How to Stop Being Angry and Upset All the Time
Our problems in life begin when we become angry, resentful, and upset. When we are angry--emotion clouds reason and we say or do the wrong things.
Next we become upset at our upset,
angry at our anger, and resentful at our resentment! All this does is add
another layer of wrong reaction. And when we are resentful, we are even more
cut off from reason and calmness.
Soon we find ourselves lost in the
imagination and there we become even less in control of our actions. We react to
our tricky imagination and then do or say something foolish, only to scurry back
into the imagination to hide from another round of upset and failing.
Once we become emotionally out of
control, we start to experience more and more physical symptoms, such as tension
headaches or upset stomach. We might try to change jobs or take pills, but
because of conditioning, we find ourselves becoming more and more upset all the
time and then suppressing symptoms. We push them under the carpet and try to
distract ourselves with nice thoughts (but we are still reacting underneath and
continuing to deteriorate physically).
The real answer is to stop
reacting emotionally and resentfully.
Many of us would like to, but we don’t know how to. We think, for example, that we should be nice to people by trying to be nice (which produces more tension), or by becoming a people pleaser to avoid being upset. But this only tempts others to take advantage. We think we must try to not be upset, but trying is an act of will that only adds more tension, repression, and guaranteed frustration when we become upset again.
Many of us would like to, but we don’t know how to. We think, for example, that we should be nice to people by trying to be nice (which produces more tension), or by becoming a people pleaser to avoid being upset. But this only tempts others to take advantage. We think we must try to not be upset, but trying is an act of will that only adds more tension, repression, and guaranteed frustration when we become upset again.
Actually the first step to being a
better person is learning the discipline of not becoming upset in the first
place.
If you do not become upset in the
first place, you won’t have to repress emotion or try to make up for guilt in
the second place. You will be free to be calm and reasonable.
If you don’t become upset in the
first place, you won’t have to go overboard in being nice to people to make up
for the guilt.
If you don’t become upset in the
first place, you won’t have to reach for pleasures and material things to make
up for what you lost when you became resentful or angry.
Many of us also recognize that
another step toward being a better person is to be more forgiving. This is true.
Unfortunately, once again we tend to think that being forgiving means being nice
to everyone. We can be run ragged by doing for everyone else. Or we think being
nice is pushing down our true (angry) feelings.
The true way to be more forgiving
is to not judge or resent in the first place. Learn to overlook. This does not
mean pretending not to see error or wrong. It means seeing the error—just don’t
hate the person for it.
Learn the simplicity of
meditating properly, and you will be free to be the self you were always meant
to be. Meditating teaches you
to be the observer of your own wrong reactions from a calm perspective.
Meditating properly teaches how to nip reactions in the bud before they have
time to grow, take root, and spread.
Proper meditation teaches you how
to stand back from emotional thoughts and feelings due to past failing. Proper
meditation teaches you how to stand back and observe your own wrong reactions
without over-reacting to them. In essence, it teaches you how to be more
forgiving with yourself.
It is critically important that
any new desire to be more forgiving to others also include the technique of
dealing with what has already gone wrong within us, otherwise we flounder and
become discouraged because we don’t know how to deal with what we see about
ourselves.
