When I’m angry I stop needing everyone to like me. I don’t care if they approve of what I do. My face doesn’t hurt from smiling all the time. When people talk to me, I give myself a moment to evaluate if I agree or not before automatically nodding in agreement. It’s liberating.

Some people on the other end of the spectrum are angry all the time. I’m on the overly agreeable side. I wish I could be 10% more angry to balance out my people pleasing defaults.

I was just a retreat center near Petaluma, CA where a speaker spoke on balance. He said we all have the full spectrum of characteristics within us: anger, joy, selfishness, caring, pride, humility, etc. We get into trouble when one of them tries to be the only player on the field while all the others are benched. That’s when we make errors in our behavior. When this happens, we can pause and pray for the right counter-characteristics to arise within us to balance our response.

Selfishness <> Caring

Anger <> Peace

Rigid <> Flexible

Permissive <> Controlling

Every single character trait is helpful in the right circumstance and destructive in the wrong circumstance.

How cool. There’s nothing about me that I need to “remove”. It all belongs. I just need help learning the dosage required for the situation.