Many of us experience anger and it is often directed at other people and sometimes external objects. How many times have you cursed your car when it breaks down and kicked the tire only to hurt yourself: Computers can be a great objects of our frustration and there are many cartoons depicting people picking up their unco-operative PC’s and throwing them out the window? I’ve seen this in action! Anger is often directed at fellow humans and other living beings through violent speech and/or actions. We see the results of this often watching the news as well as having direct experiences of it in our lives.
Anger is usually a secondary response to an underlying emotion often being repressed. Those emotions might be grief, sadness, fear, disgust and so on relating to a negative perspective and anger can also be expressed at times when we have difficulty expressing a joyous moment – anger can arise triggered by these perceived positive events.
Last night I attended a Weekly Meditation Group as I usually do for my own ongoing journey in transformation and part of the program was a discourse and meditation about anger and ways to manage it.
Mindfulness is they to transforming anger. Being aware of the feeling of anger as it arises and knowing the anger is within you is the beginning of the road to anger dissipating. In that moment of recognition we can also be aware of the other person having their personal perspective, feelings and reaction within them – which has the power to create empathy and compassion towards them.
It is wise to remember we all have a very personal experience of life that has created our perception and perspectives we bring to every moment. This creates a filter through which we view the world.
We also experienced a wonderful meditation last night that invited us to remember ourselves as a 5 year old child, feeling our vulnerability at that time and smiling kindly to that 5 year old self with compassion: A truly beautiful experience. Within that experience there was a knowing that my experience as a child shaped each next moment – a ripple in the pond and those ripples expand out to the present moment creating my view of my world and shaping my experiences along the way.
We then imagined our parents as they were at 5 years old and them feeling vulnerable. I found I could smile with compassion and kindness and felt a great understanding for their life as it is now.
I took my meditation further and remembered my own children each at their vulnerable 5 year marker. Once again great compassion and understanding flowed within me with the knowing of how we all shape our lives and our loves from very young experiences.
There is such beauty in this knowledge and we can develop our feelings of compassion as we expand our Awareness. Humans have a gift of intelligence that allows us to continually learn new knowledge and powerful ways to apply it. We are in a constant state of flux; ever changing and with consciousness expanding we can choose ways to experience understanding; from that understanding we’ll find acceptance, pro-activity (instead of reactivity) and love emerges.
