I am sad, I am angry
I am experiencing sadness and anger
Anger and sadness are passing through me
What is the difference between these statements?
Do they matter?
We live inside a box called Identity
When we experience anger, we quickly say “I am angry”
Now what was initially
an emotion or feeling
has become an identity.
It is now powered by thought and soon,
it becomes “I am really angry”
and then “I hate this sh*t”
Now what was an emotion
has become a mood and
soon a state of mind
All actions flow from our mental states and soon,
you will be taking actions
like sending angry emails to 5000 people marked cc in your company or
become a Facebook warrior
coz someone has said something which made you very very angry
Anger also compresses time and
makes you feel alive
that rage needs a channel
(oh yes, its rage now) and
many imaginary swords are brandished
and word arrows are hurled
and it leaves many wounded in the wake
But what do you care?
You were right and that’s all it matters!
Does it really matter?
In the overall arc of 75 years
which you will live,
does it really matter?
Jim Dethmer says if you don’t feed the emotion you’re feeling with thought, it’ll exit the body fairly quickly
Yoga says we must always be in a balanced state of mind
Putting distance between our emotions and our identity is key to growth
This is not about suppressing your anger
It’s about noticing it
accepting that it is a feedback mechanism
recognizing that it is bringing
your attention to some violation
of your inner values
deploying self-compassion and
empathy to understand more
rather than leaping to kill and maim
We all know this and
still we struggle when the moment arrives
Hence, we need Yoga techniques
which we practice
when we are in a calm state of mind
like Nispandbhava
which prepares the mind to observe when the situation arises
(if you don’t know this technique,
DM me or write in comments
I WANT TO KNOW MORE)