I saw this Buddha quote on my niece’s Facebook page the other day and it stuck with me. “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”

Everyone gets angry. It’s when it becomes a way of life that we suffer.

I remember my aunt talking about her brother, my father, and saying, “He’s always mad at somebody.”

The punishment is not only a stream of angry thoughts but also a series of tight feelings in the body. Over time, those feelings take their toll.

It’s productive to stop and notice that your anger isn’t working for you. It’s always working against you.

I met a very famous man a few years ago who had smoldering anger. He was telling me about his digestive issues and I remarked that it would be useful if he noticed his anger. He thought I was peering into his soul by bringing up his anger. He thought it was hidden by his outward facade. It wasn’t. It was there for anyone to see who was paying attention.

That’s what I asked him to do: pay attention to his anger.

I also asked him to not ascribe it to a person or thing as in: “I’m angry because . . .”

That ascription justifies the anger and keeps it in place. I asked him to pay attention to the feelings in his body when he felt what he called “anger.”

Paying attention to sensations without assigning a cause metabolizes the anger and lets it dissipate rather than aggregate.

It’s my experience that digestion issues and other disease processes caused by being constantly constricted gradually ease just by paying attention.

We’re not going to stop getting angry anytime soon but we can stop the residual damage that anger can cause. It just takes a little anger management – better known as paying attention.

All the best,

John