Dear Rosa:

Buddhism principles: awakening, seeing what is, peeling inaccurate projections off what we see, being left with seeing what is real, the bare minimum; being mindful, calming the wandering mind, these Buddhist principles are well incorporated into Western psychotherapy these days and for some time.

I used to feel very guilty for feeling so much anger so often at my mother. I believed I was a bad person for feeling anger toward her. It was a long, long time before I realized what my anger meant, what message it carried. It is okay to be angry, or fearful, or … whatever we feel is okay, each emotion carries a valid message. If we see the valid message we learn that we are okay for feeling what we feel. When we get the real message behind an emotion, the emotion- having successfully delivered its message- drifts away, weakens and dissipates, it has done its job.

Our relationship to our emotions is crucial to our mental health. Fearing fear–> anxiety, panic, misunderstanding anger—> unjustified guilt, and so forth.

Would you like to share what is your relationship to your anger? Do you see a message in it? What is it?

anita

Dear Rosa:

You are welcome. I used to feel very guilty about feeling angry at my mother. The intensity and longevity of my guilt was very destructive in my life. That was my relationship to my anger at her- feeling guilty, that is believing I am BAD and WRONG for feeling it. Decades later, I realize, now I realize that I was not bad and wrong for feeling anger at her. Now I know that the real message, the VALID message behind my anger is that what SHE was doing to me was wrong and bad. The concept! And that is not all the message was and is. It is also: I am okay and of value. The anger, that energy in motion, the energy to fight for myself, why would I have that energy, that motivation, if I was not WORTHY of fighting for? Well, I am.

As I write this I feel no anger toward her. Ah, message or messages successfully delivered!

anita

Dear Rosa:

There are more layers. There are. You know you are on the path of healing when you find out another layer and then another.

If I may point out to a layer to yet be … un-layered: you wrote above, a few posts above that your father (now dead) was a brutal man. In the last post you wrote that (your father) did his vest for you. Well, the two statements are not congruent. Was his brutality his best?

I am supposing this thought is disturbing, that he did not do his best, that he was a bad father, that he was wrong. So you place the thought (that layer) back in its compartment so to get rid of the distress.

Only later, when you are ready.

anita

Dear Rosa:

I am sure your father had the potential to be an excellent father. I also believe that SS Guards in WW2 in concentration and death camps had the potential to be good people. I am sure that their frustrations had their reasons. Same for serial murderers.

The bummer, the mind boggling challenge for a child, be it an adult child, be it even when one’s parents are dead, the mind boggling thing is that we loved/ love our parent, no matter how brutal, so much, so deeply, so desperately that we are willing to overlook anything, excuse anything, delude ourselves thinking any which way- just so to see that parent in the very best possible light. And by “possible” I don’t mean a true way of seeing, I mean any which possible way of minimizing, denying, excusing etc. It is truly mind boggling to me. I have done it. We, children, do it again and again.

anita

Dear Rosa:

You are welcome and when some new thought or development happens in you, please post on this thread or start a new one. Please do remember (when you forget) that anger is not a bad thing, is not a disease, but a natural emotion we need. It carries a message, something we need to realize for our own well being.

anita