Anger and fear
From Elfi
By Angel, to Core Group (July 5, 2009)
transcribed by Kattzyze
To our first group, Angel talked about why we get angry, how that anger relates to fear, and what we can do about both.
Contents |
The idea of fear
How many of us have been dealing with issues of anger lately? Anger is sceen for fear, it's a fear that's afraid to face itself. Anytime that someone has a fear, and they are so afraid that they can't even look at the fear, they have to find what Rohaa calls a screen, and anger is the most common screen. There are others. Prescription drugs are a good choice. Getting really drunk. Physical activity. But anger is the most common one.
Because we have dealt with anger so much lately, and because anger is one of the most crippling things you can do on this path, I'd like to take a look at the idea of fear—what it is, why it comes on so strong, and what we do about it.
The location of fear
Angel: Where in the body—physical body, energy body-- does fear usually sit?
A student: I think it is mostly in the stomach area, like the solar plexus. That general area, I think.
Angel: If you put your fingers on the bones of your chest, on your ribs, and then you put your fingers down at the bottom of the ribs so you actually can reach underneath and feel the bottom of them, and move you hands together until they touch, there's kind of a tender spot right in the middle of your chest that if you push hard it hurts, just below the ribs. That is your solar plexus; that is where your third chakra sits. Now if you take your hand and make it flat like your going to karate chop something like they do in the movies, and you put it horizontal so your thumb is on top, and put it right over your belly button, that's where your second chakra sits.
Our second chakra manages three things for us. There are three pieces that are together, and why we are created this way you'll have to take up with your creator, I don't know it, but these three come together and so in you there they are intimately tied. One is emotion, all emotion has to come from our second chakra—that is the one behind our belly button. Two, is creativity—all of our creativity tends to come from that center. Three, is sexuality. Now sensuality is: I like to be touched and I like good tastes and flavors, warm textures and colors. Sexuality, I'm talking about the down, dirty, gritty sexual response. These three pieces are stored in our second chakra.
Our third chakra, thats that sensitive part right at the bottom of the ribs in the middle, thats our sort of lower mind, thats where we store our social structures. If somebody says, this is bad, don't do it, thats third chakra. If somebody says you have to have morality, thats third chakra. If somebody says, well, you really should do this its a good idea, thats third chakra. If somebody says thank you and you say your welcome without thinking about it, thats third chakra. All these social constructs and relationships live in the third chakra. Since most people go through life without really paying attention or thinking about things, most of their thinking is done in the third chakra.
So if we look at fear as being an emotional response, where do you suppose it comes from in the body? Second chakra. And when you look for fear, it will almost always be in the second.
Effects on different chakras
If you get scared enough, your glands in your mind, on your kidneys, liver, some small glands will start producing a number of chemicals. That in English are called “fight or flight” chemicals to get you ready to run away or to fight with something scary. Now these things will tighten up you guts, they'll tighten up your muscles, they'll cool off your skin, and put lots of extra blood inside so you're more ready to fight or flight. The result is that down in your first chakra, way down where your legs come together, you can find a tensing up in there that comes as a result of fear. The first chakra handles physical stuff, you get scared enough, you feel it in your first.
Now the third chakra handles the social stuff. Fear almost never happens when we're by ourselves, thinking about ourselves. Fear happens because somebody yells at us, fear happens because we're afraid of losing our job, or afraid of losing a lover or afraid of offending somebody. The fear is almost always about issues of relationships, and because that fear, as its starting to churn and boil in our guts, is activated or stimulated by issues of relationships, it will start tensing up the third.
Your heart chakra is a much bigger issue, but you will sometimes feel the fear when it gets big enough, start to squeeze around the heart.
If you put your hand on your throat, thats where your fifth chakra is. This is your will, this is where you make decisions. If somebody points a weapon at you, and says do what I want or I'll kill you, you will probably get scared. That scare is used to take away your will, and so you'll feel that squeezing in the fifth chakra, the back of your neck will tighten up, you may have trouble swallowing.
Fear will actually extend itself throughout the entire body. But its source, that is to say the place that is the wellspring of fear - the little fear gland that sprays it all over and fills you with it - lives in the second. It is important to know that, because if we try and find fear around the heart, its not going to work. And if you try and find it in the first chakra, you'll deal with these things and it will keep coming back, because its actually starting back there behind your belly button.
Good vs. bad fear
Student: I was wondering how you can actually find it in your second and do something about it.
Angel: All right, thats a decent expression; how do we find it and what do we do about it.
Anybody ever heard the term “good fear” versus “bad fear”? I have. Not a lot of the time, but I found it in some scholarly texts and in a few pieces of fiction. The idea is that, if someone's chasing you on the street and you're trying to get away, it's a good fear, because it's making you nervous and you're running away. That it serves a purpose. While I respect that everybody's got their own ideas, and we should listen to all of them, that particular idea is absolute nonsense. There is no such thing as a good fear.
Good is a careless word. There is no such thing as a healthy fear. Fear tightens your muscles and makes you function less effectively. Fear screws up your guts and keeps the energy from moving through. Fear seizes up your throat so you can't breathe. Fear never has anything helpful in it.
Student: I have a question. Can you have an adrenaline reaction without having the fear associated with it?
Angel: Absolutely! Um, have you ever had sex and really enjoyed it?
Everyone: (laughs) yes.
Angel: Its safe to say thats an adrenaline reaction, all the body's chemicals are going. Hopefully, there's not fear associated with it. For some of us there is, I mean, that does happen, but hopefully there is not. If you wrestle, if you dance very aggressively, if you do martial arts, if you do any physical thing thats very, very active--maybe you play racquetball or squash-- you'll get all kinds of excitement chemicals pumping through the body that aren't associated with the fear reaction.
Fear is never healthy
So I would like—buy in on this one before I go on--I would like people to, at least for now, acknowledge the possibility that fear is never healthy. Everything that fear does for us, something else can do better. People take a drug, called steroids - various athletes take these steroids - they're an artificial stimulant that encourages bulk muscle growth. And so you'll see these bodybuilders with these great big muscles who don't have to work too hard; its because the steroids are pumping them up. Now steroids have a tendency, for what reason I don't know, but have a tendency to weaken bones and weaken ligaments and connective tissue. So you'll see these people with these huge muscles and yet when they lift something they'll rip the tendons in their arm or their leg and end up much weaker than they were. They have paid a great price for looking strong. They've made themselves weak.
Fear works like this, for a little while it makes us feel like we can run and get away, or we can do something more effective, or like it's energy, but it's not. It is an energy that eats us from the inside, it's never healthy and never helpful. Fear—it lives in the guts back behind the belly button. Fear—it's never healthy. It's always, always, always destructive.
Recognising and clearing fear
Once you've got those two - where it comes from and where it sits - you can start to deal with it in a more intelligent way.
The first step is to recognize it, and there are lots of ways to do that. I'll give you two. Two real simple tests.
The first is to stand up straight and take a deep breath. And if you feel tension in your stomach, somethings wrong. The second is to try and smile. The smile test. You should always be able to smile easily and gently. It shouldn't be work. If it's tough to smile, you're probably afraid. Remember those two tests and practice them over the next few weeks and you'll find they are phenomenal at telling you this.
All right, you know you don't want it, you know where it comes from, you have at least some idea of how to detect it. Once you've detected it—now what? Now we clear it, right?
Student: Is it important to figure out why it's there, first?
Angel: Fear come from the guts, right? Where does “why?” come from?
Student: The head?
Angel: Why does the head question? Most of therapy and most of the work we do fails miserably because our emotions come from the gut and we try and deal with it with head responses. Fear is a gut reaction and we deal with it at a gut level. Now, once we've found it and started to untie that knot and clear it, if you want you can go back and start to figure out why. If you try and figure out why while you're caught in it you come up with the wrong reason. It's almost one hundred percent certain that what you're angry about is not what you're upset about.
Student: What you're angry about is not what you're afraid of, is that what you mean?
Angel: No, what you're upset about.
Something's upsetting you, you don't know what it is, you feel fear, it tenses up, you get anger, aggression, you want to get violent, you get all these panic reactions, maybe you want to have some sugar, eat something, go do something, distract yourself—all this comes up.
And so your mind says why am I upset. And it goes looking for a reason, and it will find a reason, and you'll get angry about that. But whatever it is you're getting angry about is almost certainly not what you're truly upset about. It can take years of practice to consistently find the right answer. So don't worry about that part for now. Deal with the emotion. That will disagree with what many psychotherapists and lots of books say, I don't care. This works.
Ground Centre Breathe
Has Rohaa talked to you about what grounding is? Yes? All right, so, I'm going to start you with ground, center, breathe, because that's the simplest way to start to get past fear. Fear tenses up in your guts and it stops energy moving in your energy body.
So take your feet, put them flat on the floor, and then stomp them both lightly. Once you do, that will subconsciously remind your brain to connect to the floor. You may have to do this every 30 seconds for a few minutes. That will ground you. And as you do, you imagine all the extra energy just running out of you deep into the earth. That's step one. While you've got the energy trapped you can't relax. So step one: Ground, and imagine the energy running out.
Step two. Fear is a bit like that two-year-old trying to get your attention: "hey, hey, hey!" If you ignore them: "HEY! HEY!" And if you keep ignoring them, pretty soon they're going to be jumping up and down and screaming and then crying. Fear is like that, it will get louder and louder to get our attention.
The way that you stop a two year old from panicking you look at them and say: "What do you want, Sweetheart? What can I do for you?" That's what we do with the fear. Since the fear sits in the guts, we do that by putting our energy in our guts. That is to say we imagine all of our awareness, all of our consciousness, all of our self in a little ball, and we put that ball right in the middle of our guts and we just hold it there.
Step 3. So, you want to ground, you want to take all your awareness and put it in your guts. When you do, that fear in your guts will start to move and you will notice it, because you will get more afraid, and you want to run away. If you acknowledge that, having done that, there's only one more step, and that's to breathe.
Most people think they know how to breathe, they've been doing since they were kids. Most of us do it wrong. Unless you are a good musician who plays a wind instrument, a vocalist, or a martial artist, you probably don't know how to breathe.
Here's what I want you to do: I want you to sit up straight or stand up, if you're wearing a really tight belt, loosen it a little bit, and I want you to put a karate chop hand over your belly button. Now I want you to breathe in and when you do, I want that hand to get pushed out as far as you can push. I want you to look big and fat—most people don't like this because they don't want to be fat. Breathe in, and look big and fat as you push that hand out there, and then breathe out. You want to feel like your hand is actually trying to touch your spine from the front. And that's it. You want all that breathing to be in your belly. You want your belly to get really big, and then get really tight, and then really big, and really tight—and that's it!
When you're absolutely terrified, if you're willing to ground, centre and breathe for two or three minutes, it will be gone. And then you can deal with the issue. That's it! Questions?
The anger masking the fear
Student: That addresses the fear. Will it also so help with the anger that's masking it?
Angel: We used to have chili when I was a kid. And every time we'd have chili with beans, my dad would start farting. (laughter) And, ew it was awful, and he would fart all night long. Every time we had chili. When we took away the chili, he didn't do that. And we could sit around in the evening and it'd be much easier, and it'd be fine, there would be no problem.
It's the same answer for you. If you take away the thing causing the distress, the distress will go away. Now if you find yourself raging angry, lets say you're shouting, screaming, yelling, driving down the freeway, yelling at other drivers - and you clear the fear, all the chemicals the anger produced will still be in your system. At that point you may have to take a shower or jog for awhile to burn out the extra energy, drink lots of clean, clear, not too cold water, and start to flush those chemicals out.
But if you can catch it using the smile test or the breathing, if you can catch it while it's fear and before the anger gets too strong, you can ignore the anger. You're looking at the fear, and you're grounding, centering, breathing, and by the time you're done and the fear is starting to fade, you can say “anger, what anger, I can't even find it.” Because when you clear the fear the anger will just “poof”. Anger is always, always, always the stepchild of fear. And so all of these anger therapy, anger drugs, anger management—they're all nonsense. You just need to find the fear, breathe and clear it out of you, and if you do the anger goes away.
Now it may not be so much for some, but for some people anger has become a habit, and for other it's become so strong it's almost a drug. They love it. “Oh, my God, I'm angry, I love this, I feel great!” Those people might have more trouble letting go because they've actually developed an addiction to it. So those who want and intend to teach others and use these skills to help others—be aware of this in others.
The harm of anger
This is why I took a moment to insist that you acknowledge that fear is never helpful, and thus anger is never helpful. You will have to eventually get your students to acknowledge that. Fear and anger are always destructive. They harm you, they harm others, they never bring anything good. So if you can get your students to acknowledge that, you have a better chance of getting them to move though. While they still think fear or anger are fun games to play, you won't be able to help them through. When you find someone like that you have to say, sorry, I can't help you.
These ideas I've tossed out are controversial—many people say “fear, well, that's useful, and anger, sometimes you need anger.” No, that's nonsense, they are always destructive. So recognize that the things I've told you are somewhat controversial. I won't ask you to believe them. Anybody who ever says "Just believe it because I told you" is probably someone you should just shut the door on and never speak to again. They're someone who is not healthy for you. Instead I will say "Take these ideas I've given you, write them down wherever you will see them. Make it a point to practice them three to seven times a day." And if you get to the end of the day and you haven't practiced and you're not angry, think about something that makes you angry. “Ah, that pissed me off, OK, I remember that!” And then go back and find the fear. But practice this, put these simple steps into action. And the action ought to be proof, and I imagine you will be astounded at how effective these simple things are. Questions?
Recognising fear in others
Student: How do we recognize if the people we are teaching are having these angers and fears?
Angel: How do you recognize that someone else is feeling fear or anger? Fair question.
If they are sitting in front of you, it's easy, because you know their face will crunch up and their shoulders will rise and you'll see it. But most of the time now we're working across alternate communication methodologies, so it can be more difficult. As you work with someone, you will become more sensitive to them. And the more that you work with someone, the more sensitive you will be.
Here's the simplest way for a teacher to test. Whenever you talk to anyone over the computer, write a little note next to the computer that says “What am I feeling now?” And just ask it over and over and over, “What do I feel now?” Because once in awhile while you are doing this you'll find, “Oh gosh, I feel hungry” and if you look it may not be yours. If you were looking at your student, your student might be hungry. If you're talking to a student you will find, I guarantee it, that this natural parenting response comes out in us. That teaching this work is not like teaching statistics or physics.
When you do this you begin to feel very parental toward people and you see them as little kids and you want to help them every way you can. It'll happen. I think we've all worked with kids or seen kids enough to know that getting angry and saying “You stupid little kid” is not going to help you communicate. Anger at a child is always counter-productive, and subconsciously we know this, the teacher part of us already knows that it does no good to be angry, and so knowing that, if you were talking to a student and find yourself angry, recognize that your teacher is saying, “nope, anger's not the answer”, so it's probably not you. Anytime you're talking to a student and you feel anger or fear, assume it is theirs. One hundred percent, while you're working with students, assume it is theirs. Now, you may have been frightened by a dog when you were a kid and this person might have a dog, you might have been hurt by a bald man when you were a child, and you see a picture of your student and that student is bald, and you see a bald man, and so you might feel anger or fear come up. Even in that case, when it's coming up, I will tell you that as a teacher, it's coming up for a reason. That anger or fear, even if you think it's yours, it's coming up because there's an anger or fear that a student needs to address. When dealing with a student, assume it's always theirs.
It is not my job to teach you how to teach. I have taught many, many people over the years, and everybody I know does it differently. If I teach you how to teach as I do, you won't teach as you do. It is my job to teach you to look deep inside and find out who you are, and let that person, that one who's truly you, that one that celebrates your life, your passion, your purpose, teach in your way.
Now some of these ideas just seem way too simple. "What, you can't always assume it's your students?" Yes, you can. Assume 100% of the time, and you will find every single time. I speak from way too many years of experience. Every single time, you'll find it will help. Assume its theirs, assume there's an anger issue there. “Well, you can't just breath and feel and...” Yes, you can. These things seem so simple, but I guarantee that if you try them, you spend the next ten or twenty years trying them, in twenty years you'll be telling people what I'm telling you now. It seems simple, but, oh, my word, it works. So, I don't ask you to believe, but I do ask you to prove it, try it over, and over, and over. The simplicity will astound you. The effectiveness will make you very happy.
