rage

Today presented lots of evidence that I am definitely not perfect yet. Even with all the yoga, I am still human, y'all. I lost my shit, once again, on another human being. I punched a wall and used the word "fuck" in several very personal, very loud and very angry insults.

(When I told the story later to a friend, she laughed at me because I used the side of my hand. Punching drywall is painful. She promised me that next time she's on this coast, she'll teach me the joy of a real fist. I hope maybe I won't need to know that by then.)

Anyway, this time it wasn't a landlord or a telephone customer service rep or a gas station attendant. Nope. It was a friend. I'm not going to get into whether she was wrong or not. I mean, really, does it matter? The point is that in many ways, my life and my behavior still feel totally out of control.

Self restraint is a complete mystery to me. I'm baffled by it. I've been trying to find the point in my interaction today when I could have walked away and gone to find my center again. I don't know when that point was. I was driven, like a crazy person, to keep myself in the argument until the time came when I was absolutely overcome by rage. Once the rage hit, it was a little bit like being out of my body. I knew as it was happening that I was acting insane. I could also see it in her face. I crossed the line from regular old everyday anger to something much closer to violence. But my body kept yelling and screaming and punching shit and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I was incapable in that moment of practicing self restraint.

A lot of you who know me or read my blog will point out that I quit drinking and smoking and snorting coke, but all I can tell you is that didn't happen because of self restraint. I think that if we're lucky, with the big stuff, the addictions, we get a little grace. If we've really had enough, it just falls away.

With the more subtle stuff, there's some work to do. The truth is, I have no idea how to go about it. Go back to therapy? Okay, maybe. But I can't really afford to do that right now, so get your butts to Square One. Your yoga teacher needs to pay her therapist.

Which actually brings me back to what I intended to write about when I sat down tonight: getting more butts into square one. Stay tuned...