I have anger issues. This year started off on a really great note for me, full of joy and happiness, and then I found myself falling into old patterns. You know the ones, you work so hard on yourself and you think you’re “cured” and then you get complacent and suddenly those old patterns creep back up on you. It happens with diet and exercise. Or with quitting bad habits. It happens with choosing unhealthy relationships. For me, right now, it’s happening with my anger.
I feel like I’m always backsliding.
I spent the last year feeling this huge shift in my body and my spirit.
Growing pains.
Hurting. Engulfing. Expanding. Coming out of self-imposed shells and casings.
It’s why I started this blog. I wanted to document this experience of personal growth. I wanted to write everything down so that I could read it. Experience it. See the change of my thinking.
I wanted to be the person that could breathe into my heart, into love, and have forgiveness. I wanted to be a good person. The kind of person I could look up to. I haven’t always wanted to be that person. In the past I held grudges, I was vindictive, I even relished passive-aggressive acts of revenge. I am an extremely intuitive person and as much as that gift allows me to help others it also gives me great insight into people, their weakness, and the things that hurt them.
I would use that to cut others to the bone. I’d say things that I knew would hurt and hurt deeply.
I had anger issues.
I had impulse control issues. Had. I guess the proper phrasing would be “have” just because I do the work and I’ve done the work, just because these things have gotten better, doesn’t mean they’re magically gone. More like dormant.
Not all that long ago, I had a hair-trigger temper. I got angry about everything. And when I got angry (or hurt, usually it was hurt displayed as anger) I had a disproportionate reaction and I would go off. I never learned how to manage my anger in a healthy way and throughout my childhood and my young adulthood I felt like I wasn’t being heard. This caused me to act out even more to get a reaction. I began to associate that reaction to my anger as proof someone cared. I was an incredibly toxic person always looking for a reaction or trying to provoke a reaction.
Then I began to transform and I realized that path wasn’t one I wanted to walk down anymore. I didn’t want to be an angry hateful person who ended up pushing everyone away. I chose the opposite path. One of love and forgiveness.
Transformation doesn’t happen that quickly.
I need to remember that. I need to remember that I am unlearning 27 years of behavior. In my head, I was letting things go. I was letting go of the grudges I’ve been holding, of my hurt anger towards other people. I was learning to respond in a more mature way. The last few weeks I’ve felt that work unraveling. I have to keep reminding myself that I am learning. It’s all come bubbling up and I realize I don’t have my shit as together as I thought I did. (Isn’t that how it always goes?)
I think I’ve figured out what I was doing wrong. I’ve been reading a lot about forgiveness. And a lot of it has been of the vein of forcing yourself into it. I was thinking the right things, “I forgive so-and-so, everything is okay.” I thought I was dealing with that anger but what I was really doing was forcing myself to ignore it. I was turning a blind eye to it and telling myself that everything was fine.
In reality, there was a pool of anger and resentment building inside of me.
I’m still learning how to deal with these things. It’s not six months of work and you’re done. You’ve got to stay on top of those feelings. If something isn’t working you’ve got to seek new strategies. But most importantly, it’s important to acknowledge what you feel. I’d love to be one of those enlightened beings that just lets it all go – but I’m not there yet. I’m still learning how. I’m still walking the line between honoring what I feel and dealing with it in a healthy way.
So now I am sitting here with all of those feelings. As things painfully shift inside of me again. I know it’s going to be alright, I’ll get through it, be wiser for it, but right now I am treading the stagnant, dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, water, trying to keep my head above it all.
It’ll be okay.
Ah Dominee, it takes such courage to own these feelings. I absolutely honour your courage and your honesty in allowing the poison to seep out of the wounds. I'm sure you'll feel so much better for allowing yourself the space to feel this xxx
Dominee, you have made a lot of changes already. What you are experiencing is the next, deeper level of change and awareness. It's how we grow in the sacred spiral of life.
Dominee how lucky are you to be aware of this……muy muy lucky……growing our interior takes consistent practice…..and it's not easy work…….when we feel the growing pains that's our clue that we are working through the mud in order to let our lotus blossom…….as you grow your interior your exterior will reflect that and blossom as well…..keep it going…..and if you need anything, let me know…..
much love!
Dominee – I'd love to add words of wisdom to everyone else's above, but what's really here for me is simply to let you know that I hear and witness… that what you're going through is simply what it is… and I'm thinking hugs and compassionate healing thoughts your way.
It's so damn hard when we think we "should" have got past/over/through this particular point in the healing path before… it can sometimes make it feel as though we've made no progress at all – that we were just fooling ourselves that we were further along. But as Gin and Loran say, it can absolutely be a spiral sometimes, and even if you feel like you're at the same point, you're still further out (or further in, depending on which way you see your spiral going) than you were last time you hit this point. And sometimes that can make all the difference.
Sending you love and comfort, my friend
Blessings – TANJA
It *will* be okay. And it's okay for you to feel these things, and I believe it's helpful and healing and honest and brave to let yourself feel them and acknowledge them.
All of this is a process. It's not quick-and-easy, one-time stuff. We find ourselves revisiting things and thoughts and feelings and behaviors that we thought we had already dealt with. And we *did* deal with them, but they can come around again… but this is deep stuff, and it's a process to work through all of it.
This is one reason I tend to think of life – and healing – as a spiral. We find ourselves back with thoughts and feelings and behaviors and whatever… even though we've moved through them, or dealt with them, before. And it can feel like we're following old ground, or going backwards, but in reality we're moving ahead – we're just moving ahead in a spiraling motion, revisiting old "stuff." But this time we're somewhere else along the spiral, and this "stuff" really has a new aspect to it than before, or we're seeing it a little differently than before, or viewing it with a new perspective or from a new angle, or there's something new to learn from it this time. Like we've peeled back a layer but there's still another layer.
You're such a lovely, beautiful soul. Please be gentle with yourself as you feel these feelings. You're very, very loved. And, just like you said, it'll be okay. <3
This is the deep stuff Dominnee, such important work you are doing. Thank- you for sharing your process with us.
Oh my God! It was like I was looking in the mirror when I've read your blogpost… it's so parallel to my situation! When I think about my past, I've been very bitchy towards others… I could hurt them so easy.. In some way being very intuitive is indeed a curse: you always know -how- you can reach someone, positive and negative.
Some days ago I was thinking about my current drama's. My inner demon told me: Hey you, it's karma.. you were a bitch in the past and that's why you have this sh-t in the present.
But you know my dear Dominee… It's not. Inner demons are there just to proof us that they are not dead yet.. that there is still some work to do. Stuff to forgive and let go. Or mostly: try to forgive ourselves and let go of any blame from the past. We are here, right now and we are lovely beings. And the love we have created before and now, will put our demons, soon or later, asleep.
You know what they say… it's always darkest before dawn. It's just a sign that we are almost there hun. <3
I believe in you!
Lindsay
Oh, I so know this feeling of the struggle to transform and of being in that difficult place, but as you say you'll come through it wiser …until then sending love your way x