How I Unfriended Anger
Let me introduce you to an old friend of mine I (thankfully) don’t see as much anymore.
His name is anger and for the most part of my life, he was dictating how I lived.
I grew up in somewhat of a tumultuous household, where screaming, yelling and slamming doors was commonplace. It was almost expected on a daily basis. This is where my old friend anger was born.
No one is to blame, of course, those were just the circumstances of a household where, for the most part, no one was really in touch with who they truly were and lashing out or ignoring were deemed normal reactions to arguments.
But I cannot fault my mother — she had raised three children pretty much on her own and was the three-time victim of breast cancer. Not an easy life, to say the least.
She had had her fair share of struggles, growing up in a relatively strict Arab household where men and women were expected to be and act a certain way, and later on, she was maybe not able to live a life that was completely true to herself.
My relationship with my mother was fiery — we both had very strong personalities and very different ones at that. Sulking for months on end was also a reoccurring pattern between us. Our old friend, anger, had a full-fledged residency in our home and was being catered to on a regular basis. We fed him, bathed him and gave him the five-star treatment.
But it is only when my mother hit her 57th birthday, and her third episode of breast cancer, that she — and consequently, I — slowly started shifting our views on life. In many cases, it does take a tragedy to shake someone up and take notice of how precious life actually is.
My only “regret” (and I say this with caution because I don’t regret anything that has happened in my life as it has led me to the incredible spot I find myself in today) is that we did not realise this any sooner.
I had always imagined my mother’s presence at my wedding, at the birth of my (still unborn) children, her first visit to me in Dubai, and much time spent together for decades to come. I basically took her for granted, thinking we would have the rest of our lives to sort things out and grow old together.
Little did I know that that lifetime I had imagined would quickly turn into a few measly, yet meaningful, weeks that forever changed the course of my life.
I never knew the strength I had inside of me until I found out my mother’s countdown had officially started and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to fuel her with it, telling her it was going to be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, “then it’s not the end”. We repeated this mantra daily, throughout the weeks that led to her passing. And even if our change of hearts and minds came in too late, I am thankful it did at all. At least, we had made peace.
As I would sit by her hospital bed, she would recall all of those moments when she held on to our old, miserable friend — anger — and how much she wished she hadn’t. “Nothing is worth holding on to, Calinette,” she would tell me. “Don’t do what I did. It’s just not worth your health.”
My mother loved life, I know I get that from her. She loved to dress up, look pretty and go out dancing. She was passionate about it and that was one of the main elements that linked us. I feel that part of her in me to this day.
You never know how difficult life can be until you find yourself in your mother’s bedroom picking out the dress she’s going to be buried in. Life was tough for my 27-year-old self. It was just surreal.
After that, life just felt unfair and a bit of a numbed-out blur. I just remember giving a speech in church as her casket lay next to me and thought: “This can’t be happening.”
Something had to change.
Fast forward through the years, old-timer anger was still lingering around me — even more so due to grief — and had apparently forcefully moved in with me full-time. He would unwelcomely pop out to say hi during heated debates with my siblings, my extended family, my friends, ex-boyfriends and many times, random strangers. Not a good look for a woman (nor a man, in case you’re wondering).
Elegance, poise and wisdom go right out of the window once anger shows up. The spotlight was his and his only. But nobody liked him — and especially not me.
It took me a few years before I could start shedding layers of anger, and I’m still not done. Thanks to a number of practices, such as breathing, meditation (in particular), therapy and energy healing, anger is no longer my friend. He’s not even an acquaintance and I intend to keep it that way. Anger belongs to our ego and I like to keep him in check as well, on a daily basis. It’s that really loud voice telling you to lash out in the most exaggerated way, for no apparent benefit. And you do it, just because. But the only loser down this one-way street is you.
My favourite quote on anger, which I have kept in the back of my mind throughout these years, is one by the great Buddha, which states that “holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the only one who gets burned.”
No truer words have ever been spoken.
So I started my journey towards recovery with only 10 minutes of meditation a day using the Calm app. It has allowed me, over the years, to just breathe before reacting, and observe my feelings before answering any impending argument. Just. 10. Minutes.
On the other hand, I view therapy as a long-term solution to understanding the root causes of my anger and how to best deal with it. To every problem, there is a solution, and there is something extremely comforting and reassuring in having a completely unbiased “professional stranger” tell you things exactly as they are. You can argue with them and try to justify yourself all you want, but they are not in the business of being easily swayed.
Finally, energy healing — which I will dissect in a separate story — has come in to show me underlying beliefs that do not belong to who I truly am. It has allowed me to shed the most layers of my anger, in a radical way, and understand that I am not my emotions nor do I ever have to be. Acknowledging that you always have a choice has been key to this process.
And I’m not saying it’s easy — this kind of work never is. But out of all the risky trips I may have taken as a journalist, from North Korea to nuclear power plants, I would say this journey was my bravest — by far.
Overall, four years of self-work later, I wouldn’t say that I have managed to completely eradicate anger from my life, but I am the farthest I have ever been from it and that, to me, is a victory in itself. What has been important throughout this process is practicing patience and humility, knowing that we don’t always know everything and that we are not always right. Baby steps is the way forward. And when you couple both practices, the possibilities of growth are endless and magical, to say the least.
I know that life will keep testing me as the years go by, but what I also know is that I have acquired the right tools to adequately face my different emotions. All that is left to do is apply them in times of need — albeit it not always being a success. Accepting you will sometimes “fail” is also a vital part of the process: forgiving yourself and not being a perfectionist when it comes to growth (or anything, honestly). The path to success is, in fact, paved by mistakes and failure, but failure is that necessary struggle we call “learning”.
Practice does make (almost) perfect, though, and, slowly but surely, you will start seeing light and hope at the end of the tunnel.
One thing I was never able to tell my mother (although I somehow feel like she knows) is that I owe her all of this — I owe her a massive part of my spiritual life today and the incredibly unpredictable way she launched it. She is the one who, maybe unintentionally, kickstarted this process for me and for that, I am eternally grateful.
