"When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans." -Margaret J. Wheatley
Some of the most vivid memories I have from growing up involve anger. The anger I witnessed around me. The anger that boiled within me.
Please make no assumption or mistake, there is no "victim" in that declaration. The intention of the statement above is that of recognized opportunity. You see, whether we yet know it or not, each and every one of us are here in this life on a game-changing mission to:
Learn what we need to know from those around us; the passing on of coping mechanisms, habitual mindsets, and modes of survival.
Become increasingly aware and full of curiosity toward more deeply understanding the root and true intention behind those engrained patterns.
Align our personal, innate wisdom (aka our intuition) with our human will and courage to take the necessary steps to break the cycle of the aforementioned patterns.
A large piece of this perplexing puzzle, as it pertains to my personal story, has determined that anger as a coping mechanism and self-preservation technique is an undeniable link of this chain that I'm here to disintegrate.
The accumulation of seemingly surface-skimming research over the years has helped me realize that anger wasn't simply a defense strategy of those in my immediate family; a means of overcoming internal fear with an artificial sense of power, control, and strength, taking on the face of anger.
I've learned that anger as a reaction to feelings of fear, confrontation, lack of worth, guilt, shame, etc. had been relayed throughout unforeseeable generations of the past; leading to me, at this current end of the chain; in all of my nows and needs for more soulfully constructive coping mechanisms.
To have reached this space of awareness and depth of understanding, as I feel it, is one of the greatest senses of impenetrable freedom and offers of collectively healing compassion that I've yet to know.
When we get down, dirty, and honest about it, anger is never truly about the person it's unleashed toward. When truth is shined onto the subject, and with a little initiative to shift beyond the surface of the story, we can begin to unwrap a new level of grasping that anger is merely a tactic we humans tap into to protect ourselves from personally feeling various levels of pain, discomfort, and dis-ease.
Sure, anger is something we're taught and something that many are taught to find pride in. But that doesn't mean it's the only option when responding to uncomfortable feelings.
As we offer ourselves the chance to choose another way of maneuvering life, we not only keep the harmful cycle from furthering - within us, outwardly into the world, and onto other generations - but we can begin to nurture the ancestral wounds that we came here to heal.
"When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans."
Consciously responding to life in ways that don't involve anger is such an empowering freedom; one that couldn't be further from a passive action, as anyone who's attempted to transcend their uproarious feelings of anger can vouch.
We're here to unlearn and to restore, which we do with each thought, each word, and each action we invest in. Mending from the inside out; individually and collectively; intention by intention.
Learn more about Sam Jump here.
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