Anger; the act of understanding it and gaining control over it

Anger. The word itself conjures up images in our mind, and we all have such visceral emotions when we here this word. This is because it is common to all of us, as we have all experienced it and we know the power of anger and where it can take us. Anger, if not controlled can take us to some deep, dark places, and get us into some very hairy situations. It is like an out of control car… it starts off as nothing major… perhaps an abrupt swerve on the road that can be pretty easily be corrected… but if we don’t right that swerve and allow the car to careen, it can very, very easily become out of control and can eventually lead to a car wreck.

Now, transfer this to our lives, and we can see how anger can very literally take a hold of our being and it can control us. It is like we have been taken over or possessed. As human beings, we are subject to the Human Condition, which is the state where we are at the whim of our emotions. If we allowed our emotions to control us and we just followed them blindly, we would literally go through the gamut of our emotional selves in five minutes. Happy to sad to angry to depressed to elated and back again in a very small space of time. Luckily, we have a brain, a central control centre where a specific area of the brain - known as the Amygdala - has control over our emotions. Another area of our brain – the pre-frontal cortex – is also the part of our brain that allows us to exercise logic and reasoning. If we put these two together (which our brain does), We can control our emotional selves and exhibit self-control.

Okay, so back to Anger. Anger, although an emotional response, it is a secondary emotion and is usually borne of something else that is happening in our lives. It could rear its ugly head through frustration in our lives, through powerlessness, or perhaps not being heard by others. It can show itself easily and fast. In some people it builds up over a long while and then comes out, while in others it comes out very quickly through reactivity. It depends on the individual, their personality, and also how close to the surface the initial emotion lies.

How can we see the onset of anger before it can take hold of us? Well, the answer lies in self-awareness. Knowing our own triggers, or in other words what we react to because certain things go straight to our core and hurt us. This itself, is another topic worth exploring because, these triggers (or past traumas) come from much earlier in our lives, and have stayed with us for a long time. 

To become self-aware and aware of our emotional triggers takes time, but it is time well-invested. Through introspection and, if you are inclined to take it further, meditation, we can find these root causes and insecurities which cause this anger to rise so easily within us. I’m not saying it is easy, it isn’t and it is a continual journey.  

When we can see the anger rising within us, and we can realise why it has, we have more control over our own emotions because we have an understanding of what has triggered this within us. This is the beginning of self-mastery.

To know thyself is to know the universe and the gods.

Ben.

Our Psyche and its various constituents, our Victim mentality and our Creative mind.

Our brains are absolutely amazing things, they are incredibly complex and are easily the greatest computer that the world has, or ever will know. Our brains are not just great computers capable of taking in massive amounts of information, but it is also the core operating unit for our entire working body, enabling limbs to move, eyes to see, body functions to occur and thoughts and feelings to be processed. Yes, our brain is not just a very efficient computer, it is also that which drives our consciousness, and our consciousness- which is absolutely everything about us, including our waking state, our sleeping state…absolutely any state – is who we are. Our consciousness is a doozy! And in its entirety, it can be completely mind blowing (pun intended!) We can think of our consciousness as multi-layered, with each layer representing an aspect of ourselves. We have the unconscious mind, the conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the super conscious which can also be called our Higher Self. For any Psychologists out there, I realise that there are different models that are referred to when it comes to the human psyche, but this is how I understand it and how I believe we can use this model to become better versions of our current selves.

Our mind receives a barrage of information every second of every day, a barrage of good things, bad things, mundane things, anything really! It receives so much information that it can’t process it all, and only takes in a limited amount. Kind of like an efficient filtering system! Much of this information goes into the Subconscious. A reservoir of information that is just stored there. There are memories in here from the womb, from childhood, from dreams, symbolism, inane memories that seemingly mean nothing, but have a great influence on our lives all the same. Our subconscious plays a major role in our life, it is on auto-pilot in the background, just recording and storing information. Next we have our Unconscious mind, and it is like the next layer of our psyche towards our Conscious Mind, although, it is still playing a supporting role in our consciousness, except the role it plays is a big one. The thing about the unconscious is that it takes notice of the thoughts which are spoken the loudest and have the greatest energy…our own self-talk…and this forms our belief system. These beliefs relate to ourselves and the world. It is like our core foundational structure that we strongly adhere to. Now, these beliefs that form the foundation of ourselves, also contain our beliefs about us and the person we are… views and assumptions of our worth and our character and what we can and can’t do. Our unconscious mind is also our ego. The main purpose of our ego is survival, and it wants us to listen to our unconscious, so we stick to ‘the plan’, as it may be. As I said, the ego plays it safe.

Now, our conscious mind listens to the unconscious mind, so we need to be wary of how we treat ourselves, do we speak kindly to ourselves or are we our own harshest critic? If you are anything like me… and the majority of humanity… you will probably listen to the negative voices that are inherent within you. Those voices that say we aren’t good enough, or who do we think we are to be a successful person. This is our ego just rearing its ugly head and trying to pull us back in line. Our ego is our identity, and when we have aspirations to do better than our current lot and achieve more than we have, our ego tries to pull us back in line and tell us that we aren’t good enough to do that. Well, this is bullshit. We are good enough, the only person holding us back is ourselves, and the fact that we are listening to false ideas fed to us from our fear-based ego. If we listen to our ego, we are living in Fear whether we know it or not.

So, from here, our conscious mind takes notice of the unconscious, and what is going on there. What is it telling the conscious aspect of our brain. What have we been telling our unconscious? Have we been nice to ourselves or not? Remember, our unconscious has listened to the thoughts with the greatest amount of energy, and our conscious mind picks up on this. When these unconscious beliefs enter the conscious mind, It is as though these beliefs become solidified. They are a part of us now. 

When we listen to our ego and the fear-based rhetoric that it spouts, we human beings cannot reach our potential because we are remaining in our victim mentality. If, on the other hand we do not listen to that voice and go forth and create the life we want for ourselves, we have not bought into the state of victimhood and have entered our Creator; That part of ourselves that is working with our natural energetic flow and is our Higher Self. This is our natural state of abundance, and is the polar opposite to our fear-based thoughts. This is the state of Love.

We are all victims and creators; it is our choice as to what we want to have the most influence in our lives.

Go and create something beautiful!

Peace and Love,

Ben.