Anger got the better of me again this morning. I came home from a dog agility class to find my 16-year-old daughter traipsing around the garden in my sheepskin slippers. They were soaking wet and covered in mud – and they do not have rubber soles.
I shouted at my daughter and as I was doing so, my 18-year-old son, who was delving into my purse at the time, said ‘The meditation is not working, you’ve obviously wasted your money on this Marion woman’ at which point I screamed ‘Why don’t you shut up, put my purse down and get a fucking job.’
Okay, as parenting goes, this is way down the scale. Fail. I would have gone off to my quiet place as Marion instructed, but I’d just offered to give my daughter a lift to dance, so therefore didn’t have any spare time.
So yes, the emerging themes are – don’t mess with my stuff, don’t put me under time pressure and why the fuck are you rooting through my purse?
And breathe…
It’s like this most days in our house. Yesterday, I told my husband that I need one clean, uncluttered room in which to meditate and he replied ‘Well, you’ll either have to sit outside or get into your Marie Kondo’d cupboard.’
You see what I am up against!
The good news is, my neighbour is running a breathing and tapping workshop this afternoon. I think I’d better attend, because if I stay at home, I may strangle someone.
I’ll let you know how I get on tomorrow, although honestly, right now, I think I’d rather have a gin & tonic…
Yes indeedy, life would be so sweet and easy without other people in it. Ha! I live with the most irritating “thing” in my life, and it’s quite a struggle to take the high road every time he gets on my last nerve. Teenagers on top of it would be 10 times the challenge! Anger and frustration will come up regardless of spiritual progress. The challenge (for me anyway) is to step back and observe it instead of acting on it. Or something like that. I’d just like not to feel it, in the first place. Sheesh. Is that an option?
I’ve worked out that I’m never going to get rid of my anger, as alas, I don’t think that is an option. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be in control of it and not vice versa. I can’t change the people around me, but I can change myself. Marion tells me that I must make friends with my anger!
Just like we don’t control, don’t necessarily believe, and are NOT every thought we think, we can practise observing our anger and put some space around it. I think. I don’t seem able to control my anger; just how I react to it.
True. Anger is a tough one for me though. The force of it makes it hard not to fly off the handle in an instant.