Transforming Anger into Peace and Strength | Awareness That Heals Chapter 8 Meditation #3

Transforming anger and resistant emotions. What is your most frequent way? The that you cause suffering and are caught in this suffering with anger and emotions that are similar, like irritation, impatience, frustration, annoyance, superiority, tightness. Take your time to identify what is your way and if you think you're immune, take another look. Because none of us are immune. All of us have ways that we express a part of ourselves that have elements of fight in it. We're going to take a look at a seven step process to move from being against what you dislike or hate, to being passionate toward what you really need or what you really want. Finding a way to be at least harmless, rather than acting on or suppressing the most volatile energy that we have, is crucial. If we suppress our anger or these strong emotions, they'll find endless creative ways to make hell not only in our personal worlds, but in the world as a whole. Being aware of our anger or any derivatives of anger deserves congratulations. It deserves great internal appreciation. Because most of us believe that we're only angry or we're only irritated, or we're only impatient because of what the other did or what the situation created. Very rarely do most of us pause and really look and say, oh, this is my reaction, this is my state.

This is my contraction.

And it requires humility, courage and integrity to really take ownership at that level. It requires finding an intention to heal, a wish to move toward peace, or else will simply just spew our negativity, our contraction, our anger. If we don't have that wish to heal, to move toward peace and to create greater harmony, we need to learn to pivot when we're most contracted, most angry, and then have that pivot. Go toward self caring, caring for the other and wanting to support a sense of well being. Hopefully, as I say these words, it's obvious to you this is no small task. So this seven step process, the first step is just being aware of our anger. And this awareness of our anger gives us the capacity not to be dominated by it. And then the second step is having the intention to heal or the intention to move toward a direction that's going to give us the possibility of peace and not creating harm. And the third step is containment, which is finding a way to fully feel our feelings, not suppress them, not dump them, but be able to stay with the genuine experience of what they are. This is an evolution. Many people, when they hear this suggestion, are quite angry. They don't like it. You're not going to take my anger away from me. Who do you think you are? Tell me how I should Be angry. I need my anger. I want to make it clear that part of this process, which is the next step, called containment, involves fully experiencing your anger, fully experiencing your contraction, fully experiencing frustration, impatience, but in a safe way. It's so important that we don't suppress these powerful energies or we'll become depressed, empty, lifeless. We need the vitality of these emotions, but we also equally need to find safe ways of feeling them. Oftentimes in the containment phase, which is the third phase, we'll need to get away from the situation where we're angry and learn how to really scream. Whether it's an inner scream or an outer scream, whether we do it at the beach, whether we do it in the car, a safe room, we need to be able to fully feel it. If anything, exaggerate the feeling, enjoy the feeling. Anger is a wonderful energy when it's.

Not directly hurting anybody.

It will make your blood open and.

Make your veins open.

It'll make you more alive.

But you need to have. We need to have a positive relationship to the anger.

But that doesn't mean dumping, does mean being angry inside yourself or even expressing it outwardly. This is not a performance. You're not performing anger. You're doing your very best to naturally be angry. And your mind might tell you, oh, this is just a performance. This isn't the real thing. The real thing is only if I really let someone have it. No, that's not the real thing. The real thing is feeling everything you feel and not creating harm while you're doing it, letting it be as authentic as possible. If you perform the anger, that means you're not experiencing it. So try to understand, because it's not familiar in our training or our background, that you can feel all of these related feelings fully away from the situation. And it certainly does not mean that you're being inauthentic. Sometimes you're going to find yourself in situations where you're not going to have the luxury of going to another environment. You're going to be in a car. You're going to be in a situation where you can't go outside. And you're going to have to do your best to process your angry feelings while the person you're angry at is right in front of you. What are you going to do then? And the answer is, you're going to try to give yourself the encouragement that it's perfectly natural that I feel angry. And you're going to manipulate your own facial expressions to not give yourself away. You're going to learn the knack of giving yourself permission and buying time to be able to process your anger, to try to get to the next step, figure out what it is that you need and how you can move forward. Now, it may be obvious if you're with somebody who's sensitive enough to pick it up. So what you might need to say is, I'm dealing with some feelings right now, but I don't want to express them and I'd like to talk about it later. And that way you're giving yourself time to be able to move forward in.

This seven step process.

When you're in the middle of containment and you're really giving yourself permission to feel the intensity, it's naturally going to be a place where you can feel some vulnerability that is underneath the anger. So if you're enraged at someone not being sensitive to you, there's unquestionably going to be a hurt, or perhaps you're afraid of telling them there's going to be some feeling that is softer, that's more vulnerable. And so while you're in the containment, while you're expressing yourself, whether it be in the private environment or right while they're there in front of you, you're going to want to ask yourself the question, what vulnerable feelings do I also feel that are underneath the anger? What hurts, what fears? What losses? Or perhaps maybe it's an abandonment or aloneness. This set of vulnerable feelings is the fourth step after containment that you can glimpse while you're containing your emotions. You also can get a glimpse of, of the fifth step, which are your core needs that are even underneath the vulnerability. And that might include needs like communication, sensitivity, kindness, love, empathy, trust, honesty. If any of these needs are violated, that can lead you to be angry and vulnerable and ultimately can lead you back to this fifth level of understanding what it is that you need. Once you're able to ground yourself in what the original need is that was violated in the first place, you have.

A chance to shift or pivot from.

Being against the person for violating you to going back to support the need that you had in the first place.

And set you up potentially to be able to ask for it. So this fifth level is again, not the end point.

Once you're aware of your needs, then.

You need to pause to look into the sixth level, which is how can I communicate these needs in a sensitive way? How can I do it from my heart? How can I do it at least with evenness? Now I say at least with evenness, but that would be almost a miracle if you were able to Pull this off in your first 10 tries. The odds are overwhelming that when you communicate your needs, little bits of anger are gonna sneak in there and sabotage the communication. So don't be upset with yourself. If when you try the anger sneaks in, presume it will not only the first 10 times, the 350th time, you'll probably sneak in again. So you're gonna have to be very sensitive, maybe even say to the person, I'm gonna do my very best to tell you what I need. But I know I was angry, I know I was hurt. I'm going to try to tell you what I need and not let the anger sneak in.

Now, sometimes communicating your needs in a sensitive way, even if you do what I suggest, which is to try to do it at least three times, is still not going to help because the person might not be interested in your needs. They may not want to be as sensitive as you want them to be. They may not want to communicate as much as you want them to be.

So if that happens, then this sixth.

Step of communicating your needs in a.

Sensitive way will require a seventh step, which is, how do I take care of myself? How do I move to acceptance? How do I find peace inside myself, knowing that my needs on the outside are not going to be satisfied with this person?

Because you've seen, if you get this.

Far, that even with communicating from your heart, the person, either because they tell you directly that they're not interested, or they just simply ignore and act like they are interested, but you can tell they're not, it then throws you into your relationship to yourself. How do you develop peace when what you believe you've needed isn't going to be responded to by the person you're close to? This naturally leads to the inquiry, how do I accept this loss in this relationship? How do I come to peace when I know this particular need is not going to be satisfied? This unquestionably is going to require a contemplation of how significant is this need relative to the whole picture of my relationship to this person? Is my relationship so close that it's just an important need? But we all know there are too many needs that we all have. We can't expect anyone to be perfect. Maybe it's just one of 20 and you can say, okay, I can live with this piece not being satisfied. Or you might find, you know what? This is so important, I'm going to need to adapt my relationship in some way. And only you can go to this seventh step and really figure out a way to come to peace within yourself, knowing that the first need is not going to be satisfied. One of the common denominators that you'll know you've arrived when you reach the.

Seventh step is you recognize there's no one to blame. You're not interested in blaming them anymore, and you're not interested in blaming yourself. And it's up to you to find peace. Doesn't mean that you won't have still a feeling of loss. Because of course, if you have a need that's not fulfilled, there's going to be a feeling of loss. But if you look deeply enough, it can soften into a loss, and you can still find great peace. And if you succeed, when you succeed, you'll know that you've transformed your anger into a need for peace. And you've done something that not only will serve your life, but it's one of the key ingredients of helping support a peaceful world. Sa.