Isn’t it odd how we are often the last ones to realize the obvious about ourselves? You may have spotted a theme that has been bubbling up through my posts recently, but I didn’t notice it until a few days ago: anger. It is one of my defense mechanisms, so reflexive and short-lived that I often don’t notice it or I pass it off as a normal response. In fact, it was a major piece of armor for my whole family, our shield against a sudden sense of danger, so quickly deployed that it even parried our sense of vulnerability. Like so many family traits, it was carefully disguised–no shouting, name-calling, or slamming doors, but an intense burning that everyone felt without being able to name. When I stumbled on Harriet Lerner’s The Dance of Anger, it turned on the lights for me, so much so that I bought every sibling a copy for Christmas.
Many years ago I realized that an unexpected burst of anger is a telltale sign that I feel under attack, not from the incident itself, which is just a release valve, but from the pressure of turmoil building inside my heart, a festering wound that needs attention. I don’t need a scolding, but a warm compress of grace–I need to locate the wound and apply self-compassion.
I have known for some months that my emotions were foundering, but it was a gradual, insidious tide that crept up past the gunwales without any alarms sounding. Who doesn’t get mad at selfish drivers? Who doesn’t get pissed at overbearing customers or lazy co-workers? It seemed normal… except that it wasn’t.
The slowly building tension came from a big drop in income, a stressful job, and even an unsafe home (our cars have been rifled more than once, and I caught a burglar trying to get into our house). The major soul cost has been a loss of even a minimal support structure–my low-wage job works me till 11 p.m. and on weekends, blocking me from making social connections here. And when the scales are already heavily offset, even small weights added seem unbearable. It becomes hard to do simple daily tasks, not to speak of the huge effort to overcome our current set of circumstances.
None of that is going to change soon. It needs to change for life to be sustainable, but in the meantime I need to lean into self-support, be conscious of my pain in specific ways and direct compassion to myself as I would to any dear, suffering friend whom I love.
Janathan Grace Reflections 
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