http://www.care2.com/greenliving/heal-your-childhood-anger.html
Heal Your Childhood Anger
Adapted from The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books 2003).
What unhealed emotional wounds from your childhood keep emerging, with hopes to finally be healed? Use this exercise to heal the roots of your anger.
For this exercise you will need approximately 10 minutes of uninterrupted time.
Think back to yesterday. Imagine that your memory is a videocassette that you can rewind to any time you choose. Right now, take it back just 24 hours. What were some of the things you did during the day? Did anything frighten you or make you angry? It doesn’t have to be anything especially important or dramatic. You may have felt impatient waiting in line, or you might have witnessed someone being rude or inconsiderate. For the next minute or so, try to remember the events of the day in as much detail as you can. Focus on a moment of anger, becoming aware of the sensations in your body as well as the emotions in your mind.
Next, rewind that videotape back even farther. Think back exactly one year. Try to recall what you were doing a year ago on this date, or as close to it as you can remember. What was on your mind at that time?
Rewind the tape even farther back to when you were a teenager. Again, focus on a situation that made you angry or frightened. Relive the feelings, mentally and physically.
Try now to remember an incident from childhood. What is the earliest time in your life that you can recall being really angry? Bring that experience into your awareness. Where were you when it happened? Who else was there? Who or what was it that made you so angry? Feel all the sensations created by that anger.
Notice how fear and anger have accumulated over the years. Although you cannot remember it, there was a time in your life before you ever felt anger or fear, a time of total peace and tranquility.
With that feeling of total bliss still in your awareness, begin to move that imaginary videotape forward again. Visit the same points in your life that you stopped at earlier: Those angry or fearful moments from your childhood, your teenage years, a year ago, yesterday.
Spend a minute or so feeling the anger and fear being erased by this memory of bliss.
More from Deepak Chopra (233 articles available)
Go to the Source
related stories
-
In the heat of the moment, it can be sometimes difficult to…
(15 comments)
-
Emotions do not originate with us. They come and go…
(8 comments)
-
deepakc
We’ve all been taught that protein is needed to make our…
(2 comments)
Annie B.
Melissa
Jana
Kelly
Lily
Terri
Betsy
Cait
Eric
Andrew
Dave
Robyn
Deepak
13 comments
add your comment »I agree with Jennifer Kapsch. Watch out ladies! I was stuck with my partner for a long time..was always manipulatin and never honest withhimself...always blamed someone else and was screaming angry...took everythin i had to leave. Never again!
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I'm not receiving your emails anymore and I dont know why, but I'm very upset as they were the first thing I read every morning before I started my day.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
As much as we may want someone to release their anger in a healthy way, we can not do it for them. If they are not willing or ready to, you can't force it. If someone is abusing you (mentally/physically/emotionally), no matter how long you've been w/them, please allow yourself to take back your power and either confront them from a place of love (not emotion and desperation) if it is a safe relationship,or if that seems impossible, get out quick! Unless they are truly going for help and working on themselves, an abusive person will often only become more abusive....When we focus on forgiving a person (tho not necessarily what they did), we can start the process of releasing anger in a healthy way. Everything can be a lesson on how to make us stronger and help us grow, but only if we allow it to.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
BE CAREFUL LADIES! I just spent the last two relationships trying to 'help' angry men with definitive childhood traumas( in all, ten years of my life)....and it almost got me killed (literally) BOTH times...they were abusive, controlling, manipulative because they had no control over their childhood traumas...and myself being 'sad' (can't feel anger :(..) from what I have now learned came from lack of affection and abuse from my own father, it was a bad mix. WE cannot just 'fix' these men, no matter how much we 'love' them, in the end they take the worst out on us because we allow it and forgive them each time. NO. THEY have to want to get better...save yourselves FIRST. Believe me.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I have more sadness then anger, although my therapist says I turn anger into sadness. Thinking back just makes me sad, unloved, unappreciated. I was abused as a child from as far back I can remember, then running away from home,seemed to meet people and situations that have always been abuse. Also, too much sadness from tramatic events, losing my son at 18 mos suddenly, my brother and best friend 2 years ago....it just never seems to stop. Broke up with my last boyfriend 3 mos ago as he physically abused me, and then 2 weeks ago a girlfriend died.....the only happiness thinking back was my grandma.....I hold on to that to keep me thru each day, as I have never felt love like that ever. Keeps me going!
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Funny the sycronicity in my life. I was just talking with my mentor Robin Rice at www.bewhoyouare.com about this. She was telling me we all have been wounded. Granted I have had more than your most people. However, in the larger context am I going to focus on this and stay stuck as a victim or focus on the larger issues at hand. Which for me are becoming my authentic self. Freeing myself from my "stories". Changing my story.
My real anger I'm finding is at the "current" world systems which place women and children at the bottom of the ladder.
In discussing this with Robin I agreed that this is not an imobilizing anger. It just is! It is an anger that is going to propel me towards a more authentic self and hopefully bring change to this world that I so disagree with.
Blessings,
Tracey Huguley
www.traceylynnstales.com
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I too have a very "angry" partner at times. He definitely acts the child. He had a very unloving mother and expects me, very often, to have unconditional love for him when he gets angry. As an equal (not his mother) this can be very difficult for me. I would love to find a self-help group that deals with this issue. Where would I find groups that bring these people together?? I think men in particular, would be able to discuss this better in a group of men that have the same issues.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I too have a very "angry" partner at times. He definitely acts the child. He had a very unloving mother and expects me, very often, to have unconditional love for him when he gets angry. As an equal (not his mother) this can be very difficult for me. I would love to find a self-help group that deals with this issue. Where would I find groups that bring these people together?? I think men in particular, would be able to discuss this better in a group of men that have the same issues.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Funny how this message just arrived when I've just ended my relationship with my boyfriend for the same reason. Refuses to kill the anger and hurt in his mind. I know this works I do it everyday not to foregt but to remind myself everyday to enjoy life. I can only suggest the rest is up to him and as life's law teaches us its up to us. Thank you for your inspiring messages now and always. DA
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I'm honesty not sure if my husband wants to let go of these feelings...he had a very abusive step-father and his mother did nothing to protect her child. My husband still has nightmares about the abuse. (Now 56 years old)I have asked him to get help. "I did that once, it didn't help." I've asked him to mentally 'kill and bury" the abuser in his imagination...he tells me he doesn't have an imagination that could do that. Honestly, he doesn't have much imagination anyway, or, I guess, a true desire to rid this demon. He often reacts as 'that child' and I have to watch how I speak to him, can't raise my voice, etc. He needs help, but I don't see him wanting to do this...or even taking the time to try it..."I have no imagination", he says. This is very difficult for me to live with day to day. That 'inner child' lives right on his shoulder and in his heart/mind. It often seems like an abuse he will live with til eternity....sigh.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?