Begin by arranging your body in a stressful position. Consider, as you set your intention, the Angriest Dog In The World – The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis. Let this be your guide.
Allow your limbs to fill with resentment and indignation until they seem almost to vibrate. Send a memory of every slight, every insult, every injury you have ever received from your enemy into your fingers and toes.
Select one enemy at a time. Select them with all of the powers of discernment you possess. Imagine you have them carefully pressed into the fibers of your heart, where they are safe and warm for the moment. Show them the tenderness of an executioner with pity in his soul.
Fill your mind with thoughts, the more the better. A robustly furnished mind is a powerful mind. Open your mind to every thought you have ever had. Do not yet worry about focusing these thoughts upon the destruction of your enemies. Every thought will do. Cram your mind with them. Your thoughts are your allies, your handmaidens, and your bodyguards. Utilize them.
Picture your enemy experiencing a small, semi-public humiliation. Someone they love and admire has expressed disappointment with them. This will be the cornerstone of the temple you will build to your resentments.
Imagine yourself walking on a path toward your enemy’s house. The path is soft and yielding beneath your feet. With every step, your body feels looser and more powerful beneath you. As you approach the door, you gain several inches in height. You no longer feel the need to blink.
Mindfulness about paying gentle, focused attention to whatever petty hatred you’re experiencing in the present moment. It involves honoring the resentment you’re feeling right now.
The door of your enemy’s house opens without your having to touch the handle. Within is everyone your enemy has ever known and loved. No one can see you, and yet somehow a flicker of recognition passes across your enemy’s face as a shadow.
Concentrate on a particular word or phrase you find particularly meaningful as your mantra. If you do not have a mantra of your own, consider one of the following traditional phrases to begin with:
- I will wear your secrets on the outside
- I cherish your pain as a child
- No solace, no pity, no mercy, no ending
- My foot, your throat
- How you suffer. How you will suffer.
Feel your spine lengthens and the muscles in your back relax as your enemy crumples to the ground before you. They have been Found Out in the way you yourself have always feared you might be. Visualize the specifics. What does your enemy’s humiliation smell like? How does your enemy’s lover sneer when he or she realizes the innumerable ways your enemy has failed to be a lovable human being? Does your enemy release a wordless bellow of anguish, or a rushed stream of explanations and apologies in a last-ditch attempt to stave off this final rejection?
Feel the tension leaving your body as you admire the scene taking place around you. Imagine a powerful energy radiating out from your enemy’s inert form and being readily absorbed by your body and mind.
Wiggle your fingers and toes in joy as your enemy’s body begins to betray them. Shrug your shoulders as you visualize every one of your enemy’s friends and lovers crossing the room to demonstrate their new loyalty to you.
When you are ready, open your eyes and experience full awareness, feeling alert and refreshed.
[Image via]
I need an audio version of this, voiced by Eartha Kitt with like a gentle soundtrack of like, knives being sharpened and waves crashing.
That would be my theme song.
I feel better already.
Someone please post a picture of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so we can get some shit done
Bravo. This reminds me of “Fuck That: A Guided Meditation” which is near and dear to my soul.
I never thought I needed a mantra, but “No solace, no pity, no mercy, no ending” is _perfect_.
This is everything I have been feeling in 2016 summed up. Well done!
I don’t think I was supposed to come away from The Magician’s Nephew wanting to be Jadis at the tender age of eleven, but I did. Anyone else?
Oh totally! She was basically my favourite. I loved how powerful she was and how little she cared for anyone else. Sort of like Cersei from ASOIAF. I think I have a type….
Oh yeah. Baby life goals right there. Nine year old me totally would’ve destroyed a planet to spite her sister.
*raises hand*
A dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.
Jadis was the SHIT. That was always my favorite book of the series, largely because Jadis is such a badass.
I always had huge crushes on the wicked women in children’s lit and movies — Maleficent, the Snow Queen — which for sure included both Jadis and her later incarnation, the White Witch. I have always been intrigued by how differently Lewis depicted them. The White Witch clearly derives from the Snow Queen, the kind of sexy villainess who sends shivers down your spine. While she is ice, Jadis is fire. I love the Pauline Baynes illustration of her standing on top of the hansom cab, lashing the horse, all streaming hair and garments, tempestuous and commanding. I definitely get the feeling that Lewis preferred that version.
“I cherish your pain as a child”
wow. that’s rough.
i am weeping at the beauty of this.
JADIS THE LAST QUEEN
“Picture your enemy experiencing a small, semi-public humiliation. Someone they love and admire has expressed disappointment with them. This will be the cornerstone of the temple you will build to your resentments.”
All of a sudden I love everyone.
This reminds me I need to go look for an obit for my (offensively long-lived) enemy.
HOW DID YOU KNOW?
This is amazing.
Also, for some reason, I read this in the voice of Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2.
if anyone else has read that essay by Chuck Klosterman about needing both a nemesis and an archenemy, I think you will understand when I say that I immediately sent this to my nemesis.
I just read that and it made me reevaluate half my relationships
Just read that Klosterman essay. I went in ready to agree with the premise… the title sounded entirely plausible… but then the whole thing left me feeling icky and unsatisfied. Maybe he’s my archenemy?! Pretty reductive dude.
Adding this to my bookmarks toolbar so I can come back whenever I need it.
Never have I identified so strongly with a Toast piece. How did you get a hold of part of my nightly ritual?
“Do not yet worry about focusing these thoughts on the destruction of your enemies. Any thought will do…Your thoughts are your allies, your handmaidens, and your bodyguards.”
OK, but this is actually the truest thing I’ve ever read? (Not that I believe any part of this piece to be anything other than 100% sincere advice.) When my most powerful enemy is threatening to consume me, my first defense is to fill myself up with every thought I have that isn’t theirs, and remember that that’s the part of me I’m fighting to preserve. And then I move on to the destroying.
Mallory, are you ok? You know we have puppy pictures on tap for emergencies. Also covens on call should you need your vengeance made manifest. Six of one.
This is clearly the work of someone who is much more than OK.
So…do YOU need puppies or coven intervention? Look I can’t get this startup off the ground d without some success stories. (also for serious, hugs and sympathy if you’re having a rough time!)
Thanks, though at the moment I’m fine! It sounds like a nice startup for those who need it, but indulging in my ferocious enmities is, if anything, the peak of self-care! (Well, often it isn’t, but what Mallory is advising here is exactly the constructive way to do it, trust me, she’s got it figured out.)
Someone clearly doesn’t get Mallory.
POUR OUT YOUR FIERCE AND VIOLENT WISDOM, O LIONESS.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Also, I would love to record this. I have a good voice for guided meditations!
All of those mantras are perfect and will be thought behind a raised eye brow and a Natalie Dormer-esque smirk
I’m channeling my chakra (of rage) while I attempt to open my inner eye (of mordor)
I'm channeling my chakra (of rage) while I attempt to open my inner eye (of mordor)
The Kylo Ren Guide to The Force
"This week on the Night Vale Community Calendar: Meditation at the Rec Center! Bring your yoga mat and a personal vendetta."
“i will wear your secrets on the outside”
dear
god.
*wipes tears away* *applauds until hands are bright red*
This is the most beautiful thing I’ve read in a long time. Congratulations.
PLEASE
I am a therapist of mostly downtrodden young women and would 95% for sure use this in my professional life
Who would we even ask about that? Mallory?
Ah, I was such an amateur until now…
Ah, I was such an amateur until now…