Western society deals poorly with our anger. As children, we are taught to either supress it or exhibit it with violence, depending on the caregiver’s example and instruction. Either way, it is rarely, if ever, seen as a useful tool.
Suppressed anger can become rage, which is challenging to *not* act on, and is frequently explosive. Suppressed anger can also become depression, as we seek to subdue the energy. Violence, I think we can all agree, only begets more violence.
In a vacuum, anger is merely a call to action, a push or surge of energy. If we don’t know that, we don’t know what to do with it. We don’t know how to channel the energy into getting things done, into the courage to speak up, or into breaking through emotional or spiritual blocks. We don’t know how to ask what the next appropriate action is.
“I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.”-Mahatma Gandhi
As part of my goal of empowering people and thereby
making the world a better place, I will be offering a series of monthly workshops in Santa Clarita, designed to help people change their relationship with anger. There will also be a series of blog posts.
Shifting Anger meets at 7pm on the first Wednesday of the month at LaLuna Healing in Newhall. Please join us!