The Battle Within
It starts with an inner voice telling you what to do. And then it begins to coax you more. And then it justifies the why. And it gets so determined that waves of screams came blasting through your pipes demanding instant gratification.
Battle won.
Relationships broke.
Rage isn’t just toxic to your soul. It triggers arrows of fire in uncontrollable directions to your circle of relationships.
One arrow could kill.
Arguably; the rope that binds might withstand the burn. What about the vitality of it after burnt, then? On one end, you might be holding on to the rope strong as an anchor, but you have no control over the other party’s grip. Not everyone who sees a fire will fight against it. They flee. And you thought: They should understand. There is not a need therefore to explain. They are your closed ones, right? They are… And they were.
You fault them for lacking understanding.
But do they?
“Who doesn’t go through emotions? I am enraged and in need of an outlet to vent. Just let me be for f**k’s sake. Stuff smashing is not so big of a deal. Wall punching is just another means to have a soft resolution by myself. I hurt nobody, yeah?
So, with all kindness, stop shoving your holy moly restrictions and tell me what or what not to do. I want it my way and I want it now. F**k.”
Noticed it, yet?
You are so wrapped up in rage that you are trapped. There’s only you, and your rage, and your injustice and your resentment. And your violence.
My violence.
Stage the Rage
Ever been paralyzed by situations (or your own thoughts) that things will just spiral down the abyss for good? I have. The light at the end of the tunnel came from the fire of hell. All I could see was a destructive end. I was exasperated. I sought for rampage. I went hysterical. Putting rage into a dire situation is to tie a rock onto a sinking man. I approached death by choice.
And I was that close to take the exit.
I had unknowingly, yet deliberately staged the rage to be manifested during nerve-wrecking situations. How so?
I kept the resentment in me. I loathed the fact that my peers had it easy. I compared myself and my situations with others. I amplified the universal truth that the world is an unfair place. I allowed myself to be put down by judges. I fed to myself bitterness. I soaked my entire soul with the soreness of life.
And then I decided to release them through acts of violence.
Looking back, it was as though that I could not back down to destroy myself. Each berserker vent felt like drugs. It could only get more intense. There was no f**king way that you could tell yourself to give one punch to the wall this time instead of twice previously and eventually it would die down to zero. I had too many experiences of such. I was committing a suicide to my soul.
Cage the Rage
Are you discontented? Do you have unspoken vexation that you hoped someone would listen and yet at the same time felt too heavy to lay your cards on the table? Rooted far too long in unimproved situations?
I wanted to get out. Badly. I felt the need to release pent up emotions. But such a need tends to have a violent nature and there is no way a violent person could settle without carnage.
It was only logical to start breaking physical things. That pure act of destruction symbolised the desire to breakout. I was innocent enough to believe that the stress, emotions, rage would reduce through breaking stuff. That was what venting meant then. Geez, little do I know that I was just breaking myself, literally.
And perhaps, there was still a tinge of kindness nudging me in rage mode, hence I resorted in hurting physical things instead of physical human bodies. But the question dawned on me after the rage mode was off — Is it possible to release pent up emotions without hurting anything or anyone?
No doubt about it. But not in rage. Scroll to the top and look for the capital R again.
Truth be told — smashing things has the same destructive effect no matter done in an audience or alone. The violence is consuming you. And it has manifested itself through destroying physical, tangible things. It can be expressed in secret though, but the inner destruction will eventually be exposed when your body, soul and mind are overwhelmed.
Second truth be told — that does not mean the rage would be uncaged beyond your control. Do not, I repeat, do not be deceived. Very often, we attribute the dark side of things to the evil one. We gave excuses that we are powerless against the devil’s voice. Or the situations forced us to react in a certain way. The people were to blame for our retaliation. Knee-jerk kicks were perfectly normal. It took me awhile (way too long, to be precise) to realise that the rage is mine. And I hold on to the keys of the rage cage. The choice to unleash or kept it locked is mine, and mine alone.
Vacate the Rage
The process was tough. I have hurt a few important people in my life along the way. I counted myself blessed that those ropes did not turn to ashes, and are on the way to recovery.
Alas, the end point was certainly not to cage the rage. That would be arduous in the long run. And it is kind of foolish to battle against yourself.
There can be a win without a fight. In fact, that is the only way for triumph.
From caging the rage to eventually vacating the rage, is simply disengaging with the venomous.
In all sanity, STOP. Ignore the haters. Avoid toxic people. So what if they had it easy? Would they have coped better in similar situations? Are their views even valid? Do they know the context? And should that panel of judges be formed by treasured circle, no lost for you, my dear friend. You have just gained knowledge of that treasure’s worth. Such insight will propel to you to build new, yet greater and deeper relationships in future. Ironically, you would be thankful for what happened. Later. But surely. Surely.
Liberation
Or you could say taking out the trash.
Disengaging with the venomous is a deliberate, on-going process. A positive way to tell yourself that love it or hate it, people and situations are perpetually programmed to tick you off. What would your response be for them, or rather, yourself?
I simply purge all rage associated emotions right there at the moment. There is no store-now-purge-later; I can never estimate if the next event would break the rage tank.
When the rage comes, I don’t stage it further by allowing myself to be “in it”. This moment won’t last forever. Fact.
And then I cage the rage because by unleashing it, I hurt people and myself. Doesn’t take an intellect to assess the repercussion.
Consequently, I vacate the rage. I disassociate myself all the venomous because:
- I shall not be stressed just because you are an ass
- I am here for a reason but you are just a treason
- I choose to extend grace to a waste
Lol well, anything goes so long as the disengagement is a success.
Instantly, liberation found its way and there you are — a whole new being. #restart #afresh #moveon #stronger #nosweat #f**kyeah #f**kyeahagain
Looking back, I regretted for the lost time plunging into the jungle of savage. I barely came out alive. But that has passed. It is time to embrace matters that matter. For now, all I could think of is to love people, physical things (I am sorry for hurting you ;p) and situations good or bad.
They said love conquers all. Sets me thinking.
So long, rage. Goodbye to you, and best of luck.
