The final meditation in a seven-part series on anger. When you can't talk to someone about what hurt you, the practice moves inward: notice the fear or hurt underneath, identify what you actually need, then cultivate acceptance and tenderness toward yourself to find peace without them changing.
Awareness that heals episode 144 thank you for joining us for the seventh and final guided meditation on caring for and responding to anger. Let yourself find a comfortable place where you know you're not going to be bothered and you can get ready for the final guided meditation. So whenever you're angry or any related emotion, remember the first step is always being aware of your anger and really valuing the awareness. Because the awareness is the key of using the best cognitive part of you and finding a way where you can have anger serve you rather than serve itself into destruction. Awareness is something that you need to be stable with. It's not something fleeting. And when you stay aware, it's golden, because it allows you naturally to go to the next step, which is recognizing that you want to care for yourself while you're angry, because you're now angry, but you're in a safe place and not going to create harm. If anything, you might be saying something like, good for you. You're experiencing the anger, you're dropping in, and you're not hurting anybody. And you're doing this because you want to find your heart. You want to find something that's going to serve you, and then that naturally leads you, because you want to be harmless, to contain the anger and to be able to go to a place where you're not acting it out in front of the person or in a situation that's going to create harm. And you're also not suppressing it. You're being really generous because you recognize that anger is really aliveness, it's vitality, it's juicy. And if you suppress it, you are going to lose energy. If you dump it, you are going to lose energy. But if you are with it and you support it when you're containing it, then you're golden. And you need to remind yourself, containment does not mean stopping yourself from feeling it. It's the opposite. You're just taking away yourself from the situation and you're feeling it as fully as possible. And while you're feeling the anger, in that containment, you're glimpsing, can I see the vulnerable feelings like fear or hurt or abandonment? Can I feel those feelings as well as the anger itself? So just drop in right now. Look at your situation. Look at where this is most frequent for you. Can you feel the anger? Give yourself permission? Can you also get glimpses of what your vulnerable feelings are? And then slowly just ask, what was I needed in the first place that I didn't get? Or what was it that I got that I really didn't want really identify what that need is, because that's golden. That's the key to going for what you need rather than striking out against what you don't like. That's a turning point that all of us need, all of humanity needs to be able to stay with these universal needs rather than striking out. And I mean striking out on two levels. Striking out in a aggressive way and striking out like you lose your energy. And then you're looking for that discrimination that we did in guided meditation number six. And you're asking yourself, can I really find a way to communicate with this person? Or is there any way to externally be able to find a way to express my need to anyone? Or is the person completely unreceptive, or am I angry at life in some way? And if it turns out that you can't express the anger because there's no one to express it to, or the person that you're angry at isn't at all receptive, then you need to recognize, ah, there's no chance that I can find peace through expression, so I need to break down the anger and recognize this is a deep need inside me that I need to cherish. So, for example, let's say you're angry that the world is killing each other, or that something's happening in your family or something's going on that you really don't like, then I need to. You need to find a gentle acceptance that your need is understandable, but there's nothing you can do but look for kindness towards yourself, tenderness towards yourself. And so you have the anger, you have the vulnerability, and then you have the qualities of that you need that are going to bring you to a more peaceful relationship to yourself and honoring the need that is there, just drop in, feel your situation, feel your anger, feel the vulnerability and feel the need, feel the impossibility of any external expression and recognize, oh, I'm so glad that I can see that I have a part of me that can go to the qualities, go to the attitudes of acceptance, tolerance, appreciation, and find a way to accept my own need. And I've morphed from being against the world or against my family or against my partner. And I'm going to a place where I can find peace because I recognize it's not possible to do it in any way other than imbibing the qualities that I need to bring to the anger from within me. So just pause as we're winding down and see how close you can get to being there and don't be discouraged if this is way too much at first, and this may take 100 repetitions to be able to really develop this into a practice. Because this isn't just intellectual. This requires a lot of maturity and a lot of awareness. So encourage yourself. Good for you. That you've gotten to the state where you don't quite understand what you need yet, or you can't express the need in a way that is from your heart, or you don't know whether you can communicate with a person or not. And then you keep repeating it until you can see, is it step six or step seven that's going to allow me to find the greatest peace inside me that's possible. Because anger represents both vitality and the potential for peace and connection. And sometimes the connection's only inside. And in this step you're treasuring your your own relationship to yourself and bringing the qualities that you most need to come to peace. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining us for this seven part series on caring for and responding to anger and hope that you develop it into a practice that will serve your life and those that are dear to you. Thanks so much.
