Volume 1, Number 6

(My Invisible Bag of Grievances)

Symbolically slung over my shoulder is one of those green plastic bags that have become visible through out the land. Everyone has developed special uses for these handy helpers. Fallen leaves and old clothes are just two that come to mind. Mine is used for something that can be emotionally destructive to me and I am just finding that out. Try to imagine me walking around with this bag that I am holding tightly closed. Every time I get angry and don't express it, I open the bag and stuff in the feeling.

I have come to realize that these unexpressed feelings of anger have a life of their own. They don't want to be in that deep dark enclosure. They are constantly bopping around looking for a way to get out. Every time I follow the pattern of carefully opening the bag and stuffing a new piece of anger in, the previous residents rush to the light coming from the opening. They try as hard as they can to get out. Since I have started this process real early in my life, I have become real good at adding to the bag with out any of them getting out. For a long time I was able to prevent any of those critters' from spilling out in inappropriate places. I've been real proud of myself in being able to do this automatically. "No, that didn't make me angry", is a good sign that I have been a successful stuffer again.

As time goes by the load becomes heavier and heavier and more of a chore to carry around. I find myself devoting more and more (emotional)energy to the task. I have become aware of the fact that this automatic system is far from foolproof. What brought me to this realization were a few recent incidents that I am embarrassed about. While standing on line at the supermarket, I found myself ready to tear the arms off a young child riding in the cart next to mine. The kid just playfully reached in to my basket and took something out. I reacted as if he had just murdered one of my kids. I started yelling at the kid, he started crying and I couldn't get out of that store fast enough. While trying to enter a parkway recently, I found myself cursing at the cars in the lane I was trying to enter as if they shouldn't have been there. Didn't they know that I wanted to get onto the highway and they should have made room for me?

These are just two(2) typical incidents that easily fall into the category of over reactions'. The label doesn't help. When I explode over somebody stepping on my toes by accident, I try to gain some insight into the event. It is as though something put a small light hole in my bag of grievances and all the bits of stuffed anger rushed towards the light. As I said before, these bits of anger are alive and do not want to be in that dark container that I stuffed them into. Once I become aware of what is happening then I can do something to start the draining process. Life would have been very different if I had been made aware of the need to drain that invisible bag of grievances on a regular basis. Nobody ever told me about that. HowCome?