What do you do with anger?

[Rainbow]

I've been writing my journal for 30 days now and have learned a lot about myself. I've had emotional breakthroughs and have been able to process and understand the feelings and I seem to have moved on. Up to now though most of the feelings have been to do with sadness and loss - that kind of thing.

Today was different and a lot of anger started to come up. I stayed with it for a while but then distracted myself because....I just didn't know what to do with it. When I feel sad I can have a good cry. But I don't know what 'action' to to take to process anger. I filled up a page of my journal saying nasty things about the person (ex partner) who hurt me badly but it wasn't enough and I was still angry at the end of it. I know I have to deal with this - but how? Any suggestions?

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

journal about good things/affirmations help alot like i forgive and let go easily/meditate on peace-calmness-healing ,while afirming them over and over for about 5 mins at a time/imagine calmness flowing thru your body and peace-the emotion of love is the strongest emotion for healing/are you surpressing anything that needs to be thought about?are you using awareness to catch traits ,triggerrs,and conditioning/if you feel to cry,cry its a good release and so much more-how do you handle anger,face it,accept it ,dont repress it,let the anger flow through you and counter it with positive affirmations/....good luck

 

[Lala]

i agree with eric...the next step is forgiveness...this is what ultimately helps us let go of anger, because anger is really just a cover up for deep hurt. I use this mantra a lot for people to whom i feel great anger (people who have hurt me deeply)..."I forgive you for not being the person I wanted you to be. I forgive you and I set you free." I have found it to help me greatly. When I see these people or something comes up that reminds me of the pain they caused I say this affirmation...it diffuses my anger and reminds me that holding onto the angry feelings is only hurting me...no one else...so its time to let go...forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself...it feels contrived at first but over time the mantra has really helped me to let go. Now when I see these people I feel more sadness, then hurt/anger....but even the sadness is fading

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”― Oprah Winfrey

 

[Rainbow]

Thanks so much for all this assistance! I think in the past I've buried the anger and forced forgiveness - because this is the nice thing I thought I was supposed to do. I'm beginning to see that you have to work at forgiveness.....

 

[Lala]

Thanks so much for all this assistance! I think in the past I've buried the anger and forced forgiveness - because this is the nice thing I thought I was supposed to do. I'm beginning to see that you have to work at forgiveness.....

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself...I think when you begin to understand this then you begin to see a difference between forced forgiveness (something your super ego imposes on you) versus true forgiveness (truly letting go for your own well-being). Yes, it is hard, yes it takes time and yes it takes hard work, but it is worth it because it sets you free. Our egos have a hard time letting go of anger...I remember (after my best friend abruptly ended our friendship with little explanation) feeling like I wanted the anger/resentment...it felt good to be angry at her, but then I realized that my anger wasn't punishing her, it was just holding me back. And because anger/resentment is just a cover up for hurt, when we hold onto our anger it means we are just avoiding the real feelings (hurt, disappointment, rejection, abandonement etc.)...and this is, it its core, what TMS is...so if you want to heal from your physical pain you need to cope with and then let go of the real feelings behind the anger/resentment.

Anger and resentment is like swolling poison and hoping it will hurt someone else...it never does....stop poisoning yourself.

with love and light....best of luck. let us know how it goes
Lala

 

[Anna1]

Thank you for asking this question, and Lala, again, thank you for such wisdom!! This is EXACTLY what I've been wondering about the past 10 days. I've started the "Sarno-work" 5 weeks ago and really focused on my emotions. There is indeed a lot of anger in me, but I've been working a lot on acceptence/forgiving, also through affirmations, already long before I discovered Sarno 5 weeks ago. So when I noticed how my pain went away by focusing emotionally I really became caught up in the anger! After a while it makes me so tired and negative.

I'm actually afraid that the pain will come back when I don't let myself feel the anger, and instead try to have forgiving thoughts. Couldnt forgiveness also be away to cover up emotions? Or is it just the way I've used it for a long time, and is there a different way?

 

[veronica73]

Couldnt forgiveness also be away to cover up emotions?

Hi Ruth, in my opinion, yes. I am usually a very positive person and before learning about TMS I tended to try to fix unpleasant feelings and make them into "good" feelings like happiness and enthusiasm. I did a lot of affirmations, gratitude, etc. which are all great but I was using them often to avoid or supress other feelings.

Now that I'm mostly pain-free, what I'm working on is just allowing feelings to be there, no matter what they are. Also, I find multiple feelings can co-exist. I'm happy it's the holidays but I'm also stressed, sad, and annoyed. You can be all of those things.

The best book on anger I've read is "Anger" by Thich Nhat Hahn. He talks about greating anger with a smile, letting it be there and then generating a "zone of mindfulness" around it.

 

[Lori]

If you feel anger I encourage you to write about it and get it out. Perhaps you still need to express your anger to process it. Write the person a letter (and don't mail it--tell them everything you want to say to them this way). It is very releasing.

Anger is one of the "big 4" emotions along with fear, sadness and guilt. We are human and we have anger about things. I did plenty of writing about things I was angry about. I encourage you to let it rip!

I do believe forgiveness is healing, but I think forgiveness comes after the anger has been released and when we're ready to forgive!

Best wishes!

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

i really believe we can face our fears such as anger ,like the letting flow method as i said above,but when were saying the positive affirmations its to reverse conditioning that we have subconconsciously obtained through repetitiveness-although we are to face our negative emotions and counter them with positive affirmations ///
do not! and i repeat ,do not let physical pain, flow through you/we are to completely ignore this/ im completely healed and in further study i mixed that concept from weekes and sarno together/i had a very confused day and got very stressful/no pain came back though ,thank god-we ask because we want to do what works-id ask every question i could to stay on the straight path-now the floating is great for the anxiety weekes talks about and i use it for that but never get floating and ignoring mixed up,
some will say its claires equilivent to sarnos acceptance/if it was then why is her third rule acceptance and the second rule floating...
dont let this confuse you now like it did me/i was the tester and i got completely healed using sarnos book hbp only, and of course we cant leave out steve o/here a very important key ,when using affirmation dont just say peace,let the feeling of peace flow over you by imaging what peace feels like,do the same for love,calmness,health,success and so forth/actually feel the emotion of love/were so good at feeling anger arnt we/were good at feeling depressed and so on-lets get good at feeling calmness and peace and love-when i learnt this and used acceptance,awareness,re-leasing and ignoring the pain i got healed/im here if something sound like it has a question/i really want to be as plain as i can/its hard when your not used to all the concepts but i know you guys get me i hope/as simple as some things sound,i would pry and pry till i really knew all sides/good luck and god bless