Principle #14
If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer.
It is possible to respond strongy, wisely, and compassionately without hatred

Unfortunately (for my inner peace) and fortunately (for my development as a human being) I’ve had a fairly good number of opportunities in the last few weeks to practice watching my own tendencies towards anger. If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said that I rarely get angry anymore, and certainly I am less temperamental than I used to be. But man oh man, anger definitely rises up, and I can still fly of the handle, that’s for sure. In these last few weeks I’ve been able to catch myself doing it. I haven’t necessarily been able to stop myself, but I have some distance, and I can see my anger rising and taking over. At least I can stop before one-sided blame or vengeance takes over. But I know even this more controlled anger isn’t healthy. Forgetting the damage it does to my soul—I could feel anger doing damage to my body.

I allow myself to slip into anger, and I know why.  I express anger, because it’s easier than expressing pain. (That’s something that’s good to know about myself, but also good to know about others. Angry people are people in pain.)

Often, Kornfield will write about a client who needs to “simply feel.”  Ha. So much easier said than done. “Now imagine how you might communicate about your fear and hurt rather than blame,” he says. I get that. The irony here is that I must “communicate” about this with people who are long dead or who are completely incapable of “getting” whatever I have to say. God  has a wonderful sense of humor, eh?

The challenge then, for me, is to not need validation from outside of myself. Good thing it’s called “practice.”