Posts Tagged ‘anger’

An Audio Blog For Something Different!

Posted: September 2, 2012 in life lessons, love, self-help
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Today, I’m doing something new. I’ve done my blog on audio file. I wanted to do this one in a way that you could hear my voice. I felt compelled to tell this story in my own words and my own voice so that you could hear and feel my passion, my pain and my sincerity. I also thought that perhaps my readers and fans might enjoy hearing me narrate my own writing, for a little something different! Besides, I need the practice for all those speaking engagements I’m hoping to do next year!

This is about my personal journey, changing who I am and growing as a person. Change is never easy, but it’s worth the bumps in the road if you have faith and you really want to make lasting happiness become a reality in your life and in your relationships. I do. I hope that what I have to say resonates with you and compels you to make choices in your life that are positive too!

Having a brother who is deaf, I am sensitive to the needs of those who may need to read this blog. If you comment and request that I send you a hard copy to read, I’ll be more than happy to send you the written transcript to your email. :) Thanks.  Click here to listen to today’s blog ———— >>> http://soundcloud.com/jesse-macgregor-jones/blog-upload

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New Day? Is It Even Possible?

Posted: August 31, 2012 in gay lesbian, lesbian, life lessons, love, self-help
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Everyone always says to me, “Keep your chin up, tomorrow is a new day.” I’ve always tried to listen to this advice but lately it just seems like too much to do. First of all, tomorrow really ISN’T a new day, because all the shit I did wrong yesterday still comes back to haunt me.

Sometimes I find out that I”m doing things wrong when I thought I was doing things right. Sometimes all the trying just wears me out in a way that is so exhausting that I wonder why I keep trying or why I even get out of bed some days at all. I lay my neck out under the guillotine and I bare my soul. It seems like I get zero points for that from anyone, but I get called to the carpet for other things. I feel like the little kid who made breakfast for mom and dad and instead of them being happy with me, I get grounded for destroying the kitchen in the process. Today…I’m Eeyore. I’m feeling sorry for myself. I’m entitled once in a while. Get over it.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. At 1am I looked at the clock. I got up, got a drink of water, sat at the table and gazed out at the moonlight. Tried to go lay back down. At 2:30am, I was back up to pee and wander back out to the table. I put my head on the table, exhausted but still cannot sleep. I prayed. Oh yeah, this is when God and I get very in depth when it comes to my life. My mind is working overtime and my gut is telling me something is in the air. I try to lay down again. At 4am, I give up and sit at the table with sweat trickling down my chest, the back of my head is wet because it is so hot. I hate it. I’m itchy from the mosquitoes. My legs are scraped to the point of bleeding and I’m sure there will be scars….all from mosquitoes this year. Nothing is going right. NOTHING.

I go back to bed. At 4:45 I looked at my watch but that is the last thing I remember, until 8am. Promptly at 8am, the yard crew decides to start weed-eating and edging right in front of MY house. Sitting straight-up in my bed, I glare at the man outside my window who is unknowingly making my life hell at this very moment. He doesn’t even notice me. Story of my life.

I was FINALLY asleep and even actually dreaming. Now this man has become the object of my disdain, but it really isn’t him. It’s my life. I fell and hurt myself yesterday. Getting up this morning hurts like hell. My toe feels possibly broken. My ass hurts from landing hard. My knee is stiff and sprained and my ankle is a little puffy. No one asked me today how I feel.

I get to the main computer room at the park to find that the internet is out and I have to ride my bike 5 miles to the library if I want to use the internet. I need to, because I’ve been instructed to do some things by someone who is somewhat pissed at me. So…I go. I do what I need to do, because she’s right and I was wrong and again, I’m paying for yesterday’s stupidity and wondering when – if ever – that I’m going to get things right. I try…I really do. Things just don’t seem to work out for me.

I refuse to be an angry person anymore. I won’t let that eat me alive one more day. In it’s place though is this huge void. The part of me that was once filled with so much rage is just sort of ‘empty’ now. I don’t know how to describe it. I’m frustrated but far from angry. I am looking for answers and reasons, looking for the things that are going to help me fill that void. I get exasperated because some days it feels like for every step I take forward, I take two steps back.

This morning, I got smacked back into reality. Again, two steps back. I feel like I should have stayed in bed today…I don’t have any fight left in me.  I feel like the air has been sucked right out of my lungs and that that I am slowly suffocating in my mistakes from yesterday. I’m fighting through the jungle to get to the open clearing where my redemption awaits…only right now I feel that the bugs and the exhaustion are going to kill me before I get there.  Feeling pretty hopeless and defeated right this moment.

Tomorrow is a new day, right? <bangs head on wall>

 

How Do You Apologize To A Crusty Dragon?

Posted: August 2, 2012 in lesbian, life lessons, self-help
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Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have a lot of people out there who read what I have to say. I’m humbled that you think what I say is important enough to read. When you comment about various things, I am moved a great deal that it meant that much to you or touched you in a way that compelled you to let me know. The greatest desire of a writer is to touch people, move people and make people think. If I have done that, then I have achieved my ultimate goal in life.

That said, I also think it is very important to be honest with people. When I express emotions I am a human, just like you. I sometimes write things that have been about my past or my relationships and my remarks indirectly hurt someone. I never really mean for that to happen, because I get lost in the writing and releasing of the emotions … sometimes one of which is anger.

I Feel That I Owe Readers An Apology Too

This isn’t a good thing and it makes me feel that I’ve misled people and it makes me feel that I’ve done a disservice from time to time. Today, I’d like to set the record straight. I’m kind of a bitch. I’m not easy to live with, put up with or even understand. I’m complicated. I have a learning disability that great affects my ability to communicate, and more importantly, to understand people. I take things the wrong way. I take things out of context and I have been known to over react. It costs me a lot in my life. People tell me that I need to get a grip on it, control it, work on it, etc. They simply don’t understand that it’s chemical and genetic and I can’t just “get a grip” on this. I can medicate myself, but the amount that it takes to really help makes me feel drugged and unable to function physically.  I sleep all the time. I feel hung-over all the time and sick to my stomach. My frustration levels build and I get aggravated. I am very upset with myself in these situations because I don’t want to over react and I don’t want to be angry, it just happens. After it happens, sometimes I am very remorseful but it doesn’t exactly help at that point. The damage has already been done.

The Part Where I Admit I’m An Asshole

I need to apologize to someone and while she doesn’t want me to do it publicly, this is what she deserves. I vented publicly and I should apologize publicly. I took comments that she made very personally because she was important to me and her opinions mattered to me. It made me feel so picked-on and pressured, exactly what someone like me can’t deal with. She didn’t mean to do that to me. I know this now. The pressures I felt were the ones I put on myself.  My reactions were to speak harshly to her, say hurtful things that I really didn’t even mean and hurt her when it was really the very last thing I wanted to do. I’d compare it to feeling like a wild animal that gets backed into a corner and, out of fear and anxiety, scratches and claws anyone who comes near…even the helping hands.

It isn’t right. I know this. She was not an awful person in any way, she just had her own way of doing things and because I wasn’t really very honest with her about my learning disability to begin with, we had great difficulty in communicating. When you have an issue that makes you feel defective, your initial desire is to hide it from people. I should never have done this. I should never have hidden from her and I should never have lashed out at someone who cared … because I know that she did.

The Truth Is Out

I’m defective, now you know. Now you also know that ranting about my “ex” recently was not the right thing to do and I owed her better. I’m sorry. Times when I should have talked to her, I wrote things instead. Writing has been the only thing that helps me get inside myself, focus and becomes almost meditative for me. Writing is my refuge, a place where I feel safe. Talking, especially face to face, is full of anxiety for me, it scares me and makes me want to run and hide. There were times I just wanted to lay my head on her shoulder and cry. There were times when I just wanted to be silent and be close, just to listen to her heartbeat. She didn’t understand that I needed that calm and stillness and that I couldn’t talk in those moments. I wanted her to be my refuge. I never told her that and I never let her be.

To Set The Record Straight

She’s really a wonderful person, but she’s a busy person with so much going on in her world. I never wanted to add a stress to her life. I never wanted to take away from her. I wanted to be there for her, I wanted to support her and be her cheering section. She’s brilliant. Amazingly smart. I admire her. I wish I was more like her in a lot of ways. I didn’t want her to know my flaws because I was afraid she would not be able to handle it, understand it or have time for it. I never gave her much credit I guess?

At any rate. I owed her an apology. She deserved better. I’m sorry, Dragon.

Anger – An Inspiration To Move Beyond

Posted: June 1, 2012 in Uncategorized
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Understanding Anger

Of all the emotions that we, as human beings face, anger is perhaps the most visceral and least understood. Anger can take many forms and it can also lead us down into rabbit holes from which we may or may not ever find our way out of again. For some, wallowing in their anger seems to have become the great American past time? Still, others will flatly deny that they are angry, while cursing you under their breath for even asking such a stupid thing and then promptly go home and kick the cat because now they are in a bad mood.

As a country, we are one of the angriest people on the planet. Why is that I wonder? I find it interesting because I’ve had my own issues with anger and as I try to learn more about it, the more elusive it seems to become. Anger is like a chameleon. It changes its color and shifts with our other moods, but it can remain right there with you, just under the surface, parasitic in nature. It’s like there’s a little mercenary with a bad attitude that waits in camouflage until that very moment you least expect it; he jumps out and attacks. He uses full metal jackets and an assault rifle with a scope. He lets loose his barrage on anyone and everyone within range.

While it is frightening to those around us, it is equally frightening to us when these episodes happen. Facing anger is a scary, scary thing. Even more so when it has been a part of you for so long that you have totally forgotten why you are even angry in the first place. Anger is like that unemployed cousin who came to visit and is still sleeping on your sofa. He isn’t YOU. He’s an invader and you don’t know why he’s still there. You don’t know why he came in the first place because it’s been so long now. You’d love to get rid of him, but you really don’t quite know how. You’ve come to take a bit of comfort in him being there on the sofa for you, so you tend to forget that he’s intruding in your life and taking up valuable space. Stop feeding him and he’ll go away.

 

Is There Hope For People Who Want To Move Beyond Anger?

Dr. Judith Orloff, an author, a psychiatrist and a clinical professor at UCLA, states that people can change. She says that the the key to ridding yourself of anger is to learn compassion. In her book, “Emotional Freedom”, Dr. Orloff talks about Mark and the loss of his father. Mark viewed this loss as “senseless and irreparable” and this changed him dramatically. He treated the world with disdain for its unfairness. Mark ended-up learning his lessons the hard way, after doing time in prison for the things he did in anger. He sought help, went to therapy, became a student of the Torah and changed his life because he committed to it. He’s now been married for more than 20 years and is a happy and productive person who runs a halfway house with his wife.

The key, for Mark and for everyone, is to get to the root cause of the anger and deal with it. It takes work and for some, that work may be too much. For some people, it may be the longest and most meaningful journey of your lifetime. It’s a transformation and a shift within your soul that has to take place. The question, I suppose in my own opinion is, ‘do you think you’re worth it?’  I for one believe that I am and I am embracing the journey.

Anger can come from many places. It can come from a childhood need that never was fulfilled, it can come from a great loss and devastation in your life and it can come from many things in your life that combine. I look at it like a pipe under the kitchen sink that begins to clog. As things pile on top, the clog gets worse and it gets tighter, compacting itself into a tight ball of muck. All the little bits of muck start to get caught in the big ball of muck because there’s no room to be let go now, and drain out in their natural way. The little things that normally wouldn’t be an issue are now an issue because there’s no way to let them go; there is no proper outlet.

A “proper outlet” is necessary for anger. Let’s face it, anger is one of the most common emotions that we all feel. Things make us angry. Anger is a huge part of what makes us human beings. If we didn’t get angry about things, then we would never seek to change things. Constructive responses to anger are fantastic! Getting angry because you get a bad grade on an exam would be normal. A constructive response of studying harder and resolving yourself to doing better the next time is fantastic. Getting shit-faced drunk, feeling sorry for yourself and punching some guy in a parking lot is not so much of a good response. However, people do things like that in their responses to anger.

Therefore, anger expressed accordingly, can be one of the best motivators in your life if you allow it to be. Anger can also eat you alive and make you a miserable person if you let it. I don’t intend to let it. I’m working on shifting myself to a compassion consciousness. I know it won’t be easy, but I know that I can do it because I want to. I believe in me, I don’t need anyone else to. I’m working on surrounding myself with people who are what I wish to be. I am letting anger motivate me to grow and change. Choosing a positive outcome, I’m taking control of my life and kicking that cousin off the sofa.

 

Begin With Being Thankful For Honesty 

I believe that all things happen for a reason and that people come into our lives when we are ready for the lesson that they are going to teach us. They are there, at this stage of our journey for a reason. In fact, while it isn’t easy to do, when someone comes into your life and forces you to look at yourself very hard in the mirror, you should accept this as a gift. This is quite possibly the greatest gift that the Universe can ever bestow upon you – someone who cares enough to be honest with you and care about you enough to truly want you to be healthy and feel better.

Even when they aren’t sure that it is possible for you to change, just the fact that they are willing to put their neck out there and tell you that it is time you face your demons is worthy of your sincerest respect. While some will just accept you as you are, only a TRUE friend will tell you that you’re completely fucked up and be willing to accept that you may not like hearing that. Even if they type it to you and then slam their laptop shut before you can respond. They fired a potshot at the little mercenary under your skin and then they ran for cover like Rambo; falling back to see if they hit their target and if there will be any retaliatory gunfire. God bless that person and their courage. They deserve a medal of honor.