Keeping Cool
Photo Courtesy of Gabriel Tovar/Unsplash
One of my favorite scenes of Marvel’s The Avengers is the alien attack on New York City. Bad guys and giant flying worm/bugs are pouring endlessly out of a wormhole, destroying everything and everyone in their path. For the first time, the Avengers are facing a foe together, and yet one of their key members has yet to prepare for the imminent battle. In fact, he’s quite calm.
Captain America (Chris Evans) tensely prompts Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) if perhaps now is a good time to get angry. “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.” BOOM! The Hulk instantly erupts to take care of business. That’s great, but perhaps like me, you wonder how Banner can remain constantly angry yet still stay cool in a world full of animosity-inducing stressors?
Many of us have probably dealt with underlying anger in our lives. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that being angry all the time is actually a disease, not a superpower. Like a cancer, it can destroy us from the inside out. Fortunately for me, there is a green superhero that helps me ebb the annoyances I let consume my life.
When I talk with my therapist about the past week’s episodes that triggered me, she asks, ”Why did you get angry?” We’ve had this conversation enough that I know the mantra. “Anger is just the outward backlash from the lizard brain’s true reaction: Fear.” I’m always afraid and therefore always angry.
Heavy shit. Easy to reflect upon in therapy, and much harder to grasp when my brain is Hulking Out in the heat of the moment. Fear is the perpetual smolder beneath my cauldron of irritation. I need to reduce those heated moments so I don’t boil over and “go green.” Yet going green is exactly the answer! Better than any prescription, I can rely on cannabis to level the playing field.
I’ll not compare my life and its stressors to yours. We all have our struggles, and we all react differently to them. The current circumstances of my life bring to light more fear than I’m able to handle on my own. Cannabis can’t eliminate those coals of fear, but it gives me a rudimentary thermostat to keep things at a light simmer. Even then, it’s extremely difficult. I require multiple means of consumption in order to overcome THC tolerance and achieve the desired effects.
To achieve that, I mostly vape. The quickest way for me to reframe is with Magnitude cartridges. If I have more time, a better cool-down comes from packing a calming-specific strain like Pure Kush into my Pax 3. Edibles are the real heroes, and I try to keep them around to counter the rage stewing below. At some point, however, I must temper my proclivity with fiscal availability, and other methods of self-help must be employed.
For instance, writing is a proven temperature control. At a recent writers’ meeting for Fat Nugs Magazine, I shared some of the events in my life that have contributed to my anger flare-ups, and they asked, “How do you possibly handle all of that?!” I don’t pull it off as well as Mark Ruffalo, but, in my mind, I feel like I do; “That’s my secret. I’m always high.”
