Tell Giselle: Accepting and forgiving one’s failures

A couple of people I have been counseling who are in the throes of breaking up need me to answer the question: “How do I get out of the phase of anger I am in?”

G: Not every marriage is destined to go the distance. By that I mean, from the ‘I do ’til the death do us part’. Some relationships actually serve us best when they have an expiration date that isn’t at all about a life expiring, but rather from the relationship decomposing.

Even the seemingly most idyllic relationships can go rancid because of an innate toxic chemistry that wasn’t fully detected at the inception. Truth be told, many of our relationships that start out with great promise and hope of happiness actually do show early signs that they are potentially fatal. Still, it is the excitement of the possibility of a lasting or true love that is often just too much to resist. And so off the cliff we jump.

We’ll practically squeal with a mixture of panic and delight as we take the plunge into a union that deep down, or even at the surface, we already know is doomed or is at least fraught with some heartache, with more danger likely to come.

Long before the relationship collapse is in full view of everyone in our inner circle, the estranged, divorced or former lovers will go through a range of tough emotions and go from uncertainty to certainty more times than one can keep track of. Many will initially focus their narrative about their emotional state on their disappointment and grieving stage, due to a betrayal or an assault that is deemed unforgiveable, or perhaps from a change in interests that became irreconcilable. Like what I have seen happen when a partner chooses to support a candidate, take up a religious practice one cannot abide, or need/demand to have just one more child.

But from what I know, it is really the anger phase that can last an especially long time that can be the most destructive.

Sometimes the best way to break a pattern that is destructive is to hear yourself out loud, describing only to yourself, what it is you are doing that is essentially self-sabotaging.

This is a bit challenging to do when it comes to anger, mostly because the feeling one gets when in an angry state can be oh so gratifying. Because anger, as most of us know, often comes with a perverse incentive. That is, unless it doesn’t bring on with it a heart attack.

The anger response has the ability to mimic an emotion that feels empowering. When anger is concentrated on what is correct or proper, it can easily take the form of self-righteousness that fuels one’s ego and diminishes one’s spiritual expression.

The only good that comes with any angry feeling is that eventually these experiences can help bring one to the spiritual realization that anger is not useful.

How can that be true, you say, when so many people in relationship turmoil cling desperately to their anger as though it were the life raft out of their volatile upheaval?

Try listening to yourself the next time you find yourself in such a rant of madness. Or if you cannot stop yourself mid-nutso anger, try listening to yourself as you recap the bile you were thinking or spewing about someone else.

Do you think you look useful in that state of mind or heart? Do you think that you are attractive to anyone in that unhinged flurry of expletives that has spiked your blood pressure and brought you closer to a stroke or that widow-maker cardiac arrest?

Now do you think it is useful to lose your cool to that degree, to be that angry about anyone or anything?

After you’ve thoroughly processed that scenario a few times and you are able to more clearly see how others observing your anger would want to run away from you, the next step is to surrender to this truth: the only way to stop any addiction is to stop.

Anger is often feeding an addiction. It might be an addiction to the feeling of self-righteousness that swells your chest, or it might be an addiction to how you get to thinking better of yourself as you put the other person down, because they are the ones that sinned or failed to hold up their end of some bargain you had made with them.

Or the addiction can come from an attachment to the extra attention, support, or comfort you are getting from those who are in your circle and who are sad to see you hurting.

Whatever the source of the addiction, it’s got to stop. So own that. Then take a look at the other person who is the focus of your anger and consider that they have not been their highest/best self and they too are in a hurting or lost state of being.

I know, I know, that seems like a tall order but it is the best way I know that is guaranteed to help break the anger phase. By looking at their hurt you get out of your worst self and invigorate any capacity for compassion that you have left.

Should that happen you are likely to end up in a much better place. And perhaps even be able to move ahead that much quicker with your own forgiveness and healing.

Next week, in Part 2, I’ll share a short missive you can write, and consider sending, that takes this level of spiritual restoration to the next level.