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Are You Using Old Wounds To Vent?

posted by Deepak Chopra Nov 4, 2009 5:02 am
Are You Using Old Wounds To Vent?
12 comments

Wounds cry out for attention. If they are physical they cry out with physical pain. If they are psychological they cry out with mental anguish. During the healing process your pain is going to linger as long as it needs to. Even so, there is a difference between noticing your pain and dwelling on it.

We all know people who will use any excuse to draw attention to themselves, including a fixation on their current woes. The danger is that if you identify with your hurt, if you use it as your calling card, if you think it makes you more sympathetic, all these factors retard healing.

One of the most insidious aspects of anger is that it is so much easier to feel than other emotions. I don’t just mean positive emotions like compassion but even negative ones like fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Anger is also socially acceptable. Athletes use it to motivate themselves, for instance, and sometimes a football victory seems more like a battle won than the outcome of a game.

The way of peace asks you to make a fine distinction. Be aware of your hurt and pay attention to it. But do not fixate on it. This can be a difficult distinction to honor. There will always be moments when you can’t tell if you are letting go of a hurt by expressing it, or just venting.

The difference comes down to intention. If you vent anger with the object of spreading your toxic feelings, the result will have nothing to do with healing. Your anger is your weapon. On the other hand, if you release anger the way you’d expel a rock from your shoe, your intention clearly has healing behind it.

Once the anger starts flowing, both of these alternatives might feel the same. Anger is anger. But if you have a healing intention, two things will happen: you will feel more peaceful after your anger has been released, and you will feel like an old, fixed belief in enemies and injustice has started to move.

Adapted from: Peace Is the Way, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2005).

More on Deepak Chopra's Tips (558 articles available)
More from Deepak Chopra (571 articles available)

12 comments

12 comments

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12 comments add your comment
Meg R.
  • Meg R. says
  • Nov 5, 2009 6:48 PM

To Uma: You are amazing in so many ways. First of all you are an amazing writer. Secondly, you are obviously way further along the evolutionary path of the understanding of your soul, feelings and life in general, compared to me. I feel like I am just starting but yet knew this is where I would always end up. Your comments were amazing and I would hate to paraphraze them but since I have a level of ignorance here if you could bear with me that would be great. Are you suggesting that when I feel anger or a submission position in the work place (or what not) that I should perform a ritualistic act to release the anger or tension from my soul so that it is not pent up and released in non-excepted avenues as judged by our society?

Meg R.
  • Meg R. says
  • Nov 5, 2009 6:37 PM

To Kathy: I do think that I have a lot of anger inside of me but I have held it back for so many years that I no longer know what anger "feels" like truly. But if anger can be in the form of fear and pain like you say that makes sense to me and in my instance especially true. Through my life I have been trained and allowed myself to block out all feelings. I actually felt happiness for the first time two weeks ago. It was so amazing and made me realize that I thought I was happy but it was only in the cerebral sense or maybe what would be considered my ego. When I truly felt the feeling of happiness in my soul it was so amazing. It only lastest like four or five days though then something made me mad and I couldn't feel that and ever since then I haven't been able to get back there. Anyways, I am just trying to say you are right and right now I am trying to explore ways of allowing myself to feel anger and then when I can learning how to deal with it because I have no clue.

Uma Chernoff

The petition is for justice,not revenge,no need to censor the true feeling that's reaction to the wrong redress is sought for. This judge is never blind and loves all beings equally, when we surrender the outcome the judgement is always best for all concerned. I have had the pleasure of invoking in pure agony fueled kill rage and seen the results benefit he I sought justice with. In a harm seeking spell, "he raped me let his dick be cut off" I must take responsibility for it's repercussions and the cruel cycle continues. In this case when I throw that spell I must surrender all result. Then whether the other is harmed or not there is no pay back. Justice has decided and truly however it may seem it is to the blessing of all.I stick my finger with a pin at my emotional peak and anointing the candle again with my blood I say "this is my heart's blood and my heart is crying out for justice and I want to see the results right now".If you want to see them and not far in the future you must specify so; since on that level time has no existence and lifetimes could pass. I throw that spell: I light the candle gazing into the flame and seeing my tormentor in the blue part, the dimensional door I visualize my feather and blow it into his face and scream.If privacy is an issue I sigh deeply thus putting into the hands of spirit; relighting it till it burns out on it's own. Burning it's working when it goes out it arrives where you sent it. Don't dig it up to see if it's growing. Peace!

Uma Chernoff

As long as an intention is pure; no little issues branching off and pulling energy away, plenty of power is raised; lots of emotion, and the spell is thrown so no part of it remains(create a break off technique): the invocation is successfully accomplished. The speed and likelihood of any need being answered depends on this. Everything we have is the product of these motions of the psyche; conscious or not, the unrelenting reality and experience of it's fruits demands mastery of conscious co-creation, magic. Any spell must have these three elements for success so design them into it. CANDLE MAGIC, JUSTICE SPELL: I like a brown candle for this being the color of earth bringing all to equality. I scratch my need on the candle. I put a feather and a heart meaning "I take refuge in the justice of the heart".I write "Justice on it placing the word between my name and the one I'm seeking justice with. I visualize a blue flame going through my tool branding my intention on the wax. I select an oil that seems good to me, I like a nice hot chili oil, and anointing the candle middle down and middle up all around I let this be the vehicle to pour my most intense emotion into it. Whatever is your true feeling, this IS the place for all your anti social emotion. I let the oil put it in that candle letting it rise to a peak. Rage and fear and longing are pure emotions, rocket fuel to bring your petition before the just judge that loves us all equally. ....cont.)

Uma Chernoff

2)The concept of divine justice is the human handle on the idea of universal reciprocity. Whether it takes the form of a deity meting out rewards and punishment or a council of souls helping one through a post mortal evaluation of an incarnation the fact that everything manifest effects it's contact points with everything it does and doesn't do,universally connected. In this great dance of mutual influence the idea of justice is born. I do justice magic by first acknowledging my position from the point of my heart. In Old Egypt the heart was the immortal perfect self and all care and commandments were centered in not burdening the heart of another automatically burdening one's own heart. At the end of time a judgment was conceptualized where one's heart was weighed against the feather of truth and justice. If your heart wasn't as light as that feather IT would cry out that it was oppressed and be devoured by Apep the devourer of heavy hearted souls, the perfect metaphor for bitter remorse which in the timeless halls of spirit is a timeless affair that the Egyptian would do anything to escape.In timelessness how can one know when the punishment may end.Acknowledging that I will stand before that judge gives me right and power to call out that the scales be made even now so I don't have to carry it with me. That demand that I stand before the judge gives me the power that when I call out for justice I'll get it. Justice must be invoked if one wishes the result. ...continued:

Uma Chernoff

The witch who made me, Dylan, said " Witches don't get mad, we just get even" There is a great deal of healthy truth here. The cause of impotent anger that poisons one's life and when suppressed and pressure cooked until forgotten breaks off into a shadow monster that endangers the world is a sense that no justice will be forthcoming and that there is no recompense for the received injury, whether only perceived or real in terms of deliberate exterior cause. When a person who perceives herself to be in a powerless social position,"a woman in the work place" or any one else who is not a world ruler feels the pain of injury the question is what to do with it. If it is obvious that bringing it to public view will only cause more suffering when the person disciplines herself to "suck it up" and go on it doesn't go away; in fact, when one is no longer aware of it, it starts to leak through the seams like a bad smell that the whole world is aware of except for one's self. The psyche, seeking healing,relief of the inner pressure, allows one to be attracted to whatever will let the shadow come out and play. Any kind of behavior like drunkenness that gives permission to behave without control,(isn't it called letting off steam?) assumes an addictive position in life, the addictive behavior the symptom rather than the illness itself. As long as emotion we perceive as socially impermissible remains in consciousness it is neutral, when it's forgotten psyche seeks relief;Shadow is born.

Kathy Cramer

To Meg R, I believe that it is possible that you may not have alot of anger, however, I am told that it is fear and pain that is behind anger. Unless you express those in a different way, you probably have some anger.

I am a woman & I know alot of others that have too much anger as well. I am not as angry today as I have been learning what it is and how to deal with it in healthier ways.

Being angry has done nothing for me but prevent me from living a more joyful life. To be rid of it is like breathing fresh, clean air. A great wieght off my heart. Thanks &

Meg R.
  • Meg R. says
  • Nov 5, 2009 7:10 AM

I don't completely agree but maybe I am unique. I have a very difficult time expressing anger and really don't know what it feels like.I am trying to deal with that now but it is the hardest emotion for me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am female. I don't believe, especially in the work place, that anger is well received from a women.

Mary Walsh

Thank you Deepak.

Annie St Clair

I believe we all have different ways of dealing with anger. I believe anger is a survival tool that sometimes gets out of hand. It is very difficult to tell someone who has been wronged to let go of their anger as they feel justified in what they are feeling. I don't believe that feeling anger is unhealthy either, as denying an emotion can only serve to cause a back log of unaddressed issues.

I have found that if anger is met with compassion then more often than not it sways. Validation is a very real thing. It takes skill and years of experience to allow anger to be irrelevant. Some may meet this pass a lot faster because of previous life experience where others don't. Whilst anger is not attractive I believe it should be heeded as there is generally a basis for it whether it is obvious or not.

Accepting anger is the best way to pass through it. If one can rationalize the feeling then that is where one has a better chance at dealing with it. Suppressing or ignoring it does not serve the bearer in my experience.

Phiarose

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