W<\/span>e see so much going on in today\u2019s world \u2014 so much that makes us angry.<\/p>\n But anger is an emotion traditionally seen as dark and troublesome. When it arises, we are told to \u201cmanage our emotions\u201d and \u201ccontrol our temper.\u201d But just as we can agree that releasing our anger upon friends, family, and the world is detrimental, consider that suppression of our anger is equally a waste and a lost opportunity.<\/p>\n We are used to social norms, religions, and spiritual traditions teaching us to judge, suppress, observe, or transcend our darker emotions or lower urges. Tantra, on the other hand \u2014 a radical spiritual approach found in different Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism \u2014 teaches us to dive in head first and explore them. Why? Because Tantra believes that every dark, troublesome, or imperfect emotion has spiritual insight at its heart.<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean an emotion like anger is always easy to deal with! When anger comes it can be big, large, fiery, violent, demonstrative, tyrannical, and explosive \u2014 so it may be surprising to learn that it originates from a very small place.<\/p>\n Anger is our need for power in a world in which we are mostly, most of the time, powerless. It is the rejection, the denial, the non-acceptance of the reality of our powerlessness. This doesn\u2019t mean that we are always powerless of course, but anger arises when we are and don\u2019t want to be!<\/p>\n As little ones, we have an infantile vision, a child\u2019s dream which I call The Primordial Wish. It is one of limitlessness \u2014 that whatever we dream will be, and that our inner worlds (our minds) are the same as the outer world. But, as you might suspect, we eventually come to realize this is not true, and our Primordial Wish gets crushed against the wall of reality. When this happens, we go through a painful disillusionment. And from this disillusionment comes rebellion. We don\u2019t want to compromise! We want life as we imagined it to be! How the world should be, how others should be, how our plans should be fulfilled.<\/p>\n As we grow, our powerlessness is only compounded by reality \u2014 from our dependence on our parents while we are young, to learning there are people with bigger wills (and fists) who may want to pick on us at school, to the fear adults feel as inflation rises, pandemics spread across the globe, countries attack their neighbors, and unfavorable politicians are voted into power.<\/p>\n And we yell, and we protest, but other than helping us to vent, little changes.<\/p>\n In our powerlessness, we get frustrated. Frustration is the beginning of anger. Anger is the beginning of violence.<\/p>\n Anger can take less harmful forms, but it is always violence \u2014 whether it be the anger of an aggressor or the anger of a victim. It is violence in the sense that, in my frustration, I rebel against my powerlessness and wish to force my will on something or someone else.<\/p>\n If I shout for long enough, I will be able to force my will upon another. I can then make them like a puppet on strings, and I\u2019m the puppeteer. I can then make the puppet move the way I want it to move, act the way I want it to act, become a player in my reality. And in doing so, I can find temporary relief from my powerlessness.<\/p>\n Most often, these people are our loved ones. We begin to almost objectify our loved ones, treating them so impatiently and disrespectfully. But, many times, this is the last place we are able to create a sense of power in a reality that we feel has completely turned its back on us.<\/p>\n Sometimes it works! If we scream loudly enough and silence someone, speak forcefully enough and overwhelm someone, slam the door strongly enough and scare someone, we feel power. But mostly, we scream and scream and scream until we lose our voice. Once again, little changes.<\/p>\n Depression is the final letting go. It is the final stage where we completely refuse to play reality\u2019s game.<\/p>\n No matter what, until the bitter end, we refuse to give in to powerlessness. Our powerlessness is just too big. Too painful.<\/p>\n In Tantra, we know that anger has spiritual insight at its heart. So we do not turn away from it, we do not stifle it, and we do not suppress it. We recognize the true potential of anger: that it can transform into something else. Something more.<\/p>\n Here are the three steps for Transforming Anger:<\/p>\n When you are angry, direct your awareness to the pain that hides behind the anger: \u201cI want so much to control, but I just cannot!\u201d If we don\u2019t recognize this pain, we don\u2019t recognize the full experience of anger. However, doing so can be very difficult, because if we do recognize and feel the pain, this will be an acknowledgement that we are powerless.<\/p>\n When we begin to understand what anger is, we begin to judge it: \u201cAnger is worse than I thought!\u201d However, instead of judging, feel the anger and pain exactly as they are. Experience your need, your understandable need, because it\u2019s understandable to want to feel some sort of power. Can\u2019t you feel compassion for a being \u2014 yourself \u2014 that lives in such a world, and simply wants to feel its own little grain of power too?<\/p>\n Instead of passing judgment on anger or yourself \u2014 anger is bad, anger is not spiritual, etc. \u2014 look at the person inside that is really struggling as they encounter the truth of their own powerlessness.<\/p>\n Consider that when we are angry we are an untamed horse\u2026 but being an untamed horse can be alot better than being the trained, docile, obedient horse that has lost its will!<\/p>\n \u201cAll buddhas and enlightened beings know that we need anger \u2014 not just goodness \u2014 if we are to be fully present in this world. Anger, used properly, is meant to be transformed into full presence.”<\/p>\n Consider that when you are angry, you are present. You have claimed your existence in the universe. You have said, \u201cI am here!\u201d In this sense, it is very good to be angry. Anger, potentially, is the beginning of presence.<\/p>\n If you sit with anger and you begin to let it be there, it shatters your sense of smallness, your self-limiting concept, your stifling experience of yourself. Anger makes you bigger.<\/p>\n Therefore, sit with anger, breathe into it, and allow it to spread throughout your being.<\/p>\n If you suppress it, you will miss the opportunity completely. If you release it, screaming at people or throwing the remote at the TV, you will immediately lose the buildup of the energy. Instead, build it up.<\/p>\n If we feel that anger\u2019s fiery energy is beginning to burn us, this only means that we\u2019re meant to become bigger. Our rebellion against the world and our rebellion against ourselves then becomes a rebellion against our own limits. This is what we\u2019re really angry about \u2014 that we feel so small, that we don\u2019t feel presence. Because when you feel presence, you don\u2019t need to be angry. Anger is simply there to compensate for this feeling of smallness.<\/p>\n If you sit with it enough, anger becomes first presence, then intensity, then eventually transforms into the ability to act. It makes us feel capable of acting in the world.<\/p>\n Tips for transforming anger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2023","category-winter-2023-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13428"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13659,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13428\/revisions\/13659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Anger & The Primordial Wish<\/h3>\n
Anger Is Violence<\/h3>\n
Transforming Anger<\/h3>\n
1. Acknowledge The Pain<\/h4>\n
2. Have Compassion<\/h4>\n
3. Allowing Anger, Allowing Presence<\/h4>\n
Shai Tubali (pronounced Shy Two-BAL-ee) is a leading authority in the field of self-development and self-empowerment. A PhD researcher at the University of Leeds, UK, Tubali explores 35 meditation techniques from all over the world in his book, “Llewellyn\u2019s Complete Book of Meditation<\/em>,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 and has over a dozen virtual courses available at Udemy.com. Discover modalities and research on finding calm and clarity at ShaiTubali.com<\/a>.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"