Surrender and the Healing of Anger
We think of anger as a ‘natural’ emotion, one that belongs to us as human beings, yet this is only partially true. It is true of its purpose, namely, to overcome the painful experience of helplessness that often takes place in life as a result of our perceived separation from the Divine, but it is not true when one has developed a stronger relationship with the Divine, characterized by qualities of surrender and trust. In the first case, anger is a coping mechanism, a way of dealing with the feeling of being alone and unprotected in the world. In the second, anger is no longer needed as a defense because of the experience of Divine perfection and the contribution of each event and each moment in life to our own learning.
Great trust is needed that Divine love and Divine care are always present, even when one feels helpless. Such trust allows us to give our helplessness to God without having to change it.
The healing of anger is simple to say but for many is difficult to do. This is because it involves the surrender of the power of the ego-self to the Divine so that one is willing to experience feelings of helplessness without transforming them into something else. Here, great trust is needed that Divine love and Divine care are always present, even when one feels helpless. Such trust allows us to give our helplessness to God without having to change it, even as we make efforts to rectify whatever situation we are dealing with. To truly release anger, however, one must not only believe that Divine love is present. One must feel it within one’s heart.
Many who are vulnerable to episodes of extreme anger have experienced trauma in their early life or within other lifetimes, in which they felt extremely helpless about something they could not control or change. The pain of this can create a substitution of the power of anger for the powerlessness of helplessness, and thus, for a moment or longer, one again claims power and circumvents an experience of the original pain.
Giving anger to God involves trust in Divine perfection and Divine timing so that the limitations of life can be accepted, and so that the painful experience of waiting for these limitations to disappear can be endured. In becoming angry, one seizes control of life and determines to make it be the way one wants it to be, rather than accepting what is. Such acceptance is not passivity. It involves doing what one can, and leaving the rest in Divine hands.
This is a profound spiritual journey that one embarks upon. When the realization of harm done to oneself and others through anger and the desire to undo it become strong enough, the embodied soul begins to seek other means to deal with the situation of helplessness, through both human and Divine means.
Beloved Ones, all of physical life involves some experience of limitation, just by virtue of being human. The experience of each human has been one in which the embodied self has wished for things that could not yet materialize. Only when all of life is seen as held in God, including the limitations, can the feeling of helplessness be gone forever. Such Divine perception comes, eventually, to each embodied soul, but often only after great hardship and great struggle.
The healing of anger through the surrender of helplessness to the Divine is the path of redemption. In exchange for this surrender, one comes, ultimately, to a union of one’s embodied consciousness with Divine consciousness, will and truth. Whether the path be long or short, the outcome is certain. May all who struggle along this path be blessed.