Using anger to level up your clarity, focus, and determination.

Everybody has things they want to change, either about themselves or about the world or both. Yet so few people actually do successfully make changes. Why is that?

I invite you to think about a moment in life when you decided to change one behaviour. We all know this mental chess game at the beginning of the year. We tried it all once I guess. You said probably to yourself “From today on, I will not do this or that again, I will do xyz instead.”

Do you remember? Ok, what happened next? Probably you kept this promise to yourself for a while, 1 or 2 weeks, maybe longer and then shifted back to the old behaviour. Like a yoyo effect. Right?

Since the last 10 years, I have been researching together with a global team of researchers, experimenters and pioneers in the field of personal development. Possibility Management is based in the context of Radical Responsibility, which means: Taking responsibility for yourself fully, others and the planet, the destruction, the pollution, the bad and good decisions and the understanding that it’s me and you who hold the power to change.

Our findings brought us to the understanding that it takes more than the mind to take action and start a new behaviour.

It takes more than just telling yourself, that you will stop doing this and starting something new. This approach includes only the mind, instead of a holistic system of 5 bodies.

YOU HAVE 5 BODIES

Yes, that’s right: As surprising as it may be, you have not just one body, but 5. A mental body, a physical body, an energetic body, an emotional body and an archetypal body, which are interrelated with each other. One cannot shift and operate without the other.

In our modern western society, we know a lot about the mental body, plenty about the physical body, and almost nothing about the emotional, energetic, or archetypal bodies. I want to stay focused on the emotional body for this article. I want to bring you into the most alive research field I have ever been so far. You can learn more about the other bodies here.

THE EMOTIONAL BODY

We have discovered 4 main territories of feelings: fear, anger, joy and sadness. None of them are bad or negative. They are natural resources of energy with different purposes. Using the power of these resources consciously allows you to navigate life with more efficiency and aliveness. The key is to start relying on having these resources, which are designed for serving you, instead of blocking them. Your feelings are no error of evolution, nothing to be scared about, unlike the story we were told so many times when we were kids.

Suppressing, denying and disowning feelings is one of the root causes of weak and powerless decisions and therefore inconsequent actions in life.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can use feelings consciously.

Conscious fear fuels you with creativity and presence. It allows you to scan the circumstances around you and to listen to the unspoken details between the lines. Your conscious sadness is the driver for connection and empathy, your ability to be touched and to relate, to let go and to grieve properly. Conscious joy brings an inner peace, contentment and also motivation and inspiration are sourced by the energy of joy. And conscious anger gives you energy to take a stand, bring clarity, stay focused, and yes, change your mind and your life powerfully. Let’s dive deeper into this last part.

USING ANGER TO CHANGE YOUR MIND

Coming back to my original question, how often have you wanted something to be different in your life or in the world, but you failed to change it? Maybe you wanted it so dearly, but you just could not shift into a new chapter?

If your answer is “often,” chances are high that you have little or no access to your powerful resource of anger. Why might that be?

It’s possible that you were told as a child (like so many of us were), not to be angry, that anger was a bad thing, that it was rude or dangerous, that it wasn’t nice, that you ‘shouldn’t’ be angry, that anger is the cause of wars and destruction. Or you possibly have observed your parents or other people using anger unconsciously and destructively, so that you made the decision, that anger would be a dangerous bad idea to have. Fair enough. The reference point that you got back then is located on what is called the Old Map of Anger — the unconsciously used anger. It’s the same Map of Anger that our parents and grandparents and teachers and peers all got, too.

No one was told that there could be another way of using anger other than putting it away.

If you’ve never updated your Map of Anger, this is where you probably still are in your inner landscape. If that’s the case, and you’ve been trying to make changes in your life and behaviours, then you’ve been operating with just half of your resources aligned.

It’s like you are the captain of a ship and a part of your crew is revolting against you. You locked them up. An important part of your crew is missing; the powerful ones, who have the power to say “no” and “yes” and stand up for themselves. You try to turn in another direction and change course, but without your complete crew, you are turning in circles.

These are some of the consequences of disowning, denying and suppressing your anger, a powerful part of the emotional body.

Consciously used anger is fuel for action and determination. Setting boundaries, standing up for yourself and others, stopping and starting new life projects.

Anger brings you the capacity to change your mind and to change the shape of your being, which creates a different result than only using your mental capacity thinking about the change.

So, how do you start using your anger to make your decisions firm and lasting?

Here’s an exercise that I do:

1. I take 3 min time to think and feel what I want to change my mind about, what I am angry that I did not change yet.
2. I take a hand towel in my hands and stand up.
3. I begin to twist the towel and let my anger rise.
4. I start saying: “I feel angry about, that I still don`t do…!”
5. Then I start saying sentences that begin with “I am changing my mind now, I stop…” and “I am stopping/taking a stand/speaking/saying…”

For example:

“I am changing my mind now, I stop using plastic! I am only using recyclable products…”

“I stop being a victim of my circumstances. I am standing up for myself!…”

“I will not attend/follow this trip/event/invitation! I change my mind now!…”

This is how it works.

What about changing your mind about changing your mind?

Use your anger to shift into a new identity. The identity of a person, who is not just thinking of changing your mind but includes the power of your emotional body to get mad about your old way of doing things, get really mad and then take a stand for what you want now.

It might feel uncomfortable the first few times you do this, but if you keep doing it, you’ll get better and better at it, and your anger will come back online.

Please don’t use this as a daily life approach. The above is a practice, which requires a practice space and a dedication to learn a new approach. Learning new skills by learning how to use anger consciously is a path. It will take time. Implementing new skills into your daily life will bring new results as a natural consequence.

Try it! It’s fun and it will start to change your mind about your story about anger.

One warning: be careful. Anger is powerful, and it might change your life… What if you change your mind, get mad, oh you get really mad and quit your job tomorrow? Oops. You will need your inner navigation resources to find your way through the jungle of life.

If you want to find out more about the powerful resource that is your anger, you might consider checking out a Rage Club.

See you there.