I love this excerpt from Annie Mueller’s Dammit nature:
I’m stepping between tree roots, watching a chipmunk
(I don’t hate people anymore)
I’m winding beneath a green-lit canopy
(Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought)
I’m listening to cricket, cicada, crow
(I feel pretty good actually)
This process reminds me of Erling Kagge’s Walking: One Step at a Time:
I learned about a valuable Inuit tradition. If you are so angry that you can hardly control your feelings, you are asked to leave your home and to walk in a straight line through the landscape outside until your anger has left you. You then mark the point at which your anger is released with a stick in the snow. In this way, the length, or the strength, of one’s rage is measured. The most sensible thing that you can do if you are angry—a condition where our reptilian brain rules our decisions—is to walk for a while away from the object of your anger.