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It’s like I’m destroying everything that’s good and right before someone else does. No one can dismiss what’s important to me if I’ve already dismissed it myself.
BY MAGAZINE COLUMNIST SUSAN BLOOD
For the record, “f#@ you, you miserable @#k” is not a good mantra.
I know this because I looked up mantra in the dictionary:
1. Hinduism A sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities.
2. A commonly repeated word or phrase
- thefreedictionary.com
So while it is technically a mantra (per definition two), it is not a good one. Specifically, it does not invoke the kind of god I want to invoke. Even I can see that. After commonly repeating it for a couple of hours, I have a headache and stomach cramps.
Self destructive behavior: its varieties, plus bleach
In all fairness, if it is a clean house you’re looking for, this mantra does work. In my anger I washed everything. I threw things away. And as a final “&#@ you” to everything that had pushed me over the edge, I used bleach. Just because I’m a pacifist doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes feel like killing stuff.
I stopped short of going to the grocery store and buying an arsenal of cleaning products that would eventually need to be taken to town hall on the day they collect all the stuff they beg you not to throw in the landfill. The crazy person in my head knows stupidly self-destructive behavior when it sees it.
I prefer smart self-destructive behavior. It’s so much more… self-destructive.
You don’t like the way I live my life? Fine. I will take everything that gives this house life and I will burn it in a big pile in the yard. Bad microbes! Good microbes! Crayon drawings of baby deer that say “I love you mommy.” In the pile they go! Ha ha! That will sure teach THEM.
It’s like I’m trying to destroy everything that’s good and right before someone else does. No one can dismiss what’s important to me if I’ve already dismissed it myself.
A quiet inner voice amid the demonic laughter
In the still, small moments of sanity that follow these outbursts, I know that none of this does a single thing to “them,” aside from giving them a reason to label me as clinically insane.
Recently I had to extricate myself from an awkward situation. I knew the other party would never admit to wrongdoing and that eventually their actions would effect my reputation. During hundreds of hours of imagined arguments, I laid out all the ways that they were wrong and I was right. I had many private temper tantrums. I was sure that if I blew up all my metaphorical bridges, no metaphorical jury would convict. They might even cheer me.
I was also sure that when you run away from something, it pops up in another form as soon as the dust clears.
Although the situation wasn’t domestic, I kept thinking of Elin Nordegren and my mantra became swing no golf clubs.
It’s amazing, the physiological difference you experience when you chant those two mantras.
f#@ you, you miserable @#k, versus Swing no golf clubs.
“Swing no golf clubs” feels like a deep-breathing exercise. The other one feels like a hyperventilating exercise.
The raw and the cooked
There are things in this world that can and should make us angry. This isn’t about anger management. This is about defending our tender insides from our own clumsy flailing. It’s okay to be angry. It’s not okay to inadvertently destroy ourselves as a mode of expressing that anger.
If you must swing a golf club, don’t hit yourself in the head. And if you must blow up a bridge, make sure you’re not standing on it.
The iconic Susan Blood also writes Trout Towers and operabetty.com.
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© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.
