Anger and Expectations.
We get angry when our expectations haven’t been met.
When anger comes:
– accept it.
– understand that no-one is making you angry, it is to do with ‘my’ expectations.
– step back: I, the soul, create the thoughts but I am not the thoughts. Don’t get caught in the thoughts.
– be patient with yourself and don’t give-up, just keep practising them everyday…
Note: the expectation of others? When we buy into them we make them our expectations and so try to be something we are not; to be who they want us to be. We try to put ourselves into the box that someone else has mapped out for us.
If someone is angry with you it is as if they are inviting you to dance. Ask yourself; ‘What is my role here?’ To dance? To remain calm and be understanding?
Some people know just which buttons to press to get us to dance with them. Some may be very instant that we dance with them. So we need to be very clear of our role.
95% of our pain is caused by bad relationships, we get caught in their negative cycle. We respond out of habit and regret it later. To break these habits we need to stay alert and before we react out of habit take a breath and ask, ‘What is my role here?’
Check point: What am I really thinking?
Why?
Sometimes, when we want to get our thoughts across whilst fueled with anger, we may not make any sense. Maybe I am not getting my point across because the ‘vibration’ (created by my thoughts) I am giving out doesn’t match my words? If someone is feeling down even if they put on a smile you pick up that something isn’t right, don’t you? You are somehow aware that there is a discrepancy between what you are seeing and their vibe.
For example.
Maybe I would like to be loving towards someone that I (am thinking that) don’t like?
Think of someone you love… how do you feel?
Think of someone you don’t like… how do you feel?
Can this be changed?
When you see someone you like what are you noticing? Their good qualities and specialities.
When you see someone you don’t like what are you noticing? Their bad points and weaknesses.
Shifting our vision
To like someone we don’t like is about shifting our vision to acknowledge and appreciate their good qualities (or at least quality- everyone has at least one). This doesn’t mean we don’t see someone’s weaknesses anymore. It means that we don’t focus (relate) to them. Instead we focus on their specialities.
For me, my most precious possession is peace. It is something that is also so easy to let go of the moment I feel challenged/become afraid/am at the end of someone’s anger for example. So, I need to protect it. Thus I have made this my aim (focus) in life, to live peacefully and non-violently at all times. This means in practice that I have to look at what is going on inside me and to take responsibility for how I feel now and how I ‘want’ to feel.
What can I do when someone is angry towards me, for example, so as to remain peaceful and not get angry back, putting fire on fire?
1) To remind myself that this is a fellow human being and to exercise the understanding that I don’t know what stress(es) they may be under right now. They may have just had some bad news etc.
2) To remind myself that: ‘I am a peaceful being,’ and that I have the aim to live peacefully and non-violently and I wont be doing this if I add fire to fire.
3) To talk to myself rationally and to keep talking to myself so too until my reaction has dissolved, not to suppress or project it but to process it.
4) To know that however I have reacted or responded to a situation that what I am left with is the energy of that reaction or response. If I complain/forgive/understand/get angry this is what I am left with and what I take with me into my next moment/encounter.
