Anger Management

 

Anger is a by-product of desire. When a desire for something or someone is obstructed, anger arises against the obstruction. The obstruction can be a person, situation or a thing.

The ideal condition is to not have any desire at all. No desire, no potential for any anger. However, it is not practical to live in the world with ‘zero’ desire. We can reduce the number of our desires and improve their qualities through discipline and practice, but eliminating them altogether is a Himalayan task assigned to an ascetic or a monk.

So, we have to live with some desires to fulfil our needs and manage its by-product ‘anger’.

Anger is the channel of wasting our vital energy. It is a common knowledge that we can’t solve a problem or achieve desired result through anger. Worse, it creates further problems. And yet, we fall prey to the anger wasting our precious energy, which we could use for other creative tasks. It is like having a powerful car which we can’t drive properly. We are bound to make accidents instead of using it for a safe journey.

There is a very small gap between anger arising and expressing itself in our behavior. Often this gap can’t be noticed. However, with acute alertness it is possible to detect the rise of anger within and allow no action for at least 90 sec. Research has shown that the hormones released by the anger will flush through our body and mind within 90 sec. After this delay, we will be in a much better condition to respond to the undesirable situation in a creative way.

Constant practice of this method in every small undesirable situation, while reflecting on the merit of our desire and its fulfilment, will strengthen us to tackle larger undesirable situations and avoid wasting vital energy through anger.