Sage about rage

I have mentioned my rage in past posts.

I’m pretty up front about it so it doesn’t shock anyone when they see it for the first time, because despite the common nickname of "Sunshine," I’ve got some serious, scary rage issues. And I’m talking a whole different level of hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned fury. Like deep inner brain, limbic system, lizard-brain kind of response. (I’ve been told that my face actually changes in its actual physical shape. I probably turn into a James-Bond-looking villain. "Mr.Bond, I've been expecting you..." )

I didn’t think that much of it when I was a teenager. So what if I was angry? Every teenager is pissed off. Every teenager wishes she had a defense mechanism like a squid. I can't be the only one wanted to squirt ink into anyone's face who got too close.

But around my mid-twenties, something happened (I broke an expensive picture printer with one frustrated fist) that sorta clued me in that what lived inside me wasn't the typical kind of mad. Mine was the scary rage kind of mad. It was cold and unforgiving part, and when it came out and took control, I got a bit scared.

See, I had no idea that all this time, my rage was there. I was a nice person. A kind person. People use the word sweet to describe me so much, I think I owe the word a royalty check. I had no idea I had Hulk-like rage living inside me.

It’s not really that I’m scared of the rage. If I’m being honest, it's the pleasure of it that really freaks me out. Yeah, pleasure. It feels selfishly good to be in that state. Powerful, even. It would be so easy for me to turn into the dark side and go full alpha bitch 24/7 mode on the world. There aren’t any neurotic thoughts for once, just intense focus to destroy something (or someone), and not stopping until I saw it obliterate into nothing.

Something happened this weekend that stabbed that monster inside me awake. Someone tried to, anyway. I think a-year-ago Me would have gotten sucked into the vortex of drama that came a knockin' and I'd be the top story at the eleven o'clock news. And thanks to painful personal growth that was the past two years, I managed to rise above it.

The one thing that helps is finding a way to delay the rage. Just call time-out on it before it can do some serious damage. Hence the main reason why I meditate. I'm seriously kind of in awe that I'm as calm as I am right now. I'm really proud of how I handled that. You have no idea how worried I get about losing control and hurting people. Probably why I try to do everything I can NOT to be such a slave to my emotions. For as kind as I can be, I know I can be just as cruel.

See, I believe in balance. It's all around us. For every action, there’s a reaction. Newton's third law. Yin and yang. For there to be light, there is dark. There's a balance to your life and when something is off, bad things happen, and I don't want to be someone who destroys things. I don't want to be part of the bad, there's enough of it. I want to create good.

And once you realize you have a choice on whether or not to react to something, that changes the entire way you live your life.