On a Facebook group, we recently had a discussion on anger spurred on by this quote: “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger” by Siddhartha. Inspired by this quote and by a post about looking below what makes us angry, i’ve decided to watch my anger, which is bubbling up quite often these days. I am in the process of deciding whether to leave a group that hasn’t turned into the community i am longing for and that isn’t teaching what i want to learn at this point. I’ve reached out via email to let people know that i am close to leaving, wanting to give them a chance to respond, maybe even sway me to stay.

Anger keeps welling up in me. It mostly seems to like to settle in my chest, constricting my breathing. And it dissipates quickly, sometimes returning just as quickly, other times leaving for quite a while. I find it quite fascinating to simply watch it. And i am curious what more is there, so i asked myself: What is this anger longing for? What does this anger want?

The first answer that popped up is community – after all that’s what i am not finding. That’s not it, though. Hope? That’s not it either. I think back at the emails i read in response to my email. What in those responses is triggering my anger? And then i notice it with a bodily shift: I am longing for people to take responsibility for how their actions impact other people! I cannot feel love if it isn’t expressed either through actions or words. Sorry, my mind reading capabilities are just not that great. Then as i look into this more deeply, i realize just how big this longing is and how much further it reaches. If all of us were to start taking responsibility for our actions, we’d stop driving, we’d turn off water while brushing our teeth, we’d turn off the computer… Our planet would be completely different if we would start acknowledging our interconnectedness and acted out of that knowledge. Wow!

And then, as i am trying to make my habit, whenever i notice behaviors in others that impact me in ways i don’t like, i turn it around: What am i doing that is impacting others? How can i act more out of my knowledge of interconnectedness? I can sense how exploring these questions will help me live more in integrity! My anger has mostly shifted into excitement! There is still some anger there, which simply longs to be heard.