Overcoming anger and the past
Over the past year from time to time I've worked on personal issue of anger with my Spirit team, Erik and my guides. That said, here is something I wrote yesterday at work. Some issues I was thinking about in my own life, I thought I'd share.
Random Musings: anger, resentment and the past
For me,
Letting go is not about forgetting
Letting go is not about forgiving
Letting go is not about understanding
I often see Letting go as about choice
You see, some experiences are such that there will not be much in the
way of helpful relief. The past can not be changed, nor can it always be
understood in this lifetime. Much of the time such experiences are not even about you.
It CAN be about what you make of it though. That is a choice.
Sometimes the choice will have to be made on an on-going daily basis.
Sometimes only to be revisited periodically. But what is for sure, is the
choice of how you react to these feelings. The choice to act, is not the same as feeling.
Some choices are made before you started this life; Some are determined via accrued Karma.
But what free will and what choice you do have is in what you take with you, in
context from this point forward. You can grow to understand different
aspects of this context and different points of view of your possible
options, but the stage was set beyond your control.
Now just as the action of letting go is about choice, it can be
related to, and involve those other actions such as forgetting,
forgiving, and understanding. But it's important not to assign a label
to your anger, resentment and past. It's more important to own who you
decide to be within the context of what you experienced. New and
greater understanding often resides only after this life is over.
That doesn't mean we can always use this to ignore or pass off what we
feel as being other worldly. We usually experience such events as an
opportunity to further develop ourselves.
Many times it is not very useful to dwell on statements such as, "You
did this to me, You didn't do this, I wish you would have, or why
couldn't you, or I should have.." It happened, There is no getting
around it. You were not able to influence, control or divert the
outcome of circumstances or anothers' actions or inaction's. The key
is now to not let go of wounds, or forgive, but rather to have
compassion for not only the other person, but for yourself. To
understand that who you have become, and what you may yet become is OK
and can be something special. To do this it might be beneficial to
understand who you are in-spite of or despite, and as a result of your
experiences. You don't have to remain a victim of experiences beyond
your control.
And, if along the way you are able to give forgiveness and are able to
find some peace in forgetfulness well, great!, but never forget that
you are more, and WILL become more as your understanding grows. In
this life and beyond. Forgiveness isn't easy, isn't some symmetrical work of spiritual achievement.
Forgiveness is not giving into accepting another person or event. Are you perfect?
Can another be perfect? Can you be 100% sure something was meant to be or planned?
It's really about accepting the power you do have now, never mind your experience.
I would say, real forgiveness is having the compassion to acknowledge your experience
and the compassion to give yourself permission to realize, recognize opportunities for self understanding.
Remember, It's often more useful to see yourself and then decide
whether or not a particular emotion is useful to you or not; and
whether or not it truly describes you. If it does, can you be OK with
that? If you are OK, do not lie to yourself. Accept what you have
experienced, only now, work on determining if such emotions
surrounding the feelings you are experiencing are a genuine
representation of who you really are.
Here are some tips to remember:
* It's important not to remain wallowing in what you feel.
* It's better to slow down and look it dead in the eye and say, WTF was that?
* Ultimately Anger can be used as a tool. A tool for action or a tool
for self discovery.
* Assigning blame, guilt, or labels to what you feel or the
circumstance surrounding it can lead to resentments.
* Resentment is the lazy way of not facing your fears.
* Feeling surrounding the past are rarely about the past, but rather
how you feel about it now.
* Telling yourself you should or should feel or act a certain way is
pointless without identifying what you do have now that will help you
create opportunity for the present.
* It's OK to pitch a fit, rant, rave, and cry. If you hold it all in
you will explode and rot. But if you do let it out, do so with
awareness inside of a willingness to be compassionate with others and
yourself. Before you get too far into beating yourself up, or taking
it out on another, ask yourself if you are being compassionate.
* You can sink and drown, you can let it flow around you, or you can
seek ways to transform it
* Just because you feel you've dealt with something in the past
doesn't mean you are free from it forever, It simply means next time
it might be easier, you might master it, you might become such an
expert you may be able to help others and future you! It might mean
next time you will see more opportunity.
* Facing your anger and resentments means facing your fears NOT your
past. Deciding who you are in-spite of your fears will change the
energy of the past, not the event. This new energy can be now applied
to the present, which will alter future experience.
* Being honest does not mean devaluing your experience. Being honest
combined with compassion means that you can face your experiences
without guilt, shame, or self judgement. Your honesty about your
feelings has nothing to do with anyone else. How others feel about the
situation is non of your business. As only you are responsible for
what choices you make today.
* What you do not actively work at facing could very well manifest as
physical ailments, taking the time to work on your feelings even if
it's just writing about them may just save your life.
* Maintaining an awareness of your feelings is just as much hard work
as anything you will do in life. The more you master this awareness
the better at life you will be.
* Spend time visualizing you in different choices, pay attention to
how this feels.