CELIA McBRIDE

And what of anger?

I have heard that anger is really fear in disguise. I have heard that depression is unexpressed anger. I have even heard that cancer is rage unreleased.

For many years I believed it was not “spiritual” to be angry. The truth is, we cannot really be living the Spirit as long as we are denying our anger.

I was an angry child. I like to say I was in a bad mood for 27 years. For most of my twenties, when I was trying to be spiritual, I repressed my anger, stuffed it, pretended it wasn’t there.

Ten years ago, when I finally got on the healing path, I had to learn first to admit that I was angry and then how to express it in a healthy way.

There is a line from the Gus Van Sant film “Milk” starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, and it keeps coming back to me.

There is a huge crowd of people in the gay Castro District, where “Milk” is mostly set, and those involved in the protest have just experienced what feels like one more terrible injustice.

Milk and his compadres fear a riot. He gets on the bull horn and he says, “I know you’re angry…”

And here we expect him to say, “BUT…”

“But it’s okay, but don’t worry, but it will be alright.”

But he doesn’t.

Harvey Milk says, “I’M ANGRY!”

And then they walk, together, in anger and in peace, to continue proclaiming their cause.

It’s an incredibly moving moment.

I’m writing about anger this morning because I’M ANGRY.

It was a little thing that made me realize I had some unexpressed anger looking to be extracted from my body, just a little thing that wouldn’t work properly, a thing that was stuck and I was trying to un-stick it, just a small thing.

The more I tried to make it work, and couldn’t, the more frustrated I got.

I’M ANGRY.

Okay, boy, wow. Awareness comes first. Then action: time to do something about that!

And I will. I will go within, where the answers lie, I will share with someone who has wisdom about such things, and I will find a way to express the anger and get it out of my body.

Howling in the bush always helps.

Inspiring Message of the Day: My anger is valid. It needs to be expressed in a healthy way. Identifying it, sharing it and then releasing it will bring me back to peace.

The reason the URL address for this blog is called Cultivate Your Courage and why I lead an Inspiring workshop with the same name is not because I am THE MOST COURAGEOUS WOMAN and I am here to teach all of you how to be courageous.

It’s because I need to cultivate my own courage everyday to live in this world.

The CYC workshop was originally called Walk Through Your Fear. (You’d be amazed how many people would rather cultivate their courage than walk through their fear!)

Name change aside, the idea for the workshop came to me after a prayer/meditation session. I was seeking guidance around how to generate some income outside of my artistic practice using the gifts and the talents that have been given to me.

What could I do? I could lead a workshop. Okay. What on? What am I a true expert at doing? What do I know well enough that I could teach it?

There it was: I walk through my fear. Every single day. In every situation. I feel the fear and I do it anyway.

Despite the fact that I have the spiritual understanding that there is really nothing to fear, my little human form has a harder time grasping that notion.

Sometimes I wake up in cold, naked fear and I don’t know why. I’ve gone to bed with joy and peace in my heart and when I awaken it’s a whole un-brave new world.

This morning I woke up with the fear upon me. Lots of things to feed it: traveling tomorrow, taking cat to the kennel today, beginning of a new month, swine flu blah blah blah.

I did what I always do to cultivate my courage: I prayed.

I heard somewhere that prayer is not for the Power to whom you are praying. It is for you. I agree. When I pray, it is I that am changed.

As I expressed my fear and asked for guidance my heart began to ease, the anxiety began to lift and I was returned to a state of well-being, gratitude and relaxation.

I received the Inner Guidance I needed to live this day fully and passionately, as though it were my last. I remembered that it’s not about me, that I am here to be a worker for the Creator.

I don’t know how prayer works. I just know it does.

Inspiring Message for the Day: When I speak what is in my heart to the Power that makes the grass grow, the flowers bloom and the wind blow, I receive the strength I need to move forward with joy and fearlessness.

Yesterday I was speaking with a friend who is living on the other side of the country about the mystical journey of life and the process of letting go.

I was describing to her my own process of walking through my fear everyday. Everyday I must do the thing I think I cannot do. Everyday I pray for courage and I show up for the ride.

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter that I’m afraid, I’ll do it. Whatever I’m supposed to do I’ll do it,” I told her. This is my practice.

My friend, listening closely, told me about a film starring Ingrid Bergman called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. It’s a B-movie from 1958 that nobody saw. In it, Bergman plays a missionary who is sent to China. At one point in the film she is visiting a prison and beyond the bars she can hear screaming and terrible sounds that evoke unspeakable horrors.

The guard says to her, “Aren’t you afraid?” and she says, “Yes. Open the door.”

My friend told me this story to illustrate her point, which was to say that my fear does matter. We cannot negate our fear. Our fear is real. So, yes, YES, I am afraid. Now open the door.

But the only reason I’m able to say open the door is because I trust. I trust in the mystical experience.

The mystic believes in spiritual truths that are beyond the intellect. The mystic believes that we are being guided every second of our lives. Every single thing that happens to us is guidance from on high.

This is challenging. But it is also liberating. Life becomes an adventure to be lived out every moment as we wait to see which path to take, what road to follow.

Fear of what lies ahead is inevitable. It feels terrible. But trusting Guidance is the key that allows us to say, “Yes. Open the door.”

Inspiring Message of the Day: I’m terrified but I’m willing to do whatever it is that I am supposed to do. I will pray for courage and I will walk forth into the greatest adventure of all: my own life.

I started this blog because the cat I live with wakes me up each day at an ungodly hour and I was so enraged one morning that I prayed for help because I truly wanted to kill him.

When things happen to me that are disturbing in nature (from the mundane to the very serious) I seek what I like to call the Spiritual Solution in order to discover what is really going on.

The SS involves looking at the bigger picture and asking pretty deep questions: What is the message? How can I be of service? How am I attracting this? What can I change? How can I practice love here?

Living according to the Spiritual Solution is not easy. It’s a narrow path. It’s much easier to complain and be annoyed and resentful or have a pity party or give up altogether. But there’s not much peace to be had by reacting emotionally to things or taking things personally. When I accept that there is something to be learned from difficult situations I am less likely to get depressed because I’m trusting in a Higher Plan.

Even though I fantasize about strangling my cat, I choose instead to love him, love him, love him.

“Do to us what you will and we will still love you.”

Those are the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

He was an advocate for loving our enemies. Love them until they are worn down, love them until we are victorious.

This is a radical approach and I believe we must adopt it for everything that happens in our lives. Whatever we are fighting today, we must fight with love. We must love the thing we hate into submission.

Inspiring Message of the Day: I am willing to love my enemy because I believe that this is ultimately how I will win freedom.