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Five Ways to Tame your Anger

Sonali Bansal
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Five Ways to Tame your Anger

“Anger is the wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.” ~ Bodie Thoene

We’ve all experienced moments of intense anger against someone or a particular situation or event, or it’s been a regular occurrence. While you’re made to believe that anger is a weakness and is a shameful emotion, but in reality there is much more to anger than you know.

angerAnger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. Its only when it gets out of control and turns destructive, that it can lead to problems in the overall quality of your life, and it can make you feel as though you’re absorbed by an unpredictable and powerful emotion.

Physical impact of anger

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” ~ Ambrose Bierce

No matter how much you meditate, practice yoga, and talk about being aware and conscious, but if you are unable to manage your anger, you are sitting in a sinking ship of spirituality with holes of anger. Inner peace, happiness, strength, etc go for a toss every time you blow the matter out of proportion.

Anger increases blood pressure, flow of blood towards the muscles for physical action, and increase in heart rate as well as respiratory levels. Constant unmanaged levels of anger can permanently change the chemical functioning of the body along with damaging different systems in detrimental ways.

Let us understand how anger impacts our spiritual growth and ethereal body.

Effects on Solar plexus chakra

The seven main energy wheels or chakras have a phenomenal impact on our thought process, our behavior, actions and beliefs. The third chakra or the Solar plexus (Manipura) chakra is the birth house of emotions & feelings.

for-every-minute-you-remain-angry-you-give-up-sixty-seconds-of-peace-of-mind2It often deals with raw emotions, like anger, frustration, and intuition or gut feelings. It is said that if consciousness has unfolded in this chakra, more than half of the journey to self realization has actually been achieved.

“The Manipura Chakra is as radiant and bright as the sun dominating the dawn. Draw in the prana and hold it there while meditating on the fire element. This meditation dispels the deeply ingrained fear of death.” ~ Gheranda Samhita, one of the three classic texts of Hatha yoga.

The power of Manipura chakra resonates 7 cms above and below, affecting the root chakra, sacral chakra, heart chakra and the throat chakra. But this chakra is weakened by anger, rage & aggression, because these reactions draw energy from the storehouse leading to excessive fears, slower spiritual awakening, low concentration, indigestion, etc. Instead direct the energy of such emotions to our inner fireplace, which will transform our unconscious into conscious awareness.

Ways to tame your anger

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung

Instead of becoming a victim of this emotion, use anger as a tool that can help you become a better person and drive you to take positive action and to change the unpleasant circumstances in your life.

Identifying the cause for the rage and analyzing it can help in overcoming anger.

Also, if you are finding others responsible for all the pain, misery and ill in your life, this points to blockage in your spiritual growth. It is time to take responsibility and tame that anger monster within.

  • buddhaGet to the root cause of anger by mindfully thinking and understanding events in the past that led to an outburst. When we understand this, we can control anger in an effective manner.
  • Every time you are faced with an unhappy situation that challenges your peace of mind, stop for a second and feel your body. Often the pain is attached to pain in a certain body part or area. When you feel the body mentally, you will be able to understand the place where anger is stored.
  • On the philtrum (the bridge between base of the nose and border of the upper lip), the point that touches the center of the nose is called Nasigrah point. Focus on this pranic point and imagine the breath flow in and out of it; this will help balance left & right nostrils, increases creativity, psychic abilities, heats the pineal gland, keeps you calm, focused and releases stress.
  • Taking up a physical activity can be helpful as well to keep frustration and depression at bay. When you are feeling angry, running or dancing are good options to vent out the excess energy. Also exercising regularly keeps the excess energy out of the system and releases endorphins, which are the body’s natural opiates.
  • Contemplate offensive comments with an objective mind. If you realize there’s some truth in the statement, use it as an opportunity to become a better person. If you feel that the comments have no real basis, then you can simply ignore it.

So the next time you get angry, don’t try to control the anger; instead try to control yourself. With daily practice and little effort, you will become a person who never lets anger ruin and control their life.

In the video below, Sadhguru explains beautifully how to avoid anger –

How to Control Anger - Sadhguru

Dealing with anger and irritability | SPIRITUAL SOLUTIONS #23 - Deepak Chopra

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Anger and Peace

Three Reasons Why Just Being Alive is Not Enough

Gary Z McGee
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Three Reasons Why Just Being Alive is Not Enough

“You think you are alive because you breathe air? Shame on you, that you are alive in such a limited way. Don’t be without Love, so you won’t feel dead. Die in Love and stay alive forever.” ~ Rumi

Are you just kicking the can down Status Quo Lane? Just going through the motions of keeping your life secure, comfortable, and painless so as not to rock any boats or step on any toes, especially your own?

Is your song and dance glaringly void of both song and dance? Are you alive just in order to fulfil some preconceived lifestyle handed down to you by your forefathers? You exist, but do you live?

All rhetorical questions, except this one: If your answer to the afore mentioned questions is “yes,” then are you willing to stop kicking the can, to risk security, comfort and pain, to rock the boat, to possibly step on toes, to discover a song and dance with both song and dance, and to seek a way of being in this world that may go against the spoon-feeding of your forefathers?

If yes, proceed. If not, heed the following words of Ernest Becker, “Danger: real probability of the awakening of terror and dread, from which there will be no turning back.”

1) Love & Adventure

“Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering.” ~ Rumi

The main reason why just being alive is not enough is love: authentic love, Agape-love, all-consuming love, the kind of love that subsumes fires and burns all vacillating moths. You simply cannot discover this kind of love by sitting on your preconditioned ass. Love is the cornerstone upon which all philosopher’s stones are built.

The keystone that opens up the locked door of all adventurous lifestyles. Throw yourself into love. Pick the lock! And adventure will not elude you. But, and here’s the rub, falling in love with life hurts. Adventure can be uncomfortable and painful. The path will not be gentle, but it will be worth it.

Being in love is a double-edged sword. Most of us know this, but too few of us feel this. We know that throwing ourselves into the hurricane of love is both a scary and fulfilling adventure. But we are reluctant to feel it, to live it, to actually give it a go, because we are afraid of the unknown. We’re afraid of the inevitable pain of the path. And have no illusions: the path of love is the most painful of all. Why? Precisely because we love beyond our own ego.

When we surrender to love, we surrender to life. Our ego surrenders to soul. Such a sacred surrendering is painful because, in order to do it right, we must be vulnerable. Authentic vulnerability takes a particularly counterintuitive flavor of courage. It’s akin to jumping into a fire, but instead of just getting burned we transcend the burn and fall into glorious rapture with all things being one.

2) Silence & Solitude

“I never really understood the word ‘loneliness.’ As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean, and with nature.” ~ Björk

live2Speaking of being one with all things, the best way to feel it is to melt into it through nature. And the best way to do that, is through solitude. It will be within solitude, away from the things of man, away from the clanking steel, where you will be able to transform the clanking steel of your thoughts into a language older than words.

This language is silent. This language is silence. It speaks through soul, through blood, through tears, through your heart breaking against a mighty cosmos.

Love will be your Launchpad and adventure will be the reason for propelling yourself into the higher-than-self state of being-for-itself. Out there, within the Sacred Loneliness that dwarfs feeling alone. Where melting into the Great Mystery trumps your mystery-less home life. Where the voice of the infinite is free to speak to you, in you, through you.

The bullhorn of God’s voice box is out there waiting, calling for you to get off your ass and speak through it. Break through your creature comfort zone. Shatter the spirit paradigm that has you locked into a state of hyper-security and hyper-comfort in a hyper-reality. Meditate in silence and solitude. Discover the voice box of God. Take it back with you and help trigger the throat chakras of others.

3) Stagnation & Devolution

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Don’t cease to be mind, lest you cognitively stagnate. Transcend the cultural paradigm, lest we devolve. Don’t get locked into an idea. Use ideas to pick the locks of new ideas instead. Ideas have always had more utility as tools toward leveraging the mind further down the path; not as crutches to lean on like a cripple forsaking the path. The opinion that “just being alive is enough” is precisely the kind of crutch-like idea that cripples us into a fixed state, and at the expense of discovering a freed state.
Just Being Alive
Don’t allow the world to atrophy around you. You exist, but are you just going through the motions of existing, or are you doing something about, and with, your one unique existence?

There’s never been another you. And there never will be. As such, no other person will ever be capable of bringing forth to the world what you have the potential to bring forth.

That is more reason than any other to wake up, to stand up, to heed the call, to break the chains, and to walk through the door that has always been open but you were always too afraid to walk through. As Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

Your “just living” lifestyle keeps you secure, sure, but at the expense of love, curiosity, and adventure. It keeps you comfortable, but at the expense of suffering from nature deprivation and seeing how far you can really go. It stunts your growth game. It blunts ego-soul expansion. It keeps you content, but at the expense of suppressing your shadow, and never even coming close to individuation and self-actualization.

Change your opinion like a snake sheds its skin and the path will forever unfold before you. Harness your inner-Kundalini. Meditate. Spiral out. Crush out. Hold your heart fast to your chest like an existential pedal put to the metal of your existence-preceding-essence.

Evoke progressive evolution by becoming a proactive revolution. This is your one true life, as far as you know. And, if nothing else, if everything I’ve written just sounds like new-age hogwash, “You are the product of 4 billion years of evolutionary success. Act like it!”

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Live
Solitude
Greed devolution

Are You Living Your Truth or just Talking About it?

Nikki Sapp
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Are You Living Your Truth or just Talking About it?

 “Don’t explain your philosophy, embody it.” ~ Epictetus

It is very common in the beginning stages of our spiritual journey for our newly found philosophies about life to slyly intermingle with our ego. As our excitement and hunger for more spiritual understanding grows, we may begin to want to shout from the rooftops that we have finally found it!

We have finally found “the truth” and naturally we want to share this with all of our friends, family, and who ever will listen that the world is not what it seems and they must know.

It all happens innocently enough as the old “us” begins to drop away to make room for the new us that is being re-born. However, there is a certain stage that most spiritual seekers encounter in between waking up from the duality consciousness of the third dimension (where everything is either seen as “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”) and fully resonating in unity consciousness (where everything is seen as perfect and just “is”) where our ego is beginning to unravel but is still lingering in some areas.

This stage of our journey can be referred to as “spiritual ego”, and it is when we find ourselves talking about our faith, philosophies and beliefs rather than embodying them. This stage is often characterized by the person who is telling us who they are, rather than showing us. The opinions and judgments about others and life are still there, however they are more spiritual in nature.

As mentioned above, this happens innocently by our ego as it becomes excited by the new knowledge and understanding it has found and wants desperately to maintain it’s status in our being, and it attempts to do so by putting on it’s spiritual mask so that it may remain relevant. However, eventually it is important for us to unravel this part of our ego as well.

At a certain point, we must stop talking about our beliefs, truth and philosophies and only begin embodying them. We must wake up from trying to convince people of anything and simply become our truth. So how do we do this? How do we firstly know if this is what we are doing (because often it is happening so innocently that we have no idea it is even happening), and if we realize we are, how do we wake up out of it?

Are you living your truth or just talking about it?

“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.” ~ Brene Brown

Be your authentic self

As with many things in life, and this particular issue is no different, honesty is the best policy. The type of honesty I am referring to has nothing to do with anyone else, however.

This is the honesty where we get completely real with our own self and begin a intense self-inquiry that requires us to pinpoint the motivation behind all of our behaviors, and the emotional reactions that are brought about because of our interactions with others.

Some of the questions we must ask ourselves in order to decipher whether our “truth” is making use of us vs. us making use of it are: At the point where I realize that someone else is not necessarily agreeing with what I am saying, do I find myself trying to convince them?

Living Your Truth

Am I angered by the actions of others who I perceive as less “evolved” than I am? Am I angry or frustrated when I feel like I am not being understood? Am I judging someone else as “wrong” if they do not agree with my beliefs?

Asking ourselves these questions should not be as a means to judge our selves, but simply to get a more honest depiction of where we are and to form a more authentic connection with our hearts.

It is important to remember that there is no “wrong” place to be in our spiritual process, everything is happening exactly as it should but the more aware we become of why we are doing the things we do, the quicker fear based attachments and belief systems begin to unravel through our awareness of them alone.

And that is perhaps the most miraculous part of this whole process, the fact that we (our awareness) are the light that can disperse any darkness.

What this means is, the part of us that fiercely needs to cling to it’s sense of self, even if that sense of self is wearing a spiritual or philosophical costume, and promote itself with it’s own “sales pitch” is based in fear. Love never needs to convince anyone of anything because it doesn’t judge anyone else as “wrong” for being exactly where they are.

And since the truth of our being is the light that can dispel this fear, all it takes is being aware that we are doing it to begin to unravel it all automatically. The minute we become simply aware of any fear based attachment, emotion or behavior without judging it as wrong, and then sending love to these parts of our selves is the minute it starts to disappear out of our energy field.

Ultimately, unconditional love (and that means even loving the parts of us that are getting frustrated by not being understood by others) is the only thing that moves us through talking about what a good person we are to simply being a good person.

“When you exist as your authentic self, you live the truth of your being.” ~ Ora Nadrich

You are the light of the world
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Living our truth is something that should never require effort. If we notice we are putting a lot of effort into maintaining our “image”, or to becoming more forgiving, compassionate or open-minded, we can be assured that we have missed a very important step in our journey.

We don’t jump from adopting new belief systems to completely embodying them all in one day, so we must be patient with ourselves.

The more real and intimate we get with our own hearts we will begin to cultivate a more humble and honest approach to life and our spiritual journey. This more authentic approach will over time begin to make way for a simple living of our own truth to be in actuality, the only option we have. At this point we realize that trying to change others forcefully never works.

What does work is surrendering to the fact that the only person we have any power over is ourselves, and that power never comes from becoming more disciplined but rather unconditionally loving of everything about ourselves to the point that all fear-based emotions and beliefs can’t keep fighting us when we are simply loving them.

As talking about our truth evolves into living our truth we find that we naturally become an inspiration for others, our light begins to awaken the light in others… and not one ounce of effort was required.

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Enlightened being

10 Songs to Set you on a Meditative Journey

Ester Eckhaus
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10 Songs to Set you on a Meditative Journey

Sometimes, we have trouble settling into a calm, or meditative state. Most of the time, what I need is music that will not push me into a certain mood or mindset, but that will wash over and let me have my own meditative thoughts, without infringing their messages on me.

Here are some songs that let me do exactly that. Whether you use them for: reading, writing, meditating, working, or painting etc, I hope these songs and instrumentals put you into a relaxed and meditative state.

1) “Re: Stacks” by Bon Iver

Bon Iver’s lyrics are typically indecipherable, and nonsensical when you do decipher them. His music settles over you like a blanket and shapes itself to whatever mood you find yourself in.
Bon Iver - re: Stacks

2) “Watermark” by Enya

This song by Enya is perfect for meditating, writing, or just sitting and daydreaming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58zJNeq-sHI

3) “Maybe” by Yiruma

This nostalgic song will sit with you on a rainy day and help you concentrate on any task.
Yiruma - Maybe

4) “Lover’s Spit” by Leslie Feist

Though it may not be the best song for meditating, it’s trance-like quality has been my loyal companion through many hours of writing.
https://youtu.be/P4vSxFIc0xo

spiritual music to take you on a meditative journey5) “Oceans” by John Butler Trio

A little more upbeat than the others, this instrumental is perfect for hours of background music as you do anything, from organizing your closet to solving tough problems.
OCEAN - John Butler - 2012 Studio Version

6) “We Can Begin” by C. Lanzbom

This meditative instrumental will bring you through the tides of many waters, whether you want to write, meditate, or ponder the wonders of the universe. (The song “We Can Begin” starts at 16:00 of the video.)
C Lanzbom - Meditations (Full Album)

7) “Lullaby” by Sia

As the title suggests, this song has a beautiful lullaby quality, and can rock you into a peaceful sleep, or through a bumpy car ride.
Sia - Lullaby [HQ]

8) “Holocene” by Bon Iver

Another Bon Iver song, because this song is a must for a beautiful meditative state.
Bon Iver - Holocene

9) “Down to the River to Pray” by Alison Krauss (“O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack)

Overtly Christian lyrics aside, this vocally-layered and beautifully harmonic song is a meditative journey for any listener.

Down to the River to Pray

10) “Cello Suites No.1” by J.S. Bach

As for the classics, I chose Bach and his solemn, yet water-like, melodies.

J.S. Bach Cello Suites No.1-6 BWV 1007-1012, Ralph Kirshbaum

I hope this playlist helps you find some peace, and the space needed to reach more meditative and clear places in your mind.

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Sacred music
Music spirituality

Collective Unconsciousness: Exploring the Deepest Layer of our Psyche (Jungian Philosophy)

Sonali Bansal
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Collective Unconsciousness: Exploring the Deepest Layer of our Psyche (Jungian Philosophy)

“The psyche is the greatest of all cosmic wonders and the “sin qua non” [indispensable ingredient] of the world as an object. It is in the highest degree odd that western man, with but very few- and ever fewer- exceptions, apparently pays so little regard to this fact.

Swamped by the knowledge of external objects, the subject of all knowledge [the psyche] has been temporarily eclipsed to the point of seeming non-existence.” ~ Carl Jung

collective unconsciousness

The psyche plays an important role in the creation of our universe, the seemingly outer world is not separate from the psyche that is experiencing it, but is in fact a reflection of the psyche itself.

According to Jung, psyche is a self-regulating system, that seeks to maintain a balance between opposing qualities while constantly striving for growth.

Jung saw the human psyche being made up of 3 layers – the conscious mind (ego) where our sense of identity or conscious awareness resides, the personal unconscious, Jung’s term for the Freudian unconscious, that includes contents in the consciousness which have been forgotten or repressed.

The third layer is the collective unconscious which represent a form of the unconscious (that part of the mind containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware) common to mankind as a whole and originating in the inherited structure of the brain.

Jung in The Archetypes and the collective Unconscious said, “The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche, which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition….the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity.

Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes.”

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In order to experiment, Jung tested several groups based on their dreams & fantasies only to find that Freud’s definition of the unconscious mind was limited.

There was another part of the mind shared by these individuals in the form of symbols, which they had no conscious access to, and he referred to them as “ancestral heritage of possibilities of representation common to all human beings and, perhaps, even all animals.” These symbols & themes were further termed as archetypes.

Collective Unconsciousness & Jungian Archetypes

The collective unconscious was expressed through ‘archetypes’, which appear as symbols, instincts, and imagery throughout our existence and manifest fully during sleep and imagination, as well as in myths and fairy tales handed down from one generation to the next.

“The main source, then, is dreams, which have the advantage of being involuntary, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche and are therefore pure products of nature not falsified by any conscious purpose.”

Archetypes are also referred to as collective representations or primordial thoughts expressed through various cultures, traditions and ideologies. Jung highlighted a number of archetypes, including the ‘anima, animus‘, the ‘mother’, the ‘shadow’, the ‘child’, the ‘wise old man’, the ‘spirits’ of fairytales, and the ‘trickster‘ figure found in myths and history.

Adam Adamski in his paper on Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious of Carl G. Jung in the Light of Quantum Psychology said, “Archetypes are the means of action and may take the form of images, dreams, or they are a stimulus to a specific action. Jung says that dreams are archetypal guidance and are the wisdom of past generations. Unaware parts of the psyche are often associated with certain events with an archetypal pattern, with similar events taking place many times in history. Archetypes often carry a strong emotional charge, because relationships with people are the result of differences in the dominant sphere of archetypal feelings.”

Examples of Archetypes

The Anima & Animus

Both man & woman have the characteristics of the other as archetypes resting in their psyche.

While the mirror image of a man in a female’s unconscious mind is called Animus, the mirror image of a woman in a male’s s unconscious mind is called Anima.

anima-animus-carl-jung

Also, when a man or woman projects the psyche of anima or animus onto an actual woman or man, feelings like infatuation, idealization or attraction for the opposite sex is cultivated.

When we fall in love at first sight, then we have found someone that “fills” our anima or animus archetype particularly well!

Anima & animus vary in terms of exposure leading to male characteristics or female characteristics in an individual. Jung believed that we are all bisexual in nature, since we all have both masculine and feminine aspects to our nature, but due to society’s expectations we achieve only part of our society’s expectations.

The divine union of anima & animus is known as Syzygy, representing completion and this opens up everything, cracking our old, stagnant world view right down the middle and revealing that everything is connected just as everything is moving. Shiva moves in and out of Shakti.

The Shadow

The shadow is the darker side of our psyche or those characteristics, which are repressed by the conscious mind and considered unfit for exposure to the outside world. It is like a ‘latent disposition’, which is instinctive and irrational in nature.

Freud referred to the shadow as an animal within us & Jung considered it as an unidentified aspect of our ego. It is often projected on others, leading us to find the shadow in others. If we are able to merge the light & dark, we can experience oneness and harmony in our self and progress towards self-realization. If we are unaware of our shadow self, then it disassociates from conscious life.

The symbol through which it is projected is a villain figure, a dark warrior, spider etc. The shadow can also appear in our dreams as a despised person or even as a friend, sometimes. It is said that one can project Shadow archetype through waking life when he/she is expressing it in uncontrollable anger, aggression & furiousness.

The Self

It is the sum total of the psyche, with all its potential included. The self is the spirit connected to the universal assimilation of a person’s conscious and unconscious minds. Once we have understood the self, it leads to self-actualization – the ultimate goal of every being.

Some of the other archetypes are father – the controlling figure, mother – the compassionate & nurturing, the orphan- left alone with no one to care, the wise old man- the knowledge, the faithful dog – unwavering loyalty, the seeker – one who is looking for eternal wisdom but is a lost soul, the earth mother- nature, the trickster – one who uses misunderstandings & doom among many others.

Jung also believed mandalas (the ancient circles from the Hindu mythology) to be the direct window into the unconscious and the inner process by which individuals grow toward fulfilling their potential for wholeness.

The theory of collective unconsciousness is vast and extremely enticing as well informative. With understanding of multiple archetypes & symbols available to us, which are time & again exposed through our behavior, beliefs, dreams etc. we can witness the deepest levels of our mind.

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Collective unconscious
Carl Jung
Anima Animus

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