My personal greatest challenge, during my yoga journey, has been dealing with anger; ironically the same emotion that led me towards the yogic path in the first place. I’ve decided to share with you different yogic teachings and approaches that can help us deal with our anger and transform it into emotions that don’t hold us back from living freely and more at peace with everything that surrounds us. These practices have literally transformed my life and I can only hope will influence yours and be shared with anyone who may need them.
What is anger? Needless to say that there is so much of it in our society today, starting in our own homes and spreading into every crack and crevice of the world. Anger fuels domestic violence all the way to hatred towards ‘others’, which triggers world wars. Its consequences are clearly very detrimental towards the self and all beings on this planet, but what is anger exactly? It's a complex emotion, perhaps not so much an emotion as much as a consequence and symptom of deeply seated fear, anguish, hurt, anxiety and frustration. It can manifest in the form of outrage, fury, violence, jealousy and hatred. And physiologically speaking there are two physical jolts to the emotion caused by neurotransmitters called catecholamines (e.g., adrenaline). The first is a quick jolt and only lasts seconds to minutes, stimulating and prepping the body for action, which will be in the form of flight or fight depending on the situation. The second surge lasts longer and puts us under 'stress', in other words an extended period of arousal. Due to the adrenaline involved in the emotion, anger can create a sense of high and be addictive just like a drug may be. The catecholamines make us feel clearheaded and strong. Anger arises when we can't deal with our deeper emotions. Although in patriarchy it can be seen as a strength and something to boast about, I have yet to know someone on a personal level who wouldn't be ashamed or deeply disturbed by their anger. It is an internal obstruction that causes us to suffer and create great harm, whether we are ready to acknowledge it or not.
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
~Mahatma Gandhi ~
And here enters the marvel of yoga, whether it be yogic philosophy, or understanding the link between emotions and the physical body, healing through the breath, Ayurvedic holistic medicine, pranayama, meditation or much more. So starting from the very beginning… where does this anger arise from on a physical level? Anger is felt around the third chakra, the navel center or solar plexus dominated by the fire element, Agni. So before I discuss the relationship between Agni and Anger I will give you some background on Agni.
Agni, a Sanskrit work, is the Rigvedic deity of fire. He is one of the most important of all Vedic gods, a god who leads man to the gods. In the Rig Veda, Agni arises from the element of water in the form of upward flames. Agni manifests from water. And this reminds me of my own body mostly made up of water and I can literally picture my own flames of determination or rage, whichever the case, sprouting from my chest of soft fluid and flowing water. We can find Agni in the Vedic tradition and later in the Upanishads, then in Buddhist theory, throughout the Hindu religion and its rituals and, although it can vary slightly, the element of transformation and fire remains and it is often of upmost importance. Agni also plays an essential role in Ayurveda. According to Ayurvedic medicine a strong agni leads to excellent health and well-being. Through our fire we transform ama, which would instead result in causing disease to the body. In fact, anger, long-held sadness or guilt can directly affect the digestive system and create physical problems. A strong fire metabolizes emotions just as it metabolizes our food clearing away all toxins. What is important to understand under this holistic spectrum is that 'toxins' can be deposited in the mind, the body or the soul and all is inevitably interconnected. The idea of the mind being separated from the breath or the breath from our body or the mind from the body is a western belief which clashes with yogic theory and causes unnatural separation, division and scatter, which can ultimately lead to un-ease or even dis-ease. Furthermore, on a spiritual level this feeling of unease and scatter is the polar opposite of the state of yoga, a state in which all polarities subside and a feeling of wholeness envelopes. So the next time we feel discomfort in the body I suggest we pause, meditate and reflect on what thoughts and emotions are prevailing in the mind.
Sky above me, Earth below me, Fire within me.
~Anonymous~
Yogic philosophy reveals that if agni is in balance we are fiery people able to make things happen, control and command our lives; it is the wonderful center of will power. It is also the center of positivity, vibrancy, warmth and light. Fire represents change and purification. The element of fire in our bodies is a crucial agent of healing and transformation without which we would be dull, numb and dormant! Yet if this element is not in balance, or rather if we have an excess of fire in the form of bursts of anger it will be detrimental to our health and ultimately our freedom, which is the goal of yoga. By freeing ourselves from anything that binds us and impedes our ascent and by freeing our mind from attachment we achieve a state of liberation in which we feel whole, united, and experience missing nothing. In the ironic words of Yogi Bhajan: "You all want to get rid of your anger, get rid of your anger and you won't be able to digest your food!" Here Yogi Bhajan is talking about the two-fold aspect of agni, the same element in our bodies that makes us hot and angry enables us to burn and digest our food. Without it we also couldn't burn and overcome our blocks and our fears. So this is the quest… the aim should not be trying to become more mellow or less fiery because our fire element is crucial at a physical and emotional level too, rather the question should be: "So what can we do with our anger? How do we transform it into something positive? Ultimately, how can we purify ourselves rather than scald ourselves?!"
Every time you get angry, you poison your own system.
~Alfred A. Montapert~
I will now discuss some teachers and teachings that approach the subject of dealing with our anger. Essential teachings on the subject are found in: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh (2002), a book I highly recommend. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk goes to great effort to explain anger and portray ways of positively taming it. For Thich Nhat Hanh anger creates internal formations such as knots that cause us suffering and pain and which after a while are very difficult to release and transform due to habit and fear of change. So how can we begin to soften and untie them? Firstly, by becoming mindful, in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh: "first treat your anger with tenderness". Easier said than done, most of us become even more frustrated and angry when we feel our not-so-loved anger arise! But this is the transformative teaching. Start from the start. Start with a new healing approach and perspective. So once we realize we must change strategy and treat our anger with tenderness, we are embracing it anew with deep awareness. We are acknowledging it. I must mention that this is in direct contrast to modern day psychology or psychoanalysis in which it is suggested to act out your anger, vent, reenact it in order to get rid of it. I fully respect Thich Nhat Hanh's opposing approach for he rightly claims, in my view, that the more we are acting upon our anger the more vibration and energy of anger is created and emanated into the world causing an even greater vicious circle of detrimental vibes. As he calls it, people acting it out are "training in aggression", a very dangerous habit.
"To grow the tree of enlightenment, we must make good use of our afflictions, our suffering.
It is like growing lotus flowers; we cannot grow a lotus on marble.
We cannot grow a lotus without mud."
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
So one must start by training the self in mindfulness to start noticing when and why anger arises, without judgment or thoughts of right and wrong.
"Mindfulness does the work of massaging your internal formations, your blocks of suffering.
You have to allow them to circulate, and this is possible only if you are not afraid of them.
If you learn not to fear your knots of suffering, you can learn how to embrace them with the energy of mindfulness,
and transform them."
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
When anger arises one must remain tender and accepting, breathing deeply and acknowledging it with compassion instead of hatred or rejection. If you start noticing your anger and taking care of it with tenderness you are not helping it grow, rather you are accepting it and breathing into it to help it transform and not have such a strong effect on you. Remind yourself that you are safe and will not be blown away by these strong feelings arising. The trick is in discovering you can recognize and transform anger at any moment, you don't have to picture it occurring only when seated in lotus pose during meditation, which is not something we all practice daily. Heightening our compassion by using the breath to be accepting and mindful can occur while walking or, just looking out the window or listening to someone who is making you upset and nervous. Actually that is probably the best time to try, right in the moment! Notice what it is that tends to trigger your anger and be kind to yourself like you would be to a small child. You literally have to take care of your anger like you would take care of a child, with the same dedication, the same patience. Time and time again. In hopes that our anger will subside some or be transformed but without the felonious misconception that training in any of these methods will let anger disappear from our lives altogether; anger is an emotion that can always be present in us and surface at any given moment. Anger is a part of who we are from birth to death.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
You are the one who gets burned.
~Buddha~
Stephen Cope (2007), who teaches wonderful workshops at the Kripalu Center, discusses how successful an asana practice can be as an antidote for anger. He actually cautions against meditation for people who are not matured practitioners and have explosive anger because it takes practice and know-how to transform the flames of anger through still and silent meditation, whereas a dynamic asana practice uses strong ujjayi breathing and naturally clears channels and moves energy around, unblocking emotions through the physical practice. Cope also teaches classes in which he uses the technique called “riding the wave”, that employs 5 steps to confront anger. These steps are quite similar to a classical Buddhist approach, and are: Breathe, Relax, Feel, Watch and Allow. Similarly, these steps incorporate mindfulness and through the breath and concentration, blocks in the body, which are linked to the psyche, are released. The final step Allow, is the crucial non-judgmental aspect which is employed throughout these techniques to stress the importance of acceptance and healing without imposing detrimental ideals of what is thought to be right or wrong, which only causes more pain and stifles the process of transformation. For Cope, this final stage also allows us to trust and use our innate intelligence to heal.
Yoga helps people stay with the wave of anger all the way to the other end.
~Stephen Cope~
Finally, Restorative Yoga can heal us deeply from anger too. In my opinion it is the perfect bridge between sitting meditation and a dynamic asana practice, because although it uses props to support the body into different shapes that allow the physical body to slowly relax and surrender, it also focuses on the breath, mindfulness and stillness. As explained previously the heightened stress created by feeling angry is incredibly detrimental to our overall wellbeing. When the ‘fight or flight’ response is activated, also called the ‘sympathetic nervous system’ all our long term functions, such as our immune and reproductive systems are shut down. This derives from our need, in nature, to use all our resources to flee or fight our aggressor, it is a trait of animal survival. The stress that we experience now in modern society is a completely different kind of stress, a more artificial one if you will, and whereas in nature it would never have lasted more than minutes, it can now last days contributing to physical and mental decline and disease. So restorative yoga, the art of deep conscious relaxation, can heal us from this condition by activating the ‘parasympathetic nervous system’ also called ‘rest and digest’. The parasympathetic nervous system, in opposition to the sympathetic one, conserves our energy and slows our heart rate, increases intestinal and glandular activity, relaxes our muscles, and allows us to heal and enter the body deeply. Restorative Yoga teaches us to acknowledge and observe, without judgment, the feelings that arise through the sequence of poses and consequently to use the breath to release physical blocks and tension which can be caused by emotions such as anger and which constrict our prana (life force) from moving freely within the body and our kundalini (our primal energy) from rising. This specific kind of yoga is a cooling and calming practice making it a particularly successful therapeutic method in dealing with a too fiery Agni and our anger, an antidote to excess heat. Restorative Yoga also forces us to slow down and do less, which is so needed in society today and this mindset will broaden our clarity, teach us to trust our inner wisdom and ultimately feel more empowered by learning how to just be and accept, without having to constantly do and achieve. The practice fosters introspection and self-awareness which ultimately deepen your connection to yourself and enable you to make more meaningful and attentive choices for yourself in life. Deepening your connection to yourself will consequently deepen all the connections and relationships in your life. I invite you to try Restorative Yoga, if you haven't already, and/or any other form of yoga to further this exploration.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
~Rumi~
I will conclude with these beautiful words by Thich Nhat Hanh on anger, which inspire. Needless to say just because you learn these techniques doesn’t imply you won’t ever feel angry again, similarly even one who has mastered meditation doesn’t all of a sudden become permanently calm because of it! The goal is to learn the tools that most suit your personal evolution, to know what triggers your anger and how it can be prevented or channeled into an emotion that will serve you better. And we must remind ourselves that there are tools such as Meditation, Pranayama, Yoga classes and Restorative Yoga classes to guide us through unmasking our hurt, our fears and our anger to transform them into emotions that cause no obstruction to feeling liberated, whole, and in unison with everything around us, which is ultimately the goal of yoga, merging our small Self with our higher Self, awakening your own divine nature... reaching a state of bliss in which we are missing nothing.
In love and light,
Lavinia
“When you say something unkind, when you do something in retaliation, your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and they try hard to say or do something back to make you suffer, and get relief from their suffering. That is how conflict escalates.”
“Just like our organs, our anger is part of us. When we are angry, we have to go back to ourselves and take good care of our anger. We cannot say, ‘Go away, anger, I don’t want you.’ When you have a stomachache, you don’t say, ‘I don’t want you stomach, go away.’ No, you take care of it. In the same way, we have to embrace and take good care of our anger.”
“Just because anger or hate is present does not mean that the capacity to love and accept is not there; love is always with you.”
“When you are angry, and you suffer, please go back and inspect very deeply the content, the nature of your perceptions. If you are capable of removing the wrong perception, peace and happiness will be restored in you, and you will be able to love the other person again.”
“When you get angry with someone, please don’t pretend that you are not angry. Don’t pretend that you don’t suffer. If the other person is dear to you, then you have to confess that you are angry, and that you suffer. Tell him or her in a calm, loving way.”
“In the beginning you may not understand the nature of your anger, or why it has come to be. But if you know how to embrace it with the energy of mindfulness, it will begin to become clear to you.”
“Anger is like a howling baby, suffering and crying. Your anger is your baby. The baby needs his mother to embrace him. You are the mother. Embrace your baby.”
“Anger has roots in nonanger elements. It has roots in the way we live our daily life. If we take good care of everything in us, without discrimination, we prevent our negative energies from dominating. We reduce the strength of our negative seeds so that they won’t overwhelm us.”
“In a time of anger or despair, even if we feel overwhelmed, our love is still there. Our capacity to communicate, to forgive, to be compassionate is still there. You have to believe this. We are more than our anger, we are more than our suffering. We must recognize that we do have within us the capacity to love, to understand, to be compassionate, always.”
“When we embrace anger and take good care of our anger, we obtain relief. We can look deeply into it and gain many insights. One of the first insights may be that the seed of anger in us has grown too big, and is the main cause of our misery. As we begin to see this reality, we realize that the other person, whom our anger is directed at, is only a secondary cause. The other person is not the real cause of our anger.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
Recommended readings:
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames (2002)- Thich Nhat Hanh
Don’t Bite the Hook: Finding freedom from Anger, Resentment, and Other Destructive Emotions (2007)- Pema Chodron
Unmasking Anger, Yoga Journal (Aug 28, 2007)- Alan Reder
