by Rana
(California)
Question:
There is a member of my family who is hurting another family member. I don't know how to let go of the anger and helplessness I feel. I don't feel pain on my own account, but the person being hurt is young and unable to manage the hurtfulness. How can I overcome these feelings?
Response:
Hi,
I'm not sure if you're supposed to overcome them. Are you unable to express the anger? Are you unable to confront whoever is doing the hurting? On seeing a loved one being hurt by another, it is completely natural to feel anger. It has a certain energy to it that can be protective and assertive.
But you also say you feel helpless, so perhaps you can not act, or feel afraid to do anything? I'm not sure what the situation is, so I don't know.
You can usually “overcome” feelings by not trying to change them into something else. If it is possible to let the feelings be exactly as they are without even calling them anything, then they are all of a sudden not so much of a big deal in your consciousness. There is space around them, rather than them being these huge things that seem to swamp your whole body and mind.
If you fight yourself or your feelings, what your are fighting, or what is being resisted or unnaccepted will usually feel stronger and denser and like more of a problem, rather than just a passing cloud.
It sounds to me as if you need to act in some way. I don’t know if I’m right, but if it makes you feel uncomfortable, like something inside you is squirming, then it might mean that there is just fear of the unknown, what will happen if you do say or do something? We can sometimes fear what the outcome will be if we act, because we tend to think things are generally set up to go wrong, and we think we have to prevent that kind of thing from happening.
But I might be wrong. You have to feel it out, since I don’t know what the situation is.
We are generally more effective in things when we don’t feel as if we are being ruled by something else on the inside. If we don’t feel like we are a slave to a situation, if we don’t feel as if we are victims then a power tends to flow through us more easily. The way to sink into this is to let yourself feel how you feel, let this moment be as it is. However you feel, good or bad, let the feelings be there. If you feel resistance, let it be there. Then you move. Or you don’t. If you gave me more details, I could maybe give you a more detailed answer. These answers tend to reflect the power and detail behind the question.
You overcome anger by not fighting it, by not saying or believing it is a thing in its own right. Usually people who might tell you to not be angry are the ones that don’t want you to be angry with them. But of course there is a balance, anger can easily take over a mind to where it does things that it later regrets. If identified with, it can become blinding and furious. It is an energy. It is not who you are exclusively. It is not a definition of yourself.
Helplessness is not necessarily bad either. It can take you out of your old, conditioned understanding, and into moving in ways that you are not used to. More intuitive, unplanned ways where your responses and actions are more in service to the whole of life. An easy example is when you feel like saying something, whether it is a joke or a comment or a question - if you just feel it naturally, then it usually fits in with life. If you try to stop it, then it feels strange and stifled and suppressed. The same goes for when you don’t feel like saying anything, but you ‘think’ that it would be good to say, then your words have no power, and they don’t fit in with life.
If there is really nothing you can do, and you are helpless, then let life be exactly as it is, without conflicting, and the helpless or distraught feeling will not stay, because you are no longer in conflict with life.
Hope that can help. Feel free to ask more below if you wish,
Adam