Tag Archives: anger

Being with People Who Love Anger

  By |
6 Comments

425.the.incredible.hulk.033108

I don’t like to be angry. I don’t like to be around anger or to witness fights. But, I know that my feelings about that aren’t the same as some folks. Some people, as far as I can tell, enjoy being angry and enjoy fighting.

These people may not say that they enjoy it, but the fact that they continually look for a reason to be angry, fight at the slightest provocation, and will turn even a happy occurrence into a reason to feel slighted, suggests that they do. Maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of the drama. Maybe it has something to do with endorphins and dopamine. I don’t know.

Dealing with people who love conflict is difficult if you find conflict and drama to be challenging, sad, or anxiety-producing. And, when the people are the kind of individuals that will even kick a gift horse in the knees, it’s troubling.

I’ve been working on how to manage these folks in my own life, since I do not enjoy drama, and I have a few strategies that I’m trying.

  • I’m really working to remember that the need to be angry is theirs. It is not about me. I don’t need to feel attacked. I just need to keep in mind that it’s not about what I did or didn’t do or how I failed. They would be mad regardless.
  • I’m trying to keep in mind that these people are lovable and wonderful, even when it seems that they struggle to find anything lovable and wonderful in anything or anyone else.
  • I do what I can to walk away from the situations where someone is being like that. It doesn’t always work (in recent weeks, I’ve gotten angry emails that are focused on my unwillingness to engage in the fight). Sometimes, that means I lose the opportunity to note the good things, but when it’s really creating a problem for me, it’s best to remove myself.
  • I aim to stay calm myself. It does not always work. At times, I can stay calm in the moment and then come home and release a torrent of frustration on my poor spouse. This isn’t the best. I’m working on it.
  • I (and this one is a struggle) am pondering ways to keep from letting others make me more and more upset at the hostile angry people. Even the drama of what seems to be righteous anger is not healthy for me.
  • I get to as many yoga classes or home sessions as I can at times when the drama cycle seems particularly intense. Yoga helps me to find what is calm in myself in the midst of the swirl.

Do you love drama, or are you a less-drama-please kind of person? Does anger make you feel powerful or distressed? How do you deal with the anger-lovers in your world? I would love any tips you have!

It’s Okay to Be Angry: Now What Will You DO With It?

  By | ,
14 Comments

I’ve been a little angry the last few days.  Actually, that’s not fully true.  I’ve been a lot of angry at some points.  As I’ve talked about before, there are people who push my buttons, and there are happenings that create what, I think, is very justified feelings of anger.  But, I’m not particularly good at feeling ok about anger.  I didn’t really learn how to handle anger constructively in my youth.  I don’t come from a family culture where there was calm and easy expression of anger, and the midwest isn’t exactly known for being a great place to be really open about your feelings.  So, when I’m angry, I feel really bad and guilty on top of the anger.  That’s useful, huh?

12 Angry Men are Angry!

Anyhoo, last night and today, I’ve been trying to remind myself that feeling anger isn’t bad in and of itself.  It is a natural emotional response, as normal as fear, happiness, sadness, or excitement.   The important thing is what we do with the anger.  Do we experience it, attempt to understand it, deal with whatever has created it, and move on?  Do we hold on to it and let it simmer and roil around inside?  Do we lash out at others, spreading negativity?

It seems to me that we don’t always have a choice about the experience of an angry emotional feeling, but we do have a choice about how we respond to that feeling.  Responding with calm and compassion and an intent to let go of the anger is far more likely to be productive for everyone involved.  The Buddha once said “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”  I believe this to be true, in both psychological and physical ways.  Anger not only creates mental stress, but studies have shown that it is bad for our physical bodies.

Letting go of an angry emotion isn’t always easy.  The Dalai Lama suggests the following process:

If you are able to recognize the moment when anger arises, you will be able to distinguish the part of your mind that is feeling anger. This will divide your mind in two parts-one part will be feeling anger while the other will be trying to observe. Therefore anger cannot dominate the entire mind. You are able to recognize that anger is harmful and maybe develop an antidote to it. View your anger objectively. Try to see the positive side of the anger-causing person or event.

That last part seems key.  It’s so easy to focus on what is hard or bad about something that causes us anger.  Finding the positive is difficult, but it’s there.  So, today, I’ll be pondering the wonderful things about the people that have been connected with the feelings of anger I’m having.  I’ll be considering how the pain of arthritis has lead me to yoga and that’s wonderful.  I will be accepting my experience of angry feelings, not chastising myself for having them, and then trying to move on in a positive way.

How about you?

L


I Said I Do Yoga; I Did Not Say I’m a Saint

  By | ,
5 Comments

As you know if you read The VeganAsana regularly, I’m currently wrapping up yoga teacher training.  Most of the people I spend my time with are aware that I have been going through this training.  And then there are people who don’t know much else about me other than that I do a lot of yoga (either because we only know each other online or we only know each other through the yoga community).  This means that there are a whole bunch of people who “understand me as a yogi.”  That’s  nice.  It means I can pester people about yoga and they will know why!

Saint Gertrude the Great - Also quite fond of learning but with a less than perfect temperament that she had to work on.

On the other hand, I notice that there is an assumption that, as someone who studies yoga, I should be above the negative and petty emotions of the world.  I shouldn’t be angry (or at least not without some major righteous reason). I shouldn’t be jealous or envious.  I shouldn’t be impatient.  I shouldn’t experience self-doubt, question my worth, or make statements that imply I’m engaging in self-judgment.  When I do express such emotions now, I get comments related to my yoga practice, or the raised-eyebrow  look, or general impatience.

I’m not going to say that achieving full equanimity isn’t a laudable goal, but I’m so not there.  I don’t actually know any yogis who are fully in that place.  Sure, some are great with not becoming very angry.  But, maybe that same person still has a lot of work to do on being prideful.  Perhaps another has let go of the attachments to the self that cause self-criticism and comparison, but has a hard time being patient with those who haven’t let go of such attachments.  We all have stuff to work on.  Being a yogi doesn’t mean that you have located fully that state of enlightenment that is in there somewhere, it means that you are engaged in actively working on it.  And that’s ok.

Namaste,

L