Ever feel so enraged you just want to boil over? Hit something? Lash out at the world? Well, it turns out, so do millions of other people right now. Our rage pandemic cries out for useful peacemaking solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you noticed it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anger, wrath, and rage seem to be all the rage lately. We vent freely, scream at the guy on the freeway who cuts us off, even do violence to inanimate objects, or God forbid to other people, all in our quest to let our rage out. Our civic life, our politics, and even our public institutions have become rage-filled, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RELATED: Anger and Jealousy Prevention: How to Avoid Lion Attacks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, anger may be cathartic, but when it\u2019s expressed as rage it can also be intensely damaging, not only to the object of your rage but to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we aspire to become decent human beings (and stay out of prison, too), we have to find a way to gain what the psychologists call \u201ca locus of self-control.\u201d Children often struggle with that task, but as adults, the world expects us to operate within the bounds of acceptable social behavior, and not slug the boss or destroy property or fly into a violent fit or harm others, regardless of the provocation. There are laws against that kind of thing, after all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have to find ways, if we expect to make it through life intact, to sign a peace treaty with our feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s possible to make peace with our own inner rage \u2013 but first we need to recognize the mechanism that triggers it. We all have what psychologists call \u201crage circuits\u201d in our brains. Every human being possesses those circuits, built in from the factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, those circuits once helped us, allowing our species to get this far in human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How? Well, when our brains sense a threat to our existence \u2013 say, impending invasion by a fierce competing tribe of cavemen, or the sudden appearance of a voracious beast, or the snarky insults of a cynical keyboard warrior \u2013 those attacks trigger a built-in fight-or-flight response. We naturally respond to the dangers in our environment, just like any living being would. When that happens, our brains flood our bodies with adrenaline, which enables us to perform unlikely feats \u2013 run away faster than ever before, lift cars off injured pedestrians, or respond with rage and even violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Baha\u2019u\u2019llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha\u2019i Faith, quoted by Dr. J.E. Esslemont in his book Baha\u2019u\u2019llah and the New Era<\/em>, said<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verily the most necessary thing is contentment under all circumstances; by this one is preserved from morbid conditions and from lassitude. Yield not to grief and sorrow: they cause the greatest misery. Jealousy consumeth the body and anger doth burn the liver: avoid these two as you would a lion.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Good advice, because while rage may have paid dividends in the age of cavemen with clubs, today it will get you a jail sentence or a casket \u2013 which means adrenaline-fueled rage has changed from an evolutionary advantage to a dire disadvantage. From caves to condos, rage has lost the plot. Now we have to lose our rage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know that adrenaline is still a powerful force, however, and the neural circuits it excites \u2013 especially the ones in the amygdala, our so-called “lizard brain,\u201d which functions as the seat of our strongest emotions \u2013 can produce tremendous, unexpected rage, all of a sudden. This happens especially when we\u2019ve suppressed past anger, slights, and insults \u2013 when that occurs, rage can build and bust loose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when you hear about someone completely losing it \u2013 attacking a flight attendant, striking out at fellow students at school, slandering others on social media \u2013 it generally means that their anger triggers got the best of them, overpowering their rational and spiritual sides. Of course, those kinds of stress-inducing rage triggers exist everywhere these days. We perceive that the social order itself is collapsing; that our lives are in danger from war or climate change or economic peril; that the political environment is poisonous; and that we live in a dystopian age. That\u2019s enough, right there, to make anyone upset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what\u2019s the solution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RELATED: Learning How to Control Our Anger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, gleaned from both science and spirituality, are three suggestions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, recognize that we all have a deep well of strong emotions within us. Every human being possesses the potential for rage. Civilization has allowed us to subdue some of those emotions some of the time \u2013 but anger, when suppressed, can emerge as passive-aggressiveness, sudden temper tantrums, or even self-destructive, violent behavior. The Baha\u2019i teachings say that these feelings of anger, aggressiveness, and rage are shared by every human being. Abdu\u2019l-Baha, the son and successor of Baha\u2019u\u2019llah, in his book Some Answered Questions<\/em>, said<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this material world, man is subject to the force of instinctual desires \u2026 The body of man is a prisoner of nature and will act in accordance with whatever nature dictates. It follows that sins \u2013 such as wrathfulness, envy, contentiousness, greed, avarice, ignorance, rancour, corruption, pride, and cruelty \u2013 must exist in the material world. All these bestial attributes exist in the nature of man. A man who has been deprived of spiritual education is even as an animal \u2026 on this plane man is indistinguishable from the animal.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This means that it\u2019s up to us and our higher intellectual and spiritual powers to not only control our rage, but to reduce it by replacing it with higher human characteristics, and ultimately to turn the anger we feel in our emotional and intellectual lives to good purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, after recognizing our lower natures, and acknowledging that we each have an animal side to our existence, we can begin aspiring to develop their opposites \u2013 our higher, nobler, more spiritual attributes. We all have them, at least potentially, and their development is up to us. We can each decide whether to be kind or cruel, loving or hateful, understanding or angry, compassionate or hard-hearted. In fact, in the workshop of life, we get the opportunity many times each day to make these essentially spiritual choices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This constant process of refining our souls constitutes the true immortalizing work of every person in this world, according to the writings<\/a> of Baha\u2019u\u2019llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha\u2019i Faith:<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the exalted source, and out of the essence of His favor and bounty [God] hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived of its share in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this knowledge. This sign is the mirror of His beauty in the world of creation. The greater the effort exerted for the refinement of this sublime and noble mirror, the more faithfully will it be made to reflect the glory of the names and attributes of God, and reveal the wonders of His signs and knowledge.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n When we make the daily effort to polish our inner spiritual mirrors, Baha\u2019u\u2019llah points out, we do so by gradually developing the noblest attributes in our souls. This doesn\u2019t happen in a day \u2013 it takes a long-term commitment to be a loving and peaceful and happy human being, tethered to noble spiritual values and determined to become better humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
1. Everyone Feels Rage<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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2. Everyone has Noble Attributes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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3. Turn Anger into Constructive Action<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n