Anger
is Fear and Great Anger is Great Fear
We
hate what we fear. This makes perfect sense because this mechanism,
fear, was the only thing we had in our primordial stage of
development to allow us to survive a hostile environment.
In a way, it has been a necessary, a primal-instinct personal
army. Before the development of the upper brain systems, the
operation was pretty simple: We fear, we strike or run. But
once our upper brain systems developed, the operation became
a lot more complicated. Now it is not always practical, legal,
moral or ethical to go the simple route, such as road rage.
In a complicated system, little things can go wrong. When
our fear can't end up in some action for our benefit, and
we do not know how to help it dissipate, it hangs in our body
and makes us depressed and hostile. If we are really angry,
it might help to remember this exercise which is simply an
intellectual understanding: Great anger is great fear. We
need to save ourselves from our fear more than we need to
save ourselves from any enemy. The way we save ourselves from
our fear is simply to feel it. Hold on to a tree. A tree is
very helpful in these times. Feel. Feel. From your very roots.
Feel. Now you know why some people hug trees.
Back to Exercises
|