Hi, beauflow. The way I help myself through this minefield is to treat feelings and emotions as the same and to accept them as information for myself, only. I think it can be easy for me to become confused between emotions, especially anger, and action. But when I remember that what I feel is just information to let me know what is going on with me and to help me decide what I want to do, instead of the command to go and do, that slows me down and lets me assess the situation a bit more.

If you come up on a sign that says, "Bridge Out" that is information. You know you have to turn around and find another way over the gulf or river. You might also realize that you are angry because you forgot the bridge was out, it has been out for six months and those idiots at public works have done nothing to fix it and now you are going to be late because you have to turn around and retrace your drive and find another route! It's okay to be angry at the public work people but that does not mean you have to take up the problem with them right now! Right now you want to heed the immediate information, the sign, and be grateful it is there so you didn't go off a cliff and think about how you plan to get around the gap.

"That ba*t#rd let his dogs loose over my property and hurt the ponies" is an angry feeling. It is also information. The fences and "no trespassing" signs may not be adequate; and, I currently do not like, respect, or trust my neighbor, being a couple of good pieces of information to have. Your neighbors are a "Bridge Out" sign for you about him, he's a gap. So, first you have to make sure he can do no more damage to you, your property and animals, and then you have to see about what legal means you might have to get him to pay for the damage he caused.

But the action taken from the information helps make the feelings not "necessary" anymore because it doesn't matter if he's a ba*t#rd anymore, you have made it so he can't hurt you in the future and you're fixing to use what evidence you have to make him pay for the hurt in the past; instead of feeling so angry and helpless that your property and animals have been hurt, you feel good because you fixed those problems so they cannot happen again. You have "moved on" in a sense.

If you do not have any evidence, the work or action fixing your problems (making your property secure against trespassers again) might turn something up; maybe as you are working on the fences you find evidence of a vehicle that drove through that is not your neighbor's and so maybe the dogs accidentally got onto your property. You can still feel angry that he does not control his animals better, lets them run loose and you can feel that way even if your county does not have a leash law! You just can't do anything legally against him if it does not have a leash law, that next step would be to go before the county commissioners and petition for a leash law, or to get police out about the vehicle that crashed into and broke your fence perhaps.

The best thing I have found for difficult feelings is to treat them as information and to be glad I have that information. Then I can use it to see what direction, what action I want to pursue next, to help myself and my situation.