Anger is something we hold onto dearly. Instead of ‘managing’ how about releasing and letting go of anger? How? By letting in the peace.
Behind anger
Anger is a ‘negative energy response’. It comes out of not getting our desires fulfilled. Desires wreak havoc in our minds, hearts, conscience and to our ability to rule our lives. Desires lead to fear, the fear of not getting what we want and then of losing it.
We do two things with anger:
– express it, harming others.
– suppress it, harming ourselves and then others. We either deny it or we distance ourselves.
When we become angry we are going against our true nature, which is of coolness (peace).
Take a pan of water, for example, sitting on the sideboard. It is expressing its natural nature right now. Then put it on the cooker, or in the freezer… It is the same for us; in anger we have become either too hot or too cold.
The alternative? To remain cool in an inner state of peace, love and stability so that nothing can make you angry or disturb your inner state of peace and love. If we look at great souls they don’t get affected and become angry. Why? They are seeing things differently, they don’t see injustice and so are friendly towards others and accepting of whatever comes in front of them. They don’t resist but embrace whatever comes.
We tend to dissect, analyse, and ask: Why me?! We do this thinking we are protecting ourselves, instead, aren’t we just increasing our fear and anger? It is in fact actually far simpler to accept whatever has happened and to focus on how to deal with the situation in front of me in such a way that I maintain mine and others self-respect.
We can try to understand too much so that we become stuck with ‘having to understand’ and so are not able to move into empathy. We may come to an understanding through analysing but then find that we can’t let go of our pain. We increase it in fact as our conscience is telling us to let go but we find we can’t. Sometimes it maybe that the answer is just to accept what has happened and then to sustain our aim to remain peaceful and loving. We may fear that in doing just this that we will be taken advantage of, this will not happen as there is an innate balance in life. In anger we lose our balance, in staying peaceful we stay in balance and we are naturally protected.
Also, don’t blame – yourself or others. Blaming just confuses anger. Instead of blaming oneself, correct oneself. If we blame ourselves we become disheartened, feel inferior and useless and now I am unable to act at all. Rather than blaming others clarify and encourage a dialogue. When we dialogue, the aim is that no-one should be hurt but ‘to meet each other.’ 90% of communication is listening, we tend to not even listen to what our own needs are let alone others!
Also we have used anger to protect ourselves. We are not ‘anger’ though. We say I am angry/jealous/etc. implying that this is what we are now. It isn’t so. We just used anger to protect ourselves. We aren’t the anger. Seeing this gives us the possibility to master anger.
If we you do get angry, learn to ride the wave. Great if you can stop it before the wave comes, if not then it is better to ride it than suppress it. If we can ride it, remain silent and not suppress even better. Then act to minimise damage to yourself and others and ask; What have I have lost/gained from that?
Peace can only be found in our hearts when there is no anger left. No feeling of pain.
