My Two Friends

My head throbs not from physical pain but from the familiar emotions beginning to rise up within me. Frustration. anger. My two friends that come to visit me during bedtime. The aggravation is so intense that I wish I could drill a hole through my head just to escape the senseless shrill screaming. It is so painful - and so hard to bear. Nothing helps the situation. I imagine myself from above, trying to go to a different zone, a higher place where I don't feel anger or frustration anymore, just go through the motions trying to make myself numb….need to numb, need to numb, can't feel these painful and frustrating feelings… feelings of aggravation, seething boiling mad underneath a mask of calm that represent my lack of control… It all boils down to gaiva (arrogance) and anava (humility), am I in control or is God? If I am angry because something happened out of my control, it represents my Gaiva that I think I am in control. Arrogance. You are never in control. A humble response would be curious, open, and aware of the situation at hand, not the expected or desired situation. I am not in control, Hashem is, and He only does good things for me. Any anger is a lack of my emunah and level of feeling the love Hashem is pouring down on me. Higher Gaiva, more control, More anger, less feeling love. In this view of the world, nothing is going right. When I am in control and acting as G-d, and things don’t go my way and I can’t control them, I am angry at myself. I am angry at things OUT OF MY CONTROL. It is so silly to be angry. It is so silly to think I am in control. I am not in control. I cannot control anything other than my responses and reactions. I cannot even control the anger that rises up within me. I have to accept it, and breathe into it. Validate it. It will not just go away because I “should” be better. It will stay and fight to leave the harder I fight for it to go. The only way it will leave, the terrible anger, the arrogance, gaiva, need to control and the deep frustration- The only way it will go is by accepting that it is there. And that I am not perfect. I cannot control everything and I cannot control how I feel about that. I need help - I will need someone to help me ride the waves of my turbulent feelings and emotions while I give myself space to feel them, not reel them in. breathe them out. Accept help. And when there is no help to be had… I still see you. You are still angry. Just remember that you can’t solve it and that is ok. So much of good parenting is humility. Not getting angry is humility. Things do not have to go MY way. Sometimes, things need to happen. But you will find that if you are not emotionally attached, there is no “MY” in the way, you will be able to get them done. Without any anger:) I bless us all to have the greatest humility ever, humbleness and acceptance. And then we will access our deepest and truest joy.