Purge buried anger

[coLLege kid07]

What are some ways to purge buried anger that has been stored in me for a year or two?

After reading the "Power of Now" I've just realized all this anger I've had built up inside of me. The only problem is I'm not sure of a realitively safe way to remove it from my system. Any help on this topic would be well appreciated!

(fyi. just to give you more backround: I wouldn't say my problem is that I act on my anger all the time, it's just that I tend to suppress it when somethings really bothering me.)

Again Thanks for your help.

[mikeee]

see a counsellor perhaps? I've found just the knowledge that I have a session booked with someone lets me feel emotions I otherwise tuck away, because you know you have someone to talk to, who will 'hold' me emotionally while I dip into the deeper stuff. gives me kind of a 'safe space'.

Another thing I would recommend is to keep reading. keep expanding your awareness, and insight into yourself.

If your anger is around relationships with lovers/family members, or people in general, I'd recomend a book called 'the dance of anger' by Harriett Lerner. Its written for women but just as applicable to guys.

And one more: write write write (or speak speak speak). Obviously this anger has been built up in you for some time, but now influenced by the book you've read, you're coming a little more in touch with it. Write about it in a diary, talk to friends about it, basically express it, come in contact with it, and see if that doesn't let you work a bit deeper into it also.

[eblight]

The suggestions from Mikee are very good and helpful. When I think about the times I have been angry there is always an underlying fear attached to the anger. Addressing your fears will help you move through your anger whether through counselling or some other way that is appropriate for you. Meditation is also an effective tool to bring about inner peace and calm and to let go those emotions that can be destructive.

[rebecca1234567]

Thank you, Mikeee -- this has helped me, too

[Akashic_Librarian]

Anger is a response to your morals, or beliefs being challenged. Its a call to do something about that. Some people *raises eyebrows* would have you believe Anger should be totally removed from your system, I don't hold with this personally. I think Anger is important. Its essential. Its what keeps the wheels turing, so to speak.

Find out what is challenging the beliefs. And either change the beliefs. Or remove/overcome to the challenge.

[sadavis00]

I have been thinking about the same issue for a while now. And yeah, anger needs to be expressed, but what also needs to be expressed is gratitude, they are linked. And both anger and gratitude need to be expressed, otherwise both these feelings are harmful.

In daily life, I used to take an infinite number of things to be "slights" against me, and I buried my anger against these slights. I took only a very few things to be "nice" things that happened to me, and I expressed by gratitude towards these things always.

What happens is that the positive tension of gratitude somewhat dissipates when it is expressed (like when I finally say "Thank you" for that unexpected favor). The negative tension of anger always remains, because it is difficult to express anger, relative to how easy it is to express gratitute (can't really say f**k to every person who looks at you crooked). What this means is that the default for anger is burial.

The easiest solution is to start burying both gratitude and anger (but that sounds weird). The problem with burying feelings is that powerlessness creeps in, feelings lose their original meaning, in the sense of them being a "call to action", towards gratitude or angry expression.

Another solution might what everyone else might suggest, and not bury either your gratitude (which is easy to do), or your anger (which is more difficult).

The thing about expressing anger is that it can get you into trouble, once the idea that anger=expression becomes ingrained, the mind may start to find fewer things to be angry about, ("maybe that guy looking at me with a grimace just had a bad day, lets hold off on the f**k off in situations situations like these"). I think for this to happen, the idea that anger is a "call to action", instead of a feeling to be "undergone", needs to be properly established.

[evelynlim]

You can consider using EFT (otherwise known as emotional freedom technique) to help release some of your deep anger issues. EFT is a technique of using certain acupuncture points for emotional release. You can find out more about this technique on this official site EFT Provides Impressive Health and Emotional Freedom--New Discovery Often Works Where Nothing Else.

EFT has helped me address some of my deeper childhood issues. Read a personal account of how I released my anger from being kept in a playpen as a child using EFT ==> EFT: Release From The Playpen » How To Use The Law Of Attraction


Hope this helps,
Evelyn

[ScottJMurray]

Anger needs to be expressed. When it's all tucked away inside you, bad stuff can start to happen. You might get sick, depressed, anxious, even develop bodily pains. Anger is the best tool we have to let us know when we don't like part of our lives. It is critical emotional feedback that needs to be heard. Here's how I figure out what I'm angry about.

1. Freak out. Find somewhere secluded and just start going crazy. Yell about everything in your life that you hate, all that stuff that's making you rage inside. You'll find that once you get on a roll with this, a lot of stuff will come tumbling out.

2. Write. Keep a journal. Write down everything that gets to you, including the pressures you put upon yourself. A lot of people forget those. We push ourselves way too hard sometimes.

3. Talk. Being able to talk about what's angering you to somebody means you're coming to terms with the fact that this emotion is perfectly acceptable. A lot of people in this society think it's not, and they're wrong. Find someone sympathetic to the cause.

Start balancing your life with more things that you enjoy to start to soothe some of that anger. Expressing it is good, but if you want to minimize the impact altogether, you need to have more fun. Go get a massage. Get soothed.

I've actually written a pretty extensive article about this. If you're interested, it's here:
TMS RECOVERY » Blog Archive » All About Rage
Especially read about the sources of rage, because it's important to identify all of them.

I'm currently recovering from a disorder caused by having wayyyyy too much rage and too little soothe. You can ignore all the TMS jargon and focus on the emotional aspects of that article. I think you'll find it helpful.

[Michelle]

This site seems to offer an accurate description (at least compared to what I myself have experienced) of the anger healing process. Dealing With Rage - Healing Rage vs. Acting Out Rage

[Old Soul]

purge buried anger

1) examine the reasons why you are angry
2) write them down , even if you are not sure or you can not articulate it exactly , do your best, title of your page should read "my harbored anger"

3) write another list of how harboring this anger is and has effected your quality of life and how it is hindering your quality of life negatively

4) after you have done this.... keep that piece of paper close, put it on a magnet on your fridge or your night table by your bed

5) read it every day or before bed for 1 week .......

6) on the 8th day write another letter, titled " My purging of anger" stating that your anger no longer has power or control over you , write out the quality of life that you are going to have now without this harbored anger ...... put this letter on your fridge, or your bed side table........ read it each day or night , you want this to resinate deep into your inner being.............and if this harbored anger is directed at a person , write their name the list and say you release them from your harboring of anger, that they are free to live their life without an attachment to you of any kind ,

you must read this last letter until your mind , and inner being is so saturated with a single mindedness........ of purged anger BELIEVE what you read !!

live it , see your self without the weight of the anger , by picturing yourself lighter, like weightless .... angel? feather? kite?

sounds rediculous? nope it really works ....... good luck

[Tobias Zimpel]

Originally Posted by Akashic_Librarian

Anger is a response to your morals, or beliefs being challenged. Its a call to do something about that.

Is there a list available that explains the meanings of different emotions like that, either online or in a book I can read?

[Alison Jenkins]

Suppressed anger needs to be dealt with or one day who knows when and who you will unleash it on. Depending upon the issue you may need help from a counsellor to move forward and allow it all to be expressed. I find writing very helpful. If it is a person or institution you are angry at you may want to write a letter (THAT YOU DON'T SEND) saying everything you would love to say. It can be very healing to then burn it or destroy the letter.

The great thing is you recognize you have suppressed anger. I work with many people who don't realize this is going on and it is so harmful to your emotional wellbeing. Very prevalent among people pleaser's

Alison

[Bruce Achterberg]

I've been where you are now (not really in terms of specifics, but more generally), so as someone who is familiar with the terrain that lies ahead, I'll share some recommendations, some of the things I've learned, as well as tell you about some things you'll probably learn/experience for yourself.

Firstly, I highly recommend reading Eckhart Tolle's second book, A New Earth.

There's a lot I could tell you, but there's a good chance that you haven't cultivated enough awareness for it to really have an impact. I don't say this to insult you, but it was certainly true of me. While The Power of Now gave me a few glimpses into presence, for me, "happiness/joy" became tainted by the ego. It wasn't until I read A New Earth that I found the book really bothered me. Why did it bother me? Because I was still very much identified with the ego -- my mental conditioning -- and that pure, unconditioned awareness was still yet to be found.

I'll also mention that there's a good chance you don't understand enough about Eckhart's teachings, the ego, how it works, etc, to effectively make reasonable changes in those areas. Why? Well, again, I say this not to insult you, but it's a side effect of ego itself. You may be different, but I think there's a good chance that you'll need more awareness. This may sound strange, but I couldn't even see some of my conditioning until I reached certain levels of awareness. It was still automatic and running "below" my awareness.

So, what can you do about your situation now?

Well, I'd give The Power of Now some time to sink in. A few months was a good period for me. It gave me enough time to put a lot of the ideas into practice, which was good, because when I read A New Earth, I realised that I hadn't really put any ideas into practice, and was just using another face of the ego to be happy, haha. "Conditional happiness", I would call it.

As for dealing with anger...

(continued in the next post)

[Bruce Achterberg]

(continued from the above post)


A few things to remember
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There are a few things to remember here: (1) Everything happens now. There is no "past anger", only anger that you still carry around in your energy field now. (2) You have 2 chances to "catch" egoic reactions -- two portals into the Now.

The first is as the reaction is happening. If you have enough awareness, you will see the reaction, but because you have enough awareness, you will be able to choose what you will do with it (let's just say that if you are aware, there's a damn good chance you'll choose NOT to live it out -- anything else would probably create suffering, but you can never know what a truely aware person will do, so it may happen differently).

The second "portal" is after you have had the reaction, or as it is happening. This is when you have the chance to look at it and become aware that it is happening. Watching it shifts your focus -- your awareness -- from the reaction to awareness. This state isn't always comfortable, and it's easy to slip back into a reaction to the reaction.

Eventually you'll learn not to do that, but unless you're a rare individual, there's a good chance you'll suffer a fair bit until you get this down. But suffering is not a bad thing -- it is your teacher. My suffering acted as a pointer to my lack of awareness, which, itself, acted as a portal to awareness. Suffering may seem unpleasant in the moment, but that is only because you are resisting it. If you can accept it consciously, you will see it's other face -- a face that is much more pleasant. This isn't always easy to do though -- I still have trouble with it sometimes -- and you'll probably see your suffering collapse by itself and leave you in a state of awareness before you learn to consciously let it go.


Awareness - it either is or isn't in the moment
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Another thing you'll come to learn is that you are either aware, or you are not. For a while you'll probably dwell somewhere in between, and while that stage is a good stepping stone, you must not come to rely on it. It will probably take a while before you experience a relatively "full" state of awareness, and even then, it probably won't last long, but you'll know it when you experience it -- it will be like nothing you've ever experienced before.

Your experience on this journey will be unique to you, but you will share many parallels with other travelers on the journey. One of those parallels will be that you probably won't always be ready to practice awareness. I tend to phase between awareness and suffering myself, usually because the suffering is educational. I'm yet to be able to maintain awareness consciously all the time -- even when I'm suffering -- but I am getting much better. I find that I now have a "core" of awareness that never leaves me, and while it can get obscured, if it is really needed, it will shine through any suffering I have and dissolve it. I usually have no control over this, but it can be used consciously with practice.


Resistance: Simultaneously your greatest challenge and teacher
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Your resistance to your suffering will probably be one of your greatest challenges, but eventually you'll stop resisting it so much. I used to largely use knowledge to combat suffering, but now I'm much more intuitive in my approach, largely because I have both the knowledge and the experience the knowledge helped create.

Knowledge acts as a contrasting agent, but knowledge itself is of the mind, and can only act as a pointer. Be careful not to become relent on it, otherwise you'll constantly strive to reach an ideal you hold in your mind, and forever miss what is happening right now -- which is the most important thing there is.

Another thing you'll notice is that there are two levels to reality -- your internal state, and the external world. I learned to accept the external world very early, but for a long time, I resisted my internal state. You'll probably do something similar if your internal state is somewhat conflicted, but eventually you'll start seeing both fragments -- the external and the internal -- as one whole, not two things you have to manage separately. Again, this is a case where your experience and suffering itself will teach you more then I ever could.


Exactly what I needed right now
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Interestingly, writing this very post has made me aware once more that I haven't been practicing awareness for many months. This is because I've been exploring some other concepts (specifically, those to do with Abraham-Hicks -- lets just say it took me a while to understand them enough to make them work with Eckhart's teachings), and I often need to explore another model before I can assimilate it with others that I've come to learn, but I can see it's now time to turn more of my focus on my state of consciousness. If you're anything like me, you'll probably learn that in the periods where you don't actively practice awareness, you'll come out vastly more capable then you were before.

For example, I remember where I left off months ago. I had just bought Eckhart's "Findhorn Retreat" DVD (which is excellent, but probably something you should save for later) and I was very consciously practicing awareness. Suffice to say that life threw me a lot of experiences in that time period that I was not yet ready to deal with, and I tended to suffer through those experiences a fair bit, but now that some time has passed, I feel... well, it's hard to describe. It's as if that suffering carved out an even greater gap for awareness to come through, and right now I feel much more capable then I did a few months ago.

I've seen this pattern before, and I can't be sure, but I think it has something to do with knowledge and the perspective that knowledge helps give you when you experience things. Perspective seems to cultivate awareness, even in the midst of suffering, and when you are ready to return to a state of conscious awareness once again, it's as if you are returning to a deeper "well" of awareness then before. Right now, I feel I have more "choice" then I had before in that I can choose to remain aware, or not, and I must say, it is very welcome.


Time and enlightenment
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If I was to ask you what the time is, what would you say?

Would you tell me what the time is in clock time? Would you tell me that the time is Now? Would you tell me that the time is Now, but saying that out of intellectual understanding, and not a sense that there is no time? Are you aware of the time in clock time while still being aware of this moment and how it feels?

Just some things for you to ponder.


The paradoxical importance of knowledge
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Anyway, to cap this post off, as a disclaimer, I'll admit that while I'm pretty good with most of Eckhart's stuff, I'm still not all that knowledgeable about/good at dealing with the "pain body" that Eckhart mentions. And just like there is much I could still tell you, there is much I still don't know and am yet to experience.

Knowledge is very important when it comes to Eckhart's teachings, since it helps you identify ego where previously it would run unchecked. You'll probably end up going through a stage where you label many things you do as "egoic", but that labeling itself is egoic. That stage wasn't easy for me to pass, but eventually I upgraded my model of what "enlightenment" looked like.

Suffice to say it's pretty hard to describe, but let's just say that you'll probably have many unrealistic assumptions about enlightenment/presence, both in terms of what it is, as well as what it is not. "Real" enlightenment is very, very different to how I first imagined it, and when I finally understood that, I partially realised it in my experience as well. I stopped struggling against my ego so much, and just let it be. But you will have your own journey with this, so I will let your experience teach you. To quote Eckhart from A New Earth:

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.

[coLLege kid07]

hmmm....I guess when I first picked up the book, I was pretty neive in thinking that I would be dramatically different in about a week.

I think the most important thing, that I have learned is that being enlightened doesn't really matter. It's all about the journey and the steps you take to get there. Sitting at home and doing nothing all day won't get you any closer to being enlightened. Thats been pretty hard for me to realise, and I hope I can finally start to make real changes instead of dilluding myself.

Thanks for everyones help and also thanks Bruce for kicked some sense into me.