We may know intellectually that anger can be destructive. We may be aware that it has the potential for deeply negative consequences, and yet we cannot seem to avoid feeling angry. It’s natural to view anger as a huge problem, but what if there is another way of seeing it?
The reality is that we will never get rid of anger. Anger is an emotion, and all emotions are essential to the human experience and can be beneficial when used skillfully.
What if you could learn to reveal the wisdom beneath your anger? What if, by understanding anger’s real meaning, you could gain awareness, inner strength, and true peace?
Think of anger as your own internal GPS. Whenever it arises, it alerts you to a problem and gives you important information about what to do next. When you tune in to anger and use it as an internal guidance system, you can use it to redirect your intentions and actions.
Anger can be the gateway to clarity, equanimity, and even happiness. It’s an opportunity to grow. When you pay attention to the message anger carries, you can transform every aspect of your life. You can become a better parent, spouse, friend, community member, and leader.
Embracing your anger takes courage, but it allows you to tap into your dark side and transform what seems unacceptable into something positive. Pursuing the darkest side of anger will lead you to the brightest light within you. The key is to work with anger instead of against it, moving toward anger rather than resisting it or pushing it away.
When we get angry, it’s not easy to pay attention to subtleties, analyze a situation objectively, or bear unpleasant or hurtful situations. So how do we transform anger into equanimity? Through mindfulness and compassion. Since the mind gives rise to the experience of anger, it is the mind itself that can work with anger. Both neuroscience and psychology show us that compassion is what transforms the mind and that mindfulness is the instrument that carries this change.
Practicing Nonjudgmental Mindfulness
Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” The practice of mindfulness is the key tool for dealing with anger. Thich Nhat Hanh advises, “Give your anger, your despair, your fear a bath of mindfulness every day.” Being mindful of anger means opening your consciousness to anger and illuminating it with a soft light to gently, honestly, and compassionately investigate it.
The human mind is designed to automatically evaluate and analyze. We are evolutionarily designed and motivated to place judgments on everything we experience. Being nonjudgmental in our attention means noticing and sensing what is going on within our own mind and body in relationship to reality without preferences, choices, or actions. Nonjudgment puts us on the path toward accepting our experiences, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.
Let us look at how nonjudgmental mindfulness applies to anger. When we get angry, there is an initial discomfort, shame, pain, fear, or rejection. Because of this reaction, we tend to quickly move to a position of defensive judgment. Judging the events and the other people involved is a way of making ourselves protective and powerful. Anger is a potent defensive response, but it comes at a cost. It narrows our perception, limiting us from seeing more perspectives and possibilities. The judgment that arises from anger tends to be biased and distorted. This is why it is important to practice nonjudgmental mindfulness: It adds a purifying lens that takes away our bias, distortions, and ignorance to bring us back to “clean” reality.
Practicing nonjudgmental mindfulness allows you to see your interior and exterior reality clearly. It reveals valuable pieces of information, thoughts, feelings, and body sensations you might not have noticed before. It allows you to become conscious of how overwhelming the flood of anger is and how quickly and forcefully you may have been captured by it. With practice, you’ll begin to recognize anger more quickly when it arises and to observe it as it builds. This enables you to regain control of your actions before anger erupts in hurtful words or aggressive behavior. You’ll be able to act with wisdom, maintaining balanced thoughts, emotions, and actions that are proportional to the situation.
Cultivating Compassion
True anger transformation requires compassion. Cultivating compassion involves engaging both your attitude and your actions. It’s a matter of simultaneously strengthening your mental capacities and developing the courage to care for others.
Compassion is the quality of being attuned to people and attending to their needs. It involves the desire to be moved by suffering while motivating us to alleviate it, and even prevent it. Genuine compassion is a deep, heartfelt concern for the well-being of others.
Compassion invites you to break down the walls that have been constructed by fear and mistrust, to cross the borders and unite with someone you once considered an adversary. A compassionate heart allows you to accept others as they are, while self-compassion allows you to tolerate all of your feelings, even the difficult ones such as anger, fear, jealousy, and resentment.
When you are angry, remind yourself that others usually are doing their best—however mediocre it may seem—given their own ability, skills, situation, and limitations. When you avoid judging others who have done something “wrong” and instead try to understand why they did what they did in the first place, you develop compassion toward that person. When you adopt this attitude, you move from criticism to understanding, from separation to unity, and from anger to grace.
