Facing Anger
written by Jihadi Jew on Monday, February 21, 2011
Hello Readers,
Oh look, it’s something I can relate to and am really guuud at — ANGER! HAHAHAHAHA.
once called me his anger translator. I have been called cuddly as a jellyfish and a sweetheart with a flak jacket. I’ve been called a charming dragon. Articulation of rage is something people have appreciate about me, my ability to capture rage in words, my talent for poetic portrayal of the felt sense of being stuck in fight mode and feeling like the Number Four RBMK reactor in Chernobyl is inside me about to blow.I have a thing I call the asshole inside my head, that’s my anthropomorphisation of the angry part of me. It’s helpful to recognise when the wounds are talking and when my Self is talking. This is kind of like recognising a threat state in oneself — remember we behave like assholes when we are not in our biologically safe zone, ie ventral vagal state. Most of us are not in a ventral vagal state as a norm. So there are a lot of assholes walking around. Assholes are shyte at coregulation. Also at problem solving.
Anger is a natural emotion and felt sense. It is a signal that tells us boundaries are in violation. Curiosity and not judgement works best to probe anger. Inflaming and amplifying don’t help although they do feel gratifying.
Make a rule of never speaking to anyone when you feel rageful, when your chest feels burning and your heart racey from anger — don’t connect with anyone in these states because you may inflict hurt you regret later. What if you could use that anger to fuel your life rather than glorify the pain of your wounds? No one likes it when people’s wounds purulently + excessively drain all over everything, we typically avoid anyone with weeping wounds. Anger is a weeping wound. You and I are responsible for tending to our own wounds, that includes anger. Lee’s words from 2011 are below the line.
Anger chases wisdom away, and causes the image of G-d disappears from the human visage.
A week ago, I witnessed a protest in Yorba Linda, California. Church groups, Tea-partiers and the members of some Jewish congregations had been called on to protest the charity fundraising dinner of the Islamic Circle of North America at which two controversial Muslim leaders were speaking. The protesters had gathered to protest both the speakers and the aims of the organization which they see as having a “radical Islamicist agenda.” I will let the reader do their own research to judge the merits of the protest, the organization and its speakers: [LINK].1
The protest itself was a mob scene in which the assembled crowd armed with signs and American Flags hurled insults at the Muslim families who were rushing into the hall or rushing out. They were told to “Go home!” and called “Terrorist.” Women in hijab were special targets. All men were addressed as “Ahmed” and one piously Christian adult made it a point to yell at little children that “Mohammed was a pedophile” others in the crowd followed this with “Jesus loves you!” It was bizarre and it was a disgrace.2
As the crowd was yelling, I looked around at the faces of those screaming their insults and I was reminded of a teaching of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. He taught the following.
When a person gives way to anger, it stirs up the great accuser, Esau, or Edom. The accuser in the upper world is the source of a flurry of accusers and enemies who come down and take charge of this angry man. His anger puts his wisdom to flight, and the image of G-d disappears from his face. He no longer has the face of a man. This is why he is in the power of his enemies. Because he has the appearance of a beast they are not afraid of him (Likutei Moharan 57:6).
It is true. What I saw around me were not the faces of human beings but the faces of wild animals. I no longer saw the beautiful reflection of divinity that is the essence of a human being’s soul. That soul had been so defiled by anger, so twisted by blind rage that it was gone.
Strangely seeing that brought me an unusual calm and a strength. My own anger at them retreated, and for a few moments, instead of enraged human beings, I saw cornered frightened snarling animals. Perhaps their fears are not real, but their response was. It was not a human response, certainly not a G-dly response, it was a response from their animal [nefesh] being. (Bad Hijabi note: oh, but it was a human response, an extreme one. Perhaps it was a brain stem amygdala response, not a high brain response — behaviour from the low ie reflective brain, survival behaviour driven by a biological need to overcome an immediate threat. In this context it’s helpful to think of levels of the soul corresponding to states of the nervous system).
A few days ago, I encountered this teaching of Imam Al-Ghazali in his discussion of the causes of anger and its cure. One of the cures is as follows:
Another kind of medicine based on knowledge is to think about the
ugly face of the angry man, which is just like that of the ferocious
beast. He who appeases anger looks like a sober and learned man.3
Unwittingly, I had done Imam al-Ghazali's exercise and it had worked. In the face of the ferocious beast within another I found, at least for some moments, the humanity in myself. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, taught that every experience in our lives has the potential of giving us instruction in our service of G-d. Here it seems very clear. When we are surrounded with hostility we just need to look at the faces around us. We can look into the face that is staring us down and see that inner animal, see the tangible evidence that for that moment, our “enemy” has lost the struggle within and let that experience heal us, to allow the humanity within us to be victorious.
—written by Jihadi Jew in 2011—
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote at length about anger signalling internal suffering and our attention to that anger within akin to a mother attending to her wounded child serving as the remedy for ourSelf in the throes of anger. The same holds true for meeting the anger of another, to remember anger ultimately expresses suffering.
“Anger is like a howling baby, suffering and crying. The baby needs his mother to embrace him. You are the mother for your baby, your anger. The moment you begin to practice breathing mindfully in and out, you have the energy of a mother, to cradle and embrace the baby. Just embracing your anger, just breathing in and breathing out, that is good enough. The baby will feel relief right away.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger
Bad Hijabi’s Note: I have seen ICNA connected to Islamic terrorism in my research. Nonetheless the angry mob response is an ineffectual one. Ultimately America’s war on terror failed.
Bad Hijabi’s Note: It does seem odd to debase oneself in this extreme way in the process of supposedly opposing extremism
Bad Hijabi’s Note: We now know anger blocks our reasoning circuits, so this indeed makes sense.