The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz

I’ve started meditating again. It’s going quite well; I’m having more interesting dreams, I’m able to think and speak more efficiently, my patience has doubled, and my thoughts aren’t on the carousel of arguments with real or imagined people from my past and future.

Although it’s now a common thing to do for mental health, I resist recommending meditation to anyone because a) they’ve likely already tried it and b) I would have to say the words ‘Have you tried meditating?’

There’s something about it that sounds dismissive, like I’m telling someone that I can manage their feelings better than they can. It feels invasive and a little inappropriate.

So, I suppose the answer is to speak only for myself:

I’ve been angry for about fifteen years. I’m often confused by this, because I have a decent amount of control over my environment. I can (usually) rid myself of unhealthy relationships. I can limit my time with social media and the news. I can eat well and exercise. I can engage in hobbies. I have a few very good relationships.

This is more freedom and privilege than many can claim. But of course, I still exist in a world beyond my control. Within that world, I’m trapped in a dream of my own internalizations. I can only experience about ten percent of anything, because everything I consume with my senses is distorted by the prejudices, beliefs, and memories that I have accumulated over the past thirty years.

I (I think like many others) experience much of this distortion as internal noise. There are not exactly a thousand people in my head, but there are quite a few. Some are real, some imagined, but they all seem to be shouting all the time: at me, at each other, past each other.

It’s the result of an amalgamation of conversations I’ve had, philosophies that seemed helpful at one time, and lessons I’ve learned, good and bad. They feel like they are simultaneously creating and obscuring some true self I’ve lost, one that I’m not sure really exists.

There’s no resolution or constructive conversation to be had among these voices and as the years pass, they get louder and more venomous. If I listen, I can still hear the part of me not outside the tornado of rage thinking, if everyone would please shut up a moment.....

I’m missing my life because I can’t hear it above the noise. The most insidious thing about this spiral is that it seems to happen automatically. It rises when it senses any weakness; any time I find myself frustrated or unsure about my place in the world.

But this spiral isn’t just anger. It’s anger combined with a resistance to the idea of anger. It’s anger with punishment for feeling angry. It’s a voice that says there’s no reason for you to be angry. You don’t have any right to be angry. Sit down and be quiet.

It’s both the wailing toddler who wants the toy and the overtired parent who doesn’t have the energy to do anything other than spank him and drag him out of the store.

What if I let him cry? What if I let the noise rise and listened as it grew louder and louder? What if I didn’t immediately react to it?

It fades. The tornado settles and my feet are back on the ground.

Meditation doesn’t get rid of my unpleasant thoughts and emotions. It removes my resistance to them. When my mind is clear, it doesn’t distinguish between correct and incorrect phenomena. I can see life, both outside and inside my mind, as one long, complicated string of happening.

Anger isn’t bad or incorrect. It’s not some inversion of a more ‘correct reality.’ There is no ‘correct reality.’

It’s not that I don’t get angry. It’s that I can be ok with the anger when it comes.

Hey!

*Want to see these essays in your inbox as soon as they are published? Click here and scroll down to Get In Touch to send me a message. Please use the subject heading: "Put me on your email list."