Anger...again...

Following on from my last post I have decided to muse upon the idea of anger. After my unexplained anger at the church service on Sunday I have been doing a lot of thinking...mainly because I remain angry.

The anger isn't an overwhelming 'I need to hit someone' anger in the slightest; it is a-knot-in-my-throat, agitated anger. The sort of anger that just bubbles in the background and pops to the foreground every now and again like a cameo actor. This is having the knock on effect of finding that I have a secondary anger - at the anger!! Talk about Catch 22.

So anyway, I have spoken to a couple of friends about it and they both assure me that it is a good thing and that being emotional is showing progress...etc...and although I know they are speaking the truth, I also feel like something that is unexplained and frustrating, holds me back rather than moves me forward.

One of the friends I have mentioned text me last night and said she had been reading a book which said 'Anger is the stimulus to action'. I quite like this idea but also find it confusing...let me explain...

Anger is an emotion that I did not feel for years, in fact for a majority of my teens I felt very little and other than the occasional emotional outbursts, when my body forced me to feel, I went along living life in a weird void. (I did not realise this at the time, and because I was a teenager no one really questioned it). This led me to some quite devestating actions, anorexia, bulimia (although I was rubbish at this and felt a failure because of it) and self harm (this I excelled at).
Now, although I may have a brief idea as to where this stemmed from, I still don't fully understand what I was feeling at this time because I wasn't...well...feeling - if you catch my drift. Cue frustration and disconnection with myself.

As an adult I can surmise that I was probably feeling anger - especially in relation to self harm - and so it follows that the action that anger stimulated in me was a bad one. Although I'm not sure it was - self harm is often misunderstood and leads people to think you are either suicidal or crazy. My understanding is that a person self harms in order to LIVE not die...it is a coping mechanism...so in this instance anger has stimulated me into action - the action of trying to stay alive, at whatever cost.

Also, anger at someone has led me to push myself more and more to make something of myself so that what they told me doesn't come true...again anger is a stimulus to my action.

To return to the problem at hand. This newest bout of anger (I use the word bout because it feels a bit like an illness) seems unjustified as I didn't disagree with the sermon and it doesn't seem particularly stimulating, more paralysing. I am at a complete loss as to why I should be feeling this way - the reasons I gave in my last post still stand but I feel like they are not good enough for the level of anger I am feeling. So I am now battling with myself over the anger and the action that I want to take and feel frustrated that the anger would push me into an old tried and tested method that answers the problem in the immediate but not in the long term...

So as to anger being the 'stimulus to action', I agree but am not happy with the action I want to take.

Why did God push me to go to Church that Sunday when He knew I would end up angry and disillusioned? I have to trust that He has a plan in this - indeed the words that people had that day were all about God tying up lose ends, even if it felt like everything was unravelling...interesting...only just remembered that part...

I must try to trust in God more and leave go of my control freak ways that mean I need to know and understand why I am as I am...easier said than done.

Progress?

So, I decided that I haven't blogged recently (since April!!) and in a day that has been weird for a variety of reasons, I thought perhaps I should.

I have spent the best part of the last two hours reading my blog, reminding me of the person I was and who I am becoming. This has been enlightening, not least because I appear to have forgotten some of that which I have learnt! I also worry that I am more like the person of the first few posts than the latter.

Let me start with an update on my life...
Recently my two year relationship ended. It was for a variety of reasons...we had both changed and promises that had been made had been forgotten. Life had taken us in separate directions. This is sad for many reasons, including the fact that I take so long to trust and fell a little lost to the fact that I will have to go through all of that again.
On the whole though, I am ok with the change. I believe it is the right path to take and have fleeting moments of excitement when I think of a future that has not yet been written.
Regular readers will realise that this excitement is also a form of fear for me as I am a control freak who finds it very difficult to live hand to mouth!! However, I am doing my best. This situation has shown me how many friends I have and how important they are to me. I am thankful for that.

The upshot of this is that it has sent me into a bit of a spin emotionally and has started to drag up all the other stuff that i have managed to control for so long. I do not blame the relationship break up for this, I simply think that as I spend more time with myself and God, without the stresses and strains that had become a part of my life, I can hide less.

I have made quite good progress on my main hurdle in life and faith - FORGIVENESS - and am now at a point of saying I can forgive the person I once professed to hold a murderous hatred for. This is not in anyway a done and dusted deal. I still have to start everyday with a sentence that proclaims I have forgiven them...some days I believe it, others I don't - but I say it anyway because I know that my healing is dependent on it and I know that that is what God wants.

So all in all, I have been going along life and have felt pretty ok with things...until today. Last night I had a dream, and although I cannot remember much of it, I can remember that I had the chance to go to my old Church and that I felt incredibly excited by that, so much so that I woke up feeling the need to go. (This is astonishing for two reasons...firstly, there has been an extended break between me and my Church for reasons I won't go in to and secondly, someone asked me at 1.10am that morning whether they would see me in Church and I had quickly responded - no...)

Having not felt so prodded by God for so long I decided to do as I was bid - even though my family were not pleased - and to Church I went (not before texting a friend to be sure of support when i was there, mind!)

The sermon was on the old favourite - Grace with a side of forgiveness. I listened to the preach, which was full of the faith that I believe in and the ideas that I feel are so fundamental to a Christian and felt myself getting angrier and angrier...and I don't really know why!

Cue my musings on the matter. Like I have mentioned above, I am further down the road of forgiving others that I have ever been (although probably just through the garden gate in all honesty) but i am no further along in the battle to forgive myself.
The sermon said that to have God's grace I have to accept His forgiveness, which I believe that I have done but when I tackle the issue of forgiving myself I find that I am lacking. How can I accept God's forgiveness and trust in that if I am not able to forgive myself? The answer is I can't!
So I am angry on three accounts:
1) That I am in a position that means I have to forgive myself for past things in the
first place.
Anyone who knows my story seems to think that there is nothing to be forgiven for and
although this is good to hear and is probably what my heart needs to hear - it makes me even
more resentful that I feel like I should be in this position.
2) That I can't seem to forgive myself.
If anyone else was in this position I would be thinking that there was nothing to forgive and I
would be encouraging them to forgive themselves - so why on earth can I not??!! This is
frustrating because I cannot see a way forward on this one. Being told that God forgives me
does not help me to forgive me!
3) That this is keeping me distant from God
I want to be close to Him, especially at this time, and the anger and unforgiveness that is in
me is keeping me at a distance...it's like me saying 'I don't trust you God - your judgment is
not good enough - just because you say that I am forgiven, doesn't mean I am' This makes me
mad.

So now I need to focus on this issue - just another small hurdle then..............honestly life can be hard sometimes.