Let go of anger by being conscious of your emotions

May 10, 2019September 20, 2019 by Alyce Vayle No Comments

Do you want techniques to let go of anger? Feelings of anger can be so destructive to our lives. We all know this, yet anger can be hard to resist. Personally, I have had to deal with a lot of anger in my life, and that’s fine. I am not an angry person, but I get frustrated easily, and when I do feel angry, I suffer greatly for it. I realised this when I was recently having strong emotions in my dreams – and these showed me that I had an issue to work on.

Our dreams can show us where we have to work on emotions such as anger

In our dreams, we can do things that we cannot do here on this Earthly plane. We can fly, float, breathe under water, and visit places we have never been. Similarly, we can feel emotions that we ‘mute’ somewhat here on Earth, because if we expressed ourselves the way we did in our dream lives, we would have no friends, and possibly end up in jail, or worse.

Have you ever had a dream where you are fighting with someone you know in real life? However, in the dream, you are responding to them in ways that you couldn’t, in real life. For example, you might dream of swearing repeatedly at your mother, punching your boss, or screaming at your children – we don’t do these things in real life, but sometimes in our dreams we “let it rip” and these real-life-waking feelings we have are amplified greatly in our dreams, to the point where we wake up feeling extremely disturbed.

These dreams are lessons to us; there to show us the deep feelings lurking within us, that if left unchecked, will become destructive.

You can teach yourself to let go of anger

I wrote a post called Are you about to freak out? 8 steps to deal with strong emotions where I laid out 8 steps to trying to be “more in the moment” to let go of anger. Even if you can try 2 or 3 of these, you’ll find that your anger will begin to dissipate. Odd tactics like “looking in a mirror” may really work to distract you long enough to centre yourself again.

The let go of anger steps are:

Centre the self
Deep breaths
Return to the senses
Take time out
Look in the mirror
Ask for help
Distract yourself
Talk it out

Read the post for a full description of the let go of anger steps.

Do you have a pattern of negative thinking and negative reacting?

If you have been through (or are going through) extreme pain, then I recommend the book The Tools. I have a complete review of The Tools, where I explain some of the deeper premises of the work.

The technique I liked the best, I will explain quickly now. When experiencing extreme pain (or anger, or hurt, or regret), say to yourself, “I love pain. Bring It On!” Then you repeat the mantra to yourself that, “Pain sets me free”.

On The Tools website and blog, there is a great article called The Dark Art of Negativity, where the authors of the book point out that “thinking negatively” can be a tactic that many people fall back on, as a survival technique.

“We assume (because science tells us so) that the universe is indifferent to us. That means we must insure our own survival. We do this by forecasting every bad thing that might happen to you in an attempt to control (or at least prepare) for it.”

They give the example of the old grandmother whose grandson comes up to her with good news, and she instantly shoots him down by saying, “Well, I only knew suffering in the war.”

“My own grandmother became an advanced practitioner of this dark art (of negativity). Whenever I brought her good news she would spit on the ground and growl at me.”

Let go of anger by telling yourself that you’re not angry

One technique I am trying to employ is to really come back into consciousness when I have an angry feeling. If someone or something is really, really making me angry, I tell myself, “I am not angry, I am not angry at all.”

This works in the same way as the technique from The Tools. Rather than trying to battle your anger, you are at one with it, and it has less power over you. After all, nothing can really make us angry unless we let it – we have the power to choose to walk away from anger and say “no thanks”.

Learn to not accept the gift of anger

This is a Buddhist parable.

Buddha tells the story of a young man who comes to him with anger, and is shouting to him from a crowd. Buddha beckons him forward and asks him this question:

“If you purchased a gift for someone, but that person did not accept the gift, to whom does the gift then belong?”

The young man tells him that the gift must then still belong to the owner.

“Correct,” says Buddha. “Now, you have been very angry with me. But if I do not accept your anger and if I do not get insulted and angry in return, this anger will fall back upon you; the same as the gift returning to its owner.”