The energy behind anger?

Anger is pure energy, it is powerful and causes action, it may seem brutal but for many people it is the only alternative to feeling nothing, that is why it is can be so addictive for some, when you only have the two options, it is rational to choose anger as it can feel so good at the time. However then there is the aftermath, the rage burns out and you are left with the consequences, the hurt feelings, guilt, embarrassment and burnt bridges, anger is rarely the most skilful action, though it can be better than no action and being stuck in a situation that you hate. There is always fear underneath that anger, and the fear of doing nothing is infinitely worse than the action of anger, whether the anger actually get you what you want is secondary to that initial push of fear, even if it ends up pulling you away from what you want, but there are more skillful ways to use anger and have a healthy relationship with it.

Fear is always the driver of anger, and if it is what is driving you, you have to really consider it is you want first, as if it is your primary motivation in life, it is necessary to be very clear about what you do want? You are only going change the nature of your anger if you have a reason to do so, if your anger is not getting in the way of what you want and it is doing so without any negative consequences, there is not a problem to solve, though this is unlikely, anger is not thoughtful or skilful, it is a blunt and harsh tool. It is the hammer in your toolbox of life skills, it forces your wants onto the world and demands them with the threat of violence (physical or emotional), it is the nuclear option and requires you to put yourself in the blast radius. However if destroying yourself is not getting what you want, that is why you need to be sure what you want, so that you can measure your action against the mission of getting those things that you want.

Anger can be a valid action and it is certainly useful action at times, though it has a very bad reputation, and considering it comes from a fearful place it also generates a lot of fear within us. There is an idea that it is a pure “bad”, that no good comes from it, ignoring for the moment that the idea of good and bad is misleading and that all action is on a spectrum of poorer to better, and that labelling causes distortions in thinking, it is just plain wrong to say that anger is inherently bad, it serves a purpose, it defends our boundary, it protects your body and those of our family and friends, it allows us to fight those who wish us to cause us harm. This should not be demonised, it is a mother love that allows her to angrily protect her children with her life, it should be honoured and respected. There is unfortunately too many people in the world that just want to label it as toxic and evil, the worst part of us, that we should be ashamed of it, just think for a moment how unhealthy this language is to describe a part of ourselves, it is an act of self-hatred and loathing, that is bound to have a negative impact on your self-image.

Anger should be honoured as it is the first step towards understanding it, the cost of carrying that shame around with you, guilt that distorts your thinking and actions, to be afraid of an integral part of you, is to always live in fear. The real shame is that you are ashamed of the part of you that loves you the most and without question, it will do literately anything to protect what you hold most dear, especially your children and tribe, it enables remarkable acts of self-sacrifice in a moment and without thought, it is what allows people to step in front of bus to push a child out the way. That is not evil, that is the clearest of thoughts and action, anger allows you to act, it drives immediate and necessary action that does not need to be reasoned out or killed in the committee of relative wants, it knows what is important and it does it without hesitation.

However it is a simple tool, it does one thing it hammers and it hammers hard, and every job does not require it, indeed often it can be the worst possible tool to use, and we know that, our shame at using it at the wrong time and the guilt at our anger comes from this unskilful use, tells us that. That is good, it is instructive that we need to become more adapt at using it, that it is not appropiatate to use for everything, we do not have to feel so guilty if we understand that it is part of the learning process of using anger, especially as so much of using anger is about when not to use it or how to control it. Which as a good stoics, we are all about control and controlling what is in our powers to do so, anger allows us to respond without thinking, it is pure energy, it takes you to a hundred an hour instantaneously, you can be walking down the street and someone unexpectedly bumps into you and you can be set off like a trigger, and in that moment you are pure energy, you are ready for anything.

That energy is not evil, that is what we should not demonise, hate or be fearful of, energy is neutral, what you do with can be an action for the poorer or better, that comes with practise, but the energy that is just energy for action, the action is up to you, that is the controllable element. The danger of hating anger is that you never learn to control it, because you are concentrated on dealing with the secondary effects of anger, especially your anger thoughts, they occur because you have lost control of the anger, guilt and shame are part of the learning process, and to be clear anger thoughts do need to be talked down and understood, but recognise that you are fighting the effect of anger, the secondary fires, and not addressing the seat of the fire, thoughts only deal with the thinking element of anger.

However its real nature is one of energy and for that you need to manage and deal your energy, to see it as pure energy not what it becomes, and anger is one of the most difficult energies to control as it happens so fast and often unexpectedly. You rarely think I am going to anger in ten minutes, it just happens, though there is a moment when anger is just pure energy, that is the moment when you have most control, it is in the moment of freezing before fight or flight kicks in, and it is possible to observe it, your senses are heightened anyway concentrated on the external world and if you can turn them inwards to the anger as well you can take control. Anger peaks incredibly quickly, and you can observe it drop, it is still there waiting once triggered, the energy is there but once you realise you are not actually in a life or death situation you can reassess the situation that has made you anger for what you want out of it.

If it is dealing with customer service, you might want to drop down to determined, exact and relentlessly polite instead of rage and fury at a person following a script. There are often better paths than anger to get what you want, but that is not to say that the energy from anger is in anyway bad, it is neutral, it is up to you how you use it. Gandhi was a self-confessed angry man and he used that energy to find a way to persuade an Empire to act decently through peaceful protest, that was remarkable, it took years and his anger powered him through it all. The anger can give you purpose, a mission to follow that keeps you alive in the times when you can feel nothing else, it gives you clarity and leads you to confident action.

By understanding the energy of anger you gain a measure of control over it, as rider does over a horse, it is never tame or fully predictable, but together you are much more powerful, you are able to sit behind your anger and see where it is heading. You control the pace by how fast you allow your anger turn into thoughts, by the experience of how fast they can get away from you, you slow that pace by observing the energy of the anger as watching is not thinking. You directed anger by deciding what you want from the situation that has made you anger and you stop when you get it as it no longer serves you at that point, and as anger costs you energy you want to use it for a shortest amount of time. Then you release it by returning to that observation, by letting it travel around the body, by letting it be as it is, by not holding on and letting it slow down by itself.

Nothing lasts forever not even anger it always passes given time and you want to be in a good place by the time it does, that energy can do a lot of harm or good, depending upon the control you have and by understanding the energy behind that energy. We do not always get thing right, that is what practise is for, but the first stage in learning to control something is knowing that it can be controlled as it is not just part of you, but the core of you, that energy is pure life and it is beautiful for it. By recognising that, we are able to integrate anger into us, make it part of us and no longer be controlled by it, instead we can move on to a happy and healthy relationship with the whole of ourselves, anger is a part of that and being at peace with it is the only way to be whole.