Fear, Anger and a chance of Fury
I know the title of this essay sounds like a weather report, but if your in a relationship with someone who has been traumatized. You probably recognize this as more of an emotional barometer then an environmental barometer for the weather. People who have been hurt are horrible to be around at times because they are still dealing with that trauma. And just as the title says they are full of fear, anger and intermittently the fear and anger fuse into one emotion I call fury.
I dated someone who was traumatized by being deserted at the church on her wedding day. When I first met her she looked pretty normal on the outside, but little by little cracks in her veneer started to show and I was slowly exposed to her anger, her fear and one day her fury.
A few months into the relationship I realized what was happening and decided initially to make a run for the exit door of the relationship. It seemed like a lost cause, as I was paying the price for little cruelties her previous boyfriend had done and the light of her anger now shone through her veneer of civility like a light in the darkness for all to see. But against my initial intuition I stayed to see if counseling could or would help, after all she realized what she was doing was wrong, so how hard could this be to fix?
I was so wrong about that, that in retrospect I feel foolish. A man or woman, whose suffered a thousand tiny cuts bears a thousand tiny scars. Each harbors a little bit of anger, a little bit of fear and together they produce a larger dose of fury.
However, I was to find that forgiveness could be the salve that heals those cuts one at a time, until only the memory of the pain remains. But cutting the chains which bind the memory to the victims heart and mind with the hacksaw of forgiveness changes the emotional outlook and your barometer can now calm and indifferent, with a chance of joy. That my friend is truly a wonderful weather report.
All hurt people feel fear, anger, resentment and a strong desire for retribution. You see when you have been hurt by someone, these feelings are natural and normal, for a while. But they are to powerful and all consuming to let them stay a part of your daily emotions forever. They must be processed, the memories stored and you must move on to a new day without those emotions. While the person who hurt you should take responsibility for their actions and accept the consequences. It’s important to pause here. What they deserve is responsibility and the consequences for their actions. What they don’t deserve is to live in your heart and mind forever. Let me explain.
When you have been hurt by someone, you naturally have feelings of fear, anger, resentment and a desire to seek retribution. Those feelings live in your heart and mind, because it’s hard for you to forgive and forget. So you need to look at those emotions first as Chains that bind you. Second, you must realize that these chains are attached at one end to your heart and mind, and at the other end they are attached to the person who hurt you. Please form this visual image: those emotions are chains which bind your heart and mind to the person who hurt you. That means as long as you unconsciously nourish those feelings of hurt, anger and resentment, they are on your mind everyday and intrude into every aspect of your life. Because you can’t let go of those emotions that person continues to hurt you and to haunt you. Those emotions keep the memories of your pain in the forefront of your mind. So that retiring or moving from conscious memory that you think about it everyday to remote memory that you only recall on special occasions never happens.
Until you decide to break those chains and banish those emotions from your everyday emotional lineup, and move those memories into deep storage, those memories of pain and anger will haunt you everyday.They are chains that deserve to be broken, so you can be free of this person. Forgiveness is like the breaker of these chains that bind you. Forgiveness allows you to cut the chains, and forces the memories of the pain, the suffering and the emotions of fear, anger and remorse to leave your mind. Forgiveness allows you to focus on other emotions. Until you break those chains with the breaker of chains called forgiveness, your daily emotional weather report will call for fear, anger and resentment with a chance of fury in the evening. Forgiveness gives you a new emotional weather report; calm, peace and tranquility, with a chance for happiness in the evening.
So do you want to break these emotional chains which are anchored in your mind and in your heart. Do you want to break those emotional chains which bind you to the person who hurt you. Do you think those chains need to be broken? Do you want to be free of this person? Forgiveness is like the breaker of these chains that bind you. Forgiveness allows you to cut the chains, and forces the memories of the pain, the suffering and the emotions of fear, anger and remorse away from the front of your mind and out of your everyday emotional weather report.
Forgiveness. The weak can’t wield it, only the strong.
✍️ ✍️ written by Shortsegments