“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” ~Guatama Buddha
I learned, maybe seven years ago when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis that my feelings directly affected my disease. If someone called me and told me horrible news, my right leg would lose all feeling immediately. Anger would render limbs useless, and the exhaustion would hit me so much harder.
More and more we are doing the science to show how stress and anger and sadness (all emotion) affects us physically.
I was very angry then. Angry that I did everything right, and seemingly, it didn’t matter. I had to leave teaching, the home we lived in – Tony and I had to hold hands and just jump into the unknown, and we are better for it.
Most marriages I don't think would have survived what we survived,
We jumped into simplicity. To a simpler life. I give thanks everyday that I’m not this wound up stress ball that I used to be – filled with worry.
I have one worry now – it is my family’s health. That is one that will always, naturally, be there. I am a mother and someone's lover. Of course that will be there for them.
When the doctor just found the new lesion beneath the brain stem and on the spinal cord and said it meant quadriplegia – I didn’t get mad. I had already lost those things that I thought mattered and, more importantly, like I have said before – when it comes, all you recognize is the love.
My head and heart kept drifting to how grateful I was for the love in my life. I felt strong despite the exhaustion and the pain. The anger didn’t matter. I am not dead, and yet quadriplegia is a sort of death in a way, of an old life and learning to live without my body – so it’s close in a way – and I’m telling you "only the love comes".
Don’t drink other people’s poison. Don’t let them control you be reacting with anger. The one thing you control is how you react. Don’t RESPOND. Don’t let it touch you with a ten foot pole. If people try to tell me who said what about me and why – I ask them to please keep it t themselves UNLESS it is a loved one and something needs to be sorted out and fixed.
If you are angry – TALK. Tell the person why you are hurt. Use your mouth. Don’t play it out on Facebook where children see how you handle disagreements, or through your children. Don’t carry it inside you until it becomes a cancer, don’t let it take your legs away.
Anger is poison. Don’t touch. Avoid it like you always avoid that one really annoying person (we all have "that guy") that just talks TOO much at the worst times. Don’t go near it. It is a complete waste of time. You are here to love. It takes that time from you, while hurting you.
One way to get over it – if someone hurts me and I am stuck on it, I ask myself, “Okay, because I have never hurt some? Never lied to anyone? Never broken a heart? Never been insensitive? Or absent when a loved one needed me?” I have been all those things. I grew. I changed. But sometimes I still do those things, unknowningly. We are not perfect creatures. There's a reason I was not chosen to be the Messiah.
If we look at ourselves first, we become less angry with others.
We are all imperfect. And yet, how quickly we forget to be angry at ourselves when we wrong someone. We pounce on others for the pettiest of things.
Remember that. Maybe it will get the anger off you and cleanse you. If someone tries to tell you something that someone said or did to wrong you – heck no, don't listen to what they have to say. Say, “Dude, I can't hear stuff like that. I don’t want to be mad and it affects my health. Not my problem.” And stop them. The moment they tell you, it becomes your problem.
Do NOT let it get to that point. Don't hear it. Also, question the people you’re hanging with if they are constantly telling you things to make you mad at other people. Why?
Deepak Chopra once said, "What other people think of you is none of your business." Hold onto that.
I have some secrets about friends – things people did that would hurt them, or things people said about them. I don’t want my friends to hurt, so I don’t tell them.
"Oh, so and so said you look like Chewbacca. I thought you should know."
Why on God's green earth would I share that with someone I love. It only serves to hurt them. I’m not handing them a bottle of poison. I would be a bigger arse than the person who made the mean comment.
My body will be gone soon, and I’m not angry. I was angry before. There was one person that hurt me in a way that I thought could never be undone. Truly, no one thought I could. That person was so incredibly IRRELEVANT when my doctor said "quadriplegia". They were the last thing in the world that mattered to me.
Only the love was coming with me and I was soo, soo grateful for the love I had. Stay away from anger, It will hurt you in PHYSICAL ways you can’t understand until you are sick and it’s too late. Stay away from the people who share things with you to make you angry at other people. Friends don’t hand friends bottles of poison. And focus on the love.
God bless you.
PS—Update on how I’m feeling. Incredibly tired. You’re already incredibly tired when you have MS. BUT holy shmolies this is another level of exhaustion. I took the picture up top yesterday to write a follow up about how I was feeling, but I couldn't do it. My fingers just couldn't type a blog. I pretty much laid like a swaddled baby until my husband came home to help me. I did get make-up on though so that's cool.
PPS-Tony has to learn how to do my make-up for me lol. So we are making this into a family video production. Daddy doing mama's Egyptian eyes should be awesome. There's no way in hell we can go into quadriplegia without him learning how to do my make-up. I still have dignity. And large pores. Stay tuned for the video.
PPPS-Stop hating. Focus on nurturing the love in front of you. I couldn't let make-up be my last P.S. No anger. :)
