Attaining Homeostasis

In life we are taught that there are seven deadly sins. We all know the big ones... gluttony, pride, lust. But the thing you don't hear much about is anger. Maybe it's because we think anger is not that dangerous, that you can control it. My point is, maybe we don't give anger enough credit. Maybe it can be a lot more dangerous than we think. After all when it comes to destructive behaviour, it did make the top seven.  ~GA~

"homeostasis"  someone said this word the other day.  i haven't heard it for a long time and i had forgotten how much i liked the sound of it.   the word was used in regard to breathing. that moment between breaths when your body has enough oxygen and your lungs are quiet.  then, just like any other living thing we have to breath in again.  small adjustment,  huge results.

emotions in and of themselves are not one of those things that can reach and maintain homeostasis, but our reactions to them and our desire to hold on to them or let them go most certainly is.   exclamations such as "i can't help it" and "you make me..."   are both tediously human and completely incorrect.  we can help it and no one makes us do or say anything.  we choose, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.  

i venture to suggest that we all can choose our own emotional homeostasis as well.   we all face life with a chosen perspective.   we run head long into each situation an angry, grateful, secure or unhappy person or we let situations hit us head on because we are disconnected, depressed or totally apathetic.  all our choice. 

it is odd how much flack one gets when one decides to just be calm and grateful for what they have and who they are and let go of the anger.  i have played around with living in all of the emotions at one time or another.  when i let go of grudges,  forgive myself and others and appear happy just breathing in and out is when it seems to trouble people.  i am called apathetic if i am not angry or when i draw a boundry and keep it, i am cold and hateful.    i have noticed that if someone is angry and suffering they want you to be too. they will say or do anything to draw you in.  if you respond with any other emotion besides anger it just makes them more angry.  of course, the opposite is true as well.  people who live grateful and in contentment want the same for others around them.     This backs up the view that we draw in people and situations into our lives in relationship to where we are with ourselves.

i agree with the quote above.  anger is dangerous and destructive.  it is also miserable to live in anger homostatically.  (there is that word again, love it!)  we imagine anger as something thrown at someone or something else but the truth is, we retain it.  it doesn't go anywhere.  it just sits inside of us and eats away at all the other emotions that we have.  it damages the person holding it much more than the person being hit with it.

gossip is dangerous, (i'm not sure if it specifically made the top 7) i am learning that if you really pay attention you can manuver yourself around them a good part of the time but there is always someone that will betray you no matter how vidulant you are.  and no matter how much we hate it, sometimes we find ourselves gossipping.  its hard to resist on some level because gossips always seem to be busy, popular and having fun. they also seem to be the easiest to sway. speaking from experience, it is effortless and exciting to get sucked into their swirling vortex of terror.  There are those who lie in attempt to make their case air tight.  (definitely top 7) omission, supposition, inferring...  these are interesting tools to use because they are subtle.  with the slightest change in the truth, one can change the entire story, change people's perspective and no one is the wiser.   (although they should be) 

worst case scenerio,  two or more angry, lying, gossips sitting in a room together talking about you.  you are sunk.  people love to believe the worst in others and we all love a good story.

Swirling vortex of terror

Emotional Graveyards

I was on my way from grocery shopping and ended up behind a funeral procession. It was the cemetery next to the Walmart my last husband runs. I always referred to it was the "shop till you drop" cemetery. As I sat patiently watching each car turn into the driveway of the cemetery I was thinking how the whole viewing-funeral-internment thing is our way to mourn publicly. We have lost someone important and we go through all these things to show how much we loved them and will miss them. Everyone looks at you with the knowledge that something big and sad has happened in your life. They avert their eyes, give a second or to of extra consideration and always try to say something kind about your lost loved one and something to bring hope to your grief. As a whole, its a wonderful outlet of public sadness.

As the last car turned and I was allowed to continue on my way home I began to wonder. If there were such things as emotional graveyards how many of the cars on the road would be on their way there with their blinkers on waiting to turn into the driveway? How nice it would be to be able to publicly be recognized as grieving. Have people look at us and just know "she's lost someone....she is sad, smile and say something nice." Validate our pain. Let us cry at the drop of a hat and not ask why. Bring a casserole over afterward.....hey we all need to eat!

We lose a relationship that is important to us. A dream. A belief. And we just have to get up and get on with things. There is no ceremony for us. No one can even tell the kind of death we have experienced or if we try to explain many people will not give it the gravity it should have (we believe it should have) . Its heartache without a body. Its not tangible. We can't gather around a casket and see the loss. We can only feel it individually. No casserole.

Walking wounded. Angry, mournful. Perhaps the bars are where we go to publicly mourn? The candy store? Underneath the covers of a bed we won't rise from? Tears that betray us when we are trying to read a bedtime story to our children? We struggle up for air and pray for the day it doesn't hurt when we breathe. And no one knows it. And the day it doesn't hurt? No one knows that either. Its a silent struggle with a silent healing. From the outside no one ever knows we just got back from the cemetery.