Before Anger Arises
Why do you become adamant over things the way you do? For example, you may become irate at emailed spam that you receive over and over again. You know it is not sent to you alone. You know it has nothing to do with you, and yet you are still irate. You know better, yet an annoyance may stir great anger in you. You feel invaded, and you feel powerless because senders of spam don’t give up easily. They keep coming. One quickly takes the place of another.
This is a good example of how anger lurks within you. Whatever opened up your anger is not what led to it. Your anger was there, ready to burst out. Anger is very difficult for you, I know. You would beg Me to take it away from you once and for all. You would give anything to be spared from anger.
You know that life is better when you are not angry. You would much rather convert frustrating energy to love. Oh, how you wish that love would well up in your heart as easily as anger seems to.
You feel that you have tried everything. You have counted to ten. You have fervently asked for anger to go, and still it comes out in full force and will not be stilled. No matter how small the cause, your anger becomes big.
At these times, beloved, look up, and some of your anger will distill itself. Close your eyes a moment, and some of it will diffuse. This anger is yours, yet you don’t want it, and yet you yourself, not outside events, set it off. You are the instigator of your own anger.
Will you accept this? Can you accept that it is your anger that seethes within you, and that you turn it outward? There is redness within you that looks for cause to escape. Your anger is like an allergy. You feel you can’t help it, but, beloveds, who is going to help it for you?
What you desire is equanimity. You do not want to be inflamed. You do not see the benefit of anger. You don’t pretend to yourself any longer that anger is justified. You see it as a plague. You would love to no longer have place for anger in your heart. It spoils your day.
You already know that you cannot compel anger to just go away. At the same time, you know it will. It will finish its run, slow down, stop, wipe the sweat off its face, cool down, the redness will fade, and once again calm will reign. No matter how much you caution yourself, warn yourself about anger, arm yourself against anger, it breaks out again like a hive on your skin, only to wear itself out and disappear.
Oh, to have calmness all the time. You would give a king’s ransom to not have flare-ups.
Somewhere along the line, you gained the idea that you were supposed to be angry. What if you could get rid of that idea? What if you didn’t have to be angry ever again? What if, instead of anger, you could simply move toward something that pleases you and away from anything that displeases?
In the example of spam, what if you could simply delete without anger? What if you didn’t get up in arms? What if you were kinder to yourself? What if you would lock the barn door before the cows get out?
Give anger a little pep talk. Say:
“Anger, I don’t need you, and I don’t want you. It is not I who am helpless. It is you. You can only come when I call you. Will you kindly step further back and be far away from me? Will you be deaf and not hear me? Will you please not stick around, ever ready to come out at my bidding? Be disobedient to me. Kindly leave these premises.”
Perhaps if you invite anger to leave, it will. Talk to it ahead of time. Monitor yourself. Before you check email, for instance, remind yourself that you can delete without anger. You know what arenas in your life where anger tends to erupt. Before you enter these arenas, kindly show anger the door.
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