Mad

Do you get mad?  Probably.  Who doesn't?  I wonder sometimes at just exactly what happens to me when, in an absolute split second, white hot rage sears through me in an explosion of angry-ness.

And I know the correct word is anger, not angry-ness, but that's what it feels like, and it's completely beyond my control.  I can mostly control what I do with and about that rage, but I seem to have no control over its presence.

If you've ever had serious acid indigestion, where acid spills out of the safe container of the stomach and spews up into your esophagus, throat and mouth, burning every soft mucous membrane along the way, you have some idea of how powerful rage can burn, and how much beyond any control it feels. 

I have practiced a kind of meditation for years that says that anger isn't a natural human state, but it's what happens when we are out of balance and out of connection with the pure love and peace of our true and eternal state of being.  And I don't disagree even a little.  I agree completely. But I know how angry I can get and how quickly it can happen, and I have to say it's one helluva hard habit to kick.

I don't do drama.  I rarely, if ever, act on that anger, at least not without waiting until I can think clearly again and understand why it's so intense.  But I cannot believe its power and presence.  And how quickly it separates me from those whom I otherwise feel warm or kind or loving towards.  Because when I get angry, and it feels like that anger is burning up inside of me, I want to get as far away from the trigger as possible.  Which means there's a chance if I'm angry, you'd never know.  I'm just gone.

I'm drawing no conclusions here, no judgements of even any real understanding.  Just observing myself and how far I've come and yet I'm still in so many of the same places I've been.

Emotion and spirit and so interconnected, and yet not the same.  And there are spiritual traditions that say emotion is just reaction, and spiritual power means always choosing your response to situations, not merely reacting.  And it sounds right.  It sounds great.  But life isn't some sterile theoretical environment.  It's messy and tricky and unclear most of the time.

So I won't consider anger a failure, but a chance to learn more about myself, who I am and who I want to be.  But I think, in the meantime, don't make me mad.