I may not be depressed currently, but I sure as heck deal with anger.
Why has my life turned out this way? Why am I crippled as a result of taking drugs? Why are there all the injustices in the world? Not just the psychiatric abuses. I care about all human and civil rights issues, the environment and on and on. I like to blame all sorts of people and entities outside myself for being drugged. And I get angry at the insanity in the world. It’s exhausting and does not lend itself to healing.
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be activists. Not at all. I just believe we can work with positive energies to transform injustice. Like Gandhi did for example. And he was one heck of an activist. Our human energies are endlessly creative.
Here we learn a bit about transforming anger, this powerful energy. Towards the end the video gets into some heavy Buddhist concepts. Just let that go if it doesn’t make any sense. One would have to have studied Buddhism to understand it, but the beginning is applicable to everyone. Enjoy. I found it beautiful.
Hi,
Yes, my apologies for not referencing the website. Of course they are the words of Eckhart Tolle, and they are can be found on quite a few sources. Incidentally, I was trying to get more information on Yoga and found this particular extract relevant to this post on :
http://www.yourhealthonline.com/yoga.html
I realized that I needed some reminding and perhaps others did as well.
Be well,
Jayson
I wondering if I fight my anger…I’m not sure I do…it just feels like it’s eating me up…like poison…
Of course I’m hypersensitive now from the withdrawals and everything hurts more. All my emotions are stronger and I’m acutely sensitive to insult and pain. Sometimes I just hurt so much. And it’s the underlying anger that’s not resolved that makes me hurt.
Feeling out of control because I can’t even drive myself anywhere. Being completely dependent…it’s all so overwhelming…anger though seems the core of all my pain. Because there is so much I can’t change right now because of my physical limitations.
Yes, I get pissed sometimes too. Sometimes I feel filled with an all consuming fiery hatred. Like everything else, I fight it, feel bad about it, beat myself up and come back to…what else…acceptance. Do I have to like that I’m angry? No…but until I accept it, resisting it, shaming it, calling myself “bad” for feeling it…is just another act of agression towards myself….adding to the cycle of violence.
Oh I haven’t looked at the video yet, but the best book I found (I have several of his) that helped me with anger from “all of this stuff” is “Taming the Tiger Within–Meditations on Transforming Difficult emotions”, by Thich Nhat Hanh. I wore it out the last couple of years, very good. page 275 specifically has one sentence on it, that says it all : “Love relieves suffering.”
Jayson,
What you copied is on this website…it’s nice to cite authors:
http://www.donshewey.com/2005_zine/PAIN-BODY.html
It’s an interesting piece and it’s by Eckhart Tolle
Hi Gianna,
I believe you’ll have to wait your body recover.
What Jayson has written is very helpful. “To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can be a shocking experience.”
The most difficult is to easy our minds.
It’s a hard job!
Specially when we have empathy with other people’s problem and I see that you’re emphatic like me.
Hope you find peace!
“The first thing to remember is this: as long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt you make to heal the pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious process, and the only way to overcome it, is to make it conscious. To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can be a shocking experience. The moment you realize this, you have broken the attachment.
The pain-body is an energy field, almost like an entity, that has become lodged in your inner space. It is life energy that has become trapped, energy that is no longer flowing. Of course, the pain-body is there because of certain things that happened in the past. It is the living part of you, and you identify with the past. A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who you are now, for your emotional pain or your inability to be your true self. The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment: it is the power of your presence.
All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future – and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past – and not enough presence.”