1.1.6 Being #self-aware about your feelings. 

#ANGER People often just react to (triggered) angry feelings by blaming who they feel is responsible; i.e. He/she made me so angry! 

Really? So he/she ripped open your chest, threw in a big lump of anger and sewed you up again? Sorry but no, no, no! The anger was already there, a part of your emotional toolkit. It belongs to YOU! 

#Anger is a great example because it’s seen as a negative emotion, destructive and linked with violence, ego and lack of self-control. However, anger ‘itself’ is valuable and a resource to be used. 

The energy of #anger can be used to empower us, think #assertiveness. It helps us draw and defend our own personal boundaries from clumsy or malicious invasion by another’s behaviour or needs. 

Many people don’t have a relationship with their own emotions, particularly anger; ‘I am a nice person, I want to be seen as a nice person' (or an intelligent or a #spiritual person), so I can’t express anger because nice people don’t do that, so I become afraid of anger, especially my own and #disempower myself’. 

Watch for the Universe challenging this fear by throwing #triggers at you to bring out your anger. It’s just trying to help you to have a healthy relationship with that part of yourself. Don’t see this as some kind of punishment but another of the #universal laws that we are connected too. It’s simply that where we are held back or polluted by a part of our own humanity or behaviour, this will automatically attract responses from ‘upstairs’ intended to help us deal with our ‘stuff’. Sometimes gentle, sometimes challenging but always without #judgement or #blame. Yes, anger can be destructive, it’s a #powerful resource. But it’s only destructive if it is aimed outwards towards others, or through resentment of others, or #self-loathing, when it eats at us from inside. Use it well and it becomes a feeling of strength and #assertiveness. I’ve included an exercise 1.1.6A intended as an aid for you to become aware of anger as a tool of action not a triggered reaction or defensive reflex. Have a go and see what you think. 

Exercise 1.1.6A to experience anger in isolation. 

Try this; Watch some television alone, preferably one the soap operas which are scripted to trigger your emotional responses (and are often very toxic to witness). 

Be aware how you feel as you watch the soap characters constantly attack or try to score points with each other. 

Realise how your anger is triggered within you as you watch! 

Now, realise that you are alone so you can’t blame anyone for the anger you are now feeling nor lash out at someone else, blaming them. It’s coming from just watching a soap opera, a piece of fiction, it isn’t real so just acknowledge the feeling, recognise your ownership of it and sit with it. 

Don’t try to do anything with it or push it away or rationalise it away, just sit with the feeling and witness it. Let is stew. 

There, it didn’t kill you or turn you into evil Mr. Hyde from nice Doctor Jekyll now did it? 

If you need to, then repeat this exercise as needed. The aim being, for you to feel your own anger, to witness it and to #lose your fear of it polluting or #controlling you. 

From this you become familiar with your own #anger and the triggers start to be become transparent and maybe even predictable then they will lose their #power over you. 

You’re ready then to watch out for the #triggers in your own ‘real’ life. It’s a challenge because the unscripted storyline of your life can be less predictable (at first). But triggers are still triggers and having become more #self-aware by witnessing fiction, you start to not just live your life, but witness how you work while you’re living it ! You’ll still feel anger at times, you’re not #suppressing it, but you own it and it gets triggered less and less. 

You’ve found the volume control and the on/off button. 

Now it’s time for it to be used as a fuel for strength and assertiveness by bringing it up without triggers(eg. television) as you sit quietly alone. 

Just #visualise/imagine your anger as a red energy mist, heavy red liquid or red light stored down near the base of your spine (your base #chakra, for those who prefer a reference). Some people work better ‘feeling’ rather than ‘seeing’ so do whatever feels most natural for you and BE PATIENT with yourself it may take a little practise, don’t stretch or reach for it, be focused but relaxed about it ! 

#Visualise bringing it up higher, then up into your chest, then just sit with it and FEEL IT! 

Feel how strong it makes you feel, you are in that moment #empowered by your own anger. Assertiveness personified! Just take a few quiet moments before entering a situation or meeting a person where you feel unsure or anxious and bring up the anger-tool from your tool kit using this exercise. The more you are familiar with the technique and the feeling, the easier and quicker you can plug into it. Let that assertiveness help you to say NO! Without feeling guilty when you want to say NO! FEEL how strong and confident you feel, NOT ANGRY BUT STRONGER! It’s real, it’s valid and it’s YOURS! It NOT the enemy within but simply one of the tools you have been given along with others (more later) that are here to help you #experience this life and #evolve. 

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