Hi Anita,

Upon first reading your message, I was like, WHAT?! None of it sounded right. I got caught at the part about me wishing that my ex is unhappy. I honestly don’t wish for him to be unhappy. I also don’t believe that I am a bad person. Maybe it’s just a matter of semantics… just suffering from feelings of insufficiency.

But I kind of marinated in the rest of the message, wondering if it’s possible to be angry and not know it. If anger can be manifested in anxiety and fear.

I feel that I can have intense feelings of inadequacy. I don’t even see them as such, only that things don’t work out and the reason must be that I’m not good enough or I’m doing something wrong and that needs to be fixed. It manifests as not having expectations that things will work out. It manifests as insecurity with  people of authority. It manifests as not speaking my truth when I think I’ll be rejected. It manifests as putting on a happy face of getting along with everyone. Truly being diplomatic and often times fake. But to me, I don’t feel fake being happy or loving others. I feel like my true nature is kindness and compassion and acceptance.

The only thing that kept me from disregarding your thinking that anger is fueling all of my behavior was my thoughts of how angry I was in high school. I was positively miserable in my environment. But I felt like once I left my hometown I was free to be myself. I did have a lot of jealousy and anger in my relationships from college until my last serious long-term relationship. After my last relationship I did a lot of work… meditating and working on acknowledging my anger and tendency to be bossy and make others serve my emotional needs. I don’t know if in doing this for the last 6 years of being single, until this relationships I’ve managed to turn all that anger inwards and really lose who I am. I’m not saying I never showed anger with this past relationship, but I never showed my jealousy and I never demanded anything from him. I don’t see this as a negative, because he said that he appreciated my love and unconditional acceptance, which he said he never really felt before. I guess I just didn’t see the point of having my emotions affect someone else negatively.

I had an intuitive reading done last month and was told that I can be a “bitch” and I won’t be loved any less. That I’m used to just being a pretty face who caters to others needs.

I do agree that my childhood had a lot of fear and anger. And that the perception of anger went somewhere in the last 6 years of trying to “fix” myself. Could it have just turned into the non-acceptance of who I am? And at times that manifests as strong feelings and depression/anxiety?

Thinking about this using the words bad and thinking about being angry at everyone doesn’t sit well with me. But I know there’s something that’s resonating because if I view my current situation as having anger, the issue doesn’t seem so overbearing and nebulous. It feels manageable. I will meditate on this for a few days and let you know how things are percolating.

Thank you, Anita!

oh, FYI I also started studying this: https://pattyyoga.com/2015/12/21/learning-to-love-unconditionally/

Things that I have learned in the past, but maybe never thought were important.