You’ve been there: feel a moment’s worth of anger, followed by a period of feeling bad about letting your temper get the best of you. It’s a cycle that’s recurring and extremely hard to break. With so many of life’s situations being out of our control, it’s quite unpredictable what might trigger our anger. And being aware of the negative effects, both social and physiological, that anger has on us, gives rise to the guilt that follows. But here’s the thing about anger, it doesn’t quite stop affecting you once you’ve vented. According to Psychology Today, anger isn’t an emotion that disappears once it’s expressed. Rather, the intensity of the feeling only increases over time and furthers aggression.
Many experts suggest the use of “channeling,” whereby the feelings that fuel anger are directed to more productive activities, as a way to cope with the emotion without damaging one’s health. Writing about ways in which anger can be channeled, Marcelle Pick, the founder of Women2Women suggests using as a source of power which can be directed to fuel fruitful outcomes. Pick suggests trying releasing anger through physical activity or by expressing your creativity to mitigate its negative effects.
But what if there was an easier and natural way to channel your anger into feelings love and compassion? Below, we share Sadhguru’s advice on how you can turn your anger into love and compassion:
“It does not matter how much people preach ‘don’t get angry’, when certain situations arise you do get angry. It must be understood that no matter what kind of human being you become, even if you become a super human being, you will never have absolute control over the external world. Whether it is your institution or your family or the world, you will never have total control over the external situation. But you can have total control over the internal situation.
Emotional states which you call as anger, hate, lust, compassion or love—from the lowest to the highest—are certain types of expression of the same energy. Now, a question arises, ‘Can we exist without anger?’ This is probably because your anger is the most intense situation you have experienced in your life. People want some intensity, somewhere. They do not know how to be intense. Either through physical action or through anger or through pain—this is the only way they know how to be intense.
The very reason why drugs and sex has become such a big thing in the world is because somehow people want to experience some intensity, at least for a few moments; they want to know some intensity. It is the intensity which draws them and that is the only thing that human beings are seeking; and that is the only thing that will liberate man from his present bondage.
Unfortunately for most people, their fear, their anger or their hatred are the most intense situations in their lives. Their love is never so intense, their peace is never so intense, their joy is never so intense, but their negativities are intense. So they experience power in negative situations. Anger is enormous intensity; it is an intensity which hurts you. It is an intensity which can get you into a lot of trouble and destroy people around you and yourself, in so many ways.
But if you transform your energy in a certain way, it naturally becomes compassion and love—then nobody needs to teach morality. And slowly as this process goes further, you reach the pinnacle of self-awareness and experience a unity with all life.
Suppose you start experiencing yourself as part of people around you, after that there is no need to teach you to be good and not harm or kill. Once you experientially are a part of everything, then nobody needs to teach you morality. Then you can do something for the situation, but without anger. What you have to do, you do. But when you do it with anger and hatred, it is of no value—whatever you do.
The whole process of yoga is based on this. A day will come when even if you are put into the most extreme situation, your energies will remain very calm. How you respond will depend on the situation you are in, who you are, what your capabilities are, and what means you have. When you act out of unity with all life, you act without identity. Only then can you function out of your intelligence.
Yoga means to cultivate your energy in such a way that gradually it breaks the physical limitations and elevates you to the highest level of awareness, the flowering of human potential.”
The next time you catch yourself feeling, are you ready to use Sadhguru’s advice? Let us know in the comments section below.
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