Mr. SponsorPants

5 Quotes on Anger

 

 

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

 -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

 

He who angers you conquers you.

 -- Elizabeth Kenny

 

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

 -- Ambrose Bierce

 

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

 -- Thomas Kempis

 

If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?

 -- Sydney J. Harris

 

 

a moment sublime

She shares pretty much every week.

Every.  Single.  Week.

Now, let me state right at the outset that I think people should share as often as they feel the need to, and to hell with what anyone else thinks.  For me a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous is medicine, and sometimes to get my full dose I need to raise my hand and speak to the topic, or share something that's going on with me, or in general open up and smash through my ego-fears of what other people will think of me.  And I support fully, totally, any alcoholic's right to do so, within whatever format a group has decided upon.

But passionately believing that doesn't mean I always enjoy it.

We're only human after all, and on any given day those pernicious defects of character which dog every step of our spiritual growth are in full bloom.

And such was the case with me this last time she raised her hand to share.

You see, it's always the same thing.  There's a lengthy wind up, in which every identifiable group in the room is praised,  "You know, I really love X people," -- not praised in a condescending way I hasten to add, but week after week after week it starts to become a little twee -- and then pretty much one of two stories gets told, ending with a last little stroke for the people in the room.  

Listening to this a dozen or more times has awakened the worst of my qualities.  I am intolerant and judgmental and impatient.  I have barely been able to keep myself from tossing off a few withering comments at her expense to a few friends at the meeting. 

So this past week, up goes her hand, and the speaker, who had never been to the meeting before, called on her.  There was that almost imperceptible rustle in the room, people shifting in their chairs or catching someone's eye -- I fear much of the group is in the same place I am.

I kept my eyes down as she spoke, listening without really hearing, and feeling that awful/comfortable/toxic/pleasurable judgmental thinking wheeze into life in my head.  I was afraid if I looked at one of my friends my poker face would break or my eyes would give me away, and that is wrong, to editorialize in such a way when someone else is sharing -- well, wrong for me anyway.

She was working towards the end of her roster of groups of people she liked, (we'd been through the heritage of the speaker, the dominant demographic in the room, and were taking a quick lap around people raised in a certain religion, "And you know, I just love the X's.  It's just so special to spend time with...")  and as sometimes happens to me -- though I'm hard pressed to believe I deserve it -- I get a sudden, subtle gift:  A better thought, something from a what I suspect is a much better place, comes into my mind like a clean breeze through the open window of a sick room.

"What happened to her, that before she can speak her mind she is driven to do this placating behavior?  How old was she when she got Taught A Lesson that it's not safe to open up until you mollify everyone around you?  What a hard thing to have inside you.  What a fearful way to be, in a room that is supposed to be so safe.  Who did that to her, and when?  And how?"

Just like *that* I felt a moment of sublime compassion for her.  This pattern she is in -- which she likely isn't very aware of -- driving her to do this verbal curtsy to everyone around her before she dares to speak up.  How hard and sad.  That's a tough thing to carry, I thought.  It will probably be difficult to break through for her, if she even perceives it...

Is it too much to say that suddenly I was able to look at her with love?  Roll your eyes, it's the kind of statement which deserves it, even though it feels like the truth.  Certainly compassion is love, and it swept up through me, sitting in my dinky folding metal chair, having just moments before been a bitter, judgmental little pig, roasting on the slow turning spit of my resentment.

Such a profound shift inside leads to talk of God, and quiet miracles, and the healing power of staying in 12 Step rooms and letting that message wash over you day after day...

Grace can come in an instant.  One moment I can feel nothing but contempt, the next... I am full of compassion.

I've been at this too long to predict how I will feel the next time she raises her hand and gets called on, but I suspect I was given a gift that will stick, and pay dividends I'm still yet unaware of.

To be clear:  She is right and fine.  I hope she keeps raising her hand and doing what she needs to do to get her dose of medicine.  It didn't -- and it still doesn't -- matter a flying fig what I or anyone else in the group thinks of that.

I just know that one more time I got something unexpected and somewhat miraculous from simply sitting in a meeting and listening.

to the psychic penny

 

 

One of our semi-regular guests at the restaurant -- who had badly melted down on me when I was fairly new -- was in again this evening.

(Their meltdown was ugly, and I was pretty rattled at the time -- one of those faces absolutely crimson with rage, spittle-flying-from-their-mouths, kinds of meltdowns.  I assure you, while I am not above a little colorful hyperbole here at Mr. SP to help illustrate a point or make a story a bit more fun, there is zero exaggeration in that imagery.  And for the record, I've done my inventory writing on it.  But while seeing that someone is spiritually sick will always help address the sting, it does not always completely remove the bruise.)

Without obvious or major effort I've been able to gracefully avoid dealing with them since that awful day.  It's felt like a little Divine Assistance operating on my behalf that there's always been some handy circumstance (a phone suddenly rings, a spill, some legitimate kitchen issue pulls me in the back) which has spared me another interaction.

Tonight however, HP upped the ante a little.

Without giving you a tedious play-by-play leading up to the moment, suffice to say that this time Divine Circumstance gave me a choice:  I could again gracefully, and without appearing to do so, avoid any interaction whatsoever.  Or I could turn around and assist them.  

Time seemed to slow for me -- poetic (and cliche, I know) as that sounds.  But I mean if felt like I had all the time in the world to think through what I wanted to do.

And make no mistake, I have long believed, long and sincerely believed, that in many ways my recovery is built upon what I do at these forks in the road.  It's not the Momentous Life Events, it's the quiet -- almost invisible to anyone else -- personal opportunities for truly walking my talk which take my measure.

So I stood there, and thought about who I am and who I want to be -- and I mean the For Real who I want to be.  What was interesting is that I did not feel any fear about interacting with them -- I hadn't felt that ever, really.  To my utter astonishment, when I looked inside what I actually felt was that they didn't deserve my forgiveness.  And that I didn't deserve having to go through the cost of rising above their behavior and giving it to them.

What was the cost of rising above?

What would it cost me; what was the psychic price of turning around and, looking right in their eyes, being sincerely courteous to someone who had literally shrieked in my face in front of a room full of people?

I thought to myself then that I if I did it I would feel it down to my bones.  I would know how much it cost me to the psychic penny.

And then, as sometimes has happened to me in my life, I had a thought which was not my own.  That's what it feels like when it happens.  A thought so clear, so calm, so lacking in fear or ego or petty, trifling concerns that it literally feels like a whole other voice in my head.

It will cost you nothing if you decide it will cost you nothing.  There is no price when you choose to rise above.  And you can.  If you choose to.

On the heels of that was a voice very much my own, adding, "Just set it aside, Mr. SponsorPants.  Set aside the ego and the anger and be in this moment the For Real who you want to be."

I turned around and looked at them and smiled, and... it was so much more than okay.  It was bigger than fine.  It was effortless -- like when you pick something up which you expect to be heavy and it turns out to be empty, and you nearly toss it in the air it is so easy to lift.

It was like that.

And so it turns out that I know, to the psychic penny how much it costs me to rise above.

Nothing.

If that's the price I choose to set.

 

It has been a while since an insight dazzled me the way this one did tonight.  If I sound twee or dramatic... well, I sound how I sound.

It is worth adding, here at the end, that if this person hadn't behaved so very badly to me I would never have had the chance to find this out and feel this way -- feel this free.  The people who are the most troubling are indeed my Great Spiritual Teachers -- giving me lessons I would never choose, but insights I'm deeply grateful for having.

And so it goes.

when I drill down a little bit: don't expect hungry babies not to cry

 

Often, when I am writing the Resentment part of a 4th Step/Inventory, in the 4th column -- the "my part" in the resentment -- one of the things I write is "unrealistic expectations of other people."  (Since that's what is often at the root of a resentment for me today.)

The shorthand for this in my head sometimes is "don't expect hungry babies not to cry."  (That's not a reference to sponsees -- personally I don't call my sponsees "babies."  It's a common term in some of the meetings I go to, and it is not used in a pejorative fashion -- nothing wrong with it.  Just not my style is all.)  But when I say that to myself about hungry babies, it's along the lines of "Well what did you expect, Mr. SponsorPants? This particular reaction from a person in this state is totally understandable/predictable/sadly-not-that-unusual.  Hungry babies cry.  Frightened people lash out.  etc. Remember and deal."

Lately, when I drill down a little bit, I can see that underneath the 'unrealistic expectations of others' is the nearly unconscious idea that people should/would react the way I would if I were in that situation -- it's almost as if I'm surprised and disappointed when they don't.  (Again this is somewhat unconsious. It's an attitude lurking underneath my thinking.)

This is of course a subtly ego-based way of looking at the world.  (And quite possibly further proof of my arrested development, since I imagine this is a pretty infantile stage of ego development.)

But even as I write this it occurs to me that there's some arrogance in there as well.  Sort of a murky thread running through this attitude, along the lines of "If I were a hungry baby, I certainly wouldn't cry."  When in fact there's a body of evidence from my alcoholic behavior that not only would I cry, but I would cry the loudest!  And try to put a pillow over the baby in the next crib to boot!

What's the point of all this inventory taking, this writing, this ongoing self examination?  Clarity.  Which both makes it easier for me to be compassionate towards those I resent (since I am then potentially able to identify with them) and also helps me not be overwhelmed by my resentments, since by mapping them out in this way I can see their roots and understand what makes them tick.

**sigh**

Self examination is always enlightening, occasionally entertaining (though not in this case I'm afraid) but very rarely enjoyable.

 

Questions via Email: Resentment vs. Anger

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

Is there a difference between Resentment and Anger?

L.

 

Dear L.

All horses are animals, but not all animals are horses, right?

All of my resentments have anger in them, but not all of my anger is what I have come to think of as a resentment.

For me, anger (that "dubious luxury of normal men") is a simple, clean emotion.  And, like all of my emotions, it can be healthy and even appropriate depending on what's going on -- it's the actions I take (or don't take) based on my emotions which define my recovery and my character.

Resentment, however, is a much more mental exercise.  For me yes, it is born of emotion -- usually my anger, maybe occasionally my fear -- but it's a head thing, not a heart or gut thing.  All of that thinking, that toxic stewing... I believe it's sourced by self obsession and fear.  It's dwelling on the anger -- reimagining the circumstances which led to it, fantasizing about making speeches or taking revenge, mentally assuming the role of victim or the mantle of martyr -- now we've got a resentment.

Thus, I think of it like this:

Anger + [Fear x Self Obsession] = Resentment.

 

Is it important to parse that out?  To distinguish between the two?  For me it can be, since (especially when I was new) I was prone to sorting my emotions into categories:  "Good" feelings and "Bad" feelings -- and the bad feelings were things I "wasn't supposed to" have... which led to self judgement... which fueled more self obsession and... dear God, it's busy in there sometimes, yes?

So it was a healthy development to give myself permission to feel angry, rather than bury it under layers of evaluation and mental masturbation about how I felt.

And this also seemed to help me let the anger pass through me; to release it (a little) more easily.

When I was drinking, and well into sobriety, the anger-to-resentment process took all of a nanosecond.  The two were virtually indistinguishable.  For me that's why writing is such an important tool in recovery, because it slows my thoughts down to the speed of a pen travelling across a page.  (Temporarily, anyway).  And whether it's resentment, anger, or some sick, twisted blending of fear, self obsession and rage, I am still best served by writing an inventory and looking for my part in the equation.

 

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

Resentment

 

 

If I stay resentful at someone then I've defined them

 

 Is it possible that sometimes we cling to a resentment so we can keep someone neatly labeled, rather than consider them from another point of view?

If I stay resentful at someone then I've defined them -- as the villain or the perpetrator or the bully or the thief or whatever -- and I can avoid the hard work of having an open mind, of considering what their illness or issue might have been (or might still be).

And then I can subtly minimize my part in the equation, postpone or avoid taking the full responsibility for my proverbial side of the street when I have one (as I so often, often do).  In my heart I can slow the inventory-driven recovery process down, quietly whispering in my head "yes but they blah blah blah" every time I consider my part in something.

 

It's much less work to stay closed off in anger rather than open myself to seeing those who wronged me as fellow sufferers, or even, with Divine help, see them through eyes of love.

That's why I try to remember that the first thing the Big Book suggests I do in writing an inventory (the dreaded 4th Step) is not to pick up the pen and make a list of the people, institutions, etc. I resent -- no, the first thing I'm instructed to do is try to view those who I believe have wronged me as spiritually sick themselves.

Letting go of resentment is not just about taking responsibility for our part in things -- though that is essential -- it is about compassion, too.

here's a truth for you

 

 

A comment, copy/pasted in its entirety from yesterday's post:

Here's a truth for you.

If you're young and female and you show up at an AA meeting, you will immediately have a "team" spring up around you, be showered with sympathy, and receive 100 phone numbers from people who insist you call them if you feel the slightest bit blue. This will be doubled if your voice quavers and tripled if you cry. You'll leave feeling great.

If you're a middle aged man, however, you'll get lectures on working the program, admonishments for being selfish, and demands that you clean the coffee filters and put away the chairs, because that's "service".

 

While I'm not a spokesman for AA -- no one is -- I think I am going to reveal one of AA's great secrets right here, right now, in this blog:

We're human.

 

We can be weak, lecherous and shallow.  I know I can be -- though usually my arrogance kicks in and the last newcomer I will go up and speak with is the "attractive" one -- not because I am above such base or shallow impulses, but because I don't want people to think I'm like that.  So I am as shallow as anyone, just acting it out in the opposite way.

Isn't insight wonderful?

Frankly, if you're a middle-aged man, and you want that kind of attention in an AA meeting, you should go to a gay meeting in a retirement community (think Palm Springs) -- you don't have to be gay to go -- and you can be as objectified as any ingenue taking her first dainty steps onto life's grand stage.

If I may respond to some points directly (and if I sound a little bitchy, I apologize -- I worked a double today, as my boss went home sick, so this is Mr. SponsorPants after being on-the-clock from 7am to 9:30pm -- "a little bitchy" is going to have to stand for being a freaking model of restraint right now)... shouldn't one be admonished for being selfish?  I mean, do you want to be lauded for being selfish instead?  "Hey, from what you said you pretty much just thought about yourself and put your wants ahead of everyone else's all day.  Way to stay in the disease!  Good one!  We used to give chips for that, but... no one wanted to give 'em away, they just kept them for themselves.  I'm sure you understand..."

I cannot speak for the commentor's experience of AA -- there are certainly all kinds of meetings out there -- but I do have a hard time believing that the word "demand" quite fits whatever way the conversation went, regardless of how salty the mean old AA was... And, I hate to drag another dark secret into the light like this, but... cleaning coffee filters and putting away chairs actually is service.

 

An embarrassing anecdote. 

When I lived in another city, some time ago now, I was seething with resentments I didn't even know I had, and they were all around my being single.  I had some pretty strong expectations of what was "supposed to happen" when I got to this town, and it just wasn't bearing fruit, romance-wise. 

I was also, at the time, pretty overweight (I've been up and down in my weight so much I could open my own damn Gap outlet, what with having owned a pair of their khakis in practically every damn size they come in).  Now, lots of people who are overweight find great partnerships, but because of my feelings about how I looked I was really shut down (that's a big oversimplification, but I'm barrelling along trying to get to the point here, so let me have that one as a "gimme."  Thanks.) and thus, in retrospect, I know that was the reason things weren't all Rolph and Liesel in the rainy Gazebo for me.    

(You have no idea how many pictures of earnest high schoolers mooning over each other in their Senior Year production of "The Sound of Music" I had to scroll through to find the genuine article for that line.)

What I now know was that I was expecting the force of my personality to compensate for my lack of physical fitness.  And if I'd been more open, not so self obsessed and shut down, it might well have...

Walking home from the video store (this story is ancient history, Poppets... loooong before Netflix and downloads and such) after renting an errr... educational video **cough** about ... errr... intimacy... (you with me here?  I'll go there if I gotta, but you've always struck me as a sharp group) it hit me like a ton of bricks:

I was the biggest freaking hypocrite going.  Because I was not renting educational videos about intimacy based on the personalities of the people in the videos.  I was renting them because of how the people in the videos looked.  (This all came out in some brutal inventory writing shortly after this light-bulb went off).  I was thunderstruck to realize that the very value system I was so resentful of everyone else having (so I thought -- shut down, remember?) I myself had a heaping, steaming pile of too.  Once again I caught myself thinking I was better, different, exempt... once again I discovered my thinking twisted into artificial categories defined by extreme, black-and-white thinking and no small amount of delusion.

No, really, isn't insight just wonderful?  **cough cough**

Most human beings are drawn in one way or another to youth or beauty or sexual charisma.  I think it's fair to observe that a lot of the time it is a conscious act for people to look beyond those things.

The people in AA, just because we're sober, and trying to work a spiritual program, are in no way exempt from that inclination or that challenge.

In fact some of us, feeling raw and vulnerable without our best coping mechanism (drinking), are sicker for a while before we get better -- because of the profound fear being so raw and vulnerable will engender -- and we will absolutely act that out in all sorts of ways.

AA is not a hotbed of lascivious predators (spare me the stories, I know, I know, some meetings and some people have behaved very badly -- the overwhelming majority have not -- that is the false logic of "some X's are bad therefore all X's will be bad," i.e.,  some women are bitches therefore all women will be bitches.  Some men are sexual predators therefore all men will be sexual predators.  Some AA's in meetings have taken advantage of newcomers therefore all AA's in meetings will take advantage of newcomers...)

 

Another embarrassing admission:

I actually used to resent the fact that I hadn't been 13th Stepped.  (Yeah, for me, low self esteem was great progress.) 

It's just a fucking warm bath of wonderful insights I'm sharing with you in this, isn't it.

 

Yep, sometimes a pretty young girl will get some extra attention solely for the fact that she is a pretty young girl.  Hate to break it to you, but she's going to get better customer service and fewer speeding tickets than you will too.

But she'll have to struggle to be taken seriously, and be on her guard against people with mixed motives, and hopefully have the resiliance to rise above the weird messages about what women should look like which our culture continues to spew out in subtle and sophisticated ways... so it's a mixed bag for all of us, Bucko.

Meanwhile, I admit that although we try like hell in AA to extend the hand of fellowship to everyone in the same way, we screw it up pretty good on occasion... and yes, some extend the penis of fellowship instead of the hand, it's true.

(There is a whole other post to be written about the other side of this too.  I have never met an alcoholic who, even through their real and sincere tears, didn't know how to work the angles -- we're perfect children of God, but we're sharks, too -- pretty and weepy sharks or middle-aged and bitter sharks, but calculating either way.)

I've been to a lot of AA in my day -- in lots of different cities.  We get it wrong sometimes, but we get it right a lot -- and dear God, when we do, it is pretty fucking beautiful.

Now get back in the kitchen and scrub those pots, you selfish thing!  Chop chop!  You think those chairs are going to put themselves away?

No, I can't help you, don't be ridiculous!  I have to take Hotty McBangbang to the Big Book study.

it really helps me to think of them this way

 

If you were attacked by a shark, or mauled by a bear, you wouldn't say, "Oh, man, why didn't that shark (or bear) take into account how hard I'm trying to be nice!" or "Jeez, you'd think that shark (or bear) would cut me a break, considering the day I've had!" or "That shark (or bear!) is a total asshole for attacking (or mauling) me!"

You wouldn't say that because you understand that it is the animal's instinct at work.  It has nothing to do with you that they attacked you; you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  (Sure, sure, maybe you did something foolish to rile them up a little, but no one is actually seeking to create a shark -- or you know -- attack/maul.  You just exacerbated a situation, or were careless about something.)

 

It helps me to think of spiritually sick people like sharks (or bears.  But I'm rather fond of bears, actually, so I don't think of them that way very often).  Their toxic behavior, their "attacks" are no more about you than a shark's.  You just happened to be in the way of their sick frenzy -- when it comes to behavior they are really no more evolved than an instinct-driven animal.  So its futile to expect them to take into account how hard you're trying, or what kind of day you've had, or whatever.

And it's almost (when you look at it this way) silly to resent them.  You don't resent the shark (I'm going to stop saying bear - they don't deserve to be a part of this analogy.  Forget all the bear stuff.  Every time I said "bear" above, just think "rabid dog" now) for attacking you.  In certain situations it's what their instincts drive them to do.

Same with spiritually sick people.  Their ego and their fear -- their instincts out of balance (as the 12&12 puts it) -- drive them to "attack" in the same way a shark (or rabid dog) attacks.

It's not about you.

It's about them.

You just happened to be the one they bit.

When I can think in these terms I find I'm a lot less prone to expecations, and thus, resentments.  Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when I get bit, but I spend a whole lot less time in my head chewing on all of the "Don't they know..." and "How could they be so..." etc.

It really helps me to think of them this way.

 

You're doing it again, Mr. SponsorPants

 

I had gotten an ear full earlier that night from some of the girls at work about a particular customer.  Difficult, obsessive, aggressive, never tips; comes in once or twice a day, and sometimes pesters the girls on their breaks, (though none of them seemed especially phased by that part). It was more just a general grousing session about someone who, while they may be a perfect child of god, behaves like an ass.

Walking home tonight, footsore, my mind wandering, I recalled their description of this individual, and began to imagine scenarios in which I had to deal with him; how rude he would be and what I would say in response.  "He'll say _______ and then I'll smile and come back with ___________, or he'll say __________, and I will tell him that it is not in our job description to tolerate rude or abusive language, but then he'll ... and I'll..."  Each round of the imagined exchange escalating in verbiage and intensity.

To my great credit, this only lasted for a couple of blocks before I realized what I was doing and started laughing at myself:  "You're doing it again, Mr. SponsorPants.  You are having an argument in your mind with someone who isn't here -- but even better, this time you're having an argument in your mind with a man you haven't even met yet!" my better self mock-scolded.

I said a little prayer, in time with my tired footsteps, asking God to heal this warped mechanism within my mind, to help me cease this mental shadowboxing in which I create resentment filled situations out of thin air, with people who aren't present, or haven't said those things, or sometimes I don't even know.

Maybe it was Divine Intervention, maybe it was fatigue coupled with the absurdity of what I had been thinking, but I had a fit of the giggles which, like fizzy bubbles, cleared my mind and set my thoughts on a much nicer plane.

 

Time and again I experience this Truth:

Prayer does not change the world.

Prayer changes me.

(If not permanently, then at least as often as needed!)