How much difference is there between getting upset and angry? Perhaps getting upset is the same as anger, only upset appears milder like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Something has disrupted a modicum of peace within you. It may not have been a whole lot of peace, yet it was all you had. Whether it’s a person or pot hole, you allowed the idea that someone disrupted you from your sense of ease. You have the idea that someone did this to you.

You know there are also the times you seem to have set out looking for something to get upset over. You were ready for it. Some steam was building up within you, and you were ready to pounce. You took the initiative all right. Taking the initiative is usually a good thing, but not always, certainly not when you’re looking to be perturbed.

The person before you is not really responsible for your upset. Odds are that he or she is an innocent party. He or she happened to be right there to pre-empt your readiness for a storm. There are certain themes or issues that you put your dukes up for long before the one you blame entered the horizon. Will you admit to this for even once in a while? On occasion? More than once!

I suppose that anger raises a fire and sparks fly out, and the embers keep burning.

We are talking about irritation, would you agree?

Sometimes you just have an itch that you’ve got to scratch. Sometimes you have to call out the fire department in order to put out the fire that blazes within you.

We can speculate that if you are talking about a fire from a year ago, the blaze that might come from you now wouldn’t be so temperamental. The incident might seem like nothing at all to you now. It’s not so likely that you would have a wildfire within you now. Perhaps, you can’t even conjure what all the fuss was about.

Yet, you still have little pyres where, if someone should toss a cigarette, one or more of these little pyres within you would take off like a firecracker.

Wherein lies your responsibility for the anger that seems imposed upon you? If it’s your anger, it’s your anger, beloveds. Your anger does not have to catch on fire. Somewhere within you, you decide it’s okay to inflame yourself.  It’s easy to say that you can’t help it, yet who is going to help it if you don’t?

When I say to listen to your heart, surely I don’t mean starting conflagrations.

Degrees of anger come from pet peeves. Don’t keep peeves as pets any longer. If you have a lion or tiger, will you replace it with a kitty-cat? Cool yourself down. Wash your face with cold water. This isn’t the first time a tiger of your thought has gotten your goat.

Take a fast walk and get some of this heat out of your system, or heat your garage with it. Get that steam out of you before it hisses.

This does not make you a pushover. Odds are no one is out to upset you. Maybe you are upsetting someone, and, deep down, maybe you even mean to. If you’re upset, perhaps it feels right to you that someone else be upset then too.

If you do desire to be in peace, be in peace then. What if you gain the idea that you don’t have to blurt out anger? What if you could be calm now? When was the last time you tried? Perhaps you have thought you are to express anger when, in your right mind, you would diffuse anger, come to your heart’s neutrality, and have a good time instead. Am I saying to repress your anger? No, I say rather:

How much does anger mean to you now and how much anger seems worthwhile to express that accrues merit and how much is perhaps just venting for the sake of getting it out? How long does the joy of venting usually last? Do you really have to become angry? And do you really have to justify it?