"This Week"
Bahrain Meditation Centre 7th October 2006
Don’t Get MAD Get Wise
Part 2 of 2 – How to free yourself from various forms of anger

So why do we get angry? Only when you cultivate self-awareness through self-reflection are you able to see exactly where and why you create your anger. It always begins with a disturbance within your consciousness and it is always because the world around you is not dancing, or has not danced to your tune. Whenever you become angry it is because you have an image in your mind of how things should be, how people should behave, how events should unfold, and the external reality is not matching the image in your mind. Anger comes when you are not inwardly flexible enough to accept that outward reality is always going to be different from your preconceptions, expectations and desires. In fact, your anger is a sign that you are trying and failing to control other people and events. You have not yet realised you cannot control other people and events. The world is not designed to waltz to the sound of your swing band. This is why anger is often referred to as a moment of insanity! You are clinically insane! Why? Three reasons. You are out of control – the emotion is controlling you. You are totally irrational as the emotion kills your ability to think in a reasoned way. And you are trying (and of course failing) to do the impossible, which is to change what you cannot change. Images of babies, prams and flying toys spring to mind at this point !

Don't suppress, repress, or express but learn to transform
People not only become angry for different reasons but the anger takes different forms depending on the learned beliefs, past experience and immediate perception. While you practice returning to the true, original, anger free you, old wounds will continue to emerge as different forms of anger within your consciousness, and then through your behaviour. Here are some practical inner exercises and methods you can use to either head them off at the pass, or begin to heal them.

1 IRRITATION
You create this when things don't happen fast enough e.g. when your computer just hangs for a moment, or the car in front is a bit slow, or someone is tapping a finger in a silent room!
Solution: Cultivate patience and a serene acceptance that everything and everyone has their own rhythm, their own pace of living. And if it's tapping fingers that are bothering you, either start tapping yourself, or gently request them stop tapping.

2 FRUSTRATION
You create this when things don't go the way you wanted or expected or envisaged.
Solution: Accept the way things went – embrace, work with, and learn from what happened. Accept the way things are. Always respond proactively in the Now, not reactively against the Past! Only then will the future begin to turn out be closer to what you envisage.

3 GRUDGE
You create this when you believe you have been wronged by someone in the past .
Solution : Remember, no one hurts you mentally or emotionally, you do it to yourself… always.

4 RESENTMENT
You create this towards those whom you think have insulted you.
Solution: It's not others words that hurt, it's what you did with those words in your own mind. Think of that person who is thick skinned. Nothing seems to affect them. Develop a thick skin. Learn to hear but not hear. Imaging the person who is hurling the insults is encased in a glass jar and while you see their lips move you cannot hear their words.

You also create resentment when you are jealous of someone:
Solution: Stop comparing and aspiring to be like someone else. Get on with your own life. You cannot be someone else and no one owes you anything.

5 CONTEMPT
You create this following your judgement and deep disapproval of another's actions.
Solution: Separate the person from the action and remember their actions begin with their beliefs. They have likely learned (like you) the wrong beliefs. Remind yourself you cannot control others – suspend your judgement. Don't approve or disapprove. Just watch. Then imagine the most proactive response. Then do it.

6 HATE
You create this when you decide someone represents evil or extreme nastiness.

Solution: Notice how you are making yourself an emotional slave of the object of your hate, and that means you are not free, and that means you are unhappy. Remember everyone is intrinsically good, they just forgot. See their hate and their actions as a cry for help, a cry for attention, a cry for love.

7 RAGE
You create this following the build up of anger normally in response to others actions which you deem obstructive or invasive e.g. road rage.
Solution: It's time to get help, attend a course, get a coach, enter therapy, learn meditation.


Question: Which forms of anger above do you most frequently create?

Reflection : What are you resisting when you become angry?

Action: Visualise your self in the same situation being anger free.

(Extracted from the book Don't Get MAD Get Wise by Mike George 2006)