Anger.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
Dear Deepak, I have a friend who has been in unhealthy relationship after unhealthy relationship, with barely a break in between, for perhaps her entire “adult” life. We are both 27. She has had problems with substance abuse, promiscuity, infidelity, and has been abusive in her relationships. She can’t be alone with herself, and she’ll do anything to prevent it. After years of supporting her, I feel I have reached my limit. I feel drained and depressed, and angry. I’ve done all I can to be there for her and not judge her, and have encouraged her to see a therapist. But I feel like I can’t even speak to her anymore, because of how frustrated her behavior makes me. Is this one of those situations where I need to distance myself from her, because it’s too painful for me to be her friend? I’ve told her how I feel, but I still have so much anger. What do I do with this anger?
Response:
The first thing to do is separate your anger from the story of your friend, and understand your anger for what it represents about you. For example, it seems to me that the source of your frustration traces back to the inability of your love, support and energy to change your friend’s self-destructive, abusive, and compulsive behavior. That is a big issue to come to terms with, and it certainly is something many parents have to deal with at some time. So if you want to deal with your anger, you need to look honestly at your beliefs about love, control, and respecting the path of another, no matter how obviously wrong, and unnecessarily painful it may look to you. It requires developing a humility on the limitations of our understanding, and a deepening of love that can embrace even those people that we cannot help or be close to for the time being.
Love,
Deepak
