From Anger to Healing? Here's hoping!

Conference was awesome.  I feel like I had my cup filled to overflowing with inspiration and direction, with so many personal messages!

However, as seems to happen so often to me after a spiritual high, I hit bottom that week.  It was ugly!  Looking back, I can see so much that I learned but, boy, was it awful to go through!  Looking back, I can see that I asked one of those "fateful" questions...and got my answer.  You know, like praying for patience? Warning!  Never do that unless you want to get answered!!  Know how you develop patience?  Practicing. It can be brutal.

My fateful question was one from conference.  A speaker challenged us to pray for that one thing that we need to work on.  So I did, feeling spiritually comfortable and safe.  The funny thing is that I asked it kind of hesitantly, in the peace of the moment, and then put it in the back of my mind.

Apparently, I need to work with my anger issues.

I used to be a screamer and haven't done it for quite some time.  It was one of those huge spiritual, epic battles...or maybe more one of submission, where God and I worked together for a very long time to put my anger at my kids where it should be: nowhere.  I used to feel that in order to be effective, my correction had to be backed with "steam," like they had to feel the weight of my disapproval to make them listen more effectively.

All that did was make them feel unloved.  The Spirit was already working on their hearts.  They just needed some verbal reproof, encouragement, and then freedom to try again. I love the following quote by the late President Packer:

It is essential for a teacher to understand that people are basically good.  It is essential to know that their tendancy is to do the thing that is right.   Such exalted thought is productive of faith.  It makes all the difference when we stand before...to teach."

I keep this thought on the front of my mentoring notebook where I keep my thoughts about current mentoring methods, ideas, kids' needs, etc.  Many times I find that I mentor my children out of fear: fear of my own imperfect example, fear that I might say or do something wrong to "permanently ruin" them, fear of their behaviors turning into addictions or creating long-term problems.  This idea of inner goodness and good tendancies is a beautiful one and one that I know is true.   As I have corrected my children more in a way that suggests I am merely reminding them of something they would already want to do and perhaps had forgotten, it awakens in them more of a geniune and immediate desire to listen and consider what I have said.

Anyway, I digress :).  Back to being a screamer...

Well, I was a screamer and am now many days "scream-free." (Yes, it is an addiction and I celebrate my freedom from it!)  However, I have learned this week in painful ways another level of my anger that is destructive...I get angry at people I love.  I don't know what it is, or why I do it. I have been thinking about that the last few days.  The safer I feel with someone, the less I try and hold back my irritation at anything.

And it can really flare up (especially when I am tired)! 

Poor people who love me and who have given me that safety net...a net of love that I have used and abused over the years!  How horrible! Now, I realize when I write this in such a public venue, I may be exposing myself to misunderstanding and censure.  However, I feel that maybe, by writing about it this way, I can help others who may feel the same.  I am definitely not perfect, but that is one reason why I have this blog,...to have a place to record my learnings, growings and stretchings.

After a harrowing week last week and some very humbling exposure and revelation, I felt pretty raw. This morning I got another little reminder: I was reading in 1 Nephi 18 when Nephi and his brothers were sailing on the ship and guess who got mad?  And easily?  And at those who loved them?  Yep...Laman and Lemuel, not my heroes.  It was a little eye-opening, the parallels between their attitude and mine.  Gulp. 

Now...this is just the next step: my own little personal revelation for where I need to change and how I can be closer to Christ.  How I can have a better marriage.  How I can be kinder and better to those I love.   Sometimes one of the biggest steps is to recognize the problem so you can work on it.

However,  Quinn and I had a great conversation last night in which he suggested something Kirk Duncan (a motivational writer and presenter) recommends: journaling and venting.  He talks about it in a CD called "The Field."
 
Basically, you keep two journals, a "black" one for all the garbage you just vent with and a "white" one for things you don't mind sharing with others.  The black one you just keep and write in and let it out.  Similar idea with the venting: you find a place that is your "field," and go and verbalize out loud all your concerns and problems, going through conversations or sentiments you would have with those you are struggling with...and let it go.

I am tired of being a Laman and Lemuel.  Time to try on some Nephi :).