Question of the Month: The Last Time You Were Angry – What To Do?
QUESTION:
When was the last time you were angry? And what did you precisely do with the anger?
ANSWER:
A great question as we all deal with anger, yours truly included. I don’t get angry often and doing the work of forgiveness for the last 22 year has made me calmer and more peaceful. But we all have a bad hair day and that happens to me too.
When I do get angry – I practice what I learned from Thich Nhat Hahn who has done seminal work on anger. There are many books and articles by him, but I recommend starting with “Being Peace.” When I met him in person a few years ago I asked him the same question posed in this section. Here is what he suggested to say to anger: “Hello old friend, you are back. I offer you my best seat and serve my best tea and cookies.”
In other words he espouses his anger and thus is able to dissipate it. Most of us are drawn into our anger but it is important to practice not resisting it or getting drawn into it, but rather do what TNH suggests. What you resist persists!
Also you might find that it may take awhile to dissolve this anger based on the gravity of the situation. My method is to add an extra 30 minutes of meditation to my daily practice and seek internal guidance of transforming this anger into something positive through prayer. Often the best answer is to offer forgiveness or seek forgiveness based on the particular incident. That will dissipate anger quickly and bring you back to enjoying peace
Posted in News, Question of the Month
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