Buried Anger, Pain, and Unhappy Internal Organs

     We live in a world where the answer to the common question, "how are you" is almost always so predictably said, "Good---you?" We all do it. It is what is expected. It is professional. Imagine getting costumer service and you asked how the professional was doing and they answered, "I've had the worst day. In fact my whole life is a mess right now, and I'd really rather not be at work talking you. " We would scoff and say this person is unprofessional, when actually they only told you the honest answer to the question you asked.
     It is also easier: easier on both the listener and the proclaimer. My husband said a few weeks ago about how he is curious to know when people ask how he's doing if they are wanting the full story about his week or are they just expecting a quick, easy answer: "Good." We are fast-paced Americans, and we take the easiest, shortest way out in communication. The scary part is that while all this is happening, masks are on and our pain and anger are buried. Yes, we bury it. An alternative doctor told me something a couple months ago that kicked me on a journey to healing some really deep emotional wounds. He said that I am a "very emotionally charged lady", and I feel angry and need to express an opinion or two, yet I bury that emotion straight down to my organs. And many do this. Can you imagine what can happen to an angry liver after a while? Or an angry kidney? (Let's be adults and not mention what could happen to an angry colon.) We all have have pain that needs to be healed. It is an unavoidable fact of living.
      Yet we have another, perhaps bigger problem. If we believe we will be judged, scolded, or misunderstood for our pain---instead of bringing it to the surface to release it--- we hide it and our bodies take the brunt of fighting it. Babies don't do this. They scream and kick when something bothers them, yet when they are older we tell them to calm down, to cut it out. Yet what are we training them to do? Are we training the child to bury what is bothering them and pretend it doesn't exist, or are we training them to manage their problem? That is a huge difference in how we handle our own problems: deny or manage.
      Another problem we have, which is another form of burying, is denying the significance of what hurts us. Someone very wise told me once to never make the mistake in assuming that other people's painful story is greater and more significant than my own pain, which was quite opposite to what I was taught growing up in society. If we look at our neighbor and think they have been through worse than us, so therefore we should "suck it up and go on like nothing happened", we have robbed ourselves the joy of being set free. It is like a proud captain of a ship hearing from one of his men that there is hole below deck with water pouring in and the captain saying, "never mind that. We will be fine," and all the while the boat is sinking slowly. "Well," we think, "he must be an idiot to ignore a warning like that," yet in real life we ignore warnings our own hearts give us. We are keeping ourselves from healing by not acknowledging, understanding, and releasing our pain. This becomes very dangerous, because somewhere deep inside is a fear-based emotion, and fear is not a healing agent at all. We must love ourselves enough to not bury our pain, to not hide our hurts.
     I am not only writing to an audience, but also to myself. I have hurts that I buried and it turned to anger, and I realized where anger rests there is a fear that the hurt will happen again. I did not acknowledge this overnight. It took time, understanding, talking to people, and reading to understand it existed in me. So what route will I take to get rid of it? The "Denial Route" or what I call the "AURM Route"? The route that does not heal but pretends the problem isn't there, or the route that does heal but takes more work? I am choosing the "AURM", a word I made up for the healing process: Acknowledge the hurt, Understand the hurt, Release the hurt, Manage whatever is left over, even if that means repeating the process. For me, this also means the process of working through a lot of forgiveness.
     What would our society look like if we were honest about how we truly were doing? The honesty I mention goes beyond what we tell other people. but also very much what we tell ourselves. It sounds terrifying, doesn't it? It sounds exhausting. It sounds like being more responsible. It sounds like healing instead of wasting time being miserable. As de Mello would say, it sounds like "Waking up".

Poetry Session 3: "The Grudge"

"The Grudge"
by Lindsey Adare
Written March 24, 2008


How the determined hearts yearn to forget
All the broken memories of yesterday.
And how split hearts try to disguise pain,
But brokenness does not mend right away.


The strength is not there to erase the past,
And bitterness is always the worst judge.
How proud hearts yearn to be free of pain,
And to cleanse the stain of The Grudge.


I think we all can relate to fear of monsters. When we were children, they hid under our beds or in our closets... (Don't laugh, you know you had that fear, too.) Now that we're older, we have different fears and different monsters.  Some monsters seem harmless at first, then they take their bite... Some come out quickly, and some take their time to make themselves known... One such monster is an ugly one called The Grudge. This monster creeps in slowly, meticulously digging its claws into our hearts... embedding himself into our thoughts over the course of time. Sometimes, we don't know The Grudge is there, and he's able to quietly fester to become stronger until we loose track of ourselves. The Grudge is a dangerous monster, one to be feared, for certain. Some proud hearts fight him, but once The Grudge has found a home in a heart, he is difficult to get rid of by one's own strength.

So what makes him attach himself to us in the first place? Like sharks drawn to blood, The Grudge feeds off hearts that have been broken and are storing up anger and bitterness. A bitter heart is like pure sweetness to him, and he can feed so quietly sometimes his victim never suspects he has invaded until The Grudge has taken over his life.

So how can we get rid of The Grudge? The answer is Forgiveness. I believe at some point in our lives we all find ourselves in the scenario of having to forgive someone from our pasts, or we find ourselves in that place of desperation, knowing it's either let go or be satisfied with The Grudge's invasion. In short, to get rid of The Grudge, we have to forgive those who hurt us in the past. We must forgive ourselves, too, and be forgiven. That's where Grace comes in... otherwise known as Jesus ("who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases," Psalm 103:3). He is the master at removing The Grudge, simply because He has to have full access to our hearts for the removal process to work, and when He has full access, The Grudge has no more room to dwell. However, one should know that once The Grudge is gone, this monster is known to leave a stain behind from the monster's slime, but don't worry. The stain may take some time to remove, but that's where the Holy Spirit comes in... His job is to heal and clean our hearts.

We all have probably experienced The Grudge's invasion at some point, I myself not excluded. I had The Grudge... and he was removed, one claw at at time, from my heart. Then a stain was left behind to prove where he lived--- a stain which the Holy Spirit is still cleaning. It's all good, though... I'm just glad to have my heart worked on by Someone so cool.

Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.