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
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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?
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