Making space for anger and sadness
One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in the last few years of practice is how differently my anger manifests. Some people just don’t do anger. For example, Swedish people. And of course Buddhists. So it’s been interesting to be an angry Buddhist married to a Swede!
My anger used to be colder and last for a lot longer. I could nurse a grievance for weeks. Now it’s more like a flamethrower, quick to fire up, hot, and then gone. Learning how to express it in a way that doesn’t do too much harm takes practice. I try to fully take responsibility for it, naming it, ‘I’m so angry right now’, and containing it. I find it doesn’t help to say, ‘I’m not angry with you’, because I usually am angry with someone or something. But it’s still my anger.
Angelo DiLullo talks of anger as being the guardian of our personal boundaries. When I’m angry, it’s often over something that I really care about. Do we understand that felt anger often does less harm than suppressed anger? Suppressed anger becomes violence. And this violence can take many forms, from wanting to control others to ignoring them. In a podcast with the Christian teacher Ilia Delio, she points out that our obsession with violence, the news stories we love to consume, the murder mysteries we entertain ourselves with, is down to our own suppressed violence.
Sadness too has its place, and when suppressed becomes depression. I tend to think sadness is much more acceptable than anger, but is it? A good friend posted a picture on Instagram in which she wasn’t smiling. In fact, she said she thought she looked sad. I thought she looked amazing. It’s a radical act sometimes, especially as a woman, not to smile.
Have you made enough space for anger and sadness in your life and practice?
Related posts:
What is klesharama?
Desire and ill-will
