Put out the Fire
May 2007
By Megha Bajaj
Anger is a corroding emotion. however, used well, it can become a great source of energy and a source of self-awareness. Here are some effective ways of transforming anger
We all know anger. At times it shows up as a burning rage – as if a hundred red horses are tramping all over the mind, all wanting to destroy, to lacerate, to devastate. The tongue wants to be unleashed and express every bit of wrath as it is, without mincing, without editing. The body shivers and quivers with fury. The eyes glint with tears. And then there are those milder forms of anger that most of us experience daily – irritation, annoyance, frustration. Either way, we all recognize anger. We have seen its myriad faces in our own lives. And most of us also realize that once a full-blown rage is expressed and subsides, all we are left with is emptiness, remorse, guilt, and sometimes even broken relationships. And if that’s not enough, frequent bouts of anger or unexpressed resentment can harm our body. Recent studies show close links of anger with serious health issues like cancer and heart diseases and also minor problems like headache and acidity. So much to lose, so little to gain – and yet many of us are angry too often. Let’s understand what anger is and look at some very interesting options to transcend it, to transform it and use all that sparkling anger energy creatively.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of the popular Isha Foundation, believes that we ‘create’ anger in our own lives and the reason for this is, he explains, “People get angry as many wrongly perceive anger as a means of power and stimulator of action. If one does not know how to consciously conduct one’s life, anger becomes a poisonous substitute. Many use it to go beyond fear, or to uproot inhibitions, but anger is a wrong identification of oneself with what one is not. This naturally leads to ascribing reasons outside of oneself for various situations of life. The moment one sees the other as a source of unwanted situations, bursting forth into anger is the only way, forgetting that anger is temporary loss of sanity.”
Dada J.P. Vaswani from Sadhu Vaswani Mission, Pune, says, “Anger is a corroding emotion. It is a natural, but negative emotional response to stress or opposition. Anger is a wild fire, a forest fire which spreads from shrub to shrub, from tree to tree, consuming everything that comes in its way. In Hindi, we have a saying: “Anger is the great inflictor of sorrow, the great sinner. First it sets on fire its own mind and then the fire spreads to others.”
This fire needs to stop. But we can tackle an effect only if we first know the cause. What causes anger? Very simply put, anger is caused when there is a difference or distance between a desire and reality. For example, Mr. X wants a good job but he is stuck at an unsatisfactory one. The natural effect of this is irritation, frustration and anger.
Mrs. Y wants a mother-in-law who is caring and understanding but hers is quite the opposite – little wonder she is angry all the time. Miss Z wants a great friendship with Miss A, who only wants to use Miss Z for her money and contacts. The frustration has led Miss Z to be rude to her younger sister. The anger is likely to be proportional to the intensity of one’s desire – the more one wants something, the more will be the anger at not receiving it.
According to Jasmine Bharathan, a young expert in Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), who also organises several healing workshops, the very first step of dealing with anger is to identify – what is it that I want that I am not getting?
T. T. Rangarajan, the founder of a life leadership organization called Alma Mater, says that once one knows the cause of dissatisfaction, one could follow the C.A.R. principle. C is for change – if it’s possible for one to change the situation, they should. For example Mr. X should try getting a better job if his current one is not satisfying him. A denotes accept – if change is not possible, acceptance is the only way. Mrs. Y has to accept that she and her mother-in-law have two different sets of values and therefore are bound to have differences. What you resist, persists. Acceptance may help. Finally, R is for remove yourself from the situation. If you cannot change and you cannot accept, the only answer is to get out. The workable solution for Miss Z is to let go of her relationship with Miss A whom she is unable to change and accept.
Changing definitely appears to be the most positive of all the solutions. If I am angry with something or someone, I want to look at all the options I have to change that. There are in fact some rather interesting and exciting options given by both seekers and finders that seem to work wonders for them. Here are just a few:
Deep Breathing
There is something about age-old observations that always work! Anger management is a recent practice but anger has obviously been around ever since man was. Since centuries man has realized that breathing played an important role in his emotions. When relaxed, his breathing was even and deep; when agitated it became shallow and jagged. Since breathing responded to emotions, he wondered if emotions would respond to breathing. It did. Even such a seemingly difficult demon called anger can be tackled effectively with just a few long, deep breaths. Without realizing it, your body will relax, heart rate and blood pressure will go down and in about 20 counts all that burning fury will be released along with the carbon dioxide from your body. Once the anger is spent, you will be able to look at the anger-creating situation rationally and find a way to get out of it.
Awareness through Meditation
Manoj Sharma, a Mumbai-based financial advisor, found his weapon against anger through meditation. He shares, “Vipassana helped me in a big way. It helped me practice witnessing sensation. To be equanimous and not react to it. For example, recently I was traveling in train and someone pushed from behind. Instead of saying sorry, he shouted at me. The intense burning sensation in the whole body began. Mentally, I was abusing him. But in moments, the witnessing started. I observed what was going on within – the anger, the agitation. I didn’t like how i was gelling and immediately cooled myself. The anger that would have lasted for hours earlier, now evaporates in minutes and I am able to have a peaceful day without letting someone else’s bad mood spoil my own.”
Talk it Through
There is nothing that connects two human beings as communication does. Ninety per cent of anger within one’s life, especially for women, will come from relationships. One of the best ways to communicate hurt feelings is to speak in terms of “I” and not “you”. For instance, if a wife is angry about her husband not giving her enough time and is feeling dejected and insecure, she needs to bring up the conversation saying, “ I feel hurt because…” and not “you make me feel hurt”. In the second case the conversation is likely to be closed even before it begins as the husband will already be on the defense and not open to hearing what his wife is feeling. Anger needs to be managed by taking responsibility for it – by understanding that this emotion is yours and you need to handle it effectively. Others will help if you are helping yourself.
EFT
Jasmine has turned her life downside up with EFT. EFT is a very gentle ‘procedure’; by tapping on some points on our body while uttering some statements, we can ensure that the subtle energies in the body are balanced. The principle behind EFT is simple but radical: The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system. For instance, Raj is trying to cross the road on his way to work and a car speeds past him, splashing dirty rainwater on him; his new white shirt is ruined; Raj feels angry. When the incident happened, the subtle energies flowing through Raj’s body got disrupted and he felt an emotion – ‘anger’. If Raj were to take few minutes to be aware of what he is feeling – and do EFT, it would balance his disrupted energy system.
Shhh…
T. T. Rangarajan says, when emotions are high, the first thing to do is to zip up your lips and get out of the anger-creating stimuli. Isn’t it true? When in rage we often say so many things that we regret later. Anger is often triggered by a stimulus – the best thing to do when super angry is to remove yourself from that stimulus. Shreya Kapdi, a young media professional, often finds herself at odds with her boss. When they are having a heated argument and she senses it’s not getting anywhere, she excuses herself to go to the toilet. When she gets back in ten minutes, she shares, “we are both much calmer and actually listen to the other without the ego getting involved!”
Forgiveness is the way
Dada Vaswani states, “Choose the way of forgiveness! Forgive and be free! Every night, before you retire, go over the happenings of the day. Has someone cheated you? Has someone offended you? Has someone hurt or ill-treated you? Has someone spread scandals against you? Call out that person’s name aloud and say, ‘Mr.X, I forgive you!’ ‘Mrs. Y! I forgive you!’ You will have a peaceful night’s sleep, and beautiful dreams!” I must confess when I read his solution, it sounded too simplistic to work but yet I tried it. Since the past five days, I have been ‘forgiving’ an ex-colleague who had really tried to jeopardise my relationship with the boss out of personal malice. The first day I felt nothing as I said to him, “S, I forgive you” in my mind. It sounded like empty words. But somehow after a week of repeating this I actually felt compassion for him – the bitterness melted into forgiveness and even understanding. I feel weightless, relieved of the horrible heaviness of anger.
Using Humor
A website – www.apa.org/pubinfo/ anger.html – says that silly humor can help defuse rage in a number of ways.