Raging Fire
The first time I remember losing control to my rage was when I was about ten years old. I have no idea what I’d done to be sent to my room but I do remember running to my door like my feet were on fire, opening it and then slamming it shut, and throwing anything I could all the while screaming at the top of my longs, whirling like a mad animal both arms akimbo, breaking things, throwing all my clothes in the closet into the middle of my room and pretty much doing whatever I could figure out to do physically to release the tremendous explosion of fire from within. Looking back on this incident now, I can’t imagine how either of my parents could have stood my ranting and raging like that.
After I was spent, my throat was scratchy from screaming, but I felt like I had taken a drug. I cleaned up my whole room and put everything back in place as if I was in a fog. I’m sure I slept for a few hours that afternoon. This pattern of out of control rage would return over and over again through the years until I began to get help from therapy, 12-step programs, etc.
Over the course of discovering who I am and how I show up in the world, I know now that I have wrestled with severe anxiety and panic disorder most of my life. When something or someone says or does something to flick my fear switch, instead of running I would often rage like a fire breathing dragon cornered in the bowels of a dungeon. Because I was also smart, as a kid with this way of reacting to the world I often melted hearts to black ashes of many people who might have become my staunch ally--or at least a friend--- if I had, had it within me to allow for the space and time. But my fear was so big and all consuming that all I believed was possible, most of the time, was fight back to survive. I didn’t understand their were other possibilities.
When I was in my forties, my mom shared with me that she really hadn’t understood how to be the kind of mother I needed until she had a wolf. Because of her wolf, she learned how to respond to her wolf with respect, understand what she was fearing and give her what she needed. Evidently there was something in the mechanics and spirituality of their relationship that helped mom to see me more clearly.
As someone who has been both the giver and receiver of rage like this, I can say that it is truly a chemical/hormonal nightmare. For me, even therapy, getting sober, getting off of flour and sugar, meditating and exercise could not squelch the raging fire if it needed to surface. Only medication for those chemicals that I am missing has sufficed. I have suffered through decades of guilt and shame for the way my mind, mouth and body has responded from fear at the world. There is nothing worse for me especially since deep inside I really am a very loving and peaceful person. Just ask any animal who has ever been my friend, or my husband most of the time.
On top of this shame about this uncontrollable rage, I live in a culture where anger is really not an okay thing, not really. And certainly if you’re female. Still in this day and age! I remember years ago reading an article in Psychology Today (probably available on some ancient microfiche from the early 80′s) about how humans were basically made to be warriors and there were some examples of how we humans learned to vent our warrior-energy through sports such as football. What I can remember about that premise does ring true for me because I also have a strong sense of justice and the desire to right any wrongs. But here I sit at my PC in our home with our dogs laying about with nary a warrior-venting-opportunity about and even if there were, my values have fine-tuned me into a much more peaceable being. That, and I also have absolutely zilch desire to play football! Gradually, I can create a way of looking at this chemical imperfection in my brain as being similar to a physical vestige like the appendix. At one time in mans’ creation an appendix was a really good device to further screen out poisons from the raw foods we ate but today it is pretty much obsolete. Maybe at one point in my DNA I would have made one helluva fine warrior. Probably not lived much past 25, but perhaps died a champion for the fight in a blaze of glory. Or, perhaps I’m dealing with a biological transference of memory (http://themindunleashed.org/2014/01/scientists-found-memories-may-passed-generations-dna.html).
Whatever the case, I do believe that you and I can learn to train our minds and therefore choose our responses rather than allow our minds and reactions to dictate how we live our lives.
As the Buddhist Monk, Jack Kornfield says, “you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
The water is great, let’s go catch a few!