Go from disconnection to compassion with self-awareness
Among the benefits of meditation is internal soothing. If you learn to stop the fight-or-flight response in its tracks, you can go beyond your knee-jerk reactions and invent a new response for yourself. A new set of possibilities opens up before you. A reaction is something that is almost mechanical in nature, but a response is something that we’ve chosen. I have seen how meditation can solve anger issues by ushering in responses instead of reactions. I’ve experienced it for myself.
Anger is an explosive response to a situation where an infinite number of reactions were possible instead.
Let me explain to you how to get past the trigger and its reaction to evolve into something new. Let me show you how to enter a realm of peace where anger can’t touch you no matter what befalls you.
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Understand Your Thoughts
Starting a meditation practice is beneficial in so many ways. One of the first things we notice when we start regularly meditating is that we understand our own thoughts. Our busy minds are no longer a mystery. We can see thoughts arising and falling; able to witness the process of our minds.
It’s so strange to live an entire life with a mind that isn’t understood, right?
When I meditate, I use a visualization that helps me step out of my busy mind and into some silence for a little while. It allows me to witness my mind without participating, and then get past certain tendencies like anger.
If you understand your mind, then you can see when the anger begins. You can resist the pull of the reaction to a sudden situation and instead take a different path. You are able to slow down the flow of thoughts. Instead of just falling into uncontrollable anger, you gain control. You can begin to choose compassion instead of anger.
Gratitude in the Present Moment
When we truly understand our mental processes, things begin to slow. Meditation helps us to live in the present moment and observe all the things we have around us in our lives. Self-awareness in meditation helps us to understand how relationships and material blessings are allowing us to live a beautiful, enriched life.
We need nothing more right now, in this moment.
When I meditate, I sometimes use a mantra: “here and now.” I just say this to myself silently to keep my mind right here, right now. It brings me into the field of gratitude.
Understanding all the abundance we already have, the anger begins to subside naturally in us. Our tendencies will shift when we are at ease. Fight-or-flight responses occur when there’s a lot of fear in your life. You feel like you’re living on uneven ground, there isn’t stability, and you’re afraid of loss. In this state of the poverty mindset, anger is fostered because you’re desperately trying to either keep things the way they are or gain more things. However, in the abundance mindset, we learn to be grateful, so why would we be angry?
The same situation can be viewed as either horrible or a blessing. A mindset shift is needed to take the same set of circumstances that induces anger and respond to it with calm instead.
Breaking Free of the Cycle
Your habits are what is keeping you trapped in this cycle of anger because you are going with the current instead of trying to paddle in the other direction. Anger comes out when needs or expectations aren’t being met, right? For instance, you expect a situation to turn out a certain way, and it doesn’t. You are trying to achieve a goal and someone gets in your way. You just erupt into anger before you had a chance to process it because that’s what you’re used to doing. Nothing has stopped you from going with it.
Trust me, I’ve been there.
However, think about it this way: you aren’t just a robot that is programmed to respond to certain input. You are a human being. You always have a choice.
Staying connected to your eternal self allows you to break the cycle of anger, and any other cycle you’re stuck in. When you keep a constant awareness of who you truly are — a human being that is made of infinite potential — you will not respond with anger any longer.
You won’t have fear because you realize that you are loved, protected, and supported by the universe.
Trust in the world to guide you to where you need to be. When less-than-ideal situations occur, you can see them as a growth opportunity, a blessing in disguise, and maybe even part of your karma. Karma is the cycle of anger in this context. Karma is what you make it. With recurring explosions of anger, you become more and more likely to respond with anger next time. You’re doing nothing to break the cycle, so it only gains strength.
If you take steps to break the cycle and shift your mindset, your karma will no longer hold power over your life. You are making choices in every situation about how to respond. The world might serve you lemons, and you choose to make lemonade, as the saying goes.
Your Takeaway: Don’t Be Mechanical, Be Free
Your ability to break free of habitual anger is entirely in your hands. It’s possible to reduce angry reactions through meditation if you become familiar with your own mind to stop the repeated cycle. You can also live in gratitude to reduce anger, since gratitude allows you to see all of the abundance in your life. Your fear-based responses will no longer be necessary.
Most importantly, remembering who you truly are and taking responsibility for your karmic cycles will help you step out of your anger issues. When you stay aware of your true self at all times, you will understand that life consists of ups and downs, and the things that usually trigger anger don’t need to do so any longer. You will be free.
“Karma functions through certain tendencies. But with some awareness and focus, you can push it in a different direction.”
— Sadhguru
