Today I am using the ColorChallenge-TuesdayOrange to guide my blog.
I did not want to get up this morning when my alarm went off at 4am (that is when I get up to go walking). So I didn't. I ended up going for my walk hours later than usual. Two things I dread most on my walks: dogs and cars. They are not usually much of a problem early in the morning, but later in the day, they are much worse.
I was confronted by a dog about halfway through my walk. People just let their dogs roam outside around here, even though there is a leash law. It kept running at me and barking. I am not afraid of dogs, but it sure does piss me off. These people in a car driving by while this was happening had the nerve to tell me the dog would not bite me. "That's not the point!" I should have said, "people need to keep their dogs on a leash in their yard." I was too busy trying to get past this crazy dog.
Anyway, I was in such a foul mood by the time I got home. I felt like a volcano about to erupt at any moment. There was a time when I would have judged myself for being so angry. I had these ridiculous notions about spirituality, and one of them was that emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, etc. were "bad." If I wasn't Pollyanna all of the time, then I was not being spiritual enough.
But one day I realized it is either ALL divine/spiritual or NONE of it is, and I believe in a Divine power. I knew I was not doing myself any favors by judging myself, my emotions, or my experience. Love is after all unconditional, which means true 100% acceptance of what is.
The great thing that happened after I stopped judging certain emotions and experiences as good or bad is that when I do get angry or frustrated or sad, I let it flow through me and it never lasts very long. I am usually in a pretty decent mood every day now.
My anger burned out pretty quickly today as well. I felt it, let it be what it was, and allowed myself to have an experience of being angry. It is part of being human that I feel emotions, and to cut myself off to some of them because I am judging them as "bad," is like judging being human as bad. It is like saying I am bad. And I am divinely perfect, just as I am, anger and all.