Anger and Depression

Anger

Anger or rage is an ineffective and inefficient way to resolve any issue or make any problem go away. It is a negative emotion that may lead to depression, if it is not properly addressed.

An illustration

Donna Alexander, the creator of the “Anger Room” in Chicago, first thought of the idea as a teenager living in Chicago. Having witnessed much domestic violence and many conflicts at school as a teenager, Donna Alexander finally decided to create a space where anyone can lash out without serious consequences. While at the “Anger Room,” the guests, after paying a fee, are given a safe space to unleash their anger and rage by smashing and destroying objects, such as glasses or even a TV. In addition, the room can also be set up to look like an office or a kitchen, where anger often becomes totally uncontrollable.

Thinking questions

Can you really hold off your anger until after you have checked in at the “Anger Room”?

If you are so accustomed to smashing and destroying many objects at the “Anger Room,” could you still restrain yourself from doing the same when your anger is sudden and unmanageable in the office or the kitchen?

                                                     

The reality

As much as 50 percent of human diseases may be psychosomatic. Therefore, it is not an overstatement that the mind and diseases are interconnected.

Dr. Caroline B. Thomas, M.D., of John Hopkins School of Medicine, discovered that cancer patients often had a prior poor relationship with their parents, attesting to the pivotal role of emotions in the development of cancer. In another study by Dr. Richard B. Shekelle of the University of Texas School of Medicine, it was found that depression patients were not only more cancer prone but also more likely to die of cancer than the other patients. If emotions play a pivotal role in cancer, by the same token, negative emotions may also adversely affect the symptoms or the prognosis of any human disease. Thoughts of anger, despair, discontent, frustration, guilt, or resentment are instrumental in depressing the physiological processes, including the human body’s immune response—a formula for promoting the development of an autoimmune disease.

According to other studies, strong negative emotions, such as anger, can create destructive mental energy that is health damaging. However, it must be pointed out that it is more damaging in not experiencing raging anger, or not wanting to experience it than in actually experiencing it. The former may cause diseases, or trigger a depression.

Conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom is to use distraction to defuse and dissipate the sudden anger or rage.

Thomas Jefferson famously said, "When angry, count 10, before you speak; if very angry, 100." 

TAO wisdom

According to TAO, the wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage from China, take a deep breath, review the situation, and ask yourself one simple question: what is the original purpose of driving your car—to get to your destination, or to get angry?

Don’t hold your anger in; instead, let it go, by breathing it out. Don’t let it go as pain; instead, let it go as your acceptance. Your acceptance should be viewed not as a sign of your own weakness but as a statement of your own communication to yourself that getting to your destination is much more important than getting angry.

Remember, anger is always present to serve a purpose to release some deeper issues, problems, and internal conflicts that you may be carrying in your own bag and baggage all these years. It is always better to release anger than to turn it around to destroy yourself. Suppressing anger, on the other hand, is also self destructive, as the negative energy redirects itself back into your own body. Anger in itself is a path of destruction. Resolve anger by developing habits that may release internal conflicts in a constructive manner before it can be released as rage.

Remember, the world always reflects your actions. If you lash out in rage, then the world lashes back at you with that same rage causing pain or grief that still has to get resolved. There is no true “release” of anger, except by resolution.

TAO teaches that peace is the true warrior’s path. The sword while an option is never used with anger, or you may have lost from the start. According to Lao Tzu, “The best fighter is never becoming angry.”

Learn to do the following when you become angry:

Take a deep diaphragm breath (See Appendix B), and just feel it.

Just look at your anger in your mind.

Accept that you are now angry, and then slowly release your anger as you breathe it out.

If necessary, use your arm like a sword to sweep away your anger and cut through your feelings of anger, while saying: “I can see my anger: it is as it was.”

Subconsciously, we all exert a great deal of mental energy to hold on to the past, which is no more than what we think happened. In the now, what happened in the past is just a memory, and no longer there; all memories are no longer truths, but at best only guidelines for the future. That is to say, your anger is as it was. Just learn to release your anger over any issue. Anger on its own has no power at all, except the power you give it to make it real to you.

The bottom line: anger is often caused by an inflated ego that one has to be right about an issue; without an ego, nothing can anger or trouble you. Seek only your internal balance and harmony.

“We do not become aggressive when we are confronted.

We do not become angry when we are provoked.

We see neither an enemy nor a competitor,

because we do not seek our own way.

Knowing both our strengths and weaknesses,

we use them to complement one another.

Thus, we find balance and harmony.

Naturally and easily, we follow the Way.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 68)

Just do not let your anger depress you!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

How to Avoid Human Conflicts

Balance and Harmony

The Way Through Human Conflicts

Human conflicts are many. The Way is the only way to go through them, rather than avoiding them.

Balance and harmony

Always maintain your internal balance and harmony. Remember, the world around you is always a reflection of what is deep inside you.

“The Way is easy,

yet people prefer distracting detours.

Beware when things are out of balance.

Remain centered within the Creator.

Distractions are many,

in the form of riches and luxuries.

They allure us from the Way.

Accumulations are like extortions of the poor.

They bring only disaster and suffering.

Do not deviate from the Way.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 53)

“When there is no desire to be someone that we are not,

separate from our true nature designed by the Creator,

all things are in perfect balance and harmony.” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 37)

Five elements and natural cycle

The five elements of the ancient Chinese are: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

The five elements balance and complement one another to create both internal harmony and a natural cycle. To illustrate, water nourishes trees or wood; without wood, there will be no fire (which burns wood); without fire burning wood, there will be no earth (the ashes from the burnt wood); without earth, there will be no metal (from the earth itself); through condensation, fire heats metal to produce water; without metal, there will be no water; without water, there will be no tree or wood.

These five elements are interdependent on one another for their own existence in the form of a natural cycle. In many respects, human relationships and our dealings with one another attest to the cyclical nature of the world we are living in.

                                                      

TAO wisdom

Think about your own nature with reference to the five elements. Are you strong and independent like metal, bold and pioneering like wood, soft and flexible like water, fiery and passionate like fire, or nurturing and receptive like earth?

Also, think about the different natures of the people around you, or you have to deal with. Understanding their different natures may result in better and more harmonious relationships with them. Indeed, the five elements can give you profound wisdom and insight into many different life situations to help you avoid unnecessary everyday conflicts and disparities.

The bottom line: learn to live a life without any conflict and confrontation with others. To do just that, you need to know not only yourself but also others.

“Knowing others is intelligence.

Knowing ourselves is true wisdom.

Overcoming others is strength.

Overcoming ourselves is true power.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33)

Everything will be in its natural place because everything follows a natural cycle. So why do you strain, stress, and strut yourself?

“We stay in the very center of the Creator,

and refrain from controlling our destiny.

Everything will evolve and fall into its natural place,

according to the laws of the Creator.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 37)

Soft and flexible

To help you overcome conflicts and resolve issues, you need the flexibility of TAO. Always be flexible, instead of being strong-willed and uncompromising.

“The Way is paradoxical.

Like water, soft and yielding,

yet it overcomes the hard and the rigid.

Stiffness and stubbornness cause much suffering.

We all intuitively know

that flexibility and tenderness

are the Way to go.

Yet our conditioned mind

tells us to go the other way.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 78)

It does not mean that you let people walk all over you and do nothing. Just step back, giving yourself some open space to create a detached mindset. If you are combative and strike back with a personal attack, you are in fact driving a nail into wood with a hammer; when you pull out the nail, the puncture on the wood is still there. So do not do anything that you may regret for the rest of your life. Always defer your anger for later processing.

All in all

Having good human relationship with others may not only afford you joy and happiness, but also heal you mentally, physically, and spiritually through your own connections with others. On the other hand, having bad human relationships may make you feel sad, lonely, hopeless, and depressed.

“If we are in harmony with the Creator,

we are like newborn babies,

in natural harmony with all.

Our bones are soft, and our muscles are weak,

but our grip is strong and powerful.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 55)

We are all living in a world of speed in which nothing seems to last too long, including human relationships. In contemporary living, there is too much focus on speed. Given that life is short, there is a great deal to be done and accomplished. As a result, you may feel the compression of time, and you may have developed a compulsive mind with a multi-tasking mindset, such as talking and texting on the phone while driving at the same time.

Remember, it is your compulsive mind that makes you feel distressed and unhappy. Ironically, it is because you know and believe that nothing lasts, that you want to do more, much more than necessary, hoping against hope that some of the things that you are doing may last a little longer. Because nothing lasts, so you begin to look for new ones to replace the ones that have expired. An example is a love relationship: if it does not turn out to be what you have expected, you just let it end itself, and then start looking for another one because it is your belief that nothing lasts.

According to TAO, truly nothing lasts, but that is the wrong way to look at the impermanence of things. The right way is to look at everything with non-attachment, which is letting go of whatever that happens in your life, be it joy or sorrow, success or failure, happiness or un-happiness. Letting go essentially means understanding that nothing lasts, and that what goes up must also come down, because everything in life follows a certain natural order—just like youth becoming old age, and life transforming into death. Understanding the impermanence of all things may change how you are going to live your life and interact with others. If nothing lasts, then let go of everything, and live your life to the fullest, which is in the present. The past was gone, so let it go; the future is yet to come, so let go of your expectations. Only the present is real, so live it to the fullest.

“Therefore, we focus on the present moment,

doing what needs to be done,

without straining and stressing.

To end our suffering,

we focus on the present moment,

instead of our expected result.

So, we follow the natural laws of things.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 63)

 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau