“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. The calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.” ~ James Allen
I am always told that I’m very calm. That I always seem like I’m cruising along, like nothing really fazes me. I am often asked how I keep my calm, how I work my way around anger and stress. How am I able to use a well-modulated voice and carefully chosen words even in conflict, heated debate?
This label of a calm person is not really a compliment. In reality, it is the default setting in a human being naturally. To be stable, to articulate and not emote is a feature. Being calm is normal. Being stressed, angry is abnormal.
Anger is not natural, but those who believe it is, have accepted it as an instinctive natural reaction to events that are disappointing.
Existentially, anger is a manifestation of our own shortcomings. Express it—and we’re not necessarily better off. Add to it the aggression that builds up, it often brings irreversible damage. Anger often feeds on itself. A negative spiral is set in motion in a person’s life by habitual rage.
In the reality of existence, there is only harmony and bliss. Look at nature in which there is ‘only harmony and proportion’ universally.
Anger is non-existent in reality and neither anger nor the celebrated ability to stifle anger is a sign of emotional health. In other words, anger, attachment, and the rest are concepts, albeit incorrect concepts. It seems like a joke to say that these powerful emotions are based on thoughts, but that’s because we only notice them when they roar up to the surface as emotion. Perhaps we can see the disturbing aspect of them, but rarely the delusional.
People haven’t found a way to be normal and remain calm. There remains unprocessed anger which is a sinkhole of energy and time. People may not even recognize when they are angry. Or they may conceal anger until it explodes out of them in the form of demeaning words or deeds.
Impatience and temper are like smoking cigarettes; one or a few hundred won’t kill. But, compounded over time, it’ll cause severe damage.
Chronic anger that flares up frequently has serious consequences on:
Physical health – Constantly operating at high levels of stress and anger makes us more susceptible to heart disease, diabetes, a weakened immune system, insomnia, and high blood pressure. Chronic anger poisons productivity and fuels stress.
Mental health – Chronic anger consumes mental energy and clouds the ability to think, making it harder to concentrate or enjoy life. It also leads to stress, depression, and other mental health problems.
Relationships – Anger causes lasting scars when it gets in the way of personal relations, friendships, and work relationships. Explosive anger makes it hard for others to trust us, speak truth to us, or feel comfortable around us. When we misinterpret an important message due to a simmering resentment, it takes us long to restore healthy communication.
Besides, it also impacts our emotional intelligence and decision making. When we’re tightly wound up, we are more likely to react to situations than to respond with logic, reason. Anger makes us narrowly focused, preventing us from seeing the bigger picture. When we’re calmer, our attention becomes broader, allowing us to have a broader vision.
To survive and thrive we need to find ways to deal with pressure and uncertainty, be calm. There is a connection between calmness and productivity and this can be experienced by everyone.
Understanding this is the key to identifying invalid and false ideas in our mind and, therefore, how to get rid of them.
We know how to be angry. We are good at activating our adrenal system and getting wound up. The bigger question is how do we wind down?
The way to eternal calmness…
“Question and validate our false beliefs and stop looking through the glass of our own confused emotions.”
These beliefs are just expressions of what is purely an idea: a story made up by our conceptual mind that exaggerates stuff. Also, finding out the reason behind the aggressive behavior helps us to maintain calm even in anger enticing situations.
Being a delusional state of mind, a lie, a misconception, it’s logical that anger can be eliminated.
We all have the power to decide what we will understand and believe in. Our beliefs get firmed up as we age. Only by gaining more understanding, more knowledge is the change in our behavior possible. Nothing more is required, nothing less will suffice to handle anger.
When this knowledge or premise is accepted, we can look behind the aggressive behavior of someone and the incomplete understanding it is based on. Using that knowledge, we can work with him to correct the understanding and avoid reacting to his behavior driven by anger.
Of course, it will take practice to unlearn the behavior coming from incorrect understanding. We can try being rational in our interactions and behavior to get there. What’s left when we’ve removed the false beliefs, the delusions, is the truth of our own innate goodness, fully perfected.
Takeaway ~
Current belief – Anger is a natural emotion and it can be used to drive energy in the right direction.
In popular culture – Jud Brewer in his Medium articles talks about bottling the fuel of anger. He says anger is real, it can be managed and used as we wish. This can be nothing farther than the truth. This is with all respect to Jud Brewer and his articles.
As per the philosophy of coexistence, anger is the agitated state of manifesting the incomplete and incorrect understanding of the existential reality in which one finds himself. An event or situation has occurred and instead of aligning with that erupting in anger is the manifestation of the wide gap between what was perceived and what the actual reality is. It is that simple. 🙂
