The writing of a blog is interesting as it is a message I get to send out to the world about something important and timely. This is a timely message.
Did you know that business is a conduit through which people are able to express something unique and shine a light in the world with a product, service, and exchange of value with customers, team members, investors, partners, and more?
What is the exchange of value you give and take in a fair exchange?
If you show up angry and hostile is your exchange of value fair with others? It will certainly be noted what you bring to the table in that moment. The remnants of shattered dreams, relationships, trust and opportunity lay waste to the force of destruction left behind from words and actions birthed forth from an angry heart. However, a purified heart will learn from these moments and address the underlying fears hidden beneath raging waves of hostility.
The one who wages war on others to protect themselves from ever seeing those hidden fears will move the ocean and thrash waves again and again no matter who is in the way. However, a person who wishes to interrupt the repeating patterns of hostility will lift the white flag and surrender their ways, ask for help, and navigate to the peace that comes after true introspection with clarity of thought, words, and actions that uplift and create something beautiful and wise.
But how? How would one quiet the storm? How can you interrupt the incredible force that surfaces without notice and moves aside so swiftly the people and obstacles that appear in its way, in your way?
It can be done. You may doubt anything can calm the storm brewing from wounds of yesteryear and and concerns about years to come. You may deny the fears that lay under the murky waters and ignore the opportunities to exchange the ways you now know for something much more effective.
But why? Why even bother? Because you are miserable in your rage and you regret the catastrophies you initiated, and the shards of pain stinging as you tread across the office floor to another meeting; a meeting that could be the next catalyst for an eruption temporarily quelled by strategies of resistance until you cannot hold it back any longer. Boom!
The boom is followed by: I’ll do better. I’ll change. I know I can do it. Why do I do such things? Then your mode of repair or the sweet sound of justifications pour forth to provide solace, if only for a few moments.
What about lasting change? Is it possible? What if it could be? What if there is a chance you could learn new strategies that work way more effectively and transmute hostility to love with 10X the influence to a positive outcome?
There are three things to begin changing an interior hostile environment to one of strength, power and enduring love.
- Release judgments of yourself and others for past circumstances.
- Learn to manage your goals and expectations to diffuse charges building toward rageful disruption (toward yourself or others).
- Reconnect with your true nature, love, and establish a goal that is constructive toward yourself or others.
There are infinite possibilities of how to address the three items above. However, I will share with you a powerful way to address anger and hostility.
It is quite simple. It is a command of the spirit. Yes, a command in you to address something that is hurting and scary. We have all learned about IQ and EQ, but there is also intelligence of your essence, the perfect part of you that innately knows itself as pure love. This is the part that remembers itself in its pure form, and has access to intelligence that unwinds all the errors holding you hostage to hostility and fear.
Imagine you made a choice for lunch today. You chose where to eat, when to eat and what to eat, and how to eat it. That is one example of command. You made manifest a lunch experience rooted in the desires you held and the choices you made. But now imagine you had never made a choice for lunch. Instead, imagine lunch showed up when it showed up and you had no options and had to eat what was offered or not eat at all. This lack of choice similarly comes with hostility. Our actions and words in those moments spew forth without regard for anyone’s highest and best interests. We want to interrupt this automatic lunch, our hostility and re-engage love and conscious choice.
The first step is to reject the automatic process. We counterintuitively do this by accepting what is. “Oh, this is interesting, I have accepted lunch without choice and have grown weary of the results that come from not having choice. I think I will stop that and learn how to choose a lunch that will be in my highest and best interests. Today, I will choose _______________.”
You can do this same process with hostility, “Oh, that is interesting, my outburst shut down all creative flow in our brainstorming session today. I choose to have this be different. I am willing to change this behavior and find another way to express my displeasure. Next time, I will communicate that I need to leave at 5pm to get to my son’s baseball game instead of thinking of how many innings I am missing by staying longer at work. Or, I will let go of my goal to get to his game on time and agree on a reasonable end time with my colleagues. Yes, I think I will try this strategy and address expectations and hold myself and others accountable to our agreement.”
This process of rejecting the automatic reactive process requires a couple of components:
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Accept what is.
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Address expectations and goals.
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Be accountable to commitments with self and others.
This process is a simple, powerful, and effective strategy to address hostility. And, as the energy calms, you might even look into what the hidden fear is under your hostility.
In our baseball example, can you think of a possible hidden fear? Perhaps it is the fear of leaving early and looking bad, letting down your child (again), getting heat at home for missing the game, feeling inadequate as a father/mother, etc… Or, perhaps it goes back to judging your own parents for not being there for you and recalling your promise to parent differently. Time to let those judgments go too!
Dismantling hostilities and underlying fears is a process. It is a doable process and one with many rewards. The greatest of the rewards is reconnecting to the true nature of your Optimal Being, the essence of you beneath all the “stuff” in the way of that. Remember to breathe consciously and feel fully as you do this exercise.
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