No matter how long we've been recovering, no matter how solid our spiritual ground, we may still feel an overwhelming desire at times to punish, or get even, with another person.
We want revenge.
We want to see the other person hurt the way he or she has hurt us. We want to see life deal that person just rewards. In fact, we would like to help life out.
Those are normal feelings, but we do not have to act on them. These feelings are part of our anger but it's not our job to deal justice.
We can allow ourselves to feel the anger. It is helpful to go one step deeper and let ourselves feel the other feelings - the hurt, the pain, the anguish. But our goal is to release the feelings, and be finished with them.
We can hold the other person accountable. We can hold the other person responsible. But it is not our responsibility to be judge and jury. Actively seeking revenge will not help us. It will block us and hold us back.
Walk away. Stop playing the game. Unhook. Learn your lesson. Thank the other person for having taught you something valuable. And be finished with it. Put it behind, with the lesson intact.
Acceptance helps. So does forgiveness - not the kind that invites that person to use us again, but a forgiveness that releases the other person and sets him or her free to walk a separate path, while releasing our anger and resentments. That sets us free to walk our own path.
Today, I will be as angry as I need to be, with a goal of finishing my business with others. Once I have released my hurt and anger, I will strive for healthy forgiveness - forgiveness with boundaries. I understand that boundaries, coupled with forgiveness and compassion, will move me forward.
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Easy Does it..Keep It Simple..Let Go and Let God..
1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?
2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the tv remote because they refuse to walk to the tv and change the channel manually.
3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?
4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? Gonna Kick their asses!
5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.
6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?
7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.
8. When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?
9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here, dumbass?
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Easy Does it..Keep It Simple..Let Go and Let God..
Phil writes "Today, I will be as angry as I need to be, with a goal of finishing my business with others. Once I have released my hurt and anger, I will strive for healthy forgiveness - forgiveness with boundaries. I understand that boundaries, coupled with forgiveness and compassion, will move me forward. "
Awesome, awesome, awesome........... I have a problem with "acceptance" as it's read before every AA meeting. I don't agree with ALL of it, and your post just reinforced, for me, why I have the right to feel this way.
Thanks for sharing Phil..
Love you much........Doll
p.s. You look damned good for 102 yrs old. You remind me of Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones }
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* We eventually realize that just as the pains of alcoholism had to come before sobriety, emotional turmoil comes before serenity. *
Hi all. This post together with the post on Anger are really relevant to me at the moment. I have a total AR** H*** for a boss. We have been told that we are being replaced by Slovaks as they cost less, (Just remember, you are a number and not a name).
I am angry with the management, sorry it's not anger, it's a boiling rage that I can't get rid of. My doctor told me to look for a new job, and I have got an interview for a new one (Funeral Director, think thats a Mortician in the US).
My 3 predecessors at the job I'm doing now have all gone nuts, 2 of them ran out of the factory screaming and one went violent and got taken away by the cops.
Anger management! On Tuesday I nearly went to the Psycho ward of the local hospital to sign myself in I was that angry, (I have been reliably advised that transorbital frontal lobotomies are no longer done).
Need to get out of the Job. http://www.katuk.co.uk/ (My intention is notin any way to advertising or promoting the company I work for. I just think this is all Bull****)
Anyway, enough of this, just venting I suppose.
Hope your all well.
Best wishes to you all.
Chris.
-- Edited by Cabbageheadchris at 13:24, 2005-09-17
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"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989"