{"id":174,"date":"2008-07-15T01:27:52","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T01:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2008\/07\/that-heat-of-the-moment-moment-and-other-thoughts-on-anger.html"},"modified":"2008-07-15T01:27:52","modified_gmt":"2008-07-15T01:27:52","slug":"that-heat-of-the-moment-moment-and-other-thoughts-on-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/that-heat-of-the-moment-moment-and-other-thoughts-on-anger.html","title":{"rendered":"that “heat of the moment” moment, and other thoughts on anger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not to sound repetitive, but I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about anger lately. At the retreat last month we talked about feelings of anger towards others. But what about anger that is directed AT us, from someone else other than us? You can\u2019t really console yourself with the fact of whether it\u2019s justified or not. If you think it is justified then your own self anger kicks in \u2013 God, I was such a jerk to that person, what the hell is wrong with me? I\u2019m horrible.<\/em> If it feels unjustified, you get angry at the person who is already angry at you \u2013 How could they even think that about me? They are totally wrong! What a jerk!<\/em> So blame doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

Where does the compassion come in for someone who is angry at you? And if you are angry at him or her to begin with, it makes it all the harder \u2013 Well then why should <\/em>I make the effort to work with these feelings?<\/em> Are you supposed to let the person\u2019s darts hit you? Do you throw darts back? Do you sit down cross-legged on the floor and wait for them to stop shouting? Walk out the door? Compassion is very difficult to do (well, at least for me) when you\u2019re feeling wronged, because the urge to get your side heard above all is very strong. That\u2019s a challenging thing to practice. I think it has to do with letting go of the \u201cwho\u2019s right, who\u2019s wrong\u201d mentality, but easier said than done, right? Anger can come from a place of wisdom or confusion. In the heat of the moment, it\u2019s very difficult to know which. I don\u2019t know if my meditation practice will completely eliminate that \u201cheat of the moment\u201d moment for me (though that is my hope), but it might help me recognize when someone else is in that state, and figure out how to be compassionate to them. What does that compassion look like?<\/p>\n

In my measly 21 years of life and experiences with relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners, I think the most important thing I\u2019ve learned thus far is that nothing is simple \u2013 nothing is black and white. People can be good-for-you-slash-not-so-good-for-you. People can be right-slash-wrong. Oftentimes it\u2019s a very complicated mix. Sometimes there is no clear-cut answer to a problem.<\/p>\n

And, well. A dozen doctors haven\u2019t figured out why my stomach has been hurting me for 21 years. It\u2019s tragic, but sometimes things just don\u2019t work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not to sound repetitive, but I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about anger lately. At the retreat last month we talked about feelings of anger towards others. But what about anger that is directed AT us, from someone else other than us? 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She is a freelance writer for the Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s International Perspective, and her writing has been published in Sentient City, the ID Project\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s online literary magazine. Emily is also a playwright and winner of the Young Playwrights Inc. National Playwrighting Competition for her one-act play \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Assemblage.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Her writing is influenced by art, artists, psychology, and spirituality. She has run drama and arts workshops in schools in NYC and Long Island, and teaches children with autism. Emily is working on her M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction at Columbia University School of the Arts. Emily has been attending classes and workshops at the ID Project since 2005.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/eherzlin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}