Fear and Anger

Wow, I sure do seem to have trouble being committed to writing here on my blog. In all honesty, I developed the blog site as a way to communicate with my yoga students, but now with a website, that seems less necessary. So I am left with wondering if there is anything of interest to write about. Today as I was teaching yoga class, I had some ideas rolling around in my head and decided that it must be blog time! So here it goes.....

I was thinking about how angry everyone seems these days. Most of my friends are still pleasant enough of course, but it feels like our communities and our country are deeply divided and suspicious of one another. Just today I realized that in one week, it is election day. The attack ads and campaigning have been going on for so long, that it almost seems surprising that in one week it will be a done deal. Not that I'm complaining....it has been a long slog and I'm sure I am not the only one who is weary of the whole ordeal.

It got me wondering....how did we get to this point? I really have no answer to that question, but it got me thinking about the emotions of anger and rage. In the therapy room, I have many opportunities to talk to people who struggle with intense emotion and anger concerns. Eventually we get around to exploring what lurks underneath. Typically, people get angry when they are actually afraid or anxious, or when they feel poked in the "soft underbelly" somehow. When we feel a lack of respect, or we feel shamed and embarrassed, or weak and ineffective, instead of addressing these feelings, we get angry and bluster and rant and rave instead.

I think many of us collectively and as a culture right now are feeling anxious and fearful and we are getting angry about it!!! Events around the world keep happening that are certainly anxiety producing and create fear. We seem to hear weekly of mass shootings in schools, places of worship, or movie theaters. Road rage, drive by shootings, bombs sent in the mail. It's no wonder we are a bit apprehensive and frightened. But what do we do with these emotions? I worry that the fear and discomfort people feel is turning them into angry and hostile people. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen only to people on one side of the political aisle. While I completely disagree with the negative innuendo and name calling that comes from our current political leadership, I also see it each and every day in social media and of course, in all the negative attack ads. We have come to the point where many have decided that fear SELLS and that negativity "fires up a political base."

I cringe when people call the president (or anyone for that matter) names; it's not respectful. It's mean spirited and it takes us to a place where we have no ground to stand on to say that we want the harsh rhetoric and abusive behavior of others to stop. Unfortunately, hate and anger can spread like a wildfire out of control. At the end of the day, our best defense against getting caught up in the spiral of fear, anxiety, anger, and rage is to SLOW DOWN. TAKE A BREATH. If you recognize that you are feeling tweaked and upset, that's ok, but remember that you can decide how to behave, what you will say, and how you will respond. Don't be what it is you are raging against!

I'm not advocating that people should never get angry. Anger is an emotion that helps us galvanize and gather our energy for action. When we see injustice in the world, it should make us angry and motivated to make things right (Note that I didn't say get revenge). It's when our anger makes us unable to think clearly and we get entrenched in rigid thinking that things start to spin out of control. Then we start resorting to our own forms of violence, whether it is name calling, accusations, or something more extreme.

I go back to where I started....my friends and family are still pleasant and a joy to be around. That's really where we start and end each day, with people we hold dear. If we can all hold onto and remember that ALL of us in this nation and in our world are part of one human family, then perhaps that will help us change our tone just a bit. It starts at home. It starts with me. Be kind. Be generous. Hope for the best and and be an example of what you'd like to see in others. Get out and vote and may next Tuesday be a time of new beginnings and new ideas that benefit us all.

What the heck does this have to do with yoga you ask? Everything. Yoga is a practice for living and teaches us skills like breathing deeply and understanding our connection to all beings. We get on the mat every day to practice concepts of mindfulness and the word yoga itself means "yoke" or to bring together. We are human. We mess up. So we show up on our mats again to work on being mindful and aware of the divine energy that exists in all of us.

Namaste