IT'S OKAY TO GET ANGRY
In one of my recent blog posts, I wrote about what the Superbowl halftime show can teach us about what may be stealing our happiness (click to read here).
Today, I am writing a follow-up to that. That’s the beauty of blogging, because one blog on how to bring more positivity and happiness in your life, doesn’t give the full spectrum of what it really takes to bring more peace, love, and happiness into your everyday life.
I also know after writing a blog about being mindful about “Joy,” family members will be very quick to remind me if I am not at peace or in joy, (Don’t we just love our families?), or people say to me, “You’re a life coach, you’re not supposed to get angry.” This falls under myths and other fairy-tales about our unrealistic attainment of perfection. Life coaching isn’t about perfection, life coaching is the antithesis of perfection. It’s about accepting yourself as you are, growth (not staying stuck), and expanding your awareness, which leads to more peace, love, happiness and freedom. If you have a life coach that tells you never to get angry, I suggest you fire them immediately.
Some people think all of this peace, love and happiness stuff is just airy-fairy unrealistic BS, and they’re right to an extent because there are people who practice positive thinking who just slap happy thoughts on top of some really bad sh*t. That's like putting glitter on a piece of crap and saying, “Everything’s wonderful,” except there’s still that big piece of crap under all that glitter that's not being addressed. Just like a big pile of dirty laundry, it isn’t going anywhere until you’re ready to face it and clean it up. This is also what is known as “spiritual bypassing.” When you’re not dealing with your sh*t. You know you’re not dealing with your sh*t and you’re triggered all the time, avoiding others to protect yourself, or because you feel like a burden. This type of positive thinking on the outside and having a meltdown behind close doors is not positive thinking, it’s wearing a mask. It doesn’t work and actually leads to depression. The sad thing behind closed doors this person thinks it’s their fault, that they're doing something wrong because they’re trying so hard to stay so positive, and it’s not working. It’s not working because we weren’t taught the right way to deal with our emotions. This is the same for people who don’t believe in this stuff because they too aren’t dealing with their sh*t. These are the people who take their sh*t out on other people, then blame them for it.
We’re human beings, not robots. We were created to have emotions for a reason; our emotions are vital to our mental health and well-being because they contain a lot of information. Think of them like an emotional guidance system; anger can tell us when boundary or a value of ours has been crossed. Anger also tells us when we’ve been triggered. Triggers are when we re-injure an old wound from the past. Maybe you were expected to do things a certain way as a child and punished if they weren’t exactly as told, so now you have a reaction when you don’t think you’ve done something “the right way.” Perfectionism has many roots. The more sensitive we are to a trigger the stronger we react.
Many times the current situation isn’t even related to what’s triggered us, but deep unhealed wounds don’t know the difference when years later a co-worker may innocently ask you to do something differently, and rather than see it as viable improvement that could really improve the project, and possibly advance your career in the process, you take it personally as criticism that you didn’t do it right, when it wasn’t about that at all. You could be missing many opportunities because you can’t see them because ego is getting in the way. That change could have had a great result for customers, created a better work environment, and better connections with your co-workers, partners, family and friends―but it never happened because it hit a wound and ego got in the way. When we heal a wound, we become less reactive. When we’re triggered, ego puts us straight into victim or defense mode. Ego thinks it’s protecting us, but really it makes us behave like a wounded bratty children. We are seeing life through its altered perception and filter, and we react to it as if it were real. This is why it’s hard to reach some people when they are upset, they‘re not themselves.
We will keep repeating the same patterns in different situations and people until we have learned to recognize our wounds, so they no longer trigger us as they once did. It’s the freedom from these triggers that lead to more peace and happiness in our lives. Rather than life being in control of you, you are now in control of your life. This is why people take pills because it helps them not to be so reactive, but pills don’t get to the root of the issue which is why users have a love hate relationships with them. On one side they help you to be less reactive on the other side, they have so many negative side affects you know aren’t very good for you. How crazy is it that we live in a society where pills and alcohol are the more acceptable solution than actually doing the inner work? And doing the inner work is weird? I’m not entirely opposed to medication. I know they can help tremendously for severe cases, but they should be used as a last resort rather then the first line of defense. Trying a more holistic approach first.
We also handle our triggers in this society by venting to a friend, drinking with friends, eating, and shopping. All of it feels good at the time, while none of these are necessarily bad in moderation, what it doesn’t do is help you get to the root of the issue. If you notice, you may even become more angrier and sensitive next time around because talking about it a negative way with your friends actually increases intolerance around what you are experiencing and most likely you’re still not really dealing with issue.
We all have triggers, we’ve all been wounded in some way, no one is spared, but we all have different boiling points. It’s not about not getting angry but after you’ve blown off some steam, it’s about becoming aware of what is angering you and why? Becoming aware of what your triggers are and learning how to respond vs. react to them. The more we learn to reset our reaction to our triggers, the less reactive we become to them. The less reactive we become, the more we can respond to situations that upset us that lead to healthier more broad-minded interactions with others. When we go through life unaware we are living at the effects of life, which means we are allowing life to control us by reacting to everything in life. As Michael Singer writes in his legendary bestselling book the ”Untethered Soul;” he describes how a highly triggered person walks around life like a porcupine trying not to get its needles pricked.
How we work through our triggers is first of all not denying what you are feeling and practicing “acceptance.” In this society, we don’t teach children about emotions, how to work through them, or accepting how we feel. It wasn’t until I got divorced that I learned about this. How many of you are just learning about this now too? Instead, in this society, we are taught how to fit in and be strong and that leads to even more depression and anxiety on top of the triggers we’re already feeling. Leaving many people feeling a lot of shame that they are failing in life, that they are not good enough, and adding even more, shame, anger, anxiety, and depression to an already stressed mental state. We are building an emotional bonfire within us. And we can’t even put out the fire, because many people in society are still conditioned that talking about emotions is weakness, but sucking it up to the point of alcoholism, depression, and suicide is the much more acceptable stoic option. “That’s life. Shame for Bob, he was one of the good ones,” they’ll say.
In an unfeeling society, our default emotion is anger because anger seems to be one of the few emotions accepted in society, aside from kick-ass―except when it comes to personal development then all of sudden we’re not supposed to be get angry anymore. I’m here to tell you, it’s okay to get angry. As I mentioned, it’s important that you pay attention to what you are feeling rather than stuffing it. It’s just that you don’t want to live with anger for long periods of time because you really start what I call, marinating your brain in it, the longer you marinate your brain in these negative emotions, the hard it is to get out. The practice is accepting how we feel, but it’s also about how fast we can bounce back. Now, let’s go deeper, anger is not the complete picture of accepting how you feel. That’s just what’s on the surface, there’s whole lot of other stuff underneath. Anger is a defense mechanism ego uses to protect us. Anger also often blames other people and doesn’t take responsibility. Accepting how you feel is naming what you are really feeling under all of that anger, “I am feeling unheard, unappreciated, and that makes me feel like I’m not good enough,” “I am feeling shame,” “I am feeling sad,” and in this space, we are finally hearing what the wound has been trying to tell us for so long, “I don’t feel good enough, so I react in those ways.” That is the core of the wound and from here you have the opportunity to heal the wound, by sending it the love and attention it needs. This may feel stupid at first, and that’s just ego talking big again because it feels too vulnerable, and that’s why we don’t like to go there, but you have to have to go there to set yourself free.
The practice of just accepting how you feel is like releasing the valve off a pressure cooker. The more we allow ourselves to feel the less reactive we are to them. Remember, anger isn’t the only reaction, so is avoidance. This is why Buddhist monks are so zen. They practice observance of their emotions with non-attachment during meditation. Allowing yourself to feel your emotions without any judgment, breathe into them, allow them to move through you to release them rather than having them build up inside of you, is one of the healthiest most healing, freeing things we can do for ourselves. When we are at peace with ourselves it helps us to not take things as personally and work out better solutions with others, thus leading happier healthier lives.
Next time you are triggered, follow these steps on how to become more aware of your anger to create more inner peace...
Recognizing when you are triggered is always the first and biggest step.
Be curious about the trigger. “Why am I being triggered?” “What is causing me to feel this way?” “What wound is being re-injured in me?” Notice any patterns.
Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Cry, scream, get it out, write it out. Burn it. Release it.
Come back to who you really are. Center yourself. Meditate, breathe, do yoga, go for a walk.
Recognize that ego likes to create fear-based stories and assume the worst. Start seeing through the story and recognize that you not the victim ego likes to think you are.
Notice where your ego has the better of you, and ask how you can respond differently, more openly, more lovingly next time. Say to yourself, “I choose to see peace instead of this.”
Repeat as often as necessary until you are no longer reacting to old triggers in the same way.
Share with others.
Remember, you are not your wound, but your hope for healing and the light that shines within you.
~ Namaste, until next time loves <3