Anger – the Twisted Twin of Love
There’s so much anger in the world. And much of it seems to be already primed, cocked and needing only the gentle nudge of a hair trigger to fire off at whoever gets in the way. It can be worth your life to piss somebody off on the freeway or at the post office. And schools have also become serious danger zones. Why has so much fury, rage and frustration already built up in so many young people?
Maybe it’s time to pause for a moment and question how we got to this point. So how DID we come to be so collectively angered at one another? Every single day the news media are saturated with violence and savagery. Movies, books and video games are overflowing with beatings, battles and body counts. Are those a symptom or a cause… or a little of both?
Today’s guest columnist Peter Vajda has some ideas about this. In fact, he suggests we take a second look at all that anger, and unexpectedly, to do it through a filter of love.
Anger – Show Me the Love
By Peter Vajda, Ph.D, C.P.C.
Anger is a human emotion, ranking up there with fear as the most common emotion. Curiously, anger is often an unconscious expression of the need for contact. Strange, but true.
Our innate essence is composed of three subtle energies – love, intelligence and power. We manifest anger when we sense a lack in one of these three energies. Here, we’ll consider the energy of love.
Anger is a form of aggression and aggression is a movement toward another entity – person, group, life, God, etc. However anger is never – ever – about the other, as much as we like to blame others to justify our anger. It is always about “me” and how I’m feeling about “me” in this moment. While we project our anger on to another, it’s important to look for what needs to be acknowledged in me – taking back my projection and looking inward. All projections we direct towards others are in essence about “me.” Understanding and learning the lessons of anger fuel our emotional and spiritual growth and development.
Anger is an expression of a “need unfulfilled.” So, when enveloped in anger, the question to ask is, “What do I want or need?” Too, fear is often a correlate of anger so we can also inquire, “What am I afraid of?”
Commonly, when we’re angry we’re consciously or unconsciously reacting to some feeling of lack or inadequacy. Often this lack pertains to power, control, recognition, security, knowledge, or love. When we inquire within to discover and explore what’s underneath our anger, we can use our anger as a doorway into a deeper issue that is bothering us. Anger is never the issue; it’s a symptom of something deeper.
For many, the feeling of lack or deficiency accompanying anger has to do with a sense of real, potential or perceived loss – e.g., a loved one, a job, a connection, health, wealth, privacy or “loss of face”, etc.
For many, anger is an often unconscious expression of loss of love (or relatedly, recognition, acknowledgment, approval). When we feel unloved, our anger is actually a calling out for love. Our call for love, i.e., our anger, comes from our feeling rejected, betrayed, abandoned, unappreciated, or unseen. What we want and need is love.
On an emotional and spiritual plane, anger is a form of disconnect – our disconnect from our self. Our ego personality is disconnected from our soul, our Authentic Self. In addition, we may feel disconnected on a social level and this disconnection results from a lack of intimacy – i.e., it’s not about not having friends, it’s about the lack of a deeper, intimate soul connection with others – the reason many feel isolated, lonely or depressed even while in the midst of an online or “real time” social network.
Anger is a common reaction to heartbreak, rejection, even simple disagreements, by those whom we love or value, or by the loss of others.
Anger is an acting out, directed toward others, and often towards those who are not directly involved. Our anger is a sign we’re hurt and more, a sign that we are seeking healing. Anger tells us we are separate from what used to be our source of strength and love.
Love, then, is a form of connection, first to our self, then to others. Connection to our True Self, our Authentic Self is what nourishes, nurtures and feeds our sense of aliveness, worth, esteem and value. Love – connection – is what gives meaning to our life and supports us to feel we have something to contribute.
So, when we feel angry, it’s important to re-connect with our inner source of strength and love. Too, we also need to move through our angry feelings and reach out to others whom we can love. Anger will never – ever – get us love. Disconnection never attracts.
The secret sauce of connection is love and caring. And connection is what supports us to feel genuinely loved and empowered. Love transcends our personal limitations in the moment and connects us to our soul. When we express love, we are able to move out of our emotional/limbic/reactive brain and rest in a place of true caring and concern for our self and others.
So, some questions for self-reflection are:
- Do you live by the mantra, “I’d rather be right than happy?”
- How is anger manifested in your home or work environment?
- Does your work or home environment trigger your anger buttons? How so?
- What emotional beliefs underlie your anger?
- What person, place, or issue creates the greatest feelings of anger or resentment in you. What is it about that person or situation that gets you angry most?
- What is your emotional belief behind that anger?
- How do you express your anger? What physical symptoms do you experience when you’re angry?
- How do you deal with your anger?
- When you become angry do you ever consider what you’re lacking or what you’re afraid of? If not, could you do that the next time you feel angry?
- When someone is angry with you, do you ever respond with love? Do you ever ask them what they’re needing or fearing? If not, could you do that the next time someone becomes angry with you?
- What was your (family’s) experience around anger like when you were growing up?
SpiritHeart – Coaching for Essential Well-BE-ing
— at the intersection of body, mind, emotion and spirit
Values-Based Coaching, Counseling and Training
Phone: 770.804.9125 (Atlanta, GA, USA)
E-mail: pvajda [AT] spiritheart [DOT] net
www.spiritheart.net and www.ahchiyo.com
“What makes you think work and meditation are two different things?”
— Buddha at Work
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- Relationships – What You See Is What You Get
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