Rage to Renewal: How to Transform Anger into Peace

We all get angry and this episode will help you figure out how to deal with it every single day. In 'Rage to Renewal: How to Transform Anger into Peace' we'll let you know the root causes of anger and why it's showing up. 

But we also explore what anger is all about and how to deal with. We don't have to live in anger or let it dictate and control who we are. This will lead to better relationships and lead you down a path that has calm and peace on it. Don't let your emotions control you, just use them as they were meant to be used and live the life you were meant for.

Join our community for more transformative content: https://Kishar.org

Follow our journey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kisharspiritual

Discover more about us: https://bit.ly/m/Kishar

#Anger #Angry #AngerManagement #SpiritualGrowth #Mindfulness #Emotions

Transcript

0:34

I spent six and a half consecutive years in Afghanistan. People have asked me to describe Afghanistan, and I tell them that it's a swamp of sadness. During that six plus years, I worked 100 to 110 hours a week. My work consumed me. It was everything that I was about. And I've seen anger consume relationships and take them to the brink. And that's important because my wife, Stacie was with me all those years in Afghanistan. We worked side by side in the same unit. We had very similar jobs, and I had so much anger, and a lot of my anger was funneled in the direction of Stacie, my wife, my partner in life. It's not something that I can ever take back, and it's not something I can undo. And so I've had to accept it, my part in it, and I've had to ask her for forgiveness, and I've had to forgive myself. If you're committed to walking the spiritual path and finding whatever truth is out there for you, please be prepared for anger. Be prepared to meet anger. Be prepared to deal with it when you face yourself, because you're going to come face to face with yourself as you walk down the spiritual path, you're going to experience anger as you begin to let go of things of attachments, the past, the future, and all this stuff that's out there that's extra and unnecessary. And so today we're going to talk about spirituality and anger, and we're going to look at how we can recognize it and come to terms with it, but instead of letting it control us, we're going to learn how we can control it. This is the kind of thing that can completely change your life. Anger is just an intense emotional response that we manifest when we perceive a threat injustice, frustration, some kind of violation of our expectations. Simplified though, it really is just that first part. It's an intense emotional response. And so why do we have this response? It's because we're hard wired with anger to protect us. Most of our emotions come from this really base, primal, almost reptilian place. And it's it's a spot in the mind or the ego. And they want to protect you. They're using these emotions to send you signals. The problem is these are really old signals, and we're much more evolved than we used to be. And it's not just that, but these simple signals that you're being sent can get warped over time. So instead of just being what should be a useful piece of information for you that you can use, you get messed up as children or adults through conditioning. maybe you have trauma or both. And so now maybe you're not able to interpret or receive these signals like you were meant to receive them. And you add on top of that all of that conditioning or trauma or this noise of life and all this stuff is competing for your attention in your time. And you have a situation now where your emotions are not getting from point A, which is the mind and ego, to a place where they can be processed and used efficiently by you and then discarded or recycled. So they just get caught up inside of you, they get stuck. And if that makes sense to you, can you please let me know in the comments? I'm interested to see if this is making sense. So these are emotions and I guess anger. In the case of this episode, they're collecting where they probably don't need to be collecting and that creates disruption of your mind, body and soul. It can't be in alignment if this is happening. So you're all out of whack, and you'll not be as mentally aware or acute as you could be, and you're not going to feel very well physically. You're not going to feel good, you're going to feel bad. And your line to your inner self is going to be blocked as well. So you don't have that soul connection, that spirit connection. I think it's important to say it's okay to be angry, to have anger. The danger comes when we hold on to anger. It's not really fair to hold anger over someone else, and it's probably not fair to them in a lot of cases. It's definitely not fair to you if you hold anger because it's just trapped inside of you, and it's going to start consuming you. A lot of spiritual philosophies acknowledge that anger is this natural human emotion. It doesn't have to be inherently good or bad. The key is to understand where it comes from and express it in the healthiest way possible, and to avoid letting it have that control over you. It's important that you take time to examine your anger, to understand where it's coming from, what the root causes of it is because repressing and explosively expressing anger can both be harmful to ourselves and others. So don't repress it and don't act out on it, but instead find this middle path which is going to be the true solution to your anger. And if you haven't studied Daoism or the Dao, this is the philosophy of the yin and the yang. I would definitely give it a shot. It does a lot with this middle path that is simply called the way or the Dao. That's that line between the yin and the yang, the dark and the white. So often our anger can mask itself as other emotions like fear, your hurting, frustration, and the Star Wars. Yoda says that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. So when you have all this anger, the in the inner state for yourself, it's going to be suffering. It's not going to be suffering for other people. I mean, you might cause other people suffering, but ultimately the the biggest suffering is usually you, not anyone else. And you may be more angry than you realize people often are. And that's not to say everyone. I'm not saying everyone watching this is angry. And if it's not you, that's okay. But for most of us, we should probably acknowledge and prepare for anger as we move through our spiritual journey because we're going to see it. Part of our journey is about growth and growth, about getting better and moving in a direction that makes the most sense for you, that takes you towards this horizon that you're meant to go towards and that you need to go to. Maybe it's destiny or it's just what your higher purpose is drawing you towards. You can probably look at it a lot of different ways, but facing and dealing with and accepting anger is going to be a big ticket for you as you navigate this path. Anger can be a strong and useful catalyst. It isn't just a storm within us. It can lead to this amazing change in many spiritual and cultural traditions. It's seen as a powerful agent for transformation. So if you're channeling it right, it can fuel movements for social justice. It can inspire personal growth and motivate us to become capable of overcoming these difficult obstacles. And I've stepped back from politics and broad social justice not because they're not important, but because I believe deeply in the transformative power of personal change. By striving to be the best version that I can be, I can lift myself up and help lift others up around me. This philosophy is really at the heart of our nonprofit spiritual community. Kishar.org and our founders, myself included, were former warriors where we were at war. And we've gone through all this trauma and we want to dedicate ourselves to giving back and supporting anyone that's eager to share their own journey in this open minded way. So if you're interested in join a community like this, check us out at Kishar.org There's a link in the description below. I have to concede that the world we live in has been shaped tremendously by anger. some of it's been focused and calculated, sometimes even potentially righteous anger, and it spurred innovations and societal shifts that we've benefited from today. And this is a recognition of the complex roles that emotions play in the history in our lives. But there's a warning here collective anger, while powerful, it can consume us, causing us to lose our sense of self and the precious time in our lives. I spent 12 years in combat, and I witnessed a lot of anger. I saw the sustained. I saw the cost of sustained anger. I guess is the best way to say it. If we're not careful, the energy that we spend in hostility towards others can rob us of the chance to experience love, the love of friendship, community, and the shared humanity that we all have. As you navigate your feelings of anger, please strive to understand its roots and its potential. Use it not just to react to the world, but to shape it in a more compassionate way. So you're living in a better present. There's a transformative power in anger. We published an episode not so long ago about choices. Every single moment of your life is a choice. Right now is a choice in the next moment, and so on. So if you sit for just a second and consider the power that that grants you, you have this enormous power to decide almost anything. So if you're energy, which is what you're made of, you're just this bit of consciousness wrapped up in a ball of energy, making choices for yourself. So what choices are you going to make when anger comes from within you and it comes straight at your reality, it usually does so like a bolt of lightning. And so you react. But you can train yourself not to react. You just receive the lightning bolt and you might say it hurts or it doesn't feel good, but that lightning bolt is probably coming at you, maybe with a negative charge. And if you're just energy and you have all this positive charge within you, you just receive this bolt and you have the power of knowing that you can neutralize it if you want to. So you can transmute this bolt of negative angry energy and power into intentional action. And amazing things happen when you're aware, aware of awareness of what's happening around you. It's it's a crazy, powerful thing. And then you're aware of what's happening inside of you. And with awareness, you have options. You're making choices more easily because you're intentional. You might imagine this energy all around you as your own. See it as this divine energy or universal energy, conscious energy. But basically it's magic. You are magic. Not supernatural, but just perfectly natural magic. So understand that you can transmute something like anger into something positive, into something that's meaningful and helpful for you. And there's other ways to channel your anger. Allow anger to be a teacher and your guide as you continue to grow. Take the advice of being more aware of what's going inside and around you, and you'll have the opportunity to use anger and other emotions to your advantage. If you work with anger in this mindful way, you can channel your anger into patience and even compassion. Imagine taking this great shock of powerful anger and deciding that you're going to have empathy and compassion for whatever or whoever is at the other end of that bolt of lightning. Very rarely do we win by releasing anger back at the people, things or organizations that that made us angry. Like you lose every time doing that. We hardly ever win that battle. And so when that happened, we're just sowing the wind to pointlessly reap the whirlwind. In this cycle of of anger and violence and hate. And so there can be wisdom here. So say you have all this knowledge that you've picked up as you move through life. What is this knowledge to you? Is it useful? Absolutely. But what happens when you grow is you end up having all these experiences in life. And when you combine experiences with this knowledge that you have, that's wisdom, knowledge plus experience is wisdom. So use that to your advantage. Is anger a spiritual test? I don't really think it's some kind of divine test for us necessarily, but it's an interesting theoretical exercise from a practical perspective of walking down my own spiritual path every single day. I can say spiritual challenges often involve confronting my own anger and difficult situations. These tests can help develop patience and forgiveness, and this is really something that strengthens our spiritual resilience. If you start to see anger as a test, suddenly you move from this reactive state to one where you're responding intentionally and in a way or way at a huge shift. If you can process anger effectively as it comes up, you're going to be light years ahead of where you used to be. It means that you're able and perfectly positioned to take all these other emotions that you have and process them as they signal to you. Then you get to decide to use that signal or just toss it back in the recycling bin. You're in control of what's happening to you all the time, and that's huge. This is the fundamental principle of being present in the moment. And whether it's from the Buddha or Eckhart Tolle or Michael Singer, it's it's all the same really. I just wanted to emphasize again how angry I was 12 years in the desert in combat, and when I came home, I was completely broken, and I had no idea who I was, I was lost. one of the biggest things on my own personal spiritual journey to leave anger behind was letting go and letting go. It sounds easy as like just a concept and you just let go, but it's enormously complicated. We have a whole episode on letting go and it's pretty great. There's a link in the card in the upper right hand corner if you want to check it out. Know that letting go is a multi-step process. You have to loop back around and repeat it again. Kind of like checking back in with yourself to make sure it's working, to make sure that you're actually letting go. And there are other ways to help with anger. Meditation is a great place to start for anger. I think that mindfulness meditation might be the best place to get a foothold, because mindfulness will train you to be more aware and intentional throughout your whole day. Even outside of that mindfulness meditation, you're going to be mindful, kind of all the time. Even if you just mindfully meditate for 5 or 10 minutes in the morning, you're going to be mindful throughout the day. It's this amazing thing. It takes practice, but it pays off. And then with this awareness and intention, you'll have the tools to see anger for what it is and respond in a way that's amazing for you. This goes back to what we were talking about earlier. As far as knowing your emotions as they happen and being able to see them and manage them, and you can ask for help. It's easier to solve anger if you have help. You don't have to decide to do this all alone. We're better off and we're more when we're with others. You can see guidance from a spiritual coach or guide. Maybe you need a therapist. It might just be that you need a supportive community where people have seen what you're going through and have advice or perspective that might show you a better way. As you navigate through your journey with anger, consider checking out this video on living in Non-Judgment. It's a big part of the overall puzzle. And until next time, I wish you peace on your journey.