Anger has a life of its own. How does that happen? We might be having a very fine day and then that old argument about making plans for the weekend comes up or age old wounds about spending money to celebrate a special occasion appear and suddenly, real nastiness sets in. We can be in the car and make a seemingly mild comment about going another way to the store and every other issue ever discussed about driving comes crashing into the car between you and your companion. Suddenly Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde are present in full regalia. Who are those folks erupting into yelling, posturing, accusing and defending?
Anger is like temporary insanity. The emotions take on such presence that we begin to feel they are real, powerful and overwhelming.
They aren’t actually any of those things. Anger is neither real, powerful nor overwhelming though our reaction to it can well be overwhelming especially when we are in the thick of the interaction. Anger is not real in the sense that it is a passing emotion, not eternal and it is certainly not powerful as it is not of the Great Oneness. Erupting and repeating anger is a repeatedly debilitating experience which most of us would love to be free of. How do we unpack anger from our energy field, especially when we are, of course, right?
The very first step to unpacking anger is to want it unpacked, more than you want to be right. If you are really ready to stop giving your power to anger, you have to put it first on your list before all other feelings as the one you are going to get rid of. It takes a great deal of determination and commitment but it can be done. It takes honesty with oneself and before Divine Presence.
The next step to unpacking anger is to pick one recent anger encounter and take it into meditation and reflection with Divine Presence. Here is a story of how one partner worked on her anger until it dissipated.
Kevin and Mary repeat versions of anger every time they begin to plan Thanksgiving for their family gathering.
Kevin comes from a formal family and Mary from an informal family and therefore their approach to entertaining is very different. Though the specific incidents differ each year, the anger and angst for each of them by self-report, feel exactly the same. Mary began to be more and more determined to clear her anger response to Kevin because she was increasingly bothered by having those arguments taint the entire family gathering.
Mary began to work on smaller issues around entertaining in an effort to clear the air leading up to family gatherings. She found that she got angry when she felt that the menu, buying of the food and getting the house ready was all ending up on her plate. Every time it seemed that this was happening, she would get defensive and anger would erupt. She recognized and named the fear as “it is all up to me to make the event successful”. As this fear “ran her” in most conversations about entertaining, she would begin early to keep herself from making any commitments which could pile up and result in her feeling “it is all up to me”. This would drive Kevin crazy because he simply wanted the responsibilities clear. Mary would steadfastly not participate in clarifying the responsibilities so that she would not have it “end up being all on her” . Needless to say, entertaining was stressful.
After Mary specifically named her fear, she began to see this fear morphing and showing up in many other areas of her life, including at work and with her friends as well. Though she remained determined to release this fear, it simply did not seem to be able to go. She took this into Silence and got a clear sense that there was a deeper more gripping fear that she had not even known was there. Mary realized that she really feared “that she would make a major effort and fail or be embarrassed”. This felt solid and intensely honest as it had been with her for many years.
Mary said this was exactly how she felt performing as a young dancer. She would practice for months at a time and had been really embarrassed numerous times about her performances.
This fear was still in her energy field though it had morphed into issues of entertaining in her home. By focusing on one specific situation, she began to be able to let it go and unpack part of her wall of anger. As long as the anger seemed to be one overwhelming, huge, repeating network of arguments, she was unable to do anything but protect herself with all her might against the possibility of impending failure.
This may sound like a psychological assessment of the situation Mary faced but all her insight and clarity came as a result of taking this into Silence and reflecting on these issues through her journaling. Here are the steps she took to come to this clarity herself and to release the core fear running her efforts around entertaining with her husband.
- Open a sacred healing space in whatever way you feel comfortable. ( Call in your Highest I Am Energy, Divine Presence and Angelic Energy, for example.
- Focus on one specific argument in the recent past.
- Ask, “What am I afraid of, What is the fear which is fueling this repeating argument?”
- What am I getting from holding onto this argument? What is this argument costing me?
- Ask yourself, “Where else is this fear working in my life?
- Take all these situations into Silence and ask, “What is the core, root fear behind all this behavior?”
- Name the core fear.
- Call forth the Sacred Flame from within yourself and command the fear be completely consumed by this Divine Energy. (Even if you feel you don’t know how this works, do it, it does work. )
loved the picture of the litte ballerinas.
Anger really is like temporary insanity – that’s a good insight and so is the fact that we hold on to it sometimes because we can’t let go of being right.