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How can you reduced frustration and anger via meditation?
Im in a bit of a dilemma, I was in a job which was set as a temp to perm job and i was promised a permanent job having been promoted so many times while on a probationary period. However the economic times being tough here the company has decided to cancel all contractors and therefore the permanent extention of my contract has come to an end. Ive been brushed aside so many times when i could have been made a permanent member of staff and now out of the blue Im being tossed out! I never thought i would feel so hurt at having this contract terminated.
I have returned to work and im having to do a handover to my job which i worked beyond hard in - I just feel angry that im being tossed out having tried so hard to please managment. What meditation could i do to reduce this feeling? I was at work today and I was so fed up with handing over my hard work to someone else that i had to a few time outs to not react or say anything rude to my boss who chose to sit in the spare desk in my office!
I have returned to work and im having to do a handover to my job which i worked beyond hard in - I just feel angry that im being tossed out having tried so hard to please managment. What meditation could i do to reduce this feeling? I was at work today and I was so fed up with handing over my hard work to someone else that i had to a few time outs to not react or say anything rude to my boss who chose to sit in the spare desk in my office!
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You ask if there is a meditation which will reduce this feeling for you.
Pema Chodron teaches that the answer is not to remove negative feelings, but to transform them and actually use them to further our skill and practice of Buddhism. She explains that path not as expecting pain to stop, but as re-frameing our relationship with it. Seeing as life is full of such opportunities, it seems like a good idea to me.
The actual technique is called "tonglen", and there's lots to Goggle on it ... here's a teaser:
http://www.acupuncturedoc.com/tonglen.htm
Loving Kindness (metta) Meditation is a gentler option and you can learn how to do that here....
http://www.buddhanet.net/metta.htm
In general, tranquility meditation(Samatha)is suitable for different dispositions and will help to reduce feelings of anger and frustration.
This is a good Buddhist Meditation series.
lightlotus,
So is it the ingratitude, or feeling of rejection that hurts so much?
Also, do you currently do any type of meditation?
i think its more than a sense of rejection i feel like i've been used and lead to belief that I would be given a permanent role. I currently do loving kindness meditation. I thought this would help to when i came home last night - and it did but i feel like the best thing is to move on. I spoke to a few colleagues today about my frustration at being cut out a team (which i used to do most of the work for) they just said that its poor management.
what would help to do a total anger detox?
This however, does not immunize us from the misery of betrayal, and its younger, more dangerous sibling: revenge.
Feeling betrayed is a fire that you need to keep contained. You can not ever put it out, only to keep it small. There is many great advice here on some specific steps to that path. Surely, don't turn the feeling into an atomic bomb. I did. I launched it. They launched their own, and in the end, there was nothing left.
Keep the fire small. It's the better, more skillful option. The alternative, as you can imagine, is not pretty. Find joy in the fact that you can have the skill to avert catastrophe. Perhaps you can incorporate that joy into your meditation. Good luck!
Meditation is not about eliminating negative feelings; meditation is all-inclusive.
If you welcome negative emotions they may go away, but if you fight them they will certainly persist.
I remember in a meditation week I felt very hurt and angry. Trying to handle that, I pictured a fire in my belly and all angry thoughts I welcomed as pieces of wood for the fire.
It seemed to work. I had a great period of meditation and the feelings where somehow transformed into concentration.
It’s a paradox. When I feel depressed for instance I play Neil Young (helpless… helpless… hehelpless...)
It cheers me up.
I decided to not take revenge - but im not being the over compassionate and dedicated person i used to be working for them earlier to this sudden contract termination. I kind of feel my calling to buddhism has helped me avoid a near breakdown ( i had a massive heath scare and a few bad years was literally snowballing like crazy! to the point where the tiniest stressful situation would make me cry!) and now this, I feel like everything is changing at exactly the same time!
Nobody, I absolutly agree with you, I sat there today and thought I do not want to be a negative person and play games with them - I dont want to pick up their habits! Since realising the beauty of buddhism and just how effective meditation has been for me im all about self improvement. Still cant believe i let myself be used like this!!
Shakespeare wrote something that was very 'Buddhist'; "There is no such thing as good and bad; only thinking makes it so".
Sounds like you are in the middle of a hard lesson.
Right now you are feeling like the victim of a betrayal. Which is probably exactly what is happening. It sucks, but it happens to everyone.
Things happen that are out of our control all the time. It is up to us how we will react.
Of course you will need to let go.
Let go of your anger, it only hurts you.
Let go of your attachment to your expectations and desires of what you wanted this job to be.
Let go of your fear that is at the bottom of these negative mental states.
If you are not ready to let go yet, then just see.
If your meditation practice is strong and this process will go easier.
Good luck on your job search. Perhaps the new job will be somewhere that is not so goofed up. But don't count on it
lightlotus,
Not too long ago I felt deeply hurt by someone close. I felt I was being treated unfairly, I felt I was taken for granted, and I dreaded what the future held for me.
I tried standard loving kindness, but that didn't help too much.
Then, sitting at my desk in defeat, I thought to my self, "I'm going to ________ to make my life better."
Surprising to me, I felt an incredible weight being lifted off my chest.
I decided to keep going with the thoughts. I immediately followed with the thoughts, "I will take care of myself, I have compassion for myself, I love myself..."
and it felt like my heart lifted through the roof. I was overflowing with happiness and love, to the point that I could feel genuine love for the person that upset me. In fact, I did not want to receive love or receive acceptance-- I wanted to give love and give acceptance.
At that moment, I understood the phrase, "It's better to give than to receive." After all, when someone else loves you, you can see it but you can't really feel it. But when you love someone else, you feel it more than they ever will.
That solved the issue for me, and I've felt better ever since. So I have an additional kind of "super" loving kindness that I do, with me being both the giver and receiver of love and kindness. Feels good! Don't know how this fits into the overall Buddhist scheme, though. But it seems alright.
So, I recommend trying something like this.
Some thoughts/observations:
1. Normal loving kindness didn't really work for me, which is weird because I am the first object of loving kindness in my practice: "May I be safe, healthy, successful, happy and wise." So why didn't that work? I have two hypotheses:
i) because I've done that loving kindness script so many times that it wasn't truly heart-felt
ii) because my standard loving kindness practice is very passive: "May _____ be _____." Whereas the new thought I have was very proactive: "I love... I will..."
I think the later explanation is it.
2. Mindfulness played a key role in this. I had to be able to see the effect those thoughts had on me in order to build on it and adopt it into my practice.
3. If what I suggest here doesn't help, the key is to experiment! Try different thoughts, then mindfully observe the effect they have on you. And you're bound to find some kind of solution.
Let us know how it goes. We can all learn a little more from this.
P.S. Keep meditating. And if you don't meditate, be sure to start!
You also said you feel this way about other aspects in your life. Surely, we have all felt this way too, one way or another. In that sense, everyone is a doormat to somebody, too.
We feel like that when we "give" something and expect something in return. If you do expect something back, make your expectations crystal clear, and even with that, it's not certain you will get back what you wanted or what you were "promised."
That's life. Keep moving forward Lightlotus, leave it behind. There is joy in leaving it behind, perhaps you can meditate on that joy. Best of luck to you!
It sort of surrounds this damn job where its became very apparent i cant please anyone - in any aspect of my life. Sadly I feel as though i had to hit rock bottom to realise that!
Muddy water set to still gets clear.
That means if you do nothing and do not react or act your poisons will clear out. This will probably take several lifetimes. But even immediately it will feel better when you have a release from the 'struggling' to make these go away.
Tonglen can easily become self-agression. Its like you say doc when I do that it hurts.... he says back then don't do that.
There is no wrong way to do tonglen that is a heavy idea. The idea is to breath in the negativity to show to feel that you are not attached. Then let go of that and quick switch to a sense of reaching out and a vision of feeling good. Then switch from that to receiving negativity.
The whole point is to become less attached and averse. But it can become a negative thing if it is done to heavy handed. You need to be gentle.