Someone is Feeding on Your Anger

It's probably trite to quote from popular songs, but I got the new Sheryl Crow CD yesterday and here is this line in one of the songs that really struck me. It really got me to thinking about all the times when I have been angry about something small - not anger at injustice or genocide or unfairness or abuse - but piddly stuff like who left a dirty fork in the sink and so on. And so - who or what does feed on that anger? It's insidious. Also this: was that anger part of what I was feeding myself when I ate and ate and ate in my past life? And what do we do with our anger then - for the big stuff, we have to take action of some sort, pick your method, voting, monetary support for charity, writing letters, whatever you can do. For the little stuff, hmmm, my nemesis? Let it go then?

Part of what I think may be an answer for me - my daily gratitudes, which I do in my personal journal. When I started doing that last fall, it was in response to an article by Joanna Macy I read in Shambala Sun. Here's a link to my original post about this: link. Having a discipline of frequently expressing gratitude is a way of rejecting the mindset of feeling inadequate or not good enough because it forces us to look at the present and to see more than just the doom and gloom of our everyday tribulations. Sometimes it's hard work, but I find that if there is something that is troubling me or that I find irritating, that is where I can best point my gratitude that day.


Yesterday, I realized that I was angry about my work and how annoying it all was and that I didn't get to go to the gym at lunch because of a falsely generated sense of "urgency". But in the grand scheme of things where people are starving and towns are flooding, this is minor, very minor. So what was I feeding with my anger about my work?

Gratitude of the Day: I am grateful for having the means to pay for a gym membership. I am grateful for pop stars who sometimes sing something wise that penetrates the fog.