Fear and Anger - so what's wrong with that?

So what’s wrong with Fear or Anger? It’s alright!

So what’s wrong with fear or anger. Why do we believe we need to overcome fear when it arises? Why do we believe that anger is man’s worst enemy?

Truth is, anger is an emotion when rightly deployed allows it to be placed where it belongs. It provides the right release of energy against an issue. Anger is ‘frustrated love’ and when not expressed and repressed can actually turn out to harboring deep seated hatred.

Truth is, that it is easier to trust someone who gets angry. You understand his/her emotions on a subject. Yet for someone, who holds back his anger he willy nilly turns out to do more harm and even to himself.

Yet, when anger takes over, the sense is lost, insight is lost, cognition is reduced. Anger is an energy; we should invite the energy of mind fullness to bear. Breathing deeply slowly and becoming conscious of one's anger is anger mindfulness. Watch as a witness! 

Research is now point out, and it is but a new interpretation, that one who holds back his anger is doing more damage to his psyche. Hence, now one is encouraged to direct one’s energy to an alternate source – a pillow, a object, and thereby to release anger.

For anger not deployed where it belongs, it would be displaced and create havoc, where it did not belong. As Buddha said, ' You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger". 

As regards Fear, why is that a problem? Fear is about managing options of imagined consequences or stories we tell ourselves. Fear is ultimately about our loss of ‘self’ of self annihilation. Fear is about death. It focuses our attention on what matters: what happens next? Fears accelerate as we write up one set of the events, for one series of events leads to another chain of fears. These are unpleasant stories we portend of events we expect to happen and with consequences we imagine.

As Buddha said, "we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world".

Truth is, fear is a story we tell ourselves (Karen Thomson Walker, Ted Talks). The imagined unpleasantness of one story is so fearful, that we wish to avoid it, so we avoid any action towards those consequences. What stories do we listen to? We need fear to generate multiple stories to pick from: to make choices. So what’s wrong with fear.

Fear plays itself out in many ways in our lives. Why do we hoard money? A fear that we would run out of ‘assets’ to survive. A fear that we would not have enough to be ‘attractive to others’. 

Fear and anger are as important as any other emotion. I argue that both are hard wired to our brains. It is there for a purpose. Discover it. Not abhor it.

Unlike animals, that respond to stimuli, our human brains are wired likewise. It is a part and essential process of our primordial brain. However, we have a choice to offer a more sophisticated informed and complex response beyond the stimuli. 

Truth is, that our fantasies, delusions, and defence mechanisms is an essential part of whom we are. They are not to be discarded, abhorred, held in shame. Instead, they act as a 'band- aid' - a temporary support, basis which we can post more complex responses.  Remember, it is not about eliminating anything, nor is it about attaining anything: all that exists is just right. It exists in wholesomeness. 
All we need is to be alert - being aware. When we are aware, there is no 'good' or 'bad'. Then everything will take care of itself.  

Arguably, we can do this under the right conditions. when we are at a temple or church. It seems easier then, to be respectful and caring to self and others, to be alert to each other and self. Question is, how do we extend these 'church moments' - these alert moments, when we can continue to be aware and feel wondrous about things around us, as against pondering around the things around us. 
For when knowledge is claimed, the wonder drops, the facts are known, it becomes un magical. The mystery disappears.