Blood & Ink: Anger Addiction

I’m switching it up a bit today…

When I’m rooted at home, my routine is consistent: I wake up at sunrise, journal, and then sit down and write whatever the day’s Blood & Ink piece is.

Today, I wrote in my private pages about something that I think is important to share. Perhaps only important for me to say ‘out loud’, but maybe it will resonate with you too.

There is a part of me, not very deep under the surface, that loves the opportunity to wallow in self-pity, lethargy, and disappointment…

It seeks them out and capitalizes on them the moment an emotional challenge arises. It perpetuates and complicates brief moments into multi-day existential fits.

• Why is this?
• What is the benefit?
• Am I still seeking evidence to support the narrative of being broken, unworthy, and ‘justified’ in my emotional immaturity?
• Am I that hungry for an excuse to be thrown off my game entirely?
• Is there still such a vast wellspring of unprocessed negative emotion in me that any catalyst sets it off like dynamite?

I don’t know. I do know that I’m better than this.

I have the tools to help these emotions pass through like the fleeting path of a butterfly in space. And yet, we are still right here. This is the reality in front of me.

• Is upset ‘safer’ than happiness?
• Do I feel narcissistic if I don’t ‘allow’ small moments to ‘adequately’ bother me?
• What would I say to a friend who brought this situation to me?

In some way—still—these moments are more emotionally visceral to me than positive emotions.

• Is this it?
• They make me feel more alive?
• Perpetuating negative/challenging emotion so that I can feel things more deeply?

Damn, dude.

I need to deepen my positive emotional practices. Loving-kindness meditation, music I love, better conversations with loved ones, gratitude practice.

And there’s something about the addictive aspect of anger…

Something feels so righteous, empowering, and enlivening when the adrenaline of ‘sacred rage’ is coursing through my veins. We’ve got to work on this man. This is managed at home, not in ceremony.

It’s time to integrate this, and access the alive, awake energy in positive and empowering emotions too.

Let’s get to it,
EB.