Every Monday at noon pacific I hold a live spiritual practice call for the Heart of Business Community. A few weeks ago the focus for the call was on clearing anger.
Anger can be a problem for anyone, but it can really be a strong issue for those of us who intend to be heart-centered in the world of business. Whether it’s because anger wasn’t allowed and so there’s an unexpressed stockpile of anger built up in your heart, or the injustice in the world around us enrages you, or maybe sometimes the struggle in business just feels so… personal… (why is this happening to me?!?!), anger can get the better of anyone.
Personally I can get enraged about the kind of ignorant destruction happening to our food supply (I’m looking at you, GMOs) and with our refusal to take massive action to reduce our use of energy in the face climate change. Yes, this anger is directed at my own complacency as well as the powers that be in the world. This anger twists me up and can leave me feeling truly miserable.
The Sufi teachings say that anger is a dangerous emotion, like a fire, because it feeds on itself. Notice that the teaching doesn’t say that anger is bad, or that you should suppress, shut down, or ignore your anger.
However the teachings do warn that anger has a fire-like quality that can consume so much of our inner landscape. Then, once our insides are on fire, that easily becomes either an internal conflagration that creates illness and suffering for you, or it gets turned outwardly and you end up inadvertently damaging the people or things around you.
The remedy for anger? Gentleness. Not to turn the anger into gentleness, but to meet your anger with gentleness, because gentleness has a quenching quality to it.
I wanted to share this particular guided Remembrance with you. Not because I thought that you in particular were consumed with anger, but, you know, in case, like, you had a friend who needed. It’s just 15 minutes and begins with some general Remembrance for the heart before working with anger.
Here’s the link:
Live Remembrance Call to Clear Anger
I’m curious: angry about anything right now? How do you meet that anger within? What do you notice if you bring gentleness to yourself?
With love and appreciation,
Mark
p.s. Loads of things to say to clients but still staring at a blank screen?
You probably have no problem letting the wisdom and gifts you’ve given flow out to your clients. But when it comes to putting it down in words and sharing it with the larger world… well, lots of people get frozen there.
Yet writing compelling content on a consistent basis helps to build lasting relationships with people who will become your paying clients. It’s also what establishes you as a leader in your field.
Probably no one ever told you how to put an article together, what actually goes in. “Just express your heart!” sounds good, but it doesn’t tend to work so well. Five pieces of structure, an understanding of what makes compelling content in the first place, and practice means that you can write beautifully and consistently.
Why don’t you join me for Heart-Centered Article Writing? It starts September 11.
Take a look: Heart-Centered Article Writing
10 Responses
Mark,
This is timely for me, as I’ve been feeling a lot of anger in my heart. Like you, I don’t find suppressing anger helpful, as anger can be an indicator of injustice: its energy can be the fuel and fire needed for action, boundary setting and more.
And yet, it can consume, too. I’ve felt this inner fire of anger and it can be so painful.
I love that the Sufi response to anger is gentleness. This reminds me of the teachings of one of my mentors, Dr. Gordon Neufeld. He says the way out of “foul frustration” – when too many things are not working and the frustration builds up, becoming foul, is grief – to grieve what we wish were different.
To paraphrase a line from a film, anger can be a lazy form of grief. What’s often underneath my anger is vulnerability. Softening into the soft underbelly of vulnerability and feeling my tenderness – rather than the roar of anger – can feel so, well, vulnerable. And yet this is what softens the fire of anger: I wash the anger with grief, my tears.
Thank you, Mark.
Warmly, Karly
Karly- grief is so important, and so beautiful to bring into this conversation. I’m convinced that a lack of grief- a build-up of unexpressed grief- is in the root of most of our society’s ills.
Mark,
I agree. One of the most powerful books I’ve read is Healing through the Dark Emotions by Miriam Greenspan. In her book, she beautifully describes the power and alchemy of mindfully, fully felt grief.
Thank you for your work!
Warmly, Karly
Dear Mark
This is so timely for me as I just finished a workshop called Anger, Boundaries and Safety.
The model taught considers anger as an emotion, neither good nor bad. It can be expressed responsibly and can promote our safety, eg. setting boundaries. Or it can be used to harm or control ourself or others, in which case this model calls it violence, direct (eg. hitting) or indirect (eg. the countless ways we, our society, etc. chooses to exert control or harm with words or gestures)
What also fascinated me was their view of how we can use anger to suppress all other emotions. That rather than feel the fear/vulnerability inside of us, we get angry and that my allowing ourselves to be angry in a responsible, boundaried way (dancing, moving, making noise, pounding cushions etc) we can release the suppressant and feel the emotion beneath it.
So on reading yours, I realised I too am angry at the commodification of our food (and don’t get me started on water up here in Canada!), but it is covering up a basic fear for my family’s survival.
There seems to be such shame in our society for “being angry”. Perhaps it’s just us noticing where our boundaries are being crossed.
Thank you for this conversation and I am looking forward to finding a 15min slot today to do this Remembrance.
Ever grateful to you, Mark. And your work in this world.
Emma xo
Emma- Yes- emotions can be layered on top of each other! Anger can mask sadness, and sadness/fear can mask anger, I’ve found. I’ve been interested to see, through the Enneagram system, that different people tend to have different emotions at root, and different ways of masking that root emotion. And the awareness that one emotion can mask another is such a priceless insight.
Thank you for your blog post. Yours is the one blog that I always, always read. I deal with my anger by asking God for a miracle – to take my anger away. It always works. What amazes me is that I forget I can do this. So invariably I stew in my anger for a couple painful days. Note to self: don’t suffer needlessly anymore!
Cynthia- I know, isn’t it amazing how we forget? I’m so grateful each time I remember to Remember.
Hi Mark,
Thank you so much for this. Bringing gentleness to my anger cracked open where I’d closed my heart, and so became unable to feel anything. Tears flowed as I understood the truth that I’d closed to protect my self from the hurt of causing someone else hurt no matter how I tried not to…it hurt my heart that this kept happening, so my response was anger and closing…I’d never made that link before. Tears still flowing, I’m so grateful to you and to myself that I took the time to sit with gentleness. Thank you.
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Thank you! I thought I was going to either implode or explode.. The I in you just taught me how to manage and quench anger which was spiralling out of control .. I didn’t know how to stop it. That is an essential tool. Thank you so much for sharing I feel better in such a short time .. Amazing :))