Angry Ace

Ace gets angry sometimes. I guess he must have gotten it from me.

I get angry quite easily and very often, I show my anger… sometimes I say unkind words, sometimes I do unkind things… sometimes I dun say a thing.. but it is not because I am being nice but because I know not saying anything would hurt the other person more.

After becoming vegetarian though and maturing with age, I get angry less easily. Or maybe, I should say that sometimes, I learnt to suppress my anger. When I am unhappy, I try to suppress it… but in actual fact, it doesn’t really go away. It just stays within me and sometimes turn and churn into another bigger and more scary emotion.

When I attended POV, my love and relationships mentor, Hiromi, told us that Anger is just a feeling. If you acknowledge that you are angry, look at your anger, feel it and burn it, it will go away in a while and you will feel FREE after that.

In fact, she says that studies have been done to show that ANGER DOES NOT LAST BEYOND 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

But feeling your anger doesn’t give you the right to act on it because if we act on it, we may hurt others. When we act out on our anger and hurt people, they will either want to hurt you back or they might become sick. If you suppress it though, we may hurt ourselves.. which means, we may be the ones who become sick instead.

"You don't need to control your anger," Hiromi Sensei said. "What you need to do is to control your behaviour... Take a deep breadth.. and it will go away gradually..."

So, I decided that it is ok for Ace to be angry when I heard that.

If your kid is angry, what do you usually say to him/her?

When Ace is upset, I usually ask him not to be upset before I ask him why he is upset. Since POV though, I would often tell him, “It is ok to be angry, Ace. You just feel it and it will go away in a while. But it is inappropriate to act on it, so please dun pull mummy’s hair …”

After he is more settled… then I will ask him why he is angry and what he is so upset about and try to make a guess. If I am at fault and not sensitive enough to him, I apologize to him. If it is a misunderstanding, I try to explain it to him.

But I think it is not easy. The other day, I got into an argument with Daddy. I followed instructions and felt my anger.. gee, it was scary to face anger.. Such a small incident and it made me so angry.. I didn’t know that I was sooooooooo angry!

But the good thing that once it is over. It is really over ;) So your heart is relaxed and free instead of enclosed and unhappy ;)

Next time your kid is angry or if YOU are angry, you might want to try this ;)

PS: The other emotions like greed, sadness are the same. I went to a detox camp and my meditation teacher, who is a high priest told us that if you sit there and look at your emotion and feel it and burn it, it will go away.

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