Today's Quotation:

    Ruby stepped toward him. "Edward," she said softly. It was the first time she had called him by name. "Learn this from me.  Holding anger is a poison.  It eats you from inside.  We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us.  But hatred is a curved blade.  And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
    Forgive, Edward.  Forgive.  Do you remember the lightness you felt when you first arrived in heaven?"
     Eddie did.  Where is my pain?
     "That's because no one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it."
     She touched his hand.
     "You need to forgive your father."

Mitch Albom
from The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Today's Meditation:

When we're angry with someone else, especially for long periods of time, we do harm to ourselves.  It's such a simple concept to understand, but understanding it doesn't usually make it easier to control our anger.  After all, some things that people do to us or to others are so bad that we have to stay mad, we have to hold onto the righteous anger that results from their actions.  It sounds logical, but it's completely untrue.

When we're angry or resentful, we hurt ourselves.  It's worth repeating, over and over, every day of our lives, until we're free of such feelings.  Anger will never help us to move on to higher levels of self, for it stunts our growth and keeps us locked in negativity while we should be growing in positive ways.

Forgiveness helps us to cast away our anger.  So do compassion, love, and understanding.  We have so many gifts available to us that can help us to grow as people that are held in check by our negative emotions that we risk being held prisoner at low levels of being by them.

If we're going to move on, we can't take our anger with us.  We have to leave it behind or it will hold us down while we beat our wings in a futile effort to fly.  It takes a strong decision on our part, and it takes a lot of effort to follow through on that decision, which is probably why so few people are willing to make the commitment to try to live anger-free.  It's easier to be angry than it is to forgive, but if we're angry, we're feeding our ego.  If we get rid of the anger, we're feeding our higher selves.  Which one do you want to be feeding?

Questions to ponder:

1.  What types of feelings have you not let go?

2.  Think of a person you know who tends to be angry a lot.  What is his or her life like?  Do you want that for yourself?

3.  If we're not born with anger, where does it come from?

For further thought:

I think so many of us are too hard on ourselves for what we didn’t accomplish or what we should have done.  The first step is to forgive yourself for all the things you didn’t do that you should have and all the things that you did do that you shouldn’t have.  Get rid of the guilt.  Negative feelings don’t do you much good.  The way to deal with them is to forgive yourself and forgive others. . . .

Forgiveness helps you come to terms with the past.  I've learned how to forgive myself, and this has helped me no longer feel deep regrets or sadness about my past.

Morrie Schwartz

more thoughts and ideas on anger

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