Are you a belly-up turtle?

Due to certain circumstance, I have – in the last perhaps month – been having bouts of complete and total rage. Wicked anger the likes of which I have never before felt and hope I never feel again. Often, I am with mobile to ear with Naomi on the other end talking me down. Talking me down. Talking me down. For that, I would like to thank her publicly as apparently she has been quoting direct from my blog to her partner Jason. A big hello to Jason also.

The first time she did this we spent nearly three hours on the phone with me in the middle of a field next to Lulu at different times crying, being pissed off, being fair, being unfair, being ridiculous, being filled with resentment, being demented, and being completely on the mark.

When I’ve come off the phone with her and am calmed, I look into my mind’s mirror and demand a response to: “Now list all of the mistakes and stupidities you committed to find yourself in this situation. Also, place yourself in their shoes and try to see what they see and understand their hurt. Because you are not innocent in this.“, because the only way to deal with rage of this sort, I think, is to never allow it a scapegoat. To instead know that it takes several to tango and impart the reasons for that rage to all parties, including – and possibly before anyone else – yourself.

Otherwise, hate takes over our hearts and leaves no room for all of the other great emotions we’re capable of feeling. We become stuck like sad little turtles on our backs, waiting for a hero to save us.

Only, there are no heroes in this world outside of ourselves. If we will it, anger serves as an ugly corner in our minds and the longer we allow it to remain there, the more solidified the corners become. Then sooner, rather than later, they cease being corners and start becoming our very centres around which everything else is built, against which we measure everything and the points from which we begin every movement.

So. I refuse to be Angry Girl, and luckily she left some time last week and was replaced by Happy Girl w/ Crayons. My life is too good and my heart is too big and I will not shrink it for anything. Not a thing. In fact, I’m working to make it bigger. Stronger. Nicer. Kinder. Prettier. And give it more crayons. (I understand I sound as someone with water on the brain here, and that’s fine.)

I recommend you do the same. Only the weak of spirit and heart will shy away from this. A line’s been drawn and you have to decide on which side you stand; Your heart and mind are either courage filled or cowardice led. Choose.

It’s far easier to project and hate (insert item / television show / individual / colour scheme) rather than to face the facts. So consider this a dare. I dare you to: Sift through your mind and find the corners – or for some, cores – where hate lives. Then face that hate, wrestle it, understand the ‘why’ of it rather than the ‘who’, look at the actions you took to make the situation turn into one of rage and then squash it. Squash it whole. Refuse it’s poison into the rest of your body – most especially your heart – and search for the good instead. It will make you cry and stamp your feet and want to kick the sh*t out of something, but you need to stop your whinging and do it. DO IT. For the sake of you and everything about you, believe Nike (slave drivers for profit) and Just Do It (insert swoosh).

I’m not done just yet because this dare has a second part. As soon as you have completed the first dare, I then dare you to forgive as determinedly and as wholly as you did facing that anger and that hate.

Forgive the one who inflicted it, forgive your actions that facilitated the situation. Forgive completely. And then breathe in the enormous relief your heart feels when it instantly discovers the massive amounts of room you’ve just cleared out within it. In mine, I will soon be able to place a gigantic colouring table the size of which no one’s ever seen.

Now Go; You have dares to meet.

I love you all.
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07.09.05.
Photo courtesy of HuffPo’s Further Proof That Parents Like To Laugh At Their Offspring.