Reprogramming Anger
This is the continuation of Reprogramming Yourself
This is an incident that happened to me in November of 2006. Being a teacher of spiritual growth it is doubly embarrassing to my ego when such dysfunctional programming surfaces in my personality. This is extra incentive to me to make necessary changes and as quickly as possible. Anger has been an issue for me all of my life. Even though I have worked on it for many years and have gotten past so much of it, I still find it haunts me. This incident marked a huge change in my automatic reactions and my understanding of how life responds to our thoughts.
It occurred in India, where I live part time. India has pushed me in ways I thought I would never be pushed and brought out a lot of judgment and anger that I thought I was over. The following is an edited version of a letter I wrote to a fellow researcher of truth who was suffering from anger…
Anger, like any emotion, begins in the mind. The actual occurrence of an angry outburst may seem to begin when something happens, but in reality it begins much sooner. Stresses, other emotions like frustration, not getting something that you want, will cause a person to become stressed such that one wrong situation results in an expression of anger. This gradual build up can be stopped by dealing with the weaker emotions that add up to make the anger happen. This requires that you pay more attention to ALL of your emotions and understand where they are coming from and to change your thinking along the way.
The way that you react to life, such as being angry, comes from past programming. Your karma, your personality, your subconscious, past programming are all ways of saying virtually the same thing. It is the result of responding to life in a certain way, repeatedly, until it becomes automatic. Hypnotherapy can help you find the root cause, but still the programming will be there. The solution is to reprogram yourself.
To reprogram yourself requires awareness. You need to pay special attention to those situations that make you angry. You need to recognize when you are not feeling good and strive to make yourself feel good through proper mental exercises. Contemplation and meditation are essential to this practice. Daily you must review your thinking, words and actions of the day and decide if they are serving you or disturbing you. Then you must deliberately program your mind to take a different course of thinking when similar events occur or begin to occur.
Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable - A Love and Spiritual Growth Story
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January 17th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
First, I love the look of your blog.
Second, I think your blog has some very helpful information that I have personally used to control my own anger (boy did I have a temper and still can if I’m not careful). I have also added EFT (Emotional Freedom Tapping) to my repertoire of personal growth tools and even today when I felt angry and irritable I was able to tap the feelings into submission.
Also, asking myself “why am I angry now?” has been helpful but sometimes I really can’t pinpoint the direct cause or the moment when I started to feel not happy.
Finally, I just wanted to add that I finished your book and it is incredibly inspiring on a number of levels. I cried myself at the beauty of it and to see how far you have come even after all of that. It really does put things into perspective for me and I personally plan on telling others about it.
Namaste!
-Angie
January 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
As I was driving into work this morning, finding myself getting angry at other drivers who got in my way, I thought about your question Angie. “Why am I angry now?” Especially since I have been doing very good lately with not being angry with traffic.
What came to me was that not being able to pinpoint the direct cause is a very common occurrence in people due to the way we slowly let the stresses of life accumulate. The emotions of these stresses accumulate in the body and then they come out once an extra stress comes along like traffic or someone doing something unexpected or unwanted. These stresses could be from simple things like worrying about the bills, or if our diet or exercise program is not going well, or if someone we love is going through some difficulty, or as a counselor we are giving too much of our energy away to our clients.
I don’t know about the EFT technique. But I do know that deep breathing exercises, and other physical exercise along with meditation can release emotional stress and help us gather the energy we need to cope with such situations better.
For me in my situation with the traffic I was able to catch it, notice I was on edge, and talk myself into calmness. It was easy for me because I have so much practice with this now; I understand for a beginner how this might be a bit more difficult. (A general comment, not necessarily intended to imply that Angie is a beginner.) Once I got to work, I stayed in the car and did some deep breathing and meditation before going into the office.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:59 am
[…] This is the last part of the series entitled Reprogramming Yourself. Its second installment is Reprogramming Anger. […]
April 5th, 2008 at 4:10 am
[…] Continued in Reprogramming Anger… […]