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.