Calming down

Just when I start to think that I have it together and am doing well spiritually things tend to fall apart. Of course, it's most likely that the cosy feeling that I'm doing well spiritually is my first indication that I'm getting too complacent and have something to work on that I've been happy to ignore. I don't want to go into details but I (one of the calmest people I know, if I'm allowed to judge it myself) couldn't hold it together last evening when faced with an irrational attack. I let myself get upset and, although most of what I said back was true, it probably could have been said better or better things could have been said. There were also things I probably shouldn't have said, too. Thinking back I wonder if part of why I am usually able to stay so calm is because I simply tend to avoid all conflict (and haven't had much exposure to it in the past, either). I usually walk away when I can see something heating up and I usually don't speak up when I know it won't go over well. This stems from my personality and I know it isn't ideal, either. I know that there are times that one must speak up for justice, for truth, to protect another, or various other reasons. The difficult thing is to determine when one should speak up and when one should hold one's tongue. I had an interesting discussion with my mom the other week when she made the observation from something she had read that all forms of strife are rooted in pride - pride stemming from one or both parties. I think this is a useful mark to use to determine whether one is speaking up for the right reason or not. If the reason you are bickering is in defence of your own pride (or if the angry retorts start to tend that way) then you are going too far. I think that it is possible to become impassioned about causes not connected directly with yourself but for the most part another strategy to help keep yourself away from unnecessary conflict is never to allow anger to control your actions and reactions. I believe it's part of any professional fighter or boxer's strategy to remember to stay calm in the heat of the fight.

Of course all of this is easy to write out a day after the fact when I have (mostly) calmed down about it and can look at it more objectively. However, I am writing this out mostly as a reminder to myself and as a way of understanding why I let myself go so that I can (hopefully) act better in the future. I could easily blame it on the pregnancy hormones but I think it'll be more useful to myself to take responsibility and work on improving my weaker areas.