Whether its directed at an ex-lover or the person chugging along, skipping left to right in front of you on the highway, rage is something we are all familiar with.
This week I came across someone who had asked “how can I let go of the rage I feel for someone?”. Having recently learnt the value of hoisting up a few anchors, I shared this with him…
The “rage” we choose to feel for a person is a conditioned reaction to something that occurred. For whatever reason, someone did something to you (action) and you responded to it negatively, through what you had learnt was appropriate (reaction).
When we react to anything, it comes from a conditioned space, the sub-conscious, and so is often emotionally charged. This creates an “anchor” effect which is why we are left feeling heavy and the emotion can repeat on us time and time again. The purpose of an anchor is to prevent the ship from moving, while the rest of the ocean continues moving as it naturally would, around it. This is what negatively charged emotions do to our experiences, they prevent us from moving away from them, while the rest of the world carries on as it naturally would, around us.
The sub-conscious is where we store all our programming, good and bad. When the experience sits in our sub-conscious, we use it to navigate through life, adding to it as we go, thus charging it. After falling for the avocado as wasabi trick once, the hesitation pops to mind every time someone says, “try this” holding up anything green in your direction.
Every time you see the person who evoked “rage” in you or they are even mentioned, because you’ve created an emotional anchor around that experience and therefore that person, you will feel the rage again.
Hoist your anchor.
Forgiving someone is not about condoning their actions or having to like them afterwards. It’s releasing that emotional charge that you have created within you, so you live a better life.
Just think about it, if I bring out a water pistol and you believe it to be a gun, you’ll react in a certain way, charge that experience and carry it around. If you however recognise it be a water pistol, you’ll react in a completely different way and carry that charge with you for next time (programming).
Your reaction towards the gun like object doesn’t change what the object is, and the object doesn’t even know what you are putting out there, for the rest of your life, it continues to function the same.
Similarly, when you create rage towards someone, that person remains that person, no matter what charge you create in response to their actions. Your rage will never change them, it will change you, and because you are being kept stuck by your anchor, your dwell time results in you thinking about the experience, charging it and carrying it.
Let it go.
Hoist your anchor, forgive and focus on the present.