The one who is angry is often helpless

Being angry with a situation and expressing your anger on everyone and everything around you is never an intelligent response.

I watched a beautiful Malayalam film the other day called Manjadikuru. Made by Anjali Menon (of Bangalore Days fame), the film tells the story of a family as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy, Vicky. One of the protagonists of the film is a man called Raghu (played by Rahman). And Raghu is forever angry with his family – with his brother and his sisters. Raghu’s anger seems often irrational and habituated. As in one moment he could be complaining about his brother’s decision to turn a Naxalite, abdicating his family responsibilities, and the other moment he could be ranting about his sisters flocking together only to seek a share in the family wealth. So, Vicky, while narrating the story, concludes that his big learning watching Raghu’s bouts of anger is that those who are angry are often helpless.

Anjali Menon (who is also the writer of the film) shares a phenomenal spiritual insight there. Something that I can totally relate to. I used to be prone to senseless bouts of anger too. I once remember, as a 20-year-old, flinging my shaving razor at our television – which left it cracked – because I could not have a reasonable, logical conversation with my parents. Years later, when these anger spells had become far too frequent and had begun to ruin my professional stature, I discovered that each time I lost it, I was choosing to express myself in a violent sort of way only because I was unable to control what was going on or what others were saying or doing or because I was unable to convince someone. Bottomline: my helplessness was manifesting as anger.

Through diligent practice of mouna (daily silence periods), I learnt that your helplessness is nothing but a ego-based position. Why do you need to convince anybody? You have a right to your opinion. And they have a right to theirs. It is only when you try to force your view on someone and you fail, it is only when you try to control a situation and you fail, that you get angry. But the truth is that you never were in control of anything or anyone. Things just happen. People just behave the way they want to. So, just go with the flow. There is no need to be angry. And even if you do experience anger, channelize it constructively. Anger is nothing but the energy within you. Don’t squander it through violent thought, expression or action. Simply use it to drive change in a logical, legitimate fashion. This is what Gandhi did to practise ahimsa and help secure India her independence. This is what anger, when used constructively, can eventually yield.

So, if you are experiencing too much anger within you, pause and ask yourself if you are responding so only because you are helpless? In asking that question, you may well unlock the way to a lifetime of inner peace.

Seek closure to feel liberated and peaceful

Whenever you feel miserable with someone or something, address the issue or the person, take things head-on. Seek closure. Only then will you feel liberated.

Earlier this week I watched this beautiful Malayalam film called ‘Bangalore Days’ (2014, Anjali Menon). Fahadh Fazil plays a husband who is unable to get over a past relationship. His recklessness on a motorbike had led to the death of his lover (played by Nithya Menen). He’s unable to get over his guilt and so he is unable to lead a normal Life with his wife (played by Nazriya Nazim). When his wife comes to know the cause for his brooding, melancholic, sometimes irritable, behavior, she helps him reconnect with his dead girlfriend’s family. He agrees to visit the family with much trepidation. But when he actually meets them, he achieves a closure – he cries, he apologizes and he tells his girlfriend’s parents how much he loved her and how much he still loves her. That conversation helps him get rid of his guilt and sets him free to engage in the relationship with his wife.

To me, this part of ‘Bangalore Days’ was very real – as were some other parts. I could completely relate to the situation of having an honest conversation with someone and feeling liberated at the end of it. In my forthcoming book, “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money”, I share how I have a very dysfunctional relationship with my mother. And how our relationship has affected the way the rest of my family views me. What started as plain rebellion in my teenage years has ended up leaving, at least me, very uncomfortable in contexts involving my parents and siblings. Yet, I had always wanted to speak my mind, without the fear of being interpreted, rather than being understood, and tell my parents what I feel about the way I have been judged and treated. Every time I tried achieve this, the effort would blow up in my face. And leave me more scathed and scarred. But finally an opportunity presented itself last year, and I talk about this in the book as well, when I did manage to share my feelings openly with my parents – on how I felt being treated the way I was, what I felt about them and how I would like to move on, while accepting that things could never normal the way it would be between a mother and a son. That conversation pretty much delivered a closure to me. Just the fact that I had expressed myself, saying everything that I had always wanted to, and that I was heard out, in a mature, genial conversation, made me feel lighter. I actually felt free – of all simmering discontentment, guilt and grief. I will eternally be grateful to my parents, particularly my mother, for giving me that opportunity!

One of the reasons why we don’t like to address an issue or a person who makes us uncomfortable, sometimes even miserable, is that in a very strange way, we enjoy feeling sad, pitying ourselves and presenting ourselves to the world as someone who’s been wronged. This is the first nail that keeps us pinned down. The second one deals with our discomfort in making the other person feel uncomfortable. When you take an issue head-on with someone, that person is going to most likely squirm. And you, being the good soul that you are, don’t want that person to feel like a worm. But unless you tell someone, who seems to take you for granted and so piles atrocity upon atrocity on you, that you don’t like being treated a certain way, how do you expect that person to respect you and treat you any differently? What you must understand is very simple. Don’t let anyone or anything affect your inner peace. The moment that is affected – do whatever it takes to protect it. And you don’t have to do much. Just speak your mind, draw your boundaries and set a clear protocol that you don’t appreciate any trespassing or over-stepping.

Ultimately, if someone pisses on you, or tramples all over you, you, more than that person, are responsible for the way you are feeling. So, if you don’t want to feel miserable, push back all those who don’t respect your peace and dignity. You don’t have to be rude. You just need to be firm – no matter who that person is – parent, child, sibling, neighbor, colleague, or boss. Have a brutally honest conversation. If you can’t do that, write that person an e-mail. Basically, communicate – efficiently, effectively and evocatively. Seek a closure, with such communication, to whatever bothers you about the issue or the person. When you do this, you will feel truly liberated and totally at peace with yourself!