Easier said than done
31 January 2012 06:08 PM Categories: Facing fears
I struggle with accepting anger in myself and others, wrestle with being with it and not reacting in kind when someone directs (or misdirects) it my way.
This is good. This is hard. To sit with anger, your own or someone else's, to let it be without action or harsh words, with silent contemplation, can be almost impossible. But I think there are ways to feel it and, even if you express it badly at the moment, to pull back and wait for a moment of coolness to discuss it with the other person and to listen to their anger, too. A lot of anger comes from pain, either pain from the immediate present or something left over and suppressed, suppressed and simmering and ready to blow. It can come from fear, too, fear of feeling that pain again, so shove it away, push away the trigger, the other.
But what I really want to write about is anger and forgiveness. I know some people don’t believe in forgiveness (perhaps for them the goal is indifference). I know that it isn’t always possible and is dependent on the situation and the people involved, on the harshness of the crime and sometimes on whether the wrongdoer has taken responsibility for their actions. It sounds like a cliché, and I’m struggling with it myself, but forgiveness is a gift both to me and the person I am forgiving. It is a way of seeing someone and letting them be that person, letting go of attachment to anger, tracing the anger to where it belongs, feeling the pain and setting it free.
Maybe there are people you can forgive but can never be close to again. Maybe there are people whom you forgive and discover that forgiveness is the thing that cleared the way for renewed friendship. Forgiveness doesn’t have an agenda. It is a form of freedom from heavy emotion that drags one down. It's acceptance of the other person's limitations and your own, a nod to humanity.
Here are my forgiveness crucibles: unfairness; emotional cruelty; not giving someone a voice. I can go around and around in my mind about them, go over pains from years ago or just last week, obsessing over the wrong someone did me, imagining the conversation I would have with them, if they would only give me a voice. And so my psyche revs up and the anger lives again and my attachment to the situation is never severed.
I say forgive. Let go. Drop the reins. And, if you must, walk away.
It's a goal, anyway.
I chose the category "Facing fears" for this post because I think to listen to anger, to accept it in yourself and in other people, and then to choose to forgive, is a scary thing. It requires presence and risk taking and authenticity. Bravery. This feels very pie in the sky, but it's also how I feel at this moment.
Image of the boy running from waves in Carmel, free and happy.
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