Resisting the urge to lash out with anger to hurt others

In arguments and debates and interactions with others, at some point, someone is going to press your "button". An aggressive comment someone makes towards you is going to tap into anger and a deep seated pain inside you, which triggers the so intoxicating desire to lash out in a fit of rage and hurt the other person verbally or even physically.

 

Anger has a narrowing impact on the mind and closes down the way you look at things. It narrows down the options to one thing: attack. Unfortunately, the words spoken and actions taken under the blinding effect of anger often lead to a lot of hostility, frustration, suffering, and a greater load of anger on top of the initial load. The problem is that you have to live with all this weight of negativity. Unleashing on another person is the conditioned reaction we have, but it's more conducive to greater peace for our own minds if we can resist that initial urge to strike back, allow the anger to fade, and then take action from a more clear-headed perspective. Unfortunately it's not easy, and it's a lesson that is often learned through failure and suffering immensely. However, after time, you realize it's okay to experience anger, but acting out of it is like driving through a brutal snow storm without your glasses in your totally fogged up car. It's just a bad idea. If you can find a way to wait and express your opinions and take action from a more clear and empty mind, which is calm, it will be extremely more empowering, effective, and  beneficial in making sure you are understood. Plus you don't have to deal with carrying a whole load more negativity with you.

There is no denying the fact there will be the desire to attack verbally, physically, and even creatively through passive aggressive means. But, in the end, if you have a principle in mind that you do not want to harm people and harm yourself, you will try and live by it and not lash out. Not harming others is not just for their benefit, but also for yourself. There is so much of a negative charge of energy that builds up inside do to reacting harshly and attack others out of anger and deep-seated pain, that you are actually practicing compassion and love to yourself by not attacking others. That's the interesting thing about it. You are not just showing mercy on others, you are actually practicing forgiveness and love towards yourself. You realize the self destructive fire of anger has on you and you try and not act out of it any longer.

This is not easy though. It takes practice. It takes trying it many times and failing. It takes possibly feeling like you are going to lose your mind in a blind rage at times, because the energy of anger and pain, and the conglomeration of the two, is massive. But as powerful as those two forces are, they are nothing compared to the power of now. The power of being in the present moment. The power of awareness of the fact that anger has arising, and that old conditioned patterns of behavior based on pain have flared up. Attention makes the pain and anger fade. You realize that they will arise, they will remain, and ultimately cease. If they come back, it's the same process. And that same process may be needed to be repeated over and over and over and over again because of the powerful charge that anger and pain have. You have to be mentally ready and alert at all times. It initially seems catastrophically mentally draining practice. But eventually it will be considered a beautiful bounty as it is a constant practice of you going back into the present moment and connecting with who you are.

And then you see these negative forces as fireworks:

Explosive and bright and overwhelming at first! But then slowly fade away.

And eventually you will be able to just sit back and just enjoy the show.

When your buttons get pushed, connect them to activating your greatness

When your buttons get pushed, connect them to activating your greatness.

So basically if you are aware of the emotions, thoughts, and situations which can trigger a highly negative reaction in you, it is beneficial to think about those situations and prepare yourself to act in a different way in the future. A good way to practice this a bit more is to get in touch with these negative emotions as they arise in everyday life. So if someone cuts you off in traffic, there is often an instant trigger of anger and rage and strong irritation. And sometimes that ends up being the genesis of a chain of thoughts, actions, emotions, and reactions which can lead to a downward spiral very quickly. But the more you are able to get in tune with that emotion of anger and rage, accept it, let it sit, and not be forced to react to it, the more power you generate for yourself by doing so. We sometimes see the person who gets enraged at the drop of a hat as someone who is powerful, but it's sort of the opposite, because they have no real power over their emotion. They are just reacting and have no power to stop it.

If you can have a practice that you train yourself to do in the midst of negativity, it can make you sort of re-wire your brain so that when your buttons get pushed it generates a more creative opportunity for you. So if you take a deep breath and are able to stand tall or do something which tends to generate a more positive outlook when anger arises, this will help you see things more clearly. If could really be anything that tends to get you into a peak mental state and positive mindset.

Anger is a powerful emotion, but the problem with it is that it's very narrowing to your mind and you can't think clearly. You just see red, so to speak. Oftentimes regrettable actions are done under the hypnosis of anger. That's not to say you don't have a right to be angry in situations, but it's more beneficial to yourself to not act hastily from an angry state of mind. It's not just beneficial for the person you are angry at, but it's beneficial for you too because you have to live with the negative actions you do afterwards and feel the pain that comes along with it. So it's good if you can practice doing something like taking a breath every time you feel any irritation. And the reason why doing that practice is important because anger and rage and pain that emerges when we don't get our way or something has mistreated us or whatever the case may be, is so powerful, that it can take over you instantly. So if you have a built in practice that once anger comes, you can do something which prevents an instant and hasty destructive emotion. The point is not to deny the anger; accept it and let it arise and fall; but the point is to re-wire your brain so that it doesn't go from having your buttons pushed to instant wrath. You can form anger, to a deep breath, and then you can take a more clear-headed action and express yourself perfectly clearly and find the best solution and opportunity for the situation at hand. And that's also why it's often a good idea to if possible wait a day or two before making a decision if there is a strong sense of anger in you. Decisions made purely on anger are often ones which are not constructive ones for yourself.

“Just like our organs, our anger is part of us. When we are angry, we have to go back to ourselves and take good care of our anger. We cannot say, ‘Go away, anger, I don’t want you.’ When you have a stomachache, you don’t say, ‘I don’t want you stomach, go away.’ No, you take care of it. In the same way, we have to embrace and take good care of our anger.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

“When you say something unkind, when you do something in retaliation, your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and they try hard to say or do something back to make you suffer, and get relief from their suffering. That is how conflict escalates.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhism advocates meditation as a key element of the spiritual path, but the fact remains that the true trust of patience comes only in the context of interaction with others. -Dalai Lama in Healing Anger

We laugh at the dog barking at itself in a mirror, but can we laugh at our own illusions?

I remember sort of snickering at a video of a dog seeing himself in the mirror and barking it at. It got me thinking about how the anger which I can feel toward someone is sort of like a bark in a sense; but I realize that in a way I am actually barking at myself as well, or nothing at all.

One example is, someone made a joke about me which was an insult (as it usually is in the comedic world; every joke tends to have a victim). But nonetheless, in the moment, there was anger and rage which bubbled into the mind and negative thoughts towards this person arose. I almost had no control of those thoughts and not much power to stop them from emerging. However, only afterwards when things settled down in my frantic mind was I able to examine and inspect how illusory this negativity can be. Basically, in this situation, sound is being emitted from a voicebox of an individual who is speaking from the viewpoint of his ego, which is an illusionary identity he has created for himself. That illusionary identify emits that sound, I pick it up though my brain and senses, then my ego, another fictitious self, perceives his to be an insult and is injured and threatened by it. So this illusionary construct of my ego emits the negative thoughts surrounding this matter.

Now, this is not to say that it is not right to be offended when someone says something bad about you, or you should just sit there and let people abuse you verbally. But the point is to basically deconstruct the process and see the illusory element of the whole situation so you can see how it is something that you can transcend.  So you don't have to be upset about the anger which arises in you, and you don't need to hang out with people who you don't get along with and don't seem to mesh with personality wise. But one way to let the lingering animosity from eating you up inside is to try and look at the chain of events which lead up to the anger, and see how it's really a process of a bunch of things which are very unreal. And at the end of the day, we don't have to "bark" at these mirages. We can accept the anger, and we can take the actions necessary to deal with the person, but we can also deconstruct the apparitional nature of the situation afterwards in order to let go of the resentment, and by doing so, tap into our inner peace.

Fear, Anger, Pain, Depression, Humiliation, Shame, Guilt, are like fireworks. You are the sky, the backdrop watching it all go down.

Fear, Anger, Pain, Depression, Humiliation, Shame, Guilt, are like fireworks. You are the sky, the backdrop watching it all go down. These emotions blast into existence and are loud and piercing and captivate your body intensely. It's sort of like how fireworks erupt and make a big splash and light up the senses, but then they fall. They drop. The fade. They cease. So-called negative emotions are the same way. They can burst out like a firework and take you over, but in the end they just fade away. They cease. They leave. Sure they may come again and again and again and again and again, but every time they splash into a mighty display of grandiosity, they fade away.

And just as the clear sky just allows the fireworks to do what they do, so you can you with emotions. You can, through practice, be like the sky and not attach yourself to the fireworks, but just watch the showcase of glitz and sensationalism go down with total acceptance.

Watch it arise, remain, and fade away.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me meaning

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

My interpretation to the meaning of this quote is that which gets hurt and offended by words is not a real entity to begin with. The ego gets bruised and injured if someone says something negative towards it, but the ego is a mind made fiction. The ego is a mental construct of who you are and that is not a real entity. That isn't to say that you want to get disrespected or want to choose to be insulted, but it's an insight into the fact that, that which is being hurt and bruised by these comments is not a real thing. You are not hurt, the ego is hurt, but you are not the ego.

Secondly, the anger which arises from the bruising of an ego is something that feels ultimately so real and powerful. However, if you examine it, it is the creation of an element which have already noted is a fiction: the ego. The ego gets bruised and injured from negative words directed at it, and from that stems anger. So a unreal element, the ego, is creating something from being injured. In that sense anger is just a byproduct of something that isn't real in the first place.

To take it a step further, you really cannot even pinpoint the person who is making the comment. Where does that person really reside? Is he or she located in the head? The face? The eyes? The brain? There is no person you can actually point to and pinpoint your anger towards. Is it different neurons firing inside the cranium where the person is? You have no real target to direct your anger towards. There is a good chance the ego of the other person, which a false identity, is lashing out at your ego, another false identity, and anger is stemming from that. So a non-real entity apparently inside another person is attacking another fake identity, and that second fake identity is having anger steam off it. You are watching this all take place, but often are getting involved because have trained ourselves to be strongly identified with the ego.

Looking at it from this perspective, you are able to step back from the dramatic turmoil which stews inside you if someone says something bad about you. After a careful examination, it's like a bunch of apparitions and shadows and dream-like elements floating around which are not real. That is when you become more of an observer of the dramatic chaos, and not a participator in it. You are the watcher of the art, and not the frenzied piece of work itself.

Emotions are like rides in an amusement park

 

 

If you walk through an amusement park there are a variety of tantalizing and interesting rides you pass by. But you choose which ones you want to go on. Emotions are in a sense a similar object. If you do not associate and identify with the emotions which arise inside your consciousness, then they are just things passing by. You may feel a sensation and thoughts may arise surrounding these emotions, however, you can consciously choose to just watch them if you like. You do not need to react to them. Reacting to them is like passing by the ride in the park and then going on it. Which is fine, but if it's a ride where you know you are going to feel sick and puke after going on, then it's something over time you realize you do not want to participate in.

Like the emotion of anger for instance. Anger is appealing, the thought of revenge is romantically alluring, and the expression of rage is all too enticing. But after an expression of a fit of madness, there may be some feeling of relief, but generally you don't feel too great after doing this and reacting out of anger is typically harmful to others and yourself. That's not to say you deny it, you allow it to be, and you can admit it yourself and others, but you choose consciously not to act out of it because of the harm you have learned that it does. You can choose to wait to allow it to slowly fade or pass through you, and then take action from a more lucid state. It's like passing by that rollercoaster that you know will make you hurl and feel sick afterwards, and decide to just keep walking by.

5 Lessons from Anger

Anger's been a mainstay in my life. Felt like it's always been there, but in as many times as it has arisen over the years, it has ceased. And lessons have been learned.

1) You are not the anger

You are the watcher of the anger. It is not "your" anger, it's just "anger". It is not you, it is something that arises within your consciousness, but it is not you, nor does it belong to you.
You are the observer of it.

2) Anger is a letter way from Danger

Anger itself is harmless if you just let it arise, remain, and cease. It's dangerous though because it typically demands an instant reaction. However, if you can resist the temptation to lash out of anger, it has no power. If you react out of anger it is definitely bringing you into the danger zone, but if you watch and observe it without reacting, it's as harmless as clouds passing through picturesque blue sky on a sunny afternoon.

3) Anger and patience are two sides of the same coin

To practice patience you need anger. Anger is a subconsious emotion which arises without you wanting it to arise. People do not choose to be angry consciously, but they choose to be patience on a conscious level. So you are not an angry person, but you are a patient person.

4) Anger is a gift

Anger forces you to be in the present moment if you want to not react to it. If you are going to use anger in a positive way, you need to watch it arise, remain, and cease. Reaction is something that can be highly destructive, but observation of it is brilliant because it totally brings you to the present moment.

5) Mood determines reaction

There are certain mental states when you are not offended, irritated, or angered, by anything. However, there are other states where anything can set you off. So the state of consciousness you are in or the mood you are in will determine the subconscious emergence of anger. If you are in a joyous state where nothing bothers you and everything just rolls off you, then anger does not emerge. So you can make the argument that it's not necessarily the person, the place, the situation, or the event that causes anger to arise; but more so, it is a case where the state of consciousness that you are in heavily influences what non-conscious impulses will emerge inside you.

Not lashing out of anger, transitioning to taking a deep breath

When anger arises the instinct is to try and kill it or unleash it. Anger is such an intense and powerful energy that it almost rushes at your, grips you, shakes you, and demands of you, "DO SOMETHING!" It wants you to do something fast! React! This is why often the transition is anger arising and then lashing out verbally or physically at someone. A more skilled and effective transition is anger arising and then doing nothing for a moment. This is a good transition because it breaks the cycle from anger to lashing out. Anger comes, you do nothing, just it be. Even if it's for a second or two or ten. Then you can transition to taking a deep breath. 

So the key to minimizing the destructive anger pattern is to avoid the transition from anger to instant reaction. But rather go from anger rising, doing nothing and letting it be, then taking a deep breath.

Meditation on the moments which make you completely lose your cool. Dissect them and know that next time it occurs, rage will arise, but you will consciously choose to watch it as opposed to be possessed by it.

Meditation on the moments which make you completely lose your cool. Dissect them and know that next time it occurs, rage will arise, but you will consciously choose to watch it as opposed to be possessed by it.

Watch anger arise and fade. Don't participate in the dance, just watch it.

"Stay Calm When things go wrong, the key is to stay calm. Take a deep breath. Pause, so that you can think clearly enough to react appropriately. Assess the situation and decide what to do next. It's the mark of a professional in any field."—Cindy Huggett

From the Buddhist perspective, anger is just another inefficient mental habit, neither more nor less significant than boredom, self-pity or stinginess. —Robert Mann

Look at anger as a red light. Stop. You don't need to get mad at the red light, try and destroy it, and feel compelled to charge forward and do something hasty when you see a red light. Just stop. Don't act. Use the red light to stop and as a reminder to breath. Let the anger simmer down and proceed.

Your anger is a reminder to breathe and come back to the present moment.

If instead you are able to greet anger with love—a response that often requires tremendous discipline, practice, and inner strength— you'll be amazed at the positive results you reap. In the best-case scenario, your love will help to dissolve your “opponent's” aggression, just as a parent's firm calmness with a child can help to dispel a tantrum. Even if your opponent continues behaving with anger and resentment, you will walk away from the situation feeling better about yourself. —Henry Emmons

Breathing has saved me life in many ways. Physiologically, but also in dealing with anger, fear, pain, and suffering. Breathing brings you to the present moment and makes all those feelings manageable.

Sometimes it's not about being happy but minimizing suffering. Not adding fuel to the fire. Cutting your losses. Reducing damage.