What is Anger?

[Rose of Cairo]

Hi all,

since I'm trying to go low-fat raw, I feel angry a lot. And I'm wondering, out of curiosity, what anger really is? Is it a turbulence in our energy system? Or is it a particular level of consciousness? Is it our pain body? Or is it simply Power that we don't recognize as such because we're not used to having so much of it?

What is it exactly?

[Parthon]

That's a very good question. I was asking myself the same thing earlier when someone said "Anger is bad." .. I thought to myself, "What? Why?"

There's the simple, "Rar! Crush! Destroy!" side of anger, simple rage, which normally comes from being upset at someone. An action they took, or didn't take, went against your expectations and you get upset, and create the state of anger in you. It's a great fuel for threats and violence as well as passion. this kind of anger is generally negative, as it's hot and violent. Too much rage could cause permanent impressions in you, which would furthur come out at a later date, perhaps as a feedback loop.

Now what about indignant anger, where you get annoyed when something is breaking one of your honoured values and you feel moved to take some action. If you see an injustice that gets your fires going, to the point where you want to correct it, that would be a good kind of anger, but only when it's not taken too far.

Hmmm, after thinking about it, Anger is the hot and violent side of us, that can be used to create action to get results. Unfortunately those results align with aggression, force and violence. Rage would be the power, but unrestrained, uncontrolled, and channelled through the emotional conduit of being upset. It is the emotion of being upset, combined with the power of rage that give us the level of consciousness called Anger.

ps. Can you sense the source of the anger? Is it inside you already, and being brought out by the food, or is it coming from an outside source?

[Cristal Lilly]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Or is it simply Power that we don't recognize as such because we're not used to having so much of it?

*chuckles* speak for yourself, rose . I grew up through severe physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse. my anger is like that angela's onion of beliefs, that just keeps on giving LOL.

it's a reaction, I'd say. a reaction by your ego. a reaction to pain (which is in its own a reaction, me thinks). however, just because it is by your ego, it is in no way bad per se.
other than that, as far as exact definitons go, it's only what you make of it. a tool.
it can mask fear. it can hide helplessness. it can be the fuel of your engine. or it can be the rider and you get to be the horse. the choice is always yours. to me, it was the gift of this amazing drive. I claimed it's power that way. I claimed my power.

if you're looking for practical advice to chanel it when it becomes a bit much (I see you're not used to dealing with it, that's why I'm sticking my nose in with advice), I'd advise some rough sweaty exercise. or if you don't feel like that, turning on some metal and singing along from the top of your lungs also helps. it's amazing how just being vocal can relieve one's pain. dancing. and, ahem, if the circumstances allow it to be healthy for you, sex.

[Starman]

Originally Posted by Cristal Lilly

It can be the fuel of your engine. or it can be the rider and you get to be the horse. the choice is always yours. to me, it was the gift of this amazing drive. I claimed it's power that way. I claimed my power.

Cristal Lilly:

Wow, your description is better than the textbook idea I was thinking of.

If nerves use electricity to move information around in the body, then my idea of anger is HIGH VOLTAGE, with a slant toward a negitive theme.

In Rose's case, it might be from physical stress, the mind/body reacting to a change in eating/nutrition, and trying to adjust.

I sometimes know what is contributing to my angry reaction, and sometimes the cause is jumbeled up in a mix of emotions that I have to first sort out to understand what's going on.

The fact I can feel it before I understand it, to me, means its like a physiological reaction to a real stimulus, and not something purely in my head. However, I can get angry just remembering something bad that isn't actually happening now, something from the past or an imagination of something that I think might happen. This goes to show you how real our thoughts are. In fact, I like to think of thoughts as a non-physical part of the body, but a part just the same, like body heat or brain waves.

Starman

[Rose of Cairo]

What interesting replies! Thanks all.

Parthon, yes you're right, anger can be useful. It gives us power, especially the power not to accept inacceptable situations anymore

Originally Posted by Parthon

ps. Can you sense the source of the anger? Is it inside you already, and being brought out by the food, or is it coming from an outside source?

Hmmm... that's a good question, but difficult to answer.

Of course there are things "outside" that I'm angry at. For example I'm very angry that instead of building my business I'm forced to work for money! I'm also angry because of the subtle psychological war there always is between me and my mother about the food I eat. I'm angry at a bunch more things. But honestly, I suspect they're not the real reason.

It feels more like first I feel I'm getting angry and then my mind looks for explanations or excuses to be angry. Most of the time, those same things (working for money, psychological war with my mother etc) don't make me angry at all, I'm at peace with them. If I didn't have these obvious "problems" in my life, I very much suspect I'd simply look for somedthing else to be angry at. So I think it comes more from within.

I don't know if it's a buried emotion surfacing, or a physical reaction. It feels more like a physical feeling, not an intellectual or emotional one. Some kind of fight-or-flight reaction, though much more fight than flight. But I don't know exactly.

I'm oscillating about every two days between cooked and raw at the moment, because I'm afraid of unleashing this monster

[Rose of Cairo]

Cristal Lilly, thank you for your beautiful post

Originally Posted by Cristal Lilly

if you're looking for practical advice to chanel it when it becomes a bit much (I see you're not used to dealing with it, that's why I'm sticking my nose in with advice), I'd advise some rough sweaty exercise. or if you don't feel like that, turning on some metal and singing along from the top of your lungs also helps. it's amazing how just being vocal can relieve one's pain. dancing. and, ahem, if the circumstances allow it to be healthy for you, sex.

Thanks for your advice It's not that it becomes a bit much, it's WAY TOO much. I'm usually good at dealing with my emotions, but this one, no, that's too much for me. It feels like a bomb exploding in my stomach, I get aggressive as hell and just want to kill everybody.

Sex is no good idea, for I want to brain every guy who approaches me That'd be healthy for me, but not for him

It's so interesting you're talking about exercise. I found out that on days when I exercise heavily (I mean really heavily, and several hours a day), I'm fine. I don't get angry and I feel wonderful and I have no problem sticking with the diet. It's when I move less that things get difficult.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Starman

In Rose's case, it might be from physical stress, the mind/body reacting to a change in eating/nutrition, and trying to adjust.

That's very interesting what you're saying. Do you think the diet change or the new diet itself could cause such a physiological stress??

I'll think more about that. It really feels like stress indeed. Maybe I'm wrong for calling it anger. But hey, when I want to kill everybody, I assume I'm being angry

But then again, when I'm walking on the street and a fire engine drives past with their terrible, inhumanly loud siren, I also feel extremely angry and want to kill everybody (especially the driver of the fire engine). But I'm not really being angry then, it's just stress because of the noise. So maybe it's the same with the diet?

Hmmm...

The fact I can feel it before I understand it, to me, means its like a physiological reaction to a real stimulus, and not something purely in my head.

Yes, that's how I feel about it too.

In fact, I like to think of thoughts as a non-physical part of the body, but a part just the same, like body heat or brain waves.

Interesting

[seeker5]

Anger to me is when I believe something should be one way, and then someone else or something else (or sometimes myself) violate that expectation in a way that I feel is unfair and wrong.

Perhaps this physiological stress you're going through is making you have a lot less acceptance than normal toward things that you feel is unfair and wrong?

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Is it a turbulence in our energy system?

If you believe in energy, in Chinese medicine, anger is caused by overheated liver energy. That being said, anger is obviously triggered by circumstances, and is enabled by our attitude towards those circumstances.
However, if your anger seems to be coming out of nowhere, than the first explanation might be of far greater utility to you than second one. Emotional balance is where the Taoist inner alchemy of Qigong really excels compared to most of the other approaches.
Dealing with anger can start either way, as a healthy liver chi is bound to grant you a strong mastery of your anger, the same way as an attitude that makes it unlikely for you to get angry is bound to allow the liver energy to cool down.
Anyway, an effective way too cool down is to drink a glass of water with half a lemon squeezed in it, preferably every morning after getting out of bed and every evening just before going to sleep.
I'm working on an article that addresses anger with a holistic approach, for my new website.

[MSC2471]

When it comes to the attachment therapy model that our family participates in with our adoptive children, anger is an emotion that masks other deeper feelings, usually relating to fear, sadness or shame. Anger comes out as a power and control mechanism when we want fear, sadness or shame to go away, and as a result we feel strong in those rageful moments.

However, we can't solve a problem when in anger mode. Your emotional mind takes over and rationalizing can't come into being until you are in a reasonable, more peaceful state.

The key aspect we've learned when dealing with our children and anger is to recognize and acknowledge their fear, frustration, or pain and try to break that state up by helping them regulate the emotion (modulation of our voice to exaggeration, which breaks them usually into a laughter mode). Once out of an anger state then you can look at the issue from a calmer perspective and help to hopefully teach them how to talk about their feelings rather than acting out in anger.

Matt

[pharmboy]

Quite simply, anger is the "fight" side of the "fight or flight" response that takes place when we are afraid. Instead of withdrawing when we feel someone is threatening us, or has done some injustice ,we decide to either lash out, or let the rage (pent up action) boil inside of us. It is hard for me to think of a time that real anger isn't associated with fear.

I think some people confuse anger with irritability. I think that they are two separate things that resemble each other. Irritability is usually associated with poor health, lack of sleep, or a hormonal imbalance. Depression is another major cause. Angry outbursts come out of the person that is just not feeling well.

[ZHereford]

Hi Rose,

You've received some very helpful responses.

Here's an article I wrote on anger several months ago.
I hope it helps too: Anger Management or How to Control Your Anger.

[Rose of Cairo]

Hi all,

you're all so adorable! This forum amazes me, you all wrote so cool answers to my questions, and all showing anger from a different viewpoint. Thanks

I got so many helpful replies that I don't know what to do! I'll exercise even more, and I'll drink water with lemon as explained above. But I still don't know what's really going on with me. I don't know if I'm being angry, or stressed out, or irritable. (the distinction between anger and irritability wasn't clear to me, btw, so thanks a lot for that!)

I also can see no fear. Of course low-fat raw is scary, it gives me so much energy that I feel just anything is possible. This is scary of course, but more in an exciting way, like when you're on a rollercoaster. I cannot imagine getting so angry because of this fear. And I can see no other fear or pain or sadness or shame or unfairness that I would be reacting to or hiding with anger either. But maybe there's something I'm not seeing?

The liver chi thing is interesting, an acupuncturist once said to me that I have a "blocked liver chi, you should express yourself creatively or else this energy is going to burn you from within".

[MasterD]

I have this too when I manage to do the low fat raw diet very well for a while.

But it is a very powerful form of anger. A feeling that I am completely in control of my own destiny, but in order to get there I have to readjust some circumstances that piss me off at the moment.

[Cristal Lilly]

I was actually writing you a pm.. but it got real long and intimate and scary, so I left it in Word only and didn't send it. not sure what to do with that now..

what I want to say here is, low fat food will definitely make you more irritable (also your brain might be slower than usual).

and a clean food regime will, from my experience, make things burried deepest resurface. usually it won't be this big, but you're the girl that has most of her issues sorted out.. maybe there's just nothing but the deepest left to come out. so I think the anger is from that.
it could be confusing cause it's both at the same time, and cause when it's something real deep and buried and from long long ago, it can be so hidden that it seems like it just came out of the blue. especially to someone who's convinced they'd be surely able to recognize it, because after all, they've dealt with issues before.

so I would honestly advise you to also not skip on and off with your diet.
either be raw and ride it through or go cooked. or keep a steady ratio of the two in your daily diet. but the point is to give the body stability, cause all this is doing is forcing the constant 'detox' aggravated reaction that's fogging up your thoughts and making things unneccessarily more difficult for you

[Lauxa]

hee hee, I remember once upon a time you telling me that eating meat makes you feel angry and now you're feeling angry on a raw vegan diet.

yah, the thing that helps most for me is exercise. nothing makes me feel worse than sitting on my butt all day.

which is what I've been doing lately

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Lauxa

hee hee, I remember once upon a time you telling me that eating meat makes you feel angry and now you're feeling angry on a raw vegan diet.

Hiya Lauxa I remember your thread about anger very well and I was wondering if you'd join mine I hope you're doing well with your anger...

Yes, isn't it funny? It's true, I really feel angry when I eat meat and I usually dream of murder, violence and killing people then. And now fruit makes me feel the same way! lol

yah, the thing that helps most for me is exercise. nothing makes me feel worse than sitting on my butt all day.

I can relate! Same here.

I'm already working physically and moving quite a lot, but I think I'll learn some bodyweight exercises and similar gymnastics, to be able to give my muscles a big workout immediately when I get too angry. I'm also thinking about joining a martial arts class or some other intensive training. And today, for the first time in my life, I did some jogging!

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by MasterD

But it is a very powerful form of anger. A feeling that I am completely in control of my own destiny, but in order to get there I have to readjust some circumstances that piss me off at the moment.

I think part of how I feel is something similar. The gap between what's suddenly possible and the circumstances of my life situation is enormous. It's like "oh wow I have so much energy now, I could do just anything, and I have so many ideas of things I'd love to do, but instead I'm here working for other people's goals...!"

But I think my anger is way dirtier than yours, Master. I can't explain why I'm saying that, but what you're talking about sounds much more intellectual than this deep dirty rage I'm feeling.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Cristal Lilly

I was actually writing you a pm.. but it got real long and intimate and scary, so I left it in Word only and didn't send it. not sure what to do with that now..

Hey, Lilly. If you don't feel comfortable with sharing what you wrote, don't. If you feel like sending this pm, feel free to do so, it'd be an honor for me. I hope writing it down was of some value for you, either way.

and a clean food regime will, from my experience, make things burried deepest resurface. usually it won't be this big, but you're the girl that has most of her issues sorted out.. maybe there's just nothing but the deepest left to come out. so I think the anger is from that.
it could be confusing cause it's both at the same time, and cause when it's something real deep and buried and from long long ago, it can be so hidden that it seems like it just came out of the blue. especially to someone who's convinced they'd be surely able to recognize it, because after all, they've dealt with issues before.

How you caught me here! Yeah that's true, I'm convinced I would be able to easily recognize old pain and other issues, because I've been so used for years to analyze myself, deal with my emotions and work through all kinds of issues! I also think I've already worked through most of it and that's there not much left to address. So, yeah, this anger really seems to come from nowhere. I just walk around all grumpy for no reason, looking for something or someone to get angry at and beat the crap out of.

I don't feel like exhuming very old stuff about violence, abuse, alcoholic parents, mobbing and all that. What's the point? There are huge holes in my memory anyway. (<- cop-out, I know. So what! Get off my back or I bite you! )

so I would honestly advise you to also not skip on and off with your diet.
either be raw and ride it through or go cooked. or keep a steady ratio of the two in your daily diet. but the point is to give the body stability, cause all this is doing is forcing the constant 'detox' aggravated reaction that's fogging up your thoughts and making things unneccessarily more difficult for you

I'm feeling very thankful to you for writing this, even a bit relieved. I know you're right. I want to be raw, I know it's the way to go for me. I'm asking myself if I should aim for 30% fat and then go down progressively, or go low-fat directly. I'm an all-or-nothing type of person so I think I'll go low-fat at once, and just box myself through the anger.

However, I suspect it'd be better to wait till I'm alone at home to do it. I'm staying with my family till Christmas or New Year's Eve. Maybe doing it here would not be a good idea, since most of the old crap is related to my family.

[Lauxa]

Well, I can send you a link:
Bodyweight Exercises for Strength and Toning

[lifetimelearner]

I am a lil late with my response

but I have my own 1 cent to add :

the one explanation that feels the best for me about anger is that it is triggered by my thoughts whether I am aware of them or not at the time

yes to me they can be an incentive for change but holding on for too long is dangerous and unproductive


so what I ask myself
are there thoughts you are aware or unaware of that has triggered this emotion?

after researching I always have a yes

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by lifetimelearner

are there thoughts you are aware or unaware of that has triggered this emotion?

I don't know. Honestly, I have no clue.

As I said above, it feels like there are no specific thoughts, I just get angry out of the blue, but then once I'm angry, of course I find things to be annoyed about. When you search, you find.

For example today I got mad at my mother. Before it began I was sitting there and she was in the room. She was angry. My mother is always ranting about something, she tends to be permanently angry (or irritable). Sometimes she just lashes out at someone for absolutely no reason. Today she had one of those outbursts again, she yelled at one of the cats and ranted about something. I felt stressed out by this loud yelling and my anger levels immediately went up. Then during the afternoon she played her psychological games about my food again and ranted some more, suggesting I was lazy. I've learned to deal with those habits of her, it doesn't bother me normally. But since I already was angry, it just gave me some reasons to get even more angry, and I ended up being really mad at her.

Sigh.

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

I don't know. Honestly, I have no clue.

As I said above, it feels like there are no specific thoughts, I just get angry out of the blue, but then once I'm angry, of course I find things to be annoyed about. When you search, you find.

For example today I got mad at my mother. Before it began I was sitting there and she was in the room. She was angry. My mother is always ranting about something, she tends to be permanently angry (or irritable). Sometimes she just lashes out at someone for absolutely no reason. Today she had one of those outbursts again, she yelled at one of the cats and ranted about something. I felt stressed out by this loud yelling and my anger levels immediately went up. Then during the afternoon she played her psychological games about my food again and ranted some more, suggesting I was lazy. I've learned to deal with those habits of her, it doesn't bother me normally. But since I already was angry, it just gave me some reasons to get even more angry, and I ended up being really mad at her.

Sigh.

geez you just described my mom!

do we have the same mom ?


yes if you search you may find
but in your heart or in your head
something is brewing

there has be a trigger

I am sending you some peace

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

The liver chi thing is interesting, an acupuncturist once said to me that I have a "blocked liver chi, you should express yourself creatively or else this energy is going to burn you from within".

And did you have a treatment session, and if so, did it help?
Barefoot Doctor, who was himself an excellent acupuncturist and now runs a website on Taoism and healing techniques, wrote a book called "Liberation" in which he explains how to liberate yourself from all possibly imaginable negative emotions, and on the anger issue, he says exactly that - the liver is responsible for the playful energy, the child in you, who lives in the moment and doesn't care about any social rules and restrictions, but because we need to subscribe to certain rules in order to live in society, we need to channel this playful energy through creative expression, exercise and other forms of play like dancing or whatever. He recommends taking up a non competitive sport or any form of play like dancing to a jolly tune in your living room (btw, I did that last evening, it's great), and then taking the play to your interactions with others as well, intensifying the relations, taking more risks, reaching out, talking about more profound subjects.
He also recommends making the Taoist liver healing sound "Sshhhhhhhhhhhh" 9 times. This works for me too. I once did it 181 times, and almost fell asleep and began feeling like I was under water. It was interesting
I have difficulty controlling my anger too, but, as I was saying, if your attitude makes it unlikely for you to get angry, then it's easier.
For example, I always used to get angry whenever I failed at something, I forgot something, or made a mistake that set me back a lot. But now I simply begin thinking about what to do next. It is impossible for me to dwell on the regret of what has happened (at least if it's not very bad). This is being proactive. You simply don't have time to waste on thinking about what just happened, because there is just so much to do next.
What helped me a lot in this was (apart from reading the "7 habits.."), watching Prison Break. Imagine how could someone work on an escape plan for days, risk everything - freedom, even life), and then suddenly, somebody did something that turned the whole plan upside down, and he just had to deal with it, and there was no time to get angry on that person, cause something had to be done right away to fix the problem at hand, otherwise tragedy would have come.
Being in such situations, especially in real life, makes you experience proactivity so that you will never forget it.

[Vasilisa]

Rose, I think that your anger comes out of the situation when you have to live with your Mom, though you don't want to, you feel uncomfortable around her, etc.
She feels angry inside - you pick up her mood. It seems to me that you are tense around her, expecting her to start picking on you or express her inner agression in some other way. Then eventually this tension turns into anger "which comes from nowhere".
It also can be that because of the change in your diet, you are experiencing a change in hormonal balance. Then it's temporary. Once your body adjusts, you'll get over "anger thing".
But something tells me that the real reason is "Mom and you relationship".
I feel pretty angry around my Mom too sometimes, though she is a sweetheart now. Moms have this particular ability to trigger our old and painful subconsious emotions from time to time.

[brandongilbert]

why are you doing a low-fat raw diet?

[dice]

Misunderstanding. Nothing else.

IE. You might be angry upfront at person #1 for shooting dude #2.

But not if you knew that dude #2 had raped and killed person #1's mother.

It's all about what lies beneath. If you don't see it, you get pissed.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by brandongilbert

why are you doing a low-fat raw diet?

Raw: because self-experimentation showed me it is the healthiest diet for me.

Low-fat raw: I don't know exactly. Some kind of intuition tells me it's the way to go

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by bluedragon

And did you have a treatment session, and if so, did it help?

I went to see him because of something else and the treatment worked great! But I don't know if it was related to liver chi. We agreed I'd come back for more sessions but then I had no time, then he had no time, and then I moved to another country.

Thanks for the info I'll say sshhhhh and spend more time dancing and playing! (I love such pleasant recommendations! "Sorry, now I need to play, for health reasons", hehehehe )

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

I went to see him because of something else and the treatment worked great!

Then you know their understanding of Chi is effective.

"Sorry, now I need to play, for health reasons", hehehehe )

Tell that to your boss (if you have one) let me know how he reacts