How to deal with an angry shadow?

[Manjushri]

No matter how much I practice, a predominant feeling I have is anger. Completely out of place, unbased for the present moment. How do I work with the anger and "dig it out" or "let go of it"? The anger goes like this : I'm in the present moment, that same moment either reminds me of a past similar moment and how different my reality is compared to, say, one year ago, and I feel tremendous anger. Over a thought, obviously.

(eg i felt tremendous anger now sitting by the window which reminded me of myself sitting the same way exactly one year ago)

But this is a big problem - my predominant feeling is anger. I carry it in me like a burden. Bioenergetic exercises "help" only short term - my anger is not "bundled in me" and growing inside and me bottling up my anger. It's like an infinite fountain in me which gets summoned anytime. So I guess going to the root of it or something would help? The root, it seems to me, is either :

 1. attachment to experience (as in, I'm attached to how reality was one year ago) AND/OR

2. unprocessed trauma 

Anger is, it seems to me, an aggressive/defensive manifestation of hurt. I'm hurt.

 

I'd appreciate your help on this. I'm ignorant when it comes to shadow work. How does one do it at all?

[ivankiss]

Express it.

But try not hurting anyone in the process.

Art is how I choose to express. Be it pain, anger, depression, suffering, happiness, or whatever else.

Once expressed; peace is. 

[tsuki]

@Manjushri Do not try to fight anger. Anger is fight. See the paradox?

Learn to stay centered despite this feeling. 

 

[WelcometoReality]

@Manjushri Go into the feeling of anger. Do not try to get rid of it. What is underneath it? In this case you say you are hurt. But what is hurt? Is awareness hurt?

What is the story you tell yourself to become angry?

 

[Preetom]

Be more angry at the shadow.

Finally a winner will remain after the tug of war

[Nahm]

@Manjushri What hurt? 

[Charlotte]

2 hours ago, Preetom said:

Be more angry at the shadow.

Finally a winner will remain after the tug of war

I agree but disagree with this at the same time. I've dealt with an angry shadow and this worked to a degree but it took so much unnecessary suffering and it took aaaaaaaaaaages. (My own experience) 

When anger appears... Ambush it with love ❤️ surprise the shit out of it.

 

Mwuahahahahaha 

[mandyjw]

When I started consciousness work, a really awful situation was already unfolding and ended up exploding a couple months later. I had a few blow ups about it because when I started to do the work I did a lot of repressing and didn't realize what I was doing. What helped was that I went for a lot of runs in the woods, something that I did before any awareness practices anyway. I would focus on my breath and the beauty of nature. Then the angry thoughts would come up and I'd let them run through until I realized the discrepancy between the peace of where I was and the ugly thoughts in my head. I'd keep bringing myself back to appreciating the beauty and peace around me.

It took months for the anger to diminish but in it's place was a greater connection and sense of peace and understanding. The energy of anger was not diminished but replaced with a different energy. That's what's so f-ing beautiful about this work. 

Just keep coming back from the angry thoughts, to the present moment, to the beauty around you. You'll fall back into the anger but each time you bring yourself back you'll be able to stay longer after a time. Occasionally I'd rebel against the work I was doing and tell myself I wanted to be miserable and angry. As soon as I let myself be that and feel it fully, the anger would disappear. Which made me angry.

You're definitely attached to the experience. We love our stories of how people did us wrong. We like being angry. The key is to realize that the thing in us that loves it, and wants to be angry is the ego. The ego has to keep replaying the story to make itself feel the feelings it likes to feel, that delicious anger that separates it from the people or situation that did us wrong.