Holding onto any emotion, is only harming you, and no-one else. We are very willing in this society to pay dearly and often for material goods and services. We will often sacrifice parts of ourselves and what those parts desire in order to have those material things. And we are willing to hold off and put off, if we want those material things badly enough. What if we took the same attitude with inner peace? Love? Forgiveness? What if we were willing to preserve our inner peace, at any cost to external events, financial limitations, etc? Aren’t those ultimately far more valuable and important than any material object? And isn’t it true that once you have that inner peace and radiate it out, that it will in fact begin to determine the material objects that appear in your life? Constantly pursuing material gain at the expense of your inner self, is, as I often say, the fast route to emotional bankruptcy.

If you don’t have peace because you are holding on to anger, rage, blame, grief, resentment, or even self-blame, realise that this is not you .v. them. It is you .v. you. Your anger only hurts one person - YOU, and choosing to hold on to these emotions, full in the knowledge that you COULD choose peace instead, is foolhardy indeed. Ultimately, everyone is doing the best they can, with the resources, tools and beliefs they have at the time, regardless of how it seemed, (and even if it wasn’t a very good best). Chances are, the other person was coming from a noble place, in their perception, even if you don’t agree with it.

Anger is quite a unique emotion. Like love, you have to be experiencing hate or anger yourself before you can send it to others, except you are both the target AND the recipient of your hate…the other person doesn’t feel a thing. But you are left carrying a whole other person with you, wherever you go. Ultimately we have to take responsibility for our anger. It is your response to what happened, YOUR response, not THEIR response, and you are the one who has to carry it around, not them. And how many of your physical ailments do you suppose stem from unresolved anger? You’d be surprised.

Nelson Mandela once said that hatred is like drinking poison and then expecting the other person to die. You have the power to choose to be happy, rather than right, at every moment of your life.

Anger is a prison, forgiveness is freedom. Your call.

Stewart Robertson
www.stressreliefclinic.co.uk/About_Me.html