“Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned” -Buddha
Namaste my brothas. I wanted to talk about a very familiar, comfortable, and common emotion we all experience – anger. For all of us here in the West, and in particular men, anger is an acceptable, expected emotion to have. More often than not, anger is a defense mechanism. Its job is to protect us from the more painful, uncomfortable, sometimes scary emotions that lie underneath.
Feelings like pain, hurt, rejection, abandonment, guilt, shame, loneliness, confusion, betrayal-the list goes on and on. Anger helps to keep these painful emotions away – so I don’t have to feel them. Anger inevitably leads to violence. Think of the countless video games, movies, music and television shows that glorify and promote anger and violence.
In helping to keep other, more painful emotions away, anger serves the purpose of psychological self-protecting from those other feelings, which I have most likely never been taught healthy ways of managing. Yet, it is a double-edged sword, as the above-mentioned quote suggests. In being angry, I get the benefit of not having to feel these other painful emotions. Yet, my anger harms me psychologically and physically. It also harms others if I engage in acts of physical, verbal and emotional violence as a means of managing that anger.
A friend likened anger to fire-it can keep us warm or it can burn us up. It is okay to feel angry. Anger is simply one of a range of countless other emotions that we as human beings experience. The problem becomes that we hang on to our anger and it burns us up.
When we have spent a lifetime experiencing countless injustices perpetrated against us and our loved ones; when we live in circumstances where we have very little control over our lives (like prison) anger can easily grow, strengthen and deepen. Our challenge is to find ways to transform our anger so that is not continually wounding us so that I am not continually burning myself. Gandhi makes the point “…as heat conserved is transmuted into energy; even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power which can move the world.”
How can someone transform their anger? Creative outlets such as writing, art, making music, et cetera are healthy ways of transforming anger. More importantly, perhaps, is finding the courage to explore what is underneath the anger. In doing this, anyone will need to learn to be with those other uncomfortable feelings without having to push them away with unhealthy behaviors such as violence or drug use.
Reflect on a recent time when you felt angry. Why were you angry? What did you do when you were angry? What were some feelings that may have been underneath the anger (e.g. feeling disrespected, dismissed, unheard, unimportant, not valued, et cetera) that the anger may have been protecting you from? How can you find a way to transform this anger, so that you are not holding onto the “hot coal?”
Until next time my brothas, Peace and blessings……
