Lessons I learned so far about anger

I learned a new lesson about anger today... when you are really angry at someone, or when you feel you really strongly dislike a person at the moment, be it a good friend, a loved one, an acquaintance, or even a mentor, you cannot take in his or her advice, no matter how correct or how helpful the information they offer may be. It happened that a person I normally really like and respect made a statement that sounded offensive for me (coz I have huge unresolved issues with filial piety) and then kept trying to shove advice down my throat.

I've become more and more inquisitive about feelings and emotions, perhaps exactly because those who were closest around me love to invalidate my feelings or tell me to suppress my negative emotions and show more positive ones even if I don't feel so upbeat.

My whole life has been really tough for me, not because I had abusive/dysfunctional parents or was born into poverty, but because I was born with an excessively inquisitive mind and I like to analyze ideas/concepts to death. This probably irritates the hell out of my family and friends, who much prefer simple rules of thumbs than to question conventions/social norms.

I want to talk about the emotion known as "anger". I've briefly discussed the problems with negative emotion suppression in a previous post. Basically it's unhealthy for you in the long term and what often happens is that at a later time you may explode at someone due to a trigger that is only remotely related to the real issues that you've been avoiding to deal with for months/years.

According to Wikipedia, anger is "an emotion related to one's psychological interpretation of having been offended, wronged, or denied and a tendency to react through retaliation."  It ranges from being mildly, frustrated, to somewhat irritated, to outright wanting to say obscenities and hurt someone else.

My mother's side of the family, from grandparents, to my mom and all her siblings, to all my cousins, my sister and I -- are known to have bad tempers. I used to think this hot-temperament is a genetic trait that we are born with and would have extreme difficulty to shed. But I learned that it's more of a learned trait rather than purely an inborn characteristic. Whenever I got mad, my mother would quickly out-anger me by posturing up, speaking more loudly, and making sure she gains the upperhand of the situation. It's not until recently I learned that my own anger was often exactly "feeling offended, wronged, or denied", and also feeling completely powerless and hopeless, with no option to do anything about the situation. Even when I got older and realistically should be more resourceful to actively do something about my situation, getting angry became a habit, a knee-jerk response from too many years of being used to the helplessness. My mother also still habitually posture up and act all defensive no matter what the situation was.

It's not until I had a chance to live abroad, away from my family for an extended period of time, spending time with other people's families,  that I learned that other families do not get mad over every conflict or every frustrating/irritating situation. They simply asked the right questions, discussed, and made compromises. It was very eye-opening for me to observe this. Also, because other people never forced me to obey unreasonable requests, I rarely, if ever felt unbearably infuriated.  This was a complete surprise for me, since I had been used to feeling utter furor almost daily back at home.

So now that I am away for home for good, and hell-raising furor occurs relatively rarely for me, I set out to analyze post-furor what kind of things actually makes me furious. There's no way to analyze them while I was feeling like an erupting volcano. I started this post during a recent episode actually, but all that came out were blames and defensive thoughts. Rational thinking is impossible while feeling wrathful.

So the rage was actually a reaction to one of my favorite family members, who is normally quite caring. I guess she was having some trouble with her kids, and so she set out to invalidate my feelings towards my parents, and proceed to tell me that the mere fact that I was born into this world is sufficient reason that I am forever completely indebted to my parents and that I should fulfill my duty as a good daughter. A few of her later points are actually reasonable life tips.. things that she learned in her buddhist community about self-reflection and changing perspectives, but I was so incredulous and outraged that I couldn't stand to take in any inkling of information she tried to offer, no matter how relevant and helpful they may be.

I guess on top of my list of anger trigger are Chinese traditions, filial piety, emotional invalidation, and twisting my words to use against me. You may win the fight but you forever lose my trust and respect. But I've learned that nobody in my family gives a damn about my trust and respect. They care the most about tradition and saving face.

Luckily I have my own spiritual teaching to turn to that are less preachy and more thoughtful/respectful. I much prefer to internalize teachings that honors its audience rather than teachings that say, "You are all stupid/blind/unworthy, and now here are the rules to follow".

A simple teaching that I can appreciate (I heard this from Seane Corn): "First, forgive yourself for not knowing any better. Then forgive others for not knowing any better" ---  As opposed to forgive others unconditionally while continuing to be endlessly vigilant about yourself.

Another self-reminder: I am more powerful than my upbringing would have me believe. I have a lot more control of my life than I think I do. I also am allowed to make mistakes, since I have to live with the consequences of my mistakes. As much as I'm shocked about how family members only a few years older than me adhere to traditional beliefs that should have gone out of fashion with the 19th century, I am free believe something else and to live a different life. The emotional baggages are not so easily to shed but I will dedicate the rest of my life shedding them.

I also think it's okay to get angry as long as I learn something from it rather than just automatically react without thinking. I gain understanding about myself and it helps me to process my baggage / habitual patterns. If I merely suppress my anger or superficially distract myself, the baggage will never lessen.

Thanks for asking, but I don't feel like talking about my yoga practice with you right now

I never ever thought I'd get to this point, where I don't want to discuss yoga with people (specifically non-yoga practitioners. To my yogi friends: you guys don't apply to this category).

From the amount of yoga videos and yoga articles that I compulsively post on Facebook, most of my friends whom I haven't seen for a long time get the hint that I am slightly obsessed about yoga. When I first started yoga, I couldn't stop talking about it, whether people wanted to hear about yoga or not. Like a zealous religious fanatic, I would shove complementary yoga passes into people's hands and try to get them to come to a yoga class with me. Over time, I learned that most people have strong mental resistance against trying something new. Some people didn't enjoy physical education in high school and concluded that all physical activities suck, period. Others seemed to think that I would be so inconsiderate that I would take them to an advanced yoga class when they are not that active in their day-to-day lives (or maybe they think all yoga movements are too advanced for them). So I stopped mentioning yoga in social situations. However, whenever I meet up with friends, especially the ones who are on Facebook but whom I haven't seen for awhile, they would always casually ask me about my yoga progress. I get questions like "How's it going with you? Are you still doing yoga? (It's only been 2 years) Wow, you must be a yoga master by now"; "So which new poses are you learning lately?";  "Are you going to become a yoga teacher soon? That's not a bad profession, eh? Probably make a good side income."

For awhile I got so tongue-tied that I couldn't even answer them. I blame too many years of grad school for worsening my social skills (which were not so good to begin with). As a total nerd I'm pretty clueless about what people want to hear, since they obviously don't care for yoga. I do admit also I got a little offended by the implications of these questions (which I can't blame them because they honestly don't know much about yoga besides what mainstream media portrays it to be, but it still affected my ability to think straight), so I usually just answered, "Yep, still do it sometimes", and left it at that. I would get a somewhat stunned look and an awkward pause, before people clumsily find another topic to talk about. There's a good chance I have offended them for shutting down an innocently casual conversation-starter like that.

Upon some serious pondering (the only thing that a nerd like me knows to do), I believe that people want me to casually talk about my yoga progress, with a sense of humor, and maybe some gossip, as if I were reporting about my progress in, say, salsa dancing or figure skating: "Oh it's going great! I fell on my butt soooooo many times but I just mastered pirouetting on one foot last week!" "I'm so much more flexible now that before I started yoga. I used to not be able to touch my toes, and now I can almost do a split!" "OMG, there's this one yoga teacher who is super hot! Men who practice yoga have such nice bodies! I go to his class all the time, and he's the only teacher who can get me into a handstand! You should come try his class with me sometime! He has the most sexy voice ever and you'll feel so relaxed in this class!" "My butt is so much perkier now after all the yoga I've been doing. It's super awesome. The yoga inversions help reverse the aging effects that gravity has on a woman's skin and boobs! I feel younger than ever before!"

The above examples have nothing to do with my personal practice, by the way (or maybe some of them do, but I don't really talk like that in real life), but I think these are the type of things people who don't do yoga expect to hear. I'm not sure if they want me to sell yoga to them as a miracle panacea, make self-deprecating jokes about yoga, brag about how many poses I've mastered, demo some fancy asana on the spot, make claims about how close I am in becoming a teacher, or what. Fellow yogis and yoginis, please share your experience with me on this matter.

I guess I personally take (Ashtanga) yoga sort of seriously, even though I haven't been practicing it regularly. I'm not saying it has to be so serious; I'm just in a weird mental state at this moment and just don't feel like going along with what people want by feeding them superficial comments about yoga (I'm 99.5% certain they prefer to hear something short, funny and snazzy rather than how I'm trying to burn through my samskaras with metaphoric/energetic fire generated by breath and postures). Don't get me wrong; I'm not going through post-graduation depression. I'm feeling a sense of peace that I haven't felt for years, as I used to always have my thesis project in the back of my mind at all times. I don't really feel like defending myself or pretend agree with people when they make uncreative assumptions about my vacation plans, career plans, or my yoga practice. I'm aware my social behaviour makes me seem like a total snob, and I'm pissing off some of my friends. Let me be clear: I don't think I'm above other people. I just feel like I need to step off the hamster's wheel of social expectations (how to talk; how to behave; how to proceed through life in a conventional way) for a bit and just be. I'm pretty sure it's only a temporary phase, some sort of cognitive fatigue (societal expectation fatigue?) maybe. Once the phase passes I'll happily get back on the hamster treadmill and conform to social norms again.