How Embracing Good Anger Lead To Positivity
Know Thyself January prompt and my response to it: Why I Quit blaming myself
I grew up in a family environment where there was an aggressive atmosphere. Most of the events in my environment were fraught with quarrels and interspersed with swear words. Social conditioning and social learning had their effects on me. I grew up as an angry child and was always involved in fights at school. My behaviors led me to detentions and physical punishments.
My school sent countless complaints to my parents. Since I couldn’t stand my parents’ aggressive lectures and naggings about my behavior, I tried to suppress my anger. I didn’t want to bring any troubles back home. My home was already functioning as a camp for aggression, and I didn’t want to make the situation worse. But no matter how much I suppressed it, I could always feel my anger vibrating in my veins.
During my teenage years, I experienced the most difficult moments of anger. Anger raged inside me like a bull. At the slightest provocation, I became enraged. Sometimes, I punched walls to rid myself of my burning rage.
At the age of 21, I volunteered to enroll in a meditation course for beginners. To my surprise, I didn’t immediately become calm and composed after meditating. Instead, meditation helped me enter a deep, reflective state. I began to analyze my anger. Intuitively, I received insights and wisdom about my anger.
These are some of my self-reflective questions that came to mind after a month of meditation. I believe my reflections can be useful for anyone who’s trying to know themselves or understand their anger.
- Why do I get angry?
Anger is a natural emotion that’s present in everyone. Anger isn’t fundamentally a bad thing. But I need to know why it hits me more and faster than others?
2. Where Is My Anger Coming From? - Conditioning? — I grew up in a family where anger was used as a daily survival tool to communicate. - Social learning? — Perhaps I unconsciously picked behaviors from the aggressive people I deal with, or from my favorite action movies. - Past painful and bitter experiences in life? — I want to resist being taken advantage of by others.
Where are the roots of your anger? 3. How I Release My Anger? How do I Cope With It? I’ve known some peers who joined the wrong social groups and indulged in negative activities. They needed a sense of identity that would validate their ego, and help them get rid of their pent-up emotions. When I was angry, I didn’t like hanging out with my peers. As I matured over the years, I also stopped fighting in school. Unfortunately, the aggressive arguments with my peers persisted.
I usually spend my time alone writing or engaging in healthy physical activities. I enjoyed martial arts activities and workouts. Gradually, I got into the habit of managing my aggression with humor.
What’s the activity that you use to manage your anger in a healthy way?
4. What and Who Triggers The Most Anger In Me?
This is often an important point that we overlook. Is there a certain type of personality and situation you encounter that makes you angry? What makes your volcano erupt? 5. Understanding My Level of Tolerance
As far as I know, the degree of tolerance is proportional to the degree of sensitivity. Sensitive people usually don’t tolerate for a long time. Apart from that, sensitivity is also beautiful spiritual quality. A sensitive person is usually against self-harm and harm towards others. People who care about their own feelings and the feelings of others also tend to get angry quickly.
An Indian proverb: An aggressive person can also be a person of good character. Meaning: Angry people may be holding huge respect for their values and constantly fight to protect those values. This proverb says that every irascible person isn’t the same, and everyone shouldn’t be judged superficially.
6. Knowing What’s The Target of My Anger
- Is it grounded or ungrounded?
- Is my anger justified, or am I trying to hide my angry behavior through rationalizations?
- Do I use my anger to cause serious mental, emotional, or physical harm to someone?
- Is my anger a product of the unhealthy parts of my ego?
- Am I reacting and fighting back to strengthen the unhealthy or healthy parts of my ego?
Knowing the constructive and destructive energies that reside in our emotions helps us find our balance. A Word From A Poem That Further Validated My Insights I read a poem by an Indian poet named Subramaniya Bharathiyar. In one of his poems, he mentioned a unique word called “Rowthiram.” After much research, I found that “rowthiram” means “good anger or righteous anger.” It says that the word has the same meaning in the Tamil language and in Sanskrit. Good anger is a form of anger that’s used to protect your peace, the peace of those you care about, your positive values, and your self-respect. “Rowthiram” is also about transforming anger. It’s about using anger to transform negativity into positivity. Rather than suppressing anger, “rowthiram” encourages experiencing anger spiritually. Anger can be transformed into creative energy and can be used to perform the right actions. Some examples of Good Anger — “Rowthiram”:
- You do your best to handle situations without causing harm to the innocent.
- You don’t harm yourself when dealing with anger.
- You protect, defend, and stand up for your good values.
- Your anger is transformed into constructive forms of energy.
- You write and share your stories with the world as a social message to encourage and help others.
- You discourage all negative activities that violate your spiritual law or the universal law of righteousness. For example, sexual harassment, harming innocent lives or animals.
- You strive to leave the world more beautiful than you found it.
- You don’t become a slave to the unhealthy parts of your ego in order to win a situation by crooked means.
- You solve problems or mitigate risks with your aggressive energies.
- You function as a daily warrior, protector and creator.
After I started meditation, I was able to get rid of my destructive anger bases. I have been practicing “rowthiram” in my lifestyle ever since.
Practicing good anger helps me to remain calm and balanced. I strongly believe that there’s no right or wrong emotion. Every emotion has a useful purpose and it contributes to our growth.
However, one of my biggest challenges is when someone who knows me less comes to me and advises, “control your anger, Dharan… I’m worried about you.” Listening to their words caused me to self-blame, hindered my self-acceptance and even made me question my positive actions many times.
I have quit blaming myself for being labeled as an aggressive person by those who know me less well. I’m aware that my anger is well-founded, and aimed at the right actions to protect my peace and the peace of those I care about. Some protect peace by avoiding their demons, and some protect peace by facing their demons. “Rowthiram” taught me to face my demons in order to overcome them. Hence, I quit blaming myself for being aggressive.
A Bonus Point From My Own Analysis: There can be two possible reasons if someone keeps asking you to control your anger.
1. Your anger is really causing harm unintentionally or intentionally, and they’re asking you to stop; that’s reasonable!
2. However…., what if someone keeps telling you to control your anger when your anger works on protecting your own peace?
Possibly….
2a. This person may have encountered many unsuccessful attempts to break your spirit.
2b) This person couldn’t control you.
2c) Perhaps, your anger acts as a good form of shield. Hence, they may wish your shields to shatter so that it would be easier for them to climb all over you.
2d) This person lacks knowledge in understanding deeper about emotions.
So next time, if you ever come across someone who enjoys conducting free lectures especially for you, on the importance of anger management in your life, then…. you may need to spend some time studying that person’s genuine intention towards you.
In some work environments run by toxic leaders, they also favor those who suppress emotions. I’ve seen environments where the emotionally suppressed quickly climb the corporate ladders.
The assertive, courageous and advocative employees have to work a little harder to be in the good books of toxic leaders.
Suppressing anger leads to passive aggression. That’s one reason why passive aggression tends to exist more in some work environments.
One way or another, anger always finds a way out. Therefore, rather than suppressing anger, it is good to let it out in the direction that will most benefit us and others.
Fire can be used for burning and fire can be used for lighting the darkness. Similarly, anger is the fire in us; we can either use anger or get consumed by it.
Usually, destructive forms of anger are discouraged. When anger is used creatively, it becomes good anger (“rowthiram”) that brings in positive outcomes. Thank you for reading my insights.
Thank you Yana Bostongirl for creating this prompt.
I would like to give a shoutout to Sujona Chatterjee. Her story inspired me to write my story. Below is her wonderful story.
