The Importance Of Anger: A Valuable Tool For Nice People

What is the positive role of anger in our lives? How does it keep us on our path? How does it enforce boundaries and ensure healthy relationships? Some people are easily angered which has given anger a bad rap. So, why is anger so important - especially for really nice people?

Transcript

So today we're talking about anger and we're talking about the importance of anger and we're talking about the power of anger and really how healthy it is to have anger as part of our emotional repertoire.

There's a lot of reasons that we have to talk about this and one of the big reasons,

Like if we really rise up to 50,

000 feet and look down at us as humans and our relationship with anger,

Is one of the big challenges is that for many centuries and millennia we've been living in a paradigm of oppression.

It's a paradigm,

It's a zeitgeist,

Which is a way of thinking and it's a way of thinking that isn't questioned.

That's what's so interesting about it.

It's always interesting when we go back in time we think how could someone have thought that?

How could we have allowed this?

But it was a particular zeitgeist where inside of it we didn't even know.

It wasn't that we were ignorant or jerks or weak.

That was just the overriding belief system that was unquestioned.

And the paradigm or the zeitgeist that we've been living in for a long time is that there are people above us that are in power over us.

And it began as children where our parents are in control of us,

Our teachers are in control of us,

The priests are in control of us,

The government is in control of us,

Our boss is in control of us,

Our partner is in control of us,

Our in-laws are in control of us,

Maybe even our peer group is in control of us.

And this is something that we believe almost like generationally inside of us.

And again,

Obviously there's lots of situations where we have to listen to our parents and it's good to listen to a teacher and all that.

I'm not saying that this is all complete dysfunction,

But the idea of punishment,

Of molding,

Of control,

This has become so part of our existence we can't even imagine living in a different way.

And the challenge is that anger is the one emotion,

Many many emotions have been oppressed through this idea,

This zeitgeist,

But anger is the number one that is not allowed in a controlling paradigm.

Because if the people being controlled are allowed to be angry,

You can't control them,

You can't punish them,

You can't keep them in line.

And so this is something that is trained into us from a very very young children that you are not allowed to get angry.

It's a sign of weakness,

It's a sign of rebellion,

It's a sign of being difficult,

It's a sign of going against the family or the clan or society.

You cannot get angry.

But the problem is anger is part of a normal human response.

This is a survival mechanism,

This is a protective mechanism,

It's something that allows our soul to stay on path.

It's not a dysfunctional response to oppression,

Control,

Danger,

All these kind of things.

It's healthy.

But when we oppress something en masse,

This is kind of like you can compare it to repressing sexuality.

When you oppress it en masse,

It is going to sneak out the side in twisted ways.

It's going to come out in unhealthy ways,

It's going to destroy families,

It's going to destroy marriages,

It's going to destroy relationships.

And it's the same with anger.

Because it was oppressed en masse,

It has so many dysfunctional,

I want to say almost dysfunctional cousins.

It has all these ways that it's coming out that we call anger.

But they're not anger.

They're twists because of the oppression.

So then the problem is we then start identifying anger with this twist,

With this real dysfunctional aspect of repressed anger.

And we say,

See,

I don't want to be angry.

I don't want to be like that crazy person screaming and yelling.

I don't want to be like my parent that was always yelling and getting angry and hurting people.

So then that further represses any internal anger,

But it represses our healthy anger.

It represses our healthy emotional response that when we actually need anger to protect us,

To actually get us on track,

To actually get us away from people that are really unhealthy,

To make us actually make different choices that are on our actual path,

And not allow ourselves to just be objects in other people's lives and other people's dramas.

So in our talk today,

We're going to talk about the things that are not anger,

That we think are anger.

We're going to talk about unhealthy anger responses.

We're going to talk about healthy anger responses.

We're going to talk about what do we do when we feel angry.

And we're going to talk about the importance of anger and how we actually balance this.

And it's a huge topic,

So it might feel like I'm kind of flying through things,

But it's an incredible passion for me because I've spent a lot of time of my life,

Probably my whole life up until current moment,

Being really well trained to be polite,

To be kind,

To not cause trouble,

To be easygoing,

To be spiritual,

To be all these things.

And we have been trained that anger has nothing to do with these things.

And in fact,

If you get angry,

You must not be that enlightened,

Or you're just such a difficult person.

Why are you causing trouble all the time?

And this is something that I've wrestled with my whole life.

And so I'm really excited to talk about it because I think for whatever reason,

The zeitgeist,

The paradigm,

The consciousness has shifted enough that we can actually embrace healthy anger.

We are aware of this weird oppressive energy.

We're aware of where this is in the world.

This is why we're noticing narcissists.

We're noticing all these different things.

And we're like,

Whoa,

Have these things been around us this whole time?

And I'm just seeing them now.

And the beautiful thing is it dovetails again with the rise of yoga,

Meditation,

Tantra,

Mindfulness practices,

The integration of the East and the West and all this,

Because it's those practices that help us find this center so that we can actually discern between unhealthy anger,

Healthy anger,

And things that aren't anger at all.

So first,

I want to talk about the things that are not anger.

The number one thing is rage.

Rage is not anger.

And rage is also different than a temper tantrum.

So I'm going to start with a temper tantrum.

A temper tantrum is something that we can have at all ages.

And it's simply when things aren't going our way.

As a young child,

We learned that if we scream and yell and kick and freak out,

That the people around us will either give in,

Or if we stay mad and scream and be big and scary or scary or whatever,

If we do it long enough,

The people around us will just tire out and go,

Oh my God,

Whatever.

We'll just give in.

And this is a learned response.

And oftentimes,

Does not go,

It goes unchecked.

And so what happens is you have full grown adults.

When things don't go their way,

They blow up.

It's interpreted as anger.

It's not anger.

It's just someone not getting their way,

But they're pretending it's anger.

They're pretending they're so furious.

But what it really is,

Is manipulation.

It's trying to make people around you afraid.

It's trying to make people exhausted so that you'll get your way.

This is not anger.

It's just manipulation looking like anger.

Rage is something different because a tantrum can also feel like rage when you're on the receiving end of it.

But I'm defining rage as something that is not conscious.

I know people,

I have people very close to me in my life who have suffered from rage.

And I say it like that,

That they suffer from rage.

They don't today,

But they certainly did in early times of their life,

Where all of a sudden a blackness rises up inside of them and they like spit venom.

And it's so dark when it's all over.

It's almost like they come back into their consciousness and they just sort of count the bodies.

And they're almost unaware of what happened,

What they said,

What they did.

I've had friends of mine who have beaten up their parents,

Who have just screamed things at their children that they couldn't fathom.

There is a rage component,

Which is a very different thing.

This is not manipulation.

There's a lot of interesting teachers out there that do a lot of work with helping people heal from rage.

And I don't mean receiving rage.

That's a whole other thing.

But when they have this rage inside of them,

Gabor Mate does interesting work about this.

And he talks about how rage is the result of unresolved trauma as a child,

When your boundaries were perpetually being broken,

And they were always being infringed upon.

But as a child,

Your protective mechanism of staying alive kept you quiet.

So at the core is anger as a child.

But because it was oppressed,

And because the child could not express it,

It's like it transformed into something.

It stayed in that soul,

And it just chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed.

And then later on,

It explodes.

And it doesn't explode in a healthy anger.

It's now something else.

It's transformed into something completely different.

And that's rage.

And the key here is,

And if there's anything we want to take away from any of these definitions of anger,

Not anger,

Unhealthy anger,

Or healthy anger,

The question always is,

What do we do about it?

What are we doing about it?

How do we use this in our lives to better ourselves?

Just empty definitions are nonsense.

So if we have someone in our life,

Or it's us,

That is suffering with rage,

Then we know that there is unresolved trauma there.

They need help.

We need help,

Whoever it is.

And that's important to note.

It's not a healthy anger response.

It's a result of deep trauma.

If someone is having temper tantrums,

Whether it's us,

If it's us,

Then we have to be aware of it and say,

Okay,

This is what I'm doing,

Which is not always easy,

Don't get me wrong.

Or if people are around us,

Are doing all this thing,

And they are just simply having some temper tantrum at us,

Then we can honestly look at them and we can love them and say,

You have to calm down.

And I know how well that's going to work.

But you know what I mean?

We have to recognize it ourselves that this is a tantrum.

And the person has to be corrected,

Like a two year old child and not in a mean way and not in a condescending way or anything like that.

But just to be really clear that that's what this is.

Their boundaries aren't crossed or anything like that.

It is just,

We're not well trained as children to self regulate.

And sometimes we live in very unfair situations also.

And tantrums are very justified as children.

But unfortunately,

Again,

As adults,

If we have this tendency,

We will push everyone away.

We will lose the people we love,

We will lose our friends.

So it's really important to distinguish tantrums from anger,

Or else we just will never embrace anger.

Another thing that's not anger is just always being in a bad mood,

Being sullen,

Irritable,

Just kind of angry at the world all the time.

That's not a healthy anger response.

There's a lot of in Bach remedies,

They would look at that and they would say that this person has suffered from a lack of love in their life.

Or maybe there's been trauma or maybe there's been unresolved something.

But for some reason,

It's left them in a place of deep apathy,

Or deep frustration with the world.

Again,

This is not a healthy anger response.

This is a mood that has perpetuated and doesn't go away.

And again,

What do we do with it?

We go deeper.

We understand that this isn't a healthy,

Functional way to live.

There is a way,

There is something deep inside of there that can be healed,

That needs to be heard.

So that too is not anger.

Now I'm going to talk about things that are closer to anger,

But they're still unhealthy.

So one of the unhealthy responses to anger,

And again,

I say they're unhealthy only because there is no positive benefit to them.

It's not really a judgment.

It's just a case of when this happens,

It isn't helpful.

Do you know what?

Let's talk about healthy anger for a moment,

Just to kind of have some balance.

Healthy anger is when anger is a defense mechanism.

When someone is actually treading in your world and it's not okay.

They are imposing themselves.

They are taking advantage of,

And when you get angry,

It creates this,

Whoa,

Back up.

This is very healthy and very important because there are a lot of people in the world.

We live in a very wonky,

Wonky world.

There are a lot of people who will infringe your boundaries.

They will come in and they will just take over your life if we're not careful.

So anger will help us actually push back and give us the strength to say,

No,

I said,

No,

This is extremely healthy and extremely important.

Healthy anger helps us see truth.

Healthy anger is when something's going on.

Let's say you're in a relationship and something's just not sitting right and your partner does something and it's anger that rises and you look at that and you go,

Anger.

I am so angry.

What am I so angry about?

And I'm not sad.

I'm not disappointed.

I'm actually angry.

Well,

That's an interesting thing.

And when you sit down with them and you say,

I'm actually angry and you talk to them about it,

Because again,

I am assuming that we are going to process all of this with a sane mind,

With a sober mind.

If we're completely offside ourselves,

We'll never be able to process anything we're talking about.

And at the end,

We're going to talk about yoga and meditation and things to help come to this center.

But ideally all anger responses,

There is no drama in them.

Drama is not healthy.

It doesn't matter what it is.

There is no healthy response of anything,

Happy,

Sad,

Anything in drama.

Anger is not like that.

Anger is something that we become aware of.

And you say,

Wow,

Does that ever piss me off?

What's this about?

So in many ways,

Anger is an extremely healthy response to say social injustice.

When something's going on and your blood starts to boil,

You're like,

Whoa,

This is not okay.

Again,

What's happening?

A zeitgeist is breaking.

A paradigm is breaking.

Something is shifting in the consciousness.

There's a crack and you're like,

Holy mackerel,

This has to end now.

And again,

What's the response?

How does this help?

You gather your friends,

You gather your people,

You write your congressman,

You march in the streets,

You do the thing.

And it's that healthy anger response to it that says this has to stop and we're going to stop it.

We the people.

This is a healthy response.

It's not all full of drama.

It's not anything.

This is intelligent,

Sober,

Kind,

Compassionate,

Conscious people saying that's enough.

This is extremely healthy and there's no drama in it.

This is just strength.

Another really healthy response of anger is a lot of our,

A lot of reasons we get angry is impotence.

And I'm not talking about sexual impotence.

I'm talking about impotence in life.

When we have been controlled our whole life and we have no power,

We have no power to do the things we need to do.

And anger rises inside of us.

Something rises and says,

I have had enough.

I don't want to listen to anybody anymore.

Right?

There's something and it has that voice.

It's just like enough of this.

And this is when all of a sudden somebody comes at you and you're like,

No more.

I've had it with all of you.

And you don't have to be a jerk and you don't have to be unkind,

But something in you has had it.

I was not put on this earth to be your whatever.

My soul has a path.

My soul has something I'm going to do and you're not going to control me anymore.

This is an extremely healthy response.

Feel the power in that.

Your heart's pumping and you're like,

Yeah.

And that's what breaks us out of old patterns.

That's what breaks us out of challenges and relationships and jobs and struggles that we've been bound to for decades.

They're very,

Very healthy anger responses in the world.

And the beautiful thing is when we have these kinds of anger responses,

We start to make change in our life.

And of course we need them less because we're not living in this situation that is so oppressive.

We're not living in situations where people are always infringing upon our boundaries because we've told them to go away or we've walked away or whatever,

Or we've simply stood our ground and they changed their behavior.

It's not always about walking away and it's not about freaking out.

So now I'm going to talk about unhealthy anger.

See,

That's the challenge with talks like this is we have to talk about so many negative things because unfortunately,

Because it's been oppressed,

There are so many twisted responses,

But we need to identify them so that we can see them and go,

Oh,

This is that thing.

So for example,

One very common unhealthy response to anger is just simply an uncontrolled emotional response.

Something didn't go our way and we're like,

Oh,

For God's sake,

Like,

What the hell?

I got to get to work and now there's this damn traffic and people don't know how to drive and to what end?

Why get angry?

Why freak out?

It's just,

That's all we've ever known.

Maybe that's all we've witnessed in our parents.

Maybe that's all we've seen in the movies.

Maybe that's all we saw with our siblings,

But it doesn't take very long.

Well,

Actually lots of people can live their whole lives just simply flying off the handle every time something doesn't go their way,

But oftentimes there'll be someone with you.

I remember one time I was dating a guy who always had road rage,

Like all the time.

And it was weird because he was a really calm,

Peaceful guy most of the time,

But I actually think it's because he repressed his anger so much.

What he would do is he would take it out on all these other drivers.

But the reality was he was actually taking it out on me because I was the only one sitting in the car with him.

And I remember one time we were actually traveling down through the States.

So we were like,

You know,

Thousands of miles from Canada.

And he was just raging on everybody all around us.

And finally I just looked at him and I said,

You have to stop.

I don't want to hear this.

Well,

It's not about you.

It's about them.

I'm like,

Yeah,

But I'm the one that has to listen and digest everything you're screaming about.

That,

All that anger is going through my system.

I have to process it.

I don't want to.

So if you're going to rage on people,

Let me put my earplugs in or my earphones on or something.

Cause I don't want to eat what you're feeding me.

And he wouldn't listen.

And he just kept raging.

Oh,

Look at that guy.

He's such an S.

O.

And I finally just said,

You need to stop the car.

And he says,

Why?

I said,

Cause I'm getting out.

I'll fly back to Canada.

I don't need to be here.

And he was like,

Oh,

That's,

I'm like,

I'm serious.

Stop the car.

Cause I'm not going to keep hearing this.

And when he knew I was serious,

He stopped.

It's just,

It's this,

This unchecked,

Uncontrolled emotional response that for some reason they believe is acceptable.

They're not manipulating.

They're not doing anything.

There is nothing evil about it.

They're not having a tantrum to control you.

They're just simply freaking out.

Cause they don't like the way things are going.

This is not a healthy,

Angry,

Anger response.

Or if they have real issues,

Then they need to look at it.

Then let's look at your anger issues.

Not like a jerk,

But just like a,

Okay,

There's some real stuff here.

Let's talk about it.

You know,

Let's go into it.

It's worthwhile looking at.

Another one is what,

You know,

There's a great movie with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson called Anger Management,

Where Jack Nicholson describes two kinds of angry people.

And he says,

You know,

You walk into the grocery store and there's some guy screaming at the cashier,

Just mad about this,

Mad about that,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And the cashier takes it and takes it day in and day out for years and years and years.

And one day that cashier comes in with a gun and just,

You know,

Shoots everyone in the store.

And he,

He talks about how one is external anger and one is internal anger or something like that.

And it's like,

Very often because we've been trained to just take it and take it and take it and take it,

We actually end up with this buried fury inside and we actually become so angry at the world.

And that kind of withheld anger is so unhealthy for us,

Which again is why it's,

It's so important to talk about this and actually reframe anger and reframe the importance of speaking your truth.

I have a lot of theories around,

Especially the whole service industry,

That I actually believe that very often it came out of kind of the elite class and servants and indentured servants and slave mentality,

Where for whatever reason,

People just have to take other people's bad behavior.

The customer's always right.

It's like,

Really?

Why?

Why is it okay to abuse another human?

That should never be okay.

Ever.

So you really need to look at this and we need to start shifting our entire paradigm about how we treat other people,

Regardless of whether they're working for you or whoever.

Another very unhealthy anger response is righteous anger in a drama triangle.

And so this is different than the righteous anger we talked about earlier,

When there's social injustice or something going on and the anger raises you up to action.

That's a different righteousness.

What I'm talking about is,

You know,

We've talked a lot about drama triangles where everything in the world is one of three things.

You're either a victim,

You're a perfect persecutor,

Or you're a savior.

And all stories are around this.

I've done a lot of talks about the drama triangle.

The problem with the drama triangle is it feeds on drama.

Somebody's always hurting me.

Someone's always saving that person.

I have to save that person because that person's persecuting them.

And it just circles and circles and circles in this drama triangle,

Where no one has any power.

The victim is always the victim and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Anger inside a drama triangle is just circular hell.

It gets nowhere.

Nothing ever changes.

The saviors go around finding people to save to make themselves feel good.

And they just are sort of filled with this false righteous anger.

The victims are furious at everybody because everyone's always oppressing them and everyone's always a jerk and they never have any choice and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

But it's not healthy anger because they're not making change.

It's not it's not actually rising inside of them and saying enough because they like the drama.

We've been trained to love drama.

We've been trained that this is normal behavior in family.

We've been trained that this is normal behavior in relationships.

It's not because we're jerks or we're uncultured or uncivilized or something.

This has been deep,

Deep training that drama is righteous.

Anger inside a drama triangle is useless and it's exhausting to listen to.

So this is not a healthy anger either.

Healthy anger is what pops you out of the drama triangle and you end the situation and you make changes so that this doesn't continue.

So now I want to talk about the importance of anger and how anger,

When we have a really healthy relationship with it,

How wonderful it is in our lives.

So the first part of this is anger is a strong component of our emotional intelligence.

Our emotions are healthy biofeedback mechanisms for us with the world.

So if something happens out there that makes us sad,

This is a message.

This is so important for us to know.

If something out there makes us happy,

That's important to know.

This is life-giving.

This is something we're supposed to move towards.

If something out there makes us angry,

Then we know that this is not okay.

Anger is an important part of that array of responses to the world around us.

When I wrote the book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer?

,

They talked about when I was doing the research for it,

I was really intrigued as to why some people heal and other people don't.

And the one thing they came up with,

Especially in cancer,

But it's very likely,

I mean,

Across the board,

The one pattern they saw in the people who had spontaneous healings,

Spontaneous meaning coming from the inside,

Was that these people had strong emotional lability,

Which is not a word I've ever even heard or ever heard since,

But it's just lability.

And all it means is the ability for our emotions to ebb and flow.

I get angry,

I take action,

It releases.

I get sad,

I process it,

I release it.

I get happy,

It's awesome,

I release it.

And my emotions flow like a child.

Our brain doesn't get in there and make up stories and do all kinds of nonsense with it and make all kinds of dramas and,

Oh my God,

What does this mean about me?

It doesn't mean anything about you.

This is just you responding to the situation around you.

Being able to have a healthy flow through all of these emotions makes us healthy,

Allows us to see things clearly in the world.

So anger is part of that repertoire.

Healthy anger is part of that repertoire.

Plato used to say that anger is a sign of the spirited soul,

Which I love.

Some people have said that anger is linked with optimism,

Which is really interesting because optimism is not like toxic positivity,

Where you just see the good in all things and,

Oh,

I'm sure they've got good qualities.

Optimism is you have faith that if you listen inside and you take steps,

Good things will happen.

I have faith in the universe.

I have faith in my life.

I believe that this person,

You know what,

Maybe this person can change.

Maybe this person doesn't want to live an angry,

Mean life.

So you know what?

I'm going to stand in my truth and I'm going to hold my ground and I'm going to speak my mind in kind ways and loving ways,

But I am going to allow this anger inside of me to help me stand in my truth.

I have faith that maybe things might change.

Maybe the family dynamics might change.

Maybe my partner,

Who I actually desperately love,

Might shift their behavior when they realize I'm serious.

This is optimism.

This is the spirit of the soul that's still alive.

We haven't been beaten into apathy.

We haven't gotten to that place of that curmudgeon that's just like,

You know what,

Screw the world and everybody in it,

Because you know what,

People are jerks.

This is not a spirited soul.

This is not optimism.

I don't even know why life would suck having to live like that.

So there's something about having enough joy in life that when something goes wrong,

It's like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Back up the truck.

Oh,

But you're not.

No,

No,

No,

No.

No,

I take my emotional responses very seriously and something's wrong.

Oh,

And everyone wants to talk you out of it,

Right?

Everyone wants to explain to you why you shouldn't get angry and why you shouldn't be upset and you're just causing trouble and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And the reality is like,

No,

No,

This has to be talked about.

But I only would do it because I believe that life isn't supposed to be like that,

That relationships aren't supposed to be like that.

I believe in that there's more possible between humans.

This is a really positive thing.

The other important thing about anger is that anger is our primary survival mechanism against danger.

When we are no longer fighting back,

And I mean that fighting back,

I don't mean being aggressive and all that stuff.

Again,

We have to really imagine things as a grown adult of sober mind.

I'm not talking about drugs and alcohol.

I'm talking about sober mind,

A well-integrated frontal cortex that actually is processing the world and going,

Aha,

Okay,

Let's integrate this.

Let's look at the big picture.

Let's understand what's happening.

We need to have that survival mechanism that notices that what's going on here is not okay.

If our survival mechanism is gone offline for some reason,

That maybe at some point in our life,

Burying our emotions,

Kept us alive,

Flying under the wire,

Kept everyone out of our business,

Hiding,

Meant I didn't have to bother with anybody,

All these kinds of things,

What happened to me?

Those are also survival mechanisms,

But they're very disempowered.

To be able to be out in the world and interacting with people,

We have to make sure that our survival mechanism is still on board,

And that I will walk away from it in a healthy situation.

I will say no to someone asking me for something that's not okay.

This is really important,

And it's important that I know that I will stand up for me,

That my protector's on board,

And that gives me incredible courage to go out into the world.

Anger is one of the number one motivators for change in our life.

When we are allowed to be angry in a healthy way,

That's when we see that it's time to turn a corner,

That something is coming into our lives,

And we're like,

Whoa.

What's crazy is most of the people around us,

Depending on who's around us,

May not want us to change,

May not want us to make that big shift.

So you have all these people going,

No,

No,

No,

Don't you understand?

It's better this way.

Then they have all these fears,

Because we have fears of change.

They're not being jerks necessarily.

They might be,

But they're not being jerks necessarily.

They're just simply genuinely afraid of change,

And afraid of what would happen if you change.

So they're all doing this.

Anger,

That inner constructive satyagraha,

Standing in my truth kind of anger,

Is like,

Stop,

Stop.

This is my choice.

Stop.

Again,

You're not like,

Quit bugging me.

This is drama,

And it doesn't help.

That's when everything goes offline.

That's when all of a sudden,

Another whirlwind has been created.

And you actually are like,

Stop.

I'm going to make this change now.

And you make the change.

And then you make the change,

You don't have to be angry anymore.

But you needed it to get through that comfort zone barrier.

Anger is also really interesting in that,

You know,

We did a lot of talks about David Hawkins' book,

Power Versus Force,

And how are these levels of consciousness that we often live in.

And sometimes,

Like,

So there's a,

He has a beautiful chart,

I think it's called Map of Consciousness,

If you Google it.

And these are all these different levels of emotional consciousness that we live in.

The lowest is shame,

That if we see the world through the eyes of shame,

Normally because of our upbringing,

And that we were shamed heavily,

We just simply interpret everything through that filter.

Or the next one up is guilt,

That we feel guilty about everything.

And of course,

These are very disempowered states,

Or fear,

Or grief,

And all these sort of things.

And when we live in these states,

We just sort of light fires all around us.

Like,

We just one bad thing after another,

And after another,

And we never seem to be able to get ahead.

Well,

What's really interesting about these states of consciousness is the one above it is a little bit more empowered than the one below it.

So for example,

Shame is the lowest.

Guilt is just above it.

Well,

Guilt is healthier than shame,

Because shame is 100% imposed from other,

Where guilt,

We're sort of listening inside of ourselves going,

I shouldn't have done that.

Darn it,

It's a little bit more empowered.

Just above that might be,

I can't remember right now,

But I think it might be apathy.

Well,

Apathy is sort of like,

When you've been guilted as a child,

Or somebody,

Your partner is just like using guilt against you,

They're using guilt trips against you.

And for whatever reason,

It works.

Guilt is a powerful tool,

It's powerful in my family,

For sure.

Apathy is almost the healthy response to guilt,

Being guilted.

You're like,

I don't care.

No,

Not listening,

Don't care about anything you're saying.

Nope,

Can't hear you.

Don't care.

I'm going to go to my room,

Put my earphones on.

I don't care.

That's apathy.

It's not great,

But it's better than drowning in guilt.

And then it keeps going up.

Well,

What's interesting is anger is a little higher than all of these.

So in many ways,

If we are struggling with shame,

Struggling with guilt,

Struggling with apathy,

Struggling with even grief,

Anger may pop us out of it.

If we can actually get angry about something,

Then we are no longer at the whim of that person who's trying to shame me,

Or that person is trying to make me feel guilty,

Or that person is driving me so crazy,

I don't want to leave the house.

And I get angry enough,

And I'm like,

Hey,

How about all of you just shut up?

And anger can pop us out of those states.

Because we're never,

I mean,

It's great to talk about enlightenment,

And living in neutrality,

And living in love,

And we can talk about that all we want.

But if we've actually been beaten down with shame,

And guilt,

And grief,

And all these things our whole life,

Those are pie-in-the-sky ideals.

And the only way to get there is through like emotional bypassing,

Which doesn't work.

It only works for a short time,

And then we just crash and burn.

So the anger can be a very healthy stepping stone in very positive ways to be able to look inside and say,

What are you so angry about?

It's interesting,

You know,

When Kubler-Ross,

Who did all the work on grief,

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,

And I think it was her who identified the stages of grief,

Then I think the first stage is anger.

And that's a really deep topic,

But it's an interesting thing that anger is the first stage of grief.

So anger is so important,

Especially if we've gotten stuck in a certain state in our life,

Because it is a powerful emotion.

The last thing I want to talk about is how do we get to that place?

How do we get to that place where we have this sort of centered ability to observe the fact that we're really angry,

And that it doesn't just take us over,

That we don't just drown in it,

That it doesn't just suddenly all this stuff has come out of our mouth,

And we're like,

Oh,

That was mean.

Because the hard thing is if we yell in anger,

If we lash out in anger,

However we do it,

Great damage happens.

It's that story of the,

It was something like there was a husband that was always getting angry,

And so every time he got angry,

The wife or someone would go out and they would hammer a nail into the fence and pull the nail out.

And then they would keep doing this,

Keep doing this,

And no matter whether or not he was still angry or not,

The wall was,

The fence was still full of holes.

And so that's the danger when we do lash out,

When we do have these uncontrolled emotional outbursts,

When we are unable to be objective and sober within the anger.

This is one of the greatest applications of yoga,

Meditation,

All of these processes.

Tantra in a different way.

But the number one thing is that when we practice yoga,

What we're doing is we're actually developing a witness mind.

We're developing a neutral mind within.

We have the positive and negative mind that's sort of,

Let's do this.

Oh,

I'm not so sure we're going back and forth.

We have the voices in our head of other people telling us what they were right or wrong,

Or you should,

You're not good enough,

And all this kind of thing.

And all these people,

Our witness mind is that quiet inside that's going,

It's just watching.

This is really important.

That's why when we sit and we meditate,

Whether we're doing a pranayama or we're just sitting in silent meditation,

Or we're just sitting in silent meditation,

That we practice when a voice or a thought comes in,

We just let it go by.

Even if it's hard,

Even if it's wanting us to engage with it,

We practice breathing deeply while the thought is flowing through.

This is such important practice because what we're doing is we're creating a visceral response in our day-to-day life that when someone says something and all I do is take a deep breath,

I am still centered.

I am still present.

I am still here,

Even if I'm angry,

Sad,

Happy,

All the things.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't feel our emotions.

Some of the best responses we can ever have to anger is to feel it fully and then let it go.

Because the problem is if we don't feel it fully,

It's like there's still like a remnant in the corner that's just chewing at us that wants to out.

And then all of a sudden the next person that upsets us,

We just freak out on them because that remnant wants out.

So it's really healthy to fully feel our anger.

But that does not mean it's about anyone else.

And that's the other really important thing in our response to anger is to understand that my angry response is only for me.

It isn't about anyone else.

It is simply showing me that something's amok in this relationship.

There's something amok in this situation.

It's only for me so that I can make choices,

So that I can maybe speak my truth,

So that I can maybe make change.

So there's no reason for me to vomit my anger on anyone else.

That's not going to help.

But I can stand in that anger and say,

Okay,

Hold on a minute.

Something has to change now.

But it's only for me.

And that's a very important distinction.

And then we'll never dump it on anyone else.

Because it's not about them anyway.

It's us.

But the important thing is that we have to be able to know this.

And this is why like,

For example,

I teach Kundalini Yoga.

And what I love about Kundalini Yoga is it works out the emotions that are stored in the body,

That we've stored in the body our whole life.

And it connects that working out of all these emotions and our mind and our emotions and our spiritual connection.

And again,

This is sort of the the bringing in of say tantric practices to really understand that we are so much more than this physical being.

We really are infinite beings.

So how do we live in an integrated way that I am this infinite being and this physical being?

Well,

Then all of a sudden,

Think of the beautiful role of anger.

If you believe that you are both a spiritual being and a physical being.

Anger is such an important tool on your soul's path.

This infinite being is here in this interesting limited form.

And anger has arisen.

And you go,

Interesting.

And in the immortal words of one of my calculus professors,

He used to say,

Take that,

He would give us some horrible homework that none of us could do.

And he would just say,

Take it to your place of contemplation and meditate upon it.

So this tantric perspective where we realize we are these infinite beings,

And anger appears,

And it's like,

Wow,

Am I furious?

We got to look at that.

I'm not going to go vomiting and freaking out on everybody else.

This is for my spiritual journey.

This is grist for my mill.

This is important.

But we have to be able to have that quiet mind to do it.

For example,

One of the best things we can do if we're frustrated with someone,

If we're angry with someone,

Is to talk to that person.

But we can't do it being accusatory.

If we do it from sort of a drunken emotional state,

Only damage will happen.

So this is where when we have a spiritual practice of some flavor,

That we actually do meditate every day,

Often,

Whenever.

Or maybe you even meditate when you're frustrated.

For me,

That's the number one time I meditate.

I don't really have a regular practice.

But when I'm spinning out of control for some reason,

Then I sit,

And I breathe,

And I ponder.

And it's almost like I seek that clear lake so that I can actually see the situation clearly.

Because how can we have a constructive conversation with someone if we're drowning in a million things?

So having some kind of practice or some kind of,

It could even be running or something,

Whatever it is you do,

Or painting or journaling,

Or some kind of practice that helps you process whatever it is that's going on,

That brings you back to a clear space.

Because otherwise anger will just take over.

And that's not healthy anger.

That's just all of these sort of dysfunctional ways that we were talking about.

Thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Thank you Katrina, needed this today. I am still learning how to allow myself to feel anger after years of indoctrination from a toxic grandparent (temper tantrum haver) who basically ever let anyone feel anger. We were punished for feeling anger, especially the females in my family. Punished and shamed for feeling anger. I feel like I’m part Healthy Anger because my anger has been repressed, and also part Drama Addicted, because sometimes it feels like I’m in a Drama Triangle with myself, convincing myself that I have no power. But once upon a time, I truly did not have any power, and it’s like my damaged inner child is running the show, and my adult self doesn’t know how to help her understand that we aren’t in that situation anymore. 35+ years of repressed anger…I just want it to quit controlling me. I long to know what it’s like to truly feel powerful and actually stay in my self-sovereignty. Thank you for all you do for us 🙏

This hit me in so many ways. Thanks, as always Katrina for sharing your wisdom & knowledge with us 🙏💗🙏💗🙏💗

Excellent topic and break down of the differences of anger, tantrums, and rage. I really appreciate the frame of how anger has a positive place as a motivator to take action.

Thank you for recording your lives since I can’t listen during the day I love being able to experience these on my own time.
Another very informative session. ❤️😀🙏