Anger, it has stolen something far too precious. I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but it was right before my eyes the whole time and I'm not gonna let it out of my sight until I vanquish this vermin called anger.
This altered state of mind, anger, it has robbed me of my peace of mind, the most beautiful of all precious stones, and it took my lovely girl, although I suspect she, too, was one angry bird. There are parallels to this ailment, just like anger today, a long time ago I was pathologically shy. The day I decided to no longer be so, it was a good start, but it took years. In my relationships, I've always take away something that I think could benefit, what I did right I continue and what I did wrong is simply discontinued. Behavior is modifiable, luckily, and we get to be better versions of ourselves if we so decide it. Now, narrowing in on the enemy, I'd say... it kept hiding from me throughout the years. First, I wasn't even remotely angry. I was actually rather passive. This is why, when I decided to fight others for the useless throne of being right, I felt I was doing a good thing for myself. Up until that point in my personal evolution, I had grown accustomed to others running my life, having their say and I stayed mum on the sidelines. Therefore, lashing out angrily at others was my way of saying, "Hey, I won't stand for this anymore." Initially, finding the feisty warrior inside made me proud and it was just so addictive to finally put a stop to all the abuse suffered.
If we get angry, in part, is because it works. But you're playing grateful forces: your using violence to get your way and not all people react the same to intimidation.
When you think of a thief, an unwelcome intruder, who wanders throughout your most intimate rooms, breathing the air you breath. You can't think of a greater threat than some inner entity that becomes "you" and lashes out without your blessing, because when we become angry, we lose control, restrain, fairness. We can express our anger, but not let it unravel in unhealthy projections, do not engage anger and do not let others push you around using the A card.
But, going back for a moment, a thief, or better yet an impostor, who with your slight consent has taken you hostage and turn you into the living dead: fear is magnified in our minds, we're rather very primitive creatures. Imagine if there was something as contagious and as hurtful as anger can be, how it can infect a whole crowd in seconds and have catastrophic consequences. If we viewed anger logically, it usually means we're no longer angry. Of course, we may say that we are not, feel as if we aren't, but no one is without anger. The trick here is not to rid of anger but rather not let anger get a hold of you. Anger was hiding under the pretense of someone tough, happy to have found its voice and not a damn shy bone to quiet it! Maybe in abolishing shyness, I was carried away.
Anger has stolen from me as much as shyness, if not more. And when I decided not to be shy again, I knew it’d take more than just that decision along the way. The way is only hard and steep until you get used to the movement, once you form a habit out of not getting mad, if you must say something in a harsh tone, tone it down; keep your poise, swag and aloofness; it shouldn't even register. But it was a good start. Pealing out the outer layer, maybe doing away with shyness fueled my anger, or perhaps because of there being a lot of repressed anger, I was vocal. In intimacy, a menace of a lover, so anger also hid itself behind jealousy. If I chose not to be jealous, anymore, could I just be angry instead? See, jealousy in small doses is fine, but once anger sets in, any trivial thing turns into a big nothing. When I was shy, I saved a lot of time by not engaging and therefore enabling confrontational people, but I had saved the fight for the one I loved. I had no friends, no relatives whom I frequent, no active social life. I am sort of a loner, sedentary, introspective. And though I have fun, fun to me isn't being at a bar late at night, if anything have a couple of beers and leave. Yes, there's such a thing as having a drink and leaving. I don't know what genius thought of getting relatively young people hammered late at night and have them mingle. You get better chances at the coffee shop. Once I got over being shy, I had no need for bars. Of course, I'd go if invited, party like there's no tomorrow, but four out of five times, I'm writing, meditating, reading, working, doing stuff at home, going to coffee shops, malls, anywhere where there are lots of people, and going to see my sons more often than my parents did.
The story about my personal onslaught against the tyranny of shyness, it is a painstaking one that took me years and, in any ways, it still is an undergoing battle. For who can claim to be without the slightest shred of shyness? Shyness took away from me the girl of my dreams back in high school. It wasn't there and then that I decided to do something about being shy. I’d just say that was who I was, to myself, and others could see it too, but no one encouraged me even though many took advantage of it. It also stole the girl I loved back then, a dear friend of mine today.
This altered state of mind, anger, it has robbed me of my peace of mind, the most beautiful of all precious stones, and it took my lovely girl, although I suspect she, too, was one angry bird. There are parallels to this ailment, just like anger today, a long time ago I was pathologically shy. The day I decided to no longer be so, it was a good start, but it took years. In my relationships, I've always take away something that I think could benefit, what I did right I continue and what I did wrong is simply discontinued. Behavior is modifiable, luckily, and we get to be better versions of ourselves if we so decide it. Now, narrowing in on the enemy, I'd say... it kept hiding from me throughout the years. First, I wasn't even remotely angry. I was actually rather passive. This is why, when I decided to fight others for the useless throne of being right, I felt I was doing a good thing for myself. Up until that point in my personal evolution, I had grown accustomed to others running my life, having their say and I stayed mum on the sidelines. Therefore, lashing out angrily at others was my way of saying, "Hey, I won't stand for this anymore." Initially, finding the feisty warrior inside made me proud and it was just so addictive to finally put a stop to all the abuse suffered.
If we get angry, in part, is because it works. But you're playing grateful forces: your using violence to get your way and not all people react the same to intimidation.
When you think of a thief, an unwelcome intruder, who wanders throughout your most intimate rooms, breathing the air you breath. You can't think of a greater threat than some inner entity that becomes "you" and lashes out without your blessing, because when we become angry, we lose control, restrain, fairness. We can express our anger, but not let it unravel in unhealthy projections, do not engage anger and do not let others push you around using the A card.
But, going back for a moment, a thief, or better yet an impostor, who with your slight consent has taken you hostage and turn you into the living dead: fear is magnified in our minds, we're rather very primitive creatures. Imagine if there was something as contagious and as hurtful as anger can be, how it can infect a whole crowd in seconds and have catastrophic consequences. If we viewed anger logically, it usually means we're no longer angry. Of course, we may say that we are not, feel as if we aren't, but no one is without anger. The trick here is not to rid of anger but rather not let anger get a hold of you. Anger was hiding under the pretense of someone tough, happy to have found its voice and not a damn shy bone to quiet it! Maybe in abolishing shyness, I was carried away.
Anger has stolen from me as much as shyness, if not more. And when I decided not to be shy again, I knew it’d take more than just that decision along the way. The way is only hard and steep until you get used to the movement, once you form a habit out of not getting mad, if you must say something in a harsh tone, tone it down; keep your poise, swag and aloofness; it shouldn't even register. But it was a good start. Pealing out the outer layer, maybe doing away with shyness fueled my anger, or perhaps because of there being a lot of repressed anger, I was vocal. In intimacy, a menace of a lover, so anger also hid itself behind jealousy. If I chose not to be jealous, anymore, could I just be angry instead? See, jealousy in small doses is fine, but once anger sets in, any trivial thing turns into a big nothing. When I was shy, I saved a lot of time by not engaging and therefore enabling confrontational people, but I had saved the fight for the one I loved. I had no friends, no relatives whom I frequent, no active social life. I am sort of a loner, sedentary, introspective. And though I have fun, fun to me isn't being at a bar late at night, if anything have a couple of beers and leave. Yes, there's such a thing as having a drink and leaving. I don't know what genius thought of getting relatively young people hammered late at night and have them mingle. You get better chances at the coffee shop. Once I got over being shy, I had no need for bars. Of course, I'd go if invited, party like there's no tomorrow, but four out of five times, I'm writing, meditating, reading, working, doing stuff at home, going to coffee shops, malls, anywhere where there are lots of people, and going to see my sons more often than my parents did.
The story about my personal onslaught against the tyranny of shyness, it is a painstaking one that took me years and, in any ways, it still is an undergoing battle. For who can claim to be without the slightest shred of shyness? Shyness took away from me the girl of my dreams back in high school. It wasn't there and then that I decided to do something about being shy. I’d just say that was who I was, to myself, and others could see it too, but no one encouraged me even though many took advantage of it. It also stole the girl I loved back then, a dear friend of mine today.
Extraordinary things happened for me when I confronted my shyness, but the real rewards took years to rip. That's how severe shyness was, but maybe it also had something to do with the fact that I was much younger, therefore less experienced and not as up to the task. It didn't happen overnight, that much I can say.
So, it's not like I expect anger to go away, after years and years of nurturing the beast. It will not die a quiet death, I thought. Then I read this book about how we are not our thoughts by Mr. Tolle, and suddenly the voices ceased to murmur, I became more silent. The Ego, has a lot to do with it, but all good things in time come for those who go for it, and I am going to rely, not on doing things differently, but rather in learning how to cope with them without getting angry. I won't just let people walk over me, either; there's a healthy amount of character and firmness you can show without the need to lose control, as is often the case with anger. My thing is, I've been far less angry than ever before and, unlike shyness, I have already seen miracles in my life. Nothing specific, just the way people responds to me and all the good things that this new journey in life has brought.
In tearing down anger, I underwent dozens of hours of meditation. One particular book, The Power of Now, is worth mentioning. In it, the author, Eckhart Tolle, candidly speaks of his disregard for the voices that sum up our thoughts. This inner mental chattering, the interior monologue we all carry with us wherever we may find ourselves being, or instead of being, accordingly, is the source of all our misery. That we should stop listening to our thoughts, as we are not our thoughts, and focus on this very present moment which is the most precious thing we got. Mr. Tolle doesn't speak in scientific terms, the book is esoteric in nature, strictly spiritual if you will, and nothing you haven't already heard from Buddhism and any other guru advocating the colossal benefits of quieting our minds through meditation. It's the way in which Mr. Tolle projects this "stream of consciousness" that determine our fate. Interesting enough, he mentions as a point of reference the axiom by the famous French philosopher Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." And he condemns such reference by arguing that it is a mistake to think of thoughts are the source of us being. Being and thoughts, in Mr. Tolle's book, are actually separate entities.
Interestingly, too, how he sort of sees these inner voices that roam around our head as not just the source of our misery, but almost like living entities that refuse to die and want to "animate" themselves through our actions. In a single slingshot, The Power of Now throws down the debacle that pleasure is the true purpose in life, as Hedonism proposes; instead, joy is pleasure we can give ourselves. Anything other than the source of happiness, as in joy, as in emanating from within, is not something that is in someone else's grasp. What took hold of me is how Mr. Tolle describes corrosive emotions in our mental processing, the way these thought patterns are elaborate and forgotten puzzles in psyche, remnants of a time long gone that does not want to expire and die. All of our personal demons rose up from conflicts in our personal lives, but they do not need to be reenacted through disturbed manifestations in our lives. Instead, the solution is simple: ignore your thoughts. See them as they are, manifestations of a moment long gone or not yet present, joy is in living this very moment fully and leave regrets and worries behind. There's no tomorrow, there's no past; yesterday was today a moment ago and tomorrow will be shortly today again. In other words, we never get to be in a future time and what's left, whatever is gone, should be left alone.
What a marvelous book.
My only complaint is that not all our thoughts are evil. Some of us actually enjoy spending time in our heads and while there really isn't a tomorrow or a yesterday that can match up this moment, yesterday (to my mind) isn't always a bad memory and I love looking forward tomorrow. I guess Mr. Tolle speaks of the "evils" of a tormented mind and, for that, we can all be thankful. What's more, it gives us the reassurance that we really don't have to entertain thought-processes with dire consequences. In essence, whatever we choose to believe ultimately is the result of our own ego incarnating itself as a self-evident truth. We can abolish a whole lot of psychosis, avoid true pain, if only we stop listening the voices of doom. Nothing that we ever feared came out exactly the way we feared. Our emotions are exaggerated, therefore our response may be somewhat tremendous as well. How easy it is to know that we can get along with the demons within if only we can keep them quiet until their influence become null.
It's a very uplifting, poignant piece of literature, with a fresh look at ourselves, our very own thoughts, as the fabric of our misery. And yes, some people is actually so afflicted over ruminating thoughts in their mind. To those whose heads are held as heavy-burden trophies, it's time to put the load aside and go on walking cargo-free. And in not listening to the voices of doom, it is reminiscent of what Nietzsche said of his predecessor and early influential figure, Schopenhauer.
So, it's not like I expect anger to go away, after years and years of nurturing the beast. It will not die a quiet death, I thought. Then I read this book about how we are not our thoughts by Mr. Tolle, and suddenly the voices ceased to murmur, I became more silent. The Ego, has a lot to do with it, but all good things in time come for those who go for it, and I am going to rely, not on doing things differently, but rather in learning how to cope with them without getting angry. I won't just let people walk over me, either; there's a healthy amount of character and firmness you can show without the need to lose control, as is often the case with anger. My thing is, I've been far less angry than ever before and, unlike shyness, I have already seen miracles in my life. Nothing specific, just the way people responds to me and all the good things that this new journey in life has brought.
In tearing down anger, I underwent dozens of hours of meditation. One particular book, The Power of Now, is worth mentioning. In it, the author, Eckhart Tolle, candidly speaks of his disregard for the voices that sum up our thoughts. This inner mental chattering, the interior monologue we all carry with us wherever we may find ourselves being, or instead of being, accordingly, is the source of all our misery. That we should stop listening to our thoughts, as we are not our thoughts, and focus on this very present moment which is the most precious thing we got. Mr. Tolle doesn't speak in scientific terms, the book is esoteric in nature, strictly spiritual if you will, and nothing you haven't already heard from Buddhism and any other guru advocating the colossal benefits of quieting our minds through meditation. It's the way in which Mr. Tolle projects this "stream of consciousness" that determine our fate. Interesting enough, he mentions as a point of reference the axiom by the famous French philosopher Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." And he condemns such reference by arguing that it is a mistake to think of thoughts are the source of us being. Being and thoughts, in Mr. Tolle's book, are actually separate entities.
Interestingly, too, how he sort of sees these inner voices that roam around our head as not just the source of our misery, but almost like living entities that refuse to die and want to "animate" themselves through our actions. In a single slingshot, The Power of Now throws down the debacle that pleasure is the true purpose in life, as Hedonism proposes; instead, joy is pleasure we can give ourselves. Anything other than the source of happiness, as in joy, as in emanating from within, is not something that is in someone else's grasp. What took hold of me is how Mr. Tolle describes corrosive emotions in our mental processing, the way these thought patterns are elaborate and forgotten puzzles in psyche, remnants of a time long gone that does not want to expire and die. All of our personal demons rose up from conflicts in our personal lives, but they do not need to be reenacted through disturbed manifestations in our lives. Instead, the solution is simple: ignore your thoughts. See them as they are, manifestations of a moment long gone or not yet present, joy is in living this very moment fully and leave regrets and worries behind. There's no tomorrow, there's no past; yesterday was today a moment ago and tomorrow will be shortly today again. In other words, we never get to be in a future time and what's left, whatever is gone, should be left alone.
What a marvelous book.
My only complaint is that not all our thoughts are evil. Some of us actually enjoy spending time in our heads and while there really isn't a tomorrow or a yesterday that can match up this moment, yesterday (to my mind) isn't always a bad memory and I love looking forward tomorrow. I guess Mr. Tolle speaks of the "evils" of a tormented mind and, for that, we can all be thankful. What's more, it gives us the reassurance that we really don't have to entertain thought-processes with dire consequences. In essence, whatever we choose to believe ultimately is the result of our own ego incarnating itself as a self-evident truth. We can abolish a whole lot of psychosis, avoid true pain, if only we stop listening the voices of doom. Nothing that we ever feared came out exactly the way we feared. Our emotions are exaggerated, therefore our response may be somewhat tremendous as well. How easy it is to know that we can get along with the demons within if only we can keep them quiet until their influence become null.
It's a very uplifting, poignant piece of literature, with a fresh look at ourselves, our very own thoughts, as the fabric of our misery. And yes, some people is actually so afflicted over ruminating thoughts in their mind. To those whose heads are held as heavy-burden trophies, it's time to put the load aside and go on walking cargo-free. And in not listening to the voices of doom, it is reminiscent of what Nietzsche said of his predecessor and early influential figure, Schopenhauer.
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