Mindfulness for Managing Anger, Cravings, and Difficult Situations
- A chapter from the book Mindfulness, A Guidebook to the Present Moment -
Meditation shows you again and again a very simple yet powerful reality; that whatever you resist disturbs you, and whatever you accept cannot disturb you.’ - Adyashanti
During a formal session we choose a meditation object and attempt to maintain our focused attention on it for the duration, with our broad awareness scanning, highlighting, and labelling any potential distractions that risk drawing away our attention. We may shift our focus, but only do so when we are under extreme physical or emotional discomfort, or when we are practicing on the spectrum of awareness.
In normal waking life, we can choose at any moment to pay mindful attention to any object of our choice. This could be external, for example a work project or task, a conversation, our food, as well as any aspect of our inner world. This is where the skills practiced on the meditation mat can come into their own, as we will soon discover, we can employ the skill of focused mindful attention to address issues of interpersonal conflict and confusion, as well as those surrounding cravings and addiction.
Think back to a time when someone made you angry. Perhaps you were cut off in traffic, bumped into on the subway, or a partner, child, boss, friend, or co-worker spoke to you in a less than respectful tone. In all these cases, it would have been ideal to maintain a level head and remain in control of your emotions and importantly, actions. While it may have felt good in the moment to explode with anger, the ramifications of such outbursts are never positive over the long term. If we are not careful, strong emotions can temporarily blind us into saying and doing things that are both out of character and undesirable.
But thankfully, with mindfulness, we have the tools at our disposal to cope.
Glimpse: Investigating Anger
Close your eyes and think back to that anger inducing event, and simply feel the emotion of anger. What does it feel like? Do you feel any physical or mental pressure or tension? Are there visual or auditory overlays? Are there any associated memories or thoughts? What happens when you pay focused attention to these sensations? Do they increase or decrease? Where do they go when they disappear?
Great work, you have just practiced noticing what anger feels like to you. This may sound silly, ‘Of course I know what anger feels like’. True, but often what you think anger feels like is simply the symptoms of anger during and after the blow up, not the more subtle feelings of anger that you will feel on the way up. Over time and with repeated practice with anger and other emotions, you will develop a mental catalogue of sorts, one that will help you to identify the emotions you are feeling. This will enable you to better notice the signs in real time and then have the presence of mind to make a more desirable choice in response. In situations of increasing emotionality, you will find that this practice gives you a mindful breath; a slight pause where you can stop, think, and evaluate from a detached place.
Rather than simply becoming overwhelmed with anger, I now find myself with increasingly more warning time as well as more of an ability to make different choices. It is like my anger is over there and I am seeing it from over here. Do not get me wrong, I still get angry, but not as often and never as intensely. There are even times when I notice it rising and simply chuckle to myself at the fact I am getting angry. From there it is just a matter of noticing all the feelings, and other things associated with the anger, and letting them pass. Because the reality is that a series of connected mental phenomena is less overwhelming than an undefinable tsunami of raw emotional power.
While I was in the process of writing this book, I had an opportunity to employ the lessons from this chapter in a real-world context. I was at the local pool with my son when I noticed the text on a fellow dad’s top. It read, ‘I would prefer to be biblically correct than politically correct’.
This caused my anger to flare up and it quickly combined with an intense desire to confront this man and give him a piece of my mind; an action that is totally out of character for me. Thankfully, this sudden shift in my mental state caused me to take a quick mindful breath and turn my attention inwards to investigate what was happening and why.
I started by simply feeling what I was feeling. Its intensity, location, and how the anger was presenting itself. From there I turned towards my thoughts. I wondered if he was aware of how tone deaf his top was, or how offensive it could be to members of most minority groups. Then I contemplated his intent. Did he mean to offend people? Was he protesting the steady creep of over-the-top political correctness? Or was he given the top and was just mindlessly wearing it, totally unaware of the implications of the words? I realised that I had made a bunch of quick assumptions, and simply did not know the truth. This helped to alleviate some of the anger and opened some deeper layers of my internal response.
I knew I had seen far more unambiguously offensive things over the years that had little to no impact on my mental state, yet for some reason, this man with that top was causing me anger. I dug deeper and realised that underneath the anger lay jealousy. This man was seemingly confident enough to both hold strong and controversial opinions, and then feel comfortable to explicitly state them in a public context. The formation and projection of strong opinions on controversial matters does not come naturally or easily to me, so seeing this man do so with seeming ease stung. I recognised that despite being older and physically weaker than I am, this man was clearly more confident that I am in certain aspects of life, this also stung.
This entire introspection process took around thirty seconds. I ended it by returning to the observation of the anger and jealously, and simply watched them unravel. Then I laughed at the workings of my mind and gave a silent thanks to my meditation practice for giving me the tools to introspect rather than acting on impulse.
This same approach can be used to address feelings of shame, depression, or any other undesirable emotion.
First you practice investigating the emotion through evoking a memory of a time you felt it, as we did in the Glimpse above, then you start to look for it in day-to-day life. When you notice those feelings, investigate them. Over time you will hone your senses and be better able to identify them before they blindside you, thus giving you a breath in which to make a more appropriate choice.
Using this approach, I have found a significant reduction in both the severity and duration of panic attacks. I am now far better at noticing the symptoms as they arise. I then say to myself, ‘I recognise what is happening, this is a panic attack, it will not last, you have gotten through these in the past, and you will today’. This approach does not always stop the attack, but it makes it far more bearable.
Another place that we can use our skills of mindfulness off the meditation mat is to counter addictions.
Most, if not all addictions, contain a strong biological component in addition to the psychological conditioning. The science of it is beyond the scope of this book, but basically the brain contains millions of neurotransmitters and receptors whose job it is to keep the mind and body functioning correctly. Addictive substances throw a spanner in the works by either altering the receptors or transmitters so that they no longer fit together, or because there is too much or not enough to produce a semblance of normality. The only way the addicted person can achieve a feeling of normality is to use their substance of choice, which ‘fills the holes’ so to speak in the system. The very holes that the substance caused.
Basically, we feel an intense undesirable feeling, also known as a craving, and the only way we know to quickly stop those feelings is to use the substance. Unfortunately, the reprieve is short-lived, and the cycle quickly repeats itself. But here is where our skills of mindfulness meditation come into play: those negative feelings and cravings are just another potential object of our meditation.
Glimpse: Investigating Addiction
Close your eyes and bring to mind something you have mild cravings for, for example chocolate, and simply feel what is like to crave it. What do cravings feel like? What is the nature of your craving? Is there any associated physical sensations, if so, what do they feel like? Is the feeling growing or shrinking? What happens when you pay attention to the cravings?
Typically, cravings come in waves. That is, we feel it, it gets worse, then gradually subsides. If we can observe those cravings for the sensations they are, from a detached and mindful perspective, we will have increasing success at riding the craving wave out. Cravings come and go, and with mindfulness we can watch the process. Beyond addressing the cravings, mindful attention will help us to avoid accidental or subconscious usage. That is, if we do decide that the cravings are too strong, we can then make a conscious and mindful decision to satiate the craving, rather than doing so in a rush or mechanically.
Finally, mindfulness will enable us to consider the consequences of our actions before we make them. It will help us to pay attention to the little voice that is attempting to remind us of what we will feel after we have given in to the craving. It will help us to keep our future selves in mind, rather than just the immediate needs projected by the craving.
This chapter is from the book Mindfulness, A Guidebook to the Present Moment
