Needs some help with exploring Anger

[Ibraheem]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post and I'm excited to be here so thank you for taking the time to read this.

Lately I have been angry.  They are situations along the lines of when someone tells me, "this is how things should be..., you have to do this to be acceptable... I need things to happen a certain way..."  for me to be happy,

Basically it's when people do something or relying on something to defend themselves  and validate their self worth.

I can give you the most recent example. I was in the car with my friends and one of my friends said she was born a lesbian because there is a gay gene, it wasn't her choice. This triggered my anger. I was thinking things like "Since when do you care about human genetics? You would believe anything just to feel safe so you don't have to defend your self worth and feel discriminated against."

I hope this makes sense to anyone. I don't want to get angry like this in these situations. I see that people don't want to feel vulnerable sometimes and that they want things to happen a certain way. Can anyone give me advice on how to explore and express this anger?

[Carl-Richard]

Do you in some way dislike or disagree with gay people?

[Ibraheem]

No, it had nothing to do with being gay at all. I just got angry that she was trying to twist things in her favor to change my opinion like it's law. Someone brought up something about a famous person who models clothing for the opposite sex. I said something along the lines of well it's his choice and I don't care about following famous people and their lives. Then she got defensive, told me it wasn't a choice to be gay, and tried to prove to me there was a gay gene. That's when my anger kicked in and I was thinking Just because you don't like people discriminating against gay people doesn't mean you have to get defensive and start making things up to make me think life should play out a certain way.

Even small things are triggering me

when people say "gross why are you drinking black coffee"

"Why don't you like this song?"

"Why are you wearing pants? You always wear pants! It's too hot!" 

It's just coffee, I like black coffee. I don't like the song, It's just pants. Takes your judgments and shove it, if you can't face the truth, don't tell me what to do, just mind your own business, I'm not asking you for anything so don't ask me to change to make yourself happy.

That's what always comes up, "Takes your judgement, get rid of them or shut up. Stop acting like life has to go a certain way".

I've been trying to work on this for a couple of weeks, I'm here hoping to find some resources to learn more about this.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Ibraheem

[Osaid]

I see this happen a lot and I just ignore it. Usually they're not really asking for my opinion and they just try to slip it into the conversation. Then i'll just ignore it or try not to validate it. But if they zone in on me and ask for my specific view then i'll try to tell them my view in the most easiest way for them to comprehend. Or I might take occasional jabs at certain things they say. Truth is, a lot of people won't be ready for the truth so you can't just throw it in their face or they will attack back to keep their ego alive.

This happens a lot with my friends who are very unconscious and I know it will lead to conflict if I straight up called them out. You just gotta be gentle with it or ignore it for the time being. If you're too confrontational with it, their worldview will lock up and it will just become an ego fight. It is a tricky thing.

[Carl-Richard]

@Ibraheem From what you wrote, it seems like you do have some disagreement with the person and that is what is causing the anger, which is totally normal. One way to solve the anger issue would be to really investigate the nature of disagreements. Everyone has a set of beliefs that they want to defend, justify and promote, and you can't really blame them: it's just survival. Another way would be to meditate and train yourself to catch the thoughts that are causing the anger, and that will tend to shorten the duration of the anger or keep it from happening at all.

[Ibraheem]

I know you guys are right. I'm trying to meditate and explore this anger and in the mean time I'll just try to be kind. I know no one is perfect I mean I do the same thing. Thank you guys that really helped me.

[electroBeam]

@Ibraheem Are you open minded enough to explore doing counter intuitive and radically open minded things with your mind?

Instead of trying to 'figure out' and understand, or come up with some amazing answer for why this anger is occurring, why don't you try to feel it, go deep into 'touching' it, 'focus' on it? Why don't you twist your perspective of anger? Instead of subconsciously/unconsciously labelling the anger as something bad, or to avoid, try labelling it as good, interesting, fun, cool, amazing. Like think about it, a rock doesn't have the capacity to be angry but you do? That's fucken amazing, look forward to the anger coming up, because its something not every object in the universe can experience. Your particular unique perspective allows you to feel anger and that's a rare and amazing thing. 

You might find that shifting your perspective, and feeling your anger, allows you to 'figure out' your anger much more effectively than directly trying to figure out the anger or contemplate it, ask questions, etc. 

[Artsu]

It sounds like you're easily angered. I feel there is something deeper bothering you that is lowering your snapping threshold.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Artsu

[commie]

7 hours ago, Ibraheem said:

Basically it's when people do something or relying on something to defend themselves  and validate their self worth.

That's infuriating isn't it?

[Ibraheem]

1 hour ago, Artsu said:

It sounds like you're easily angered. I feel there is something deeper bothering you that is lowering your snapping threshold.

I go through phases of anger when I explore my emotions and meditate, the deeper I go the more it comes up. Sometimes it comes up as a self defense. In this case I think it's that I know the act of compulsion isn't my job, the more I work on it the more I see others do it in various ways. I'm  working towards forgiving myself and others.

[Ibraheem]

1 hour ago, electroBeam said:

@Ibraheem Are you open minded enough to explore doing counter intuitive and radically open minded things with your mind?

Instead of trying to 'figure out' and understand, or come up with some amazing answer for why this anger is occurring, why don't you try to feel it, go deep into 'touching' it, 'focus' on it? Why don't you twist your perspective of anger? Instead of subconsciously/unconsciously labelling the anger as something bad, or to avoid, try labelling it as good, interesting, fun, cool, amazing. Like think about it, a rock doesn't have the capacity to be angry but you do? That's fucken amazing, look forward to the anger coming up, because its something not every object in the universe can experience. Your particular unique perspective allows you to feel anger and that's a rare and amazing thing. 

You might find that shifting your perspective, and feeling your anger, allows you to 'figure out' your anger much more effectively than directly trying to figure out the anger or contemplate it, ask questions, etc. 

Thank you for the reminder. Every now and then something bigger comes up that takes me weeks to work through that makes this difficult to achieve. I'll take this advise to heart.

[Ibraheem]

36 minutes ago, commie said:

That's infuriating isn't it?

Yes, it's getting better though I'm glad I posted here.