Please note that this column sometimes uses the G-word. In no way do I advocate any particular form, definition, or (God forbid!) gender for God, except that I do use it to mean the purest love, which is who you are.

Dear Jaya,
What do I do about all this anger I feel toward my not quite ex-husband? When I think of all he’s taken away from me—including possessions I cherished—I just feel this toxic seething inside me. I can’t seem to stop it. There’s so much good work I’ve done to get on with my life. Why can’t I clear the anger?
--Boiling Mad

Dear Boiling,

The only problem I can see is that you think it’s about him. None of this is about him at all. This is all about you and all for you—it can’t be happening except to move you forward. The ex is just showing up in your play as the Villain character with the dark cape and the oiled mustache. (Can’t you see he’s kind of cute?)

Since the beginning of human history, people have lost cherished possessions invested with deep emotional value. It doesn’t matter what they lose them to: war, natural disaster, family discord, random theft, malicious exes. . . . What matters is that there they are, stripped of something they held dear—something they used to create and catalog identity.

So we all agree it’s no fun. But can you accept and meet the challenge?

Will you accept that this is part of what happens to people here on the earth plane—people like and including you? Will you do the spiritual work being asked of you? Can you simply sit with how it feels to lose that part of your identity and notice that you’re still okay, and all your needs are being met?

Will you find the gift? When things get razed down to ground zero, we get to build something bold and beautiful and new. This is all for and about you too: you get to build what has nothing to do with the ex and everything to do with you!

Here’s a spiritual gem for you: think of anything that happens as always just happening between you and God—or you and you. When the villain shows up, don’t fixate on him. (Don’t shoot the messenger!) It’s always just God showing up again under the next guise, with the next challenge, the next gift.

If you see it this way, you’ll always win, because there’s no one there to have a showdown with. There’s just whatever you need to resolve with yourself, with God, here and now.

Don’t expect yourself to remember this all the time. I don’t! But it’s like meditation: as soon as you notice you’ve taken off, you gently come back; you bring yourself back to the breath. As soon as you catch yourself seething about the villainous ex, come back to yourself. Come back to meeting God. Notice how well you can live without all you think your ex has taken from you. Meet the amazing love and support you still have from the Universe on a daily, moment-to-moment basis.

Can you feel the gratitude rise up again? And can you taste the sweetness of that newly tender compassion for those who have lost more than you have in some recent natural or not-so-natural disaster?

Drop your story of the ex, sit with yourself, and you’ll simmer down. It really is intoxicating to go over the wrongs again. So don’t do it—or catch yourself and come back. Come back to the place where you know you are God, and nothing added or taken from you can touch that.

Love, Jaya

Disclaimer: I'm a personal coach specializing in getting people from breakup to breakthrough, or guiding anyone who wants to do deep spiritual work to transform their life experience. I am not a health, business, or financial coach, and I'm not a therapist. Opinions expressed in this column are not intended to replace the advice of licensed professionals. 

To submit a question for possible inclusion in a future column, please email Jaya through the contact form on her profile.

TAGGED WITH: anger, God, healing, Ithaca, Jaya the Trust Coach, life coach, life coaching, The Work of Byron Katie