A short talk about learning to contain personal aggression rather than dumping or suppressing it. Emphasizes first becoming aware of aggressive impulses, then creating a safe internal "container" (mental imagery, sounds, drawing, journaling) where one can fully experience aggression without acting destructively. Frames containment as an act of peace that fosters integrity, love, and healthier relationships; suggests treating containment as a sacred practice or prayer.
So another really important tool or stage of development in dealing with our aggression in a way that can work for us rather than against us is the importance of. Of containing the aggression itself. Now, in order to contain our aggression, of course, we need to be aware of it first. And once we really have started to stabilize our awareness of aggression, we can probably start to see that when we react and dump it towards others, which I'm sure all of us know plenty of people who have done that. We may even be that person ourselves. We see that that kind of dumping doesn't usually work out very positively, which is what gives us the motivation to want to learn how to become a container of that aggression without having to dump it or without having to suppress it. Now, what does that look like? How does that sound? What does that feel like? And what it feels like is we can make a sound like, huh. We can really allow ourselves to have a visual fantasy. If we're visual, we can draw a picture or we can journal whatever it takes. We're putting ourselves in a safe environment where we can be outrageous, where we can be as impatient, as frustrated, as irritable as possible, so that we can see it very clearly. And because we know that we're in a very safe container, like a padded cell. So why wouldn't we want to fully experience what it is to be feeling aggressive? So in that state of containment, we're actually doing an act of peace because we're stopping ourselves from being impulsive and creating a destructive action. Now, pause for a moment and just see how remarkable that would be. If the next time you're frustrated or irritated or frankly imagine the person that's close to you doing the same thing, and how grateful you'd be if you saw them, just pause, and you imagine them putting a little container around themselves and they're doing the hard work to not just dump on you. You probably want to say thank you. Well, that's the development that we're attempting to reach inside ourselves so that we can find a way to not suppress this very powerful energy that all of us have in various forms and express in various ways. And so by encouraging it to stay alive but not to destroy, we're actually finding a way to generate a more peaceful life, a more integrated life, and developing a certain kind of integrity. So allow yourself to be congratulated that you're even considering seriously if you are developing the capacity to contain your own aggression. So spend a moment just asking yourself, does this make sense to you? Are you interested in really looking at your own aggressive tendencies honestly. And providing a shelter for it to exist. My wish for you, my wish for myself, is that when my aggressive impulses. When your aggressive impulses arise, that we can treat this wish to create a container as something very sacred. And that we can have something akin to a prayer that would say to ourselves. May I contain this very powerful emotion and let this be a way for me to create more peace. And may it be a way to create more integrity and love in my life and in those lives around me.
