Monday, June 02, 2008

what colour is your parachute?


A wound is never silent. It may trick you into thinking it has no soundbite. It may even be pushed down so deeply that it's voice seems disconnected to the impact it makes on our personal choices, decisions and actions. We don't see the link. We don't see how a few untreated wounds can affect everything from how we structure our daily routines to how we interact with others. And yet, we often don't see the connection. Our behaviour and reactions seem randomly tied to our personalities...........our temperments...........our way of seeing the world.

Wounds are comprised of hurts, slights, digs, abuse, failures..........they are smeared in shame and bruising pain which sometimes is just too tender even to the gentlest of touches. So, we build up the armour of anger to protect ourselves from recognizing the wound, from addressing it with the salve needed. We don't resolve or accept the reasoning behind the wound. It's like we are forced into a holding pattern of arrested development. Anger constipates personal growth.


Interesting how many colours anger comes in. We are all aware of the explosive red pot boiling kind that may even be directed at you because you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Senseless violence like random shootings is the blatantly aggressive code red anger. It's the pressure cooker type that simmers and simmers, fed by revengeful distorted thinking. Red anger is an outward aggressive display, which to a bystander or an intended victim can seem to be erupt out of nowhere until hindsight offered.

When anger, the frontman of a wound, seeps out a in shades of blue...........the blues..................it looks like sadness. It looks lost. It sounds like a misguided wail fading to a midnight black and blue solo saxophone. It's where shadows stretch over rapture, choking out the possible streaks of lightness. Blue anger is swallowed bitters which expands inside our souls leaving a bloated saturated feel like you've eaten too much junkfood at a party you weren't invited to and no one cared.

Green anger can lead to growth if the fear of change doesn't beat it out of you. It has the capacity to lead to a transformative enlightenment......the key is to grab onto it when it's germinating because it can easily turn into a different shade of green that simply oozes out of the wound, causing further hurt.


We arent very good at using our anger as a positive motivator. We aren't very good at knowing when to transplant the seedling into a place where it receives the sun and nourishment it needs to grow into a robust mature plant with roots fed by optimism. I wonder if its because we tend to allow the colours to bleed together to form a thorned wall of revenge instead of as a separate flower amongst the meadow of possibilities?

Wounds run deep. They never run still. It takes insightful courage to heal them and not to let them take hold of the choices you make or the hearts you can hurt by the protective thorns grown in defense.
Isn't life complicated?


9 comments:

Kamsin said...

Where is the photo at the top of your post? And yes, life sure is complicated!

awareness said...

Hi Kamsin....good to see you! I took the photo inside Cantebury Cathedral. I love all the colours in it.....and the storied flags. I have a few more which I will use in the future. Did you recognize it? Do you live near the area?

awareness said...

Kamsin...OMG! YOU LIVE THERE!! I just checked your profile!

I fell in love with the town and the cathedral.....i can't imagine it will be my one and only visit, but next time will let you know when I am there.

Marja said...

Hi dana you make anger into an art and display its colours very well.
I have known the blue anger but am also very good to use it in productive ways

awareness said...

anger can be quite motivating I believe if one is aware of the roots and causes....

Bar L. said...

Dana, your writing and insights are both so deep, beautiful, helpful. I loved this post. From now on I will but a name to my anger and if I see red or blue - will make every attempt to turn green. Love you!

awareness said...

Layla.....try the purple flavour too! It offers you a venue of being eccentric and unique.

I wrote most of this piece a couple of months ago and found it in my drafts......am thinking that the concept would actually make a good children's book on emotions.
If they could identify with a colour, then perhaps they would learn what is healthy anger and what isn't and then where it's stemming from. hmmm? what do you think??

Under there... said...

I really do not know much about human nature, (the older I get the more I realize I really know so little about many things)but I have observed this: Most of the people I meet in crisis have been wounded deeply and the healing has to begin before much progress out of the crisis can commence.

Your photos of Canterbury Cathedral are just the best! I keep waiting for you publish one of Pip and Rowan Williams conversing in the great Mother Church...

Karen said...

Anger can be such a destructive emotion and can colour future relationships just as surely as the ones from the past. That is the biggest crime of all unto ourselves because we could miss out on something pure and good because our anger blinded us to the possibilities.