Category: anger

“Puppy Love” People

Puppies! We love them, but they sure can be rambunctious even destructive at times. They don’t take no for an answer and they take testing your patience to an art form.

Our nine-month-old weimardoodle, Harper, is no exception. She can go from the most cuddly, loving creature on the planet one moment to “devil dog” the next.

She’s a chewer and a scavenger. She’s constantly looking to get something in her mouth and if it gets our attention that much the better. She’s mauled cords, gloves, rolls of toilet paper; anything that presents an opportunity.

A puppy’s antics can annoy and even anger. Yet, five minutes after scolding Harper for something she’s cuddled up next to me and I’m telling her how much I love her.

Our ability to forgive our little friend is quick and endless. Why aren’t we better at treating other humans with so much grace?

If another human negligently destroyed your shoe or rammed into your car, you’d probably be a little miffed maybe for an hour maybe all day. The puppy does it and you’re over it and moving on.

Why don’t we apply “puppy love” to people? What if we granted loved ones and strangers alike the same level of understanding we give a puppy?

There are all kinds of reasons we could give for this differentiated behavior. A puppy’s just a puppy. They can’t help it. That guy who cut me off in traffic is an adult human being on a mission to ruin my morning.

The fact is our reaction – to the puppy and the imbecilic tweet – are both our choice. If we can choose it with the puppy, we can choose it with other human beings.

Try “puppy loving” someone the next time another person upsets you. The world and your day will be a better place.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are awesome!

Ray

Advertisement

Anger is a Toxic Brain Chemical

Anger is a toxic brain chemical. Like toxic chemicals out in the world, it can have short-term explosive power that seems to propel you forward. It gives you an endorphin rush and makes you “feel good.” This is short-lived.

Eventually, it corrodes the mind, corrodes the heart, corrodes the very essence of your being. Whatever anger rules, it eventually destroys – a person, a nation, a world. We must decide, as conscious creators, if it’s an energy we wanted creating our world.

The scientific evidence for this beyond question. Anger literally destroys our health, if we allow it to persist and become our way of being. Like other addictive substances, it lies to us. It makes us think we’re doing something constructive and anger always craves more anger.

The Japanese research Masuru Emoto wrote a series of best-selling books back in the 1990s called Messages from Water. He demonstrated, despite some scientists claiming it was pseudo-science, that water has memory. When it forms into ice crystals after being exposed to emotion, it tends to become beautiful and symmetric from positive emotion and damaged and sick looking after exposure to negative energy.

Think about that! You are about 75 percent water. The planet’s surface is about 75 percent water. How damaging could all the negativity on the planet right now be?

You don’t need his experiment to prove this to yourself. How do you feel when you’ve let anger get the best of you? Often you feel like you “need a shower.”

We’ve seen a lot of anger in the world in the stressful moment of the past year. Some of the issues driving the anger a legitimate. However, we must ask ourselves. Can this toxic brain chemical produce the positive change we seek or will it just drag us, our nations, and civilization down into its black hole of destruction?

Anger is an alert system like fear. They are meant to let us know there is something in our environment we should be reacting to. However, neither is a solution or strategy. They always fail and destroy when used in that way.

Once our anger has alerted us to the need for change, it must be transformed into a productive energy, brain chemical that can actually bring positive and productive change. Anger alone will consume all in its path, beginning with the angry person.

Let love, let peace, let a positive vision for change rule you. They are the clean energy of emotions. They are the constructive means of achieving that which you hope to achieve.

Affirmations:

  • Anger destroys me until I let it go. Today I let it go.
  • I release my anger and transform it into a more productive energy.
  • I refuse to let anger destroy me or destroy my world.
  • I choose love over anger.
  • I choose peace over anger.
  • I choose positive change over angry reaction.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are awesome!

Ray

Anger as Fuel

Anger fuels a moment, but it cannot fuel a life. Anger a lot like battery acid. Battery acid can power a car, but it also eventually corrodes everything it contacts.

Everyone, everyone, is entitled to their moments of justified anger. In fact, it’s rather destructive not to let yourself feel those feelings when they’re appropriate.

However, don’t kid yourself. You’re playing with fire in your life if you let anger become you. We live in a universe where like becomes like. A mind and a heart constantly filled with anger soon becomes anger and that corrosion of a life, of a nation, of a world sets in.

At some point, the anger must be converted into a productive energy that can bring real change. A world shifted only by anger simply becomes a new kind of angry world. It cannot help but become it.

If we want justice, we must embody justice. If we want freedom, we must embody freedom. If we want a better life or a better world, we must embody those too.

May peace prevail. May love prevail. May justice prevail. May compassion and empathy prevail.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are AWESOME!

Ray

Here are some affirmations to help us embody the world we want.

  • I AM love in every way I affect the world today.
  • I AM peace in every way I affect the world today.
  • I AM justice in every way I affect the world today.
  • I AM compassion in every way I affect the world today.
  • I AM joy in every way I affect the world today.
  • I AM the change I want to see in my world today.

Anger Never Heals

As sure as 2+2 does not equal 5, anger + anger never equals peace, contentment, or healing.

We live in a world that’s too often filled with anger. Some have just causes for their anger. Others just have unresolved issues lingering in their lives that cause them to lash out at the world. Still others were never taught other tools for dealing with their feelings beyond anger.

The relative anonymity and distance of social media makes it simple to torch other people, their ideas, and their motives.

Whatever the reasons for the anger or the justifications, the equation still holds. Anger + anger never equals peace, contentment, or healing.

Yet, if you look at many of the forces trying to reshape the world, it is anger that drives them. In a world where facts morph and people need scapegoats for their paradigms to work, it’s easy to see to why.

But I tell you this and say it clearly. No solution to our challenges will be conceived anger or its allies blame, hatred, and violence. The belief that these mindsets can fix a world already drunk on them is delusional.

Because of the immutable equation above, angry mindsets, motives, and ideologies cannot mend and heal an angry world. They may believe their ends justify their means, but their success can only result in another version of an angry world.

All the great teachers from all the great faiths – living and dead – have spoken with one voice on this. It is love, it is compassion, it is peace that can remake this angry world. Despite thousands of years of these wise teachings, it’s still easier for many people to rise and live their days filled with anger, blame, and hatred. They speak of “those people” – whoever those people are to them. They point fingers and they scheme win the game by wiping alternative views off the board. They follow leaders and voices that stir their anger rather than their humanity.

General Omar N. Bradley aptly described our dilemma at the dawn of the nuclear age.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.

We must get it through our heads that we are ALL in this together. For better or worse, we are passengers on this tiny little blue marble spinning precariously through a vast dark cosmos.

Peace is the way forward. Love is the way forward. Compassion is the way forward. It’s that simple and that hard. There are no exceptions to the rule. Anger begets anger. Love begets love.

The choice, as it always has been, is ours.

Just in case no one has reminded you today, you ARE awesome!

Ray

Visit the TAS website – https://affirmationspot.net

 

The Power of Pissed Off – Day 249 of 365 Days to a Better You

I’ve hesitated writing this post. I’ve started and stopped it several times. Today is the day. My concession is to open with a disclaimer to those who might misinterpret whist I’m saying.

Anger is dangerous. Many people wield it as a weapon against others in this world. Many have immense anger at the global political and economic system and not without some reason. Yet, their philosophy, driven by anger, holds only the hope of replacing the current angry system with another angry system more to their liking.

Anger creates physical and emotional damage in the world. It’s not a zip code you want to move into. Eventually, persistent anger consumes the angry person, leaving them alone and unhappy. That only feeds the angry fire within them.

But, and it’s a big but, anger does have a place in a healthy and wise human being. There are things that deserve some anger. Few emotional states, at least in short bursts, better focus our senses or stoke our determination like a little healthy anger. Used consciously, anger is like rocket fuel. It can move us further and faster.

Here are some tips to make your anger more conscious and productive.

  • Use anger sparingly. One of its dangers is it can become addictive. It does initially produce desired results. Some might view it as a shortcut to getting their needs met.
  • Be specific. When anger is justified, it’s because of a specific situation. Don’t be mad at the world or broad swaths of people. That’s not productive or conscious. Be clear on the what and why of your anger.
  • Avoid hatred and bigotry. Keep the source of your anger in perspective. Avoid progressing into bigotry or hatred. Refuse to dehumanize them even in response to them dehumanizing you. That creates an endless cycle anger and perhaps violence and serves no one.
  • Internal fuel. Let the anger fuel productive action. Don’t lash out at others. Let their criticism or wronging of you drive you forward. Prove them wrong rather than attacking them.
  • Recognize fear. Often anger is manifested by unresolved fear. Learn to recognize the difference. Fears can be dealt with at their root rather than precipitating anger.
  • Short bursts. As stated above, taking up residence in an angry place destroys you and all around you. Use legitimate anger in short, productive bursts. Then let it go.
  • More positive emotions. Never use anger when a more positive emotion would serve just as well. Radical love can often achieve all anger can. Forgiveness is often more powerful than staying in anger. Maybe the greatest enlightenment related to anger is getting to a place where you no longer need it or respond with it at all.

In summation, anger is like chemotherapy. It will eventually kill the patient. Your goal is to use it sparingly and in productive ways, as you slowly ween yourself off the need for it.

As Buddha said in the Dhammapada:

He insulted me, he struck me, he cheated me, he robbed me”: those caught in resentful thoughts never find peace.

He insulted me, he struck me, he cheated me, he robbed me”: those who give up resentful thoughts surely find peace.

For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love. This is an unalterable law.

There are those who forget that death will come to all. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end.

Let your wisdom guide you and keep a short leash on your short fuse.

Ray

Ray Davis is the founder of The Affirmation Spot. He’s been studying and practicing personal development for 30 years. He’s also studied many of the world’s spiritual traditions and mythologies.

Find more TAS motivational content.

Website | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | PayPal