Anger

Oh anger.

I’ve been struggling lately with anger.  I’m just angry all the time.  And disillusioned and bitter and cynical and jaded.  I feel inundated by the massive awfulness of the world and humanity and as if there is no point to anything because… human existence on a whole is just an inescapable welling mud that will drown us all – the good of us along with the bad.

That has been the most prevalent feeling in my heart lately.  I don’t know why, particularly.  Sometimes I can handle human existence better than other times.  This is not one of those sometimes.  This is one of the other times.  And I’m struggling.

DJ (and therapist, and apparently everyone else because the universe keeps throwing this at me) thinks that this is coming out of a fundamental lack of self-compassion.  That I cannot face the rest of the world without a safe and compassion space inside of myself.  Ie.  Hate yourself = hate the whole world.

Maybe he’s right (and my therapist and everyone else).  My therapist has been doing some intensive work with me around this, and has been pressing me to begin meditation and mindfulness exercises.  When DJ found out, he picked it up as his Masterly duty and is now rather forcing me to do self-compassion exercises and meditations.

I was going to just do them every day and get it over with.  Sir, however, pointed out that choice lacks self-compassion and it will be a 2x per week activity to allow me time to curl up and lick my wounds in between.

You wouldn’t think self-compassion would require wound-licking time…  But… you wouldn’t be me…  This shit is seriously like doing emotional chemotherapy.  I don’t know what the hell all this is that is coming up out of me, but it is seriously like… psychic pus.  It’s awful.  I’ve now done three of these exercises and meditations and every single time I end up sobbing my way through the majority of the exercise.  Not just crying, those kinds of sobs that sound and feel like your entire vocal apparatus is going to rip itself out of your chest… the kind where you literally choke on your own snot and tears… that kind of awful…  And I don’t even know why.  I don’t have any reason that I’m crying.  I don’t have any sad thoughts or memories arising… it’s just… raw, detached, emotion.  For attempting to express loving-kindness to myself.

I figure if this is what happens when I explore my lack of self-compassion, then it probably makes a lot of sense that I just DON’T GO THERE!  For serious!  This is horrible horrible shit.  DJ says that it’s grief and pain that is stored in my body that I haven’t let myself process and that it doesn’t go away, the body just finds places to store the energy.  Eventually, to become healthy, that energy has to be routed out and expressed and the wounds allowed to heal.

I think the whole thing is just awfulness.

But the anger is easing.  Bit by bit.  The snappiness, the disillusionment, the bitterness… it’s easing… bit by bit.

It’s not going very well.  And sometimes I wonder if I really do want to lose it.  Will I fight as hard for this world if I’m not so overwhelming appalled by it as I am lately?

DJ’s answer, of course, is yes.  And that I will be capable of fighting better and longer and more effectively if I’m not trying to fight with a soul riddled with infection.

That’s a lovely thought.  But really… Right now… I’m having a hard time wanting to do the necessary process to heal that infection.

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