoming angry in reaction to what someone does that could offend me. I know that I make choices to overlook and forgive people and exercise understanding about why people do the things that they do. And the distance between the point of occurence to the point of anger has gotten to be much longer as I've gotten older. What bothers me is that the distance from the point of anger to the point of forgiveness is just as long. I guess by definition I can be considered as a grudge holder. When someone offends me and/or my value system, I hold on to the offense much longer than I know I need to. I try to use my theoretical knowledge of forgiveness and compassion during the moments when I'm not as angry but those ideas don't stick. I choose to stay angry. I make a conscious choice to remain connected to the person and the offense. This is part of the reason I do not like to get too close to my anger point. The other reason is that I become extremely emotional and can act irrationally and violently if I'm just that angry.
I've gotten much better than I was 10 years ago but I feel like I'm regressing. I feel like I don't have the grip on anger that I need to have in order to manage the energy effectively. In sober moments, I realize that I could have used the anger energy much more productively than I chose to at the time when I lashed out. But then lashing out make me feel good. I don't feel great acknowledging that out loud but right now *shrugs* that's a part of my personality that is in need of reconciliation. I feel like if I could stretch the distance between the point that I realize I'm angry and the point when I feel motivated to act, I could use the anger energy to be creative instead of destructive. You can't bring back something that's been destroyed to oblivion. And if I'm not careful, that's what I allow my anger to do.
I guess I'm going back to the drawing board with this one. It's not like I don't know what I need to do. I just don't know how to do it right now. I shouldn't be happy hurting people who hurt me. I don't want that to be the ultimate reaction to someone who's obviously in more pain than I can imagine since they decided to inflict their pain onto me. Right now, I choose to fight fire with a much bigger flame. I'm sure that there are and will continue to be times when this is necessary and effective. But I'd like to be able to exercise the option of fighting fire with water more often and being able to make a choice to do so.
I don't know that I do EVERYTHING I can to avoid becoming angry in reaction to what someone does that could offend me. I know that I make choices to overlook and forgive people and exercise understanding about why people do the things that they do. And the distance between the point of occurence to the point of anger has gotten to be much longer as I've gotten older. What bothers me is that the distance from the point of anger to the point of forgiveness is just as long. I guess by definition I can be considered as a grudge holder. When someone offends me and/or my value system, I hold on to the offense much longer than I know I need to. I try to use my theoretical knowledge of forgiveness and compassion during the moments when I'm not as angry but those ideas don't stick. I choose to stay angry. I make a conscious choice to remain connected to the person and the offense. This is part of the reason I do not like to get too close to my anger point. The other reason is that I become extremely emotional and can act irrationally and violently if I'm just that angry.
I've gotten much better than I was 10 years ago but I feel like I'm regressing. I feel like I don't have the grip on anger that I need to have in order to manage the energy effectively. In sober moments, I realize that I could have used the anger energy much more productively than I chose to at the time when I lashed out. But then lashing out make me feel good. I don't feel great acknowledging that out loud but right now *shrugs* that's a part of my personality that is in need of reconciliation. I feel like if I could stretch the distance between the point that I realize I'm angry and the point when I feel motivated to act, I could use the anger energy to be creative instead of destructive. You can't bring back something that's been destroyed to oblivion. And if I'm not careful, that's what I allow my anger to do.
I guess I'm going back to the drawing board with this one. It's not like I don't know what I need to do. I just don't know how to do it right now. I shouldn't be happy hurting people who hurt me. I don't want that to be the ultimate reaction to someone who's obviously in more pain than I can imagine since they decided to inflict their pain onto me. Right now, I choose to fight fire with a much bigger flame. I'm sure that there are and will continue to be times when this is necessary and effective. But I'd like to be able to exercise the option of fighting fire with water more often and being able to make a choice to do so.
Comments
Post a Comment