Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

I am caught up in an eddy of self-righteous
indignation. My 'I" does not want to be kept waiting, to
be taken advantage of. I reassure her that I will not
make a scene, but that I also want to communicate
about it right now because I am feeling used. I make
early morning inquiries, tinged with annoyance, of her
sleepy mother; then wait, inwardly fuming, for what
turns out to be a remarkably short time.
And so the matter dissolved. But not in my memory,
which still carries, and I hope always will, that look on
my daughter's face that I was unable to read quickly
enough to be fully present for. Had I been able to, the
anger would have died then and there.
There is a price we pay for being attached to a
narrow view of being "right." My passing mood state
is far less important to me than her trust. But in that
moment, her trust got trampled all the same. Without
care and awareness, small-minded feeling states can
dominate the moment. It happens all the time. The
collective pain we cause others and ourselves bleeds
our souls. Hard as it is for us to admit, especially
about ourselves, self-tinged anger may be something
we indulge in and surrender to far too often.