Half of the people think they can control things better and others would take them more seriously when angry. All mothers at one point in time felt this to be true with their kids, they thought their kids would listen to them better when they sounded angry. That’s not true at all. Anger is just an old-school habit losing its relevant in these times. We don’t need to control anger rather when we don’t try to control anger but check the very source that’s when we actually witness the anger.

Anger usually loves people who we take for granted, mostly family and staff. Here Ego or “Little me” adds up – “I know much more than them, I’m right and they are wrong. Why don’t they listen to what I say?” But be aware as ego and anger are good old friends. “Little me” or “personal I” loves anger. “How could someone do this to me?” This is Ego’s favorite sentence.

1. Anger can be your best teacher, controlling anger is not always a solution.

2. Where there is anger, there is always pain inside – Eckhart Tolle

3. Anger is just difficulty in expressing your emotions in a decent and obvious way.

4. Anger isn’t bad being guilty about being angry is bad.

5. Anger needs to be accepted just like love.

6. Angry from inside or outside are two different things, dissolve it from within.

1. Anger can be your best teacher, controlling anger is not always a solution

“When a person dwells longingly on sense objects, an inclination towards them is generated. This inclination develops into desire and desire gives rise to anger. From anger comes delusion; from delusion, confused memory; from confused memory the ruin of reason; from the ruin of reason, the man finally perishes- The Bhagavad Gita.

This is why it is imperative to know how to control anger/know anger.

Anger doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t knock or intimate you in advance. It hides somewhere deep within and shoot up like a Volcano and ruins everything. First, understand that you can call the shots. Just like you decide on most of the things in your life, whom to talk to, where to go, what to eat etc. you can decide when to get angry. It is not easy though but can be achieved with awareness.

When we try to control anger, it gets more control over us. When we watch and let it go, it dies. The question here is – Are you aware enough to watch your anger arise?

2. Anger is just difficulty in expressing our emotions in a decent and obvious way.

When we fail to express our true intentions and assume that others should have understood, we create anger. We don’t express our feelings because we think others might not approve of it and when we keep our emotions and feelings inside for a very long time, it turns out as a wave of anger or a serious disease. At that stage, one can find it extremely difficult to control anger because it overpowers them.

Let’s say you have a business plan, but you are not sure whether to go ahead with it or not. You take advice from a friend whom you think knows better and he says that the plan is not going to work out. You took his suggestion and quit the plan. Years later, you regret that you should have taken up that idea. Now you are mad at yourself. That friend also changed his view and started a similar business on those lines too. Now you are double mad, and your friendship has gone for a toss.

3. Where there is anger, there is always pain inside – Eckhart Tolle

The emotions we hold up inside keep piling up and the difficulty expressing those emotions turns into anger and frustration. When we are angry, we speak out everything. Just like a Coca-Cola bottle when we get pissed inside, everything splashily comes out of it.

If you don’t let the resentment, which sooner or later turns into anger or rage, dissolve, it will keep emanating again and again until you learn your lesson or let it go.

It was tough for me to convey my feelings and emotions too because it was not valued or accepted enough, but I took baby steps towards loving myself even in midst of furious or angry day, enough to express what I truly and honestly felt.

What would you do to control anger then?

Inability to express oneself openly is Anger. Next time when anger arises, be aware by

1 Breathing in and out like 1 2 3 4 5

2. Reversing the anger into empathy. Others are right and the fault is in my way of thinking.

3. After anger dies don’t feed it with guilt or justification.

4. Write and Reflect – It helped me a lot personally during the early days of awareness.

4. Anger isn’t bad being guilty about being angry is bad.

You got angry; it was a matter of a few seconds or minutes. Now your mind got a winning trophy over you; it will do its best to make you sick for being angry. Now, something is wrong here. The voice in your head is taking turns. If you got angry, you got angry, finished. But afterward, it makes you guilty about being mad and tells you to control your anger but what you need here is to control your mind. Your mind is the culprit, not the anger.

If you see the anger when it comes and when it dies without getting into the commentary, it won’t cause any disturbance; it’s just a loud BANG.

5. Anger needs to be accepted just like love

You know why anger is bad because we hold so many expectations of ourselves. We believe that an ideal human being should always be soft or gentle. We don’t take anger as a part of human completeness. We have been taught it is bad. Is it always bad? Don’t forget Vishnu Ji took an avatar of an angry and growling lion Narasingha to kill the evil Hiranyaksha.

So, when there is anger, there is anger and when there is love, there is love. If it isn’t attached to the ego or any personal motive, it is as harmless as the sound of the thunder.

Anger turns up into love when we stop feeding it as something wrong or bad.

6. Angry from inside or outside are two different things, dissolve it from within.  

The best thing you can do on the face of this earth is to let the anger go and dissolve. That’s the core of Michael Singer’s teaching. Just let it go.

Dissolve it in the following ways-

1. Whatever was supposed to happen has happened.

2. I trust the guidance and direction of the universe, it all happened for a reason.

3. I got my lesson; I’m ready to change.

4. I first do it and then I repent, I’m getting aware of my pattern now.

5. I should not punish myself for my anger, I should be more kind to myself.

6. No point in being guilty about it. Change always happens in the future, not in the past.

“Buddha said Anger is such a foolish act. You are burning your own hand”.