I woke up angry today!
But it wasn't an anger from today.
I planned my anger for today...yesterday.
I was so ready to be angry today that I prepared for it yesterday.
I thought about how I would feel tomorrow and I meditated on those feelings all night.
I simmered in my angry juices.
When I woke up this morning I forgot to notice all of the things I had to be thankful for because of that one thing that made me angry yesterday.
Unfortunately, the anger didn't come alone.
With it came sadness, a heaviness that weighted me down longer than I wanted, a gray cloud that hung over my head and fogged my vision preventing me from seeing, thinking and feeling clearly.
I wrote these words the other day when I realized that I'd wasted an entire day being angry about something. It doesn't matter what it was or who caused it. I'm only responsible for my thoughts and my actions.
Anger is a natural emotion. When something happens to me that I don't like I have the option of several emotions, one of them being: anger. This emotion however should not be a lasting one. It is not an emotion worth holding on to for very long. Happiness is an emotion worth investing in. Happiness should be planned out, purposeful, meditated on and fought for. Not anger.
I'm starting to realize that every emotion travels with a few companions. Anger hangs out with sadness and a heaviness. It's hard to be angry for an extended period of times because no one wants to be angry. It is very easy to become angry but it takes great effort to remain in that state of mind.
In order to do so you would have to constantly remind yourself over and over why you are angry. You have to relive the instance that brought about that emotion.
I did this. I purposefully re-played an image, a conversation and certain action in my mind over and over again and when I realized that I wasn't doing this I put energy and effort into making sure that every available moment I had be used visualizing this.
When I reflected back on my actions I was astonished by my own behavior. I did not realized that I was capable of doing this. I truly feel that this is another piece of the puzzle. This is just one of the contributing factors to my depression. My own ability to allow myself to focus on a negative occurrence in my life for an extended period of time.
Another thing I noticed was that even when something happened that made me feel a little better, such as seeing a funny meme on Facebook or watching commercial on T.V, or hearing a song that lightened my mood, I would not allow it to manifest itself. I didn't want it to make me laugh or alter my angry mood.
I was determined to be angry.
The one thing that this has taught me is that if I can be determined to be angry. I can be determined to be happy.
I waited a few days before initially posting about this just so that I could do a little experiment. I wanted to see if it happened again, (me getting angry) just to see if I could do things a little different.
Now when I say angry I don't just simply mean something like being cut off in traffic or getting your order wrong at a restaurant or something like that. I mean when someone does something so infuriating that you think you will never forgive them, that's the type of anger I'm talking about.
I didn't know how long I would have to wait I just knew I would at least test this on a situation that upset me or made me mad. But I did run into a situation that I was very angry and little more so hurt.
Initially, I didn't even think about this. I was so angry, of course the only thing I could think about was the offense. But as time went on I realized that I was doing the same thing. I kept re-living the situation causing me to keep getting more angry and for an extended period of time.
After days went by I was exhausted and ready to give up. I was frustrated because of this on-going hopeless feeling I had but I knew I wasn't hopeless and neither was my situation. It was in that moment that I decided to stop being angry and get back to living. So I did.
I've decided that I will do my best to try and put this into practice each and every time because my happiness is so precious and it is worth the fight. It is worth remembering the good things over the bad always. I want to spend as much time being happy...NO MATTER WHAT!
