Anger Management

Chanting to Tara this morning, I wonder how anger fits into compassion.

I have been angry lately, with several people in my life. I don't like anger. Like the color orange, it scares me with its intensity. When people around me get angry, I head for the exits. When I get angry, I keep quiet until I can walk it off and yell all I want without bothering anyone.

Not good, I know, but I'm a work in progress, you know.

Barb and I were talking about anger the other day, and I oh-so-wisely told her that anger is a call to action, a sign that something needs to change. Easy to say to someone else, right? But even in my own life I know there's a reason for my anger, that's it's a call to stand up for myself. Necessarily.

But I never quite manage to ride the fine line between standing up for myself and getting obnoxious. Mostly I stay on the silent side of the fence, stewing dangerously. Two or three times in the last two years that stew has boiled over and I've yelled, screamed actually, at someone.

These are not scenes I want to repeat.

In other people, it's easy to see the fear that lies beneath their anger. Its harder to diagnose the fears that lie beneath my own.

Ah HA! That's the key. I need to find that fear, work on it with active compassion, and face it head on. Then maybe the anger will dissipate, like Smoke from a Distant Fire.

Okay. That's the assignment. Thanks for listening while I worked this out. Updates at 11.