Anger, Gratitude and the Whole Ball of Mess

When one has read entirely too much self-help literature as I admittedly have, one gets a big heaping dose of thought on the toxicity of anger. I do not completely disagree because I’m quite cognizant of the effects that my own anger has had on my relationships with others as well as with myself (talking to myself has not always been as pleasurable an activity as it is today). On the other hand, I know damn right well that for more years than I’d care to count anger kept me going and saved my life. In the main I manage it pretty well lately, and no longer rely on my own anger and rage getting me out of bed in the morning (and not because I have the ‘cat stomp on bladder alarm’ made famous by my cat Sharkbutt). So while I do work at being mindful of the whys of my emotions and dig to discern what's at the root of my shit.

So what I'm reading now is called Feeding Your Demons,by Tsultrim Allione and it talks about treating them compassionately. Visualizing my body melting into a nectar that feeds the demon and treating the demon with compassion, until it turns into an ally or a protective daemon. Now, anger ain't my only demon, not by a long damn shot. And most of the demons I've collected I collected before I was a teenager. So I've been holding them at arms length for a long time. Still get flashbacks from some of them. Yeah, PTSD kinds of flashbacks, and I thought I was just twitchy. Turns out it was maybe a little more than then twitchiness on my part.

So today, I'm beyond grateful to the anger and that somewhere deep inside I had the wisdom to use it for what I needed it, and mostly had the good sense to stay out of trouble. It took until I was about forty to be happy to be the person who I saw in the mirror every morning, and I'm grateful that I've hung in that long.