…and what can be done about them.
Transform your anger into creativity. – A. Jodorowsky
Anger has a lot of bad reputation, but in reality it is a precious gift that should be treasured. I wish for everyone to use every drop of anger that is given to us, as there is hardly anything as beneficial for our growth. Cherish your anger – this is the part of you that loves you. I bet you rarely look at anger this way?
Anger is a motivating emotion and it is not about diversion. Stop distracting yourself or trying to channel your anger into something unrelated. You are angry for a reason. Your boundaries got breached. Bursting out and unloading your frustration on others has little sense, we all know that. Using that discomfort to figure out how to grow to get yourself out of that situation… Maybe we could learn how to reinforce our boundaries. Or change our circumstances, whatever we need to learn. Anger forces us to seek pathways unused before. Use it as a guide.
Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire. – A. Jodorowsky
We crave what we fear, except we deny it. It is pretty obvious when we look at radical alt-right movement or right wing proponents – men denying their homosexual orientation are the ones most afraid of giving rights to homosexuals. Or those that have been denied a pleasure of sharing life with a woman, who desire women the most, also fear them and try to reduce their rights to the absolute minimum, so that they would be less threatening. Are we ready to admit that exact pattern in ourselves? The thing is, if we try to run away, we will attract it, to verify it. Life tends to do that, if we are wrong and stick to it, it throws at us opportunities to change our mind. The more stubborn we are, the more of a struggle it becomes. We attract what we fear.
Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you. – A. Jodorowsky
Accept your shadow. Okay, there is more to this. There is a rule in coaching, self work, that we should do exactly what repels us the most. Also the resistance is the hardest just before the breakthrough. It is the unknown that stops us from change, it is the change itself. We fear novelties and what comes with them. This kind of clinginess is also conditioned by our brains, but on our journey to harmony we need to integrate our shadow. Can your ego imagine befriending something that challenges you now? It is more than just our behaviour. It is actually about having our triggers tamed in us, so they no longer evoke a reaction that throws us off balance. The quintessence of psychotherapeutic work 🙂 Shadow work is never easy, but it is so worth it.
Transform your pride into dignity. – A. Jodorowsky
While pride is rarely seen as vice, it can lead us astray into hubris and intolerance, and make us in fact miss opportunities that could be ours. There is more, pride disconnects us from the self, puts us at risk of painful shame. Pride feeds our image and image alone. We put it up as a self-defense mechanism that makes painful reality more bearable – when we are young. Children lack cognitive skills and brain structures that would let them process and cope with their experience. It is extremely difficult to put it down, given that it also sneaks up on us often in disguise, next to self-rigthednes. It becomes toxic to a grown-up. We are simply unaware what harm we are doing to ourselves. Disconnection from the self blocks more than just pain, it blocks everything. It prevents us from growth, from having a full human experience. What is positive though is self respect. And that should be cherished. It comes from within and nourishes the soul.
Transform your hate into charity. – A. Jodorowsky
Hate is probably the lowest vibration emotion that we can feel. It is like a cyanide, poisons our entire life, takes away joy, pleasures and anything that is good for us. We pay the whole price for it, not the target of our hate. It seems quite important then to find ways to avoid it and transform it – for our own good.
Somebody said forgiveness has nothing to do with the original hurt. It has everything to do with not letting somebody’s action prevent us from happiness. And with that in mind, let’s transmute our hate. Let’s turn it into charity, where we stop our destruction in its seed and do something selfless. The most healing comes from compassion, from wishing well those that evoke hatred in us. While we would like to tell others to do exactly that, try that yourself and observe the light coming into your life.
Transform your greed into respect for beauty. – A. Jodorowsky
We have a natural drive towards beauty. We pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Resisting greed could be a frustrating battle, wanting to have more, having to deny it due to limited resources, time or shelf space (guilty!). Transforming it into respect for beauty, or admiration for things we are so greedy of – this creates a whole new narrative that lets us detach from those things we so uncontrollably want to have.Â
Transform your envy into admiration for the values of the other. – A. Jodorowsky
Envy is similar to greed in terms of its mechanism, definitely more taboo though. It often fuels our shopping habits. We watch influencers with their lifestyles and decide we want things. We decide that we need an upgrade of a car, because our neighbour got a prius. We envy our workmates getting that raise which we were hoping to get.
Why do we feel envy anyway? Envy is about feeling angry for having something missing in our lives. We feel envious when we miss our potential. It can be uncomfortable to realise – after all it puts a duty on us to start working towards that goal. That brings joy in itself, but getting unstuck from inertia is never easy. Fortunately the longer we wait, the envious feeling gets stronger. And anger as we know it is a bliss that gets us unstuck.
