Manashantii's belief. By Manashantii
I don't see anything wrong with being peacefully angry.I refuse to feel guilty for having feelings of anger,because repression is emotionally and psychologically unhealthy.Forgiveness is allowing people to do cruel and sadistic acts and then forgiving them is freeing your oppressor of his guilt.So long as you hold your anger appropriately and do not turn to violence there is nothing wrong with feeling angry.If someone treats you badly you have a right to feel angry and you can feel angry for as long as you wish, being angry is a healthy reaction to injustice.
It is easier to forgive if you forgive yourself for being angry and if you also allow yourself to be with the anger.Being with your anger means not being violent or getting revenge it is just allowing yourself the right to be angry.Most people let go off their angry feelings eventually if left alone.Feelings of guilt for being angry stops you from processing your feelings of anger properly.It is not okay to be a terrorist,it is not okay to stab or murder someone.We are not all the same,so if I don't believe in what everyone else believes then I will have to learn to live with that.
I am a pacifist and I believe in doing good acts because it is in my nature to to be a pacifist.I practise good acts because I believe that it helps the world and it gives me a clear conscience.I am a pacifist who doesn't believe in denying her anger,or repressing her anger. It is okay to be angry if someone victimises you.
I believe that people are sadistic,or masochistic or pacifistic or assertive.
It is important to think for yourself and be a good parent and friend to yourself.When you become a responsible parent and friend to yourself then you will be able to be a good parent and friend to your child(ren) (if you have any).
I was into rituals, like meditation, mantras, chanting,visualisation and positive thinking. I like developing and exploring my consciousness and I like burning incense and candles but I am not into "God".I deteste homophobia,and I disagree with the belief that certain castes are inferior or superior than another and I have strong feminist beliefs. I believe in doing what is morally right and I think overall religions are good disciplines but I don't believe in excessive attachment to any religion.I believe religion should be practiced in moderation without extremism.I liked a small dose of every religion but I commit mostly to Humanism.I rarely meditated in front of a Buddhist statue when I was a "Buddhist",because Buddha didn't meditate in front of a statue.Maybe because my maternal grandmother made me feel guilty for she believed that Buddhism is "idol worship".
My middle way theory is "everything in moderation".Maintaining inner peace requires ongoing effort, self-acceptance, letting go emotionally, letting go of judgement as often as I can, which is at times difficult. Instead of denying what I feel I like to emotionally connect into myself and I work towards processing my feelings and transforming my emotions. Emotions are energies and it is important to learn to be with your feelings, being angry or sad is a process that will ultimately pass if we allow ourselves to own our emotions completely, and then later practice letting go fully, at the right time. All emotions have a neurochemical effect (releases chemicals in the brain), which in turn creates a biochemical effect in the body; emotions that are not processed have an effect of causing tension and toxins in the mind and body.
I feel it is important to be aware of the communication that you have with yourself. Be aware of your breathing. How are you breathing? Is it deep diaphragmatic breaths? How are you holding your body? What posture are you in? Are your hand gestures tense? What words are you saying to yourself? Your breathing affects your feelings.Your thoughts reinforces your feelings. Feelings are energies that affect your brain neurochemically and your brainwaves alters the frequency, your body changes biochemically, which in turn affects your hormones and all of your mind and body and your immune system.
Your beliefs affect your perception and reality. During meditation I work on changing my thoughts, breathing and feelings,by doing this you change your reality. Renunciation is letting go off psycho-emotional chaos.Acceptance of your current circumstance is important.As a Manashantii-ist I practice acceptance and letting go (renunciation) regularly. I practice the emotional A BC's A is Allowing and Accepting what you are feeling. B is Being with your feelings and Breathing into your feelings. C is being Creative and Channeling your feelings Creatively(Catharsis) and Constructively. C is Channeling your energies (emotions are energies)Creatively,Constructively and Cathartically. If you have a feeling and you are not dealing with it properly, then you must practice the emotional ABC's The emotional ABC's is useful for all emotions particularly Anger.
I do not believe in revenge, (instead I practice acceptance and letting go) neither do I believe in rushing to forgive someone who has wronged me, I find that it is difficult and usually impossible to repay someone for the injustice that they have caused. Revenge never eliminates or heals the hurt caused. It is possible to acknowledge the emotions that I feel, I can be with my emotions, and manage my emotions constructively in creative ways like using writing, walking and dancing this is how emotions become transformed. When I accept and process my emotions fully I can release the emotional energy, the tension and the pain and move on into a psychological space of inner peace.
Rushing to numb feelings, denying feelings, or forgiving too soon ( forgiving at the wrong time) is psychologically damaging. A lot of people learn to shut off from their emotions because they feel that being emotional is not socially acceptable, that it is unfair on others and unethical or that they won't be able to cope with what is emotionally within. The more I emotionally disconnect from myself, the more it becomes difficult to process my emotions and let them go. Trusting myself and at least being open and emotionally honest with myself is the most important thing, more than forgiveness or revenge.
Forgiveness is not always possible but acceptance and letting go are the first steps towards forgiveness.I can have innerpeace and not forgive.Healing is a life-long process.My view on forgiveness is that it should be a slow process where you grieve about your anger.Anger is a multitude of feelings,anger is hurt, blame, pain, loss and a feeling of injustice. For forgiveness I would recommend no less than one hundred days (to a year) of intense grieving for a major grieviance like the sudden loss of a loved one which was unexpected and unfair,rape or sexual abuse,loss of a pet, moving to a new home or loss of your old home.You need to work through these angry emotions,come to a point where you begin to accept your loss and start to practice letting go.
Suppression is a conscious process where you consciously exclude feelings,thoughts,impulses and desires that are felt unacceptable to the individual.Repression is an unconscious process where you unconsciously exclude feelings,thoughts,impulses and desires.Suppression and repression usually lead to depression. Alot of people suppress and repress emotions because they don't know how to grieve properly and instead numb their feelings.The best way to deal with pain is to find a safe place to grieve. You have a right to own your feelings without feeling guilty.Be a good friend to yourself,nurture and protect yourself. Accept all your feelings,find a safe place to express all your emotions.
Greed leads to dissatisfaction.Jealousy leads to lack of self love and anxiety.Lying and decieving leads to denial.Mental attachment or unhealthy enmeshment makes us submissive to dependency and full of expectational wishes, which may never be fulfilled.We must let go off our unhealthy emotional attachments and enmeshments,this means letting go off possessive relationships,obsessiveness,worry, jealousy,guilt,grief,fear,greed,ignorance,delusions, pride,and doubt.Apathy and mental inactivity is a hindrance.Meditation teaches the practice of observing your inner world. I recommend that you do grief rituals to handle your intense feelings.Until you come to a resolve spend 15 minutes to 1 hour per day to grieve and express anger.
I believe in being kind and loving to oneself. I enjoy nurturing and pampering myself, because being grown up requires being a loving and responsible parent to myself. I have a duty to myself and to society. I have found that self-nurturing, self-parenting, self-acceptance; self-awareness through writing and various forms of meditation makes it easier to achieve inner peace. Inner peace is the purest peace, because it is the only peace that is truly within your control. I believe that there is always a mental space in our mind where inner peace exists, when writing or processing I use this space to guide me or ground myself. I call it the Manashantii space.
I respect everyone's religion. Everyone's religion should be respected and no one should force anyone to convert to another's religion. I am sometimes in awe over how similar religions and cultures are in theory and in ritualistic terms.
I believe that religion can be a useful resource, but when practiced with excessive emotional attachment it becomes a poison or a mind virus that destroys humanity. I do not believe anyone's belief is the right way this includes Buddhism.(No knowledge is absolute truth.... please refer to my first paragraph) and I believe in having moral values and love for humanity,this is far more important than any religious bond.
If I had to summarise Buddhism I would have to say that it is the practice of, pacifism, psychological, philosophical and moral development, meditation (which are mind development methods) and the art of letting go and living fully in the present moment, in a humane and present moment manner (being in the present moment).
I call myself a Buddhist because I have found it to be the only religion that helps me to come to terms with life and because it is a religion with no deity.I decided to become Buddhist when my Christian maternal grandmother told me about Buddhism when I was aged five.I researched other religions in my lifetime but found Buddhism to be a religion that I kept returning to.I enjoy meditations.I enjoy experiencing Sufi Dervish whirling,jumping up and down and pillow pounding as meditations too.
Although I am into Theraveda & Dogen Zen, Buddhist ideals, (since aged five) however I cannot relate to the ideas of rebirth or reincarnation. I have explored all religions and have found non to be totally perfect. I believe that being a human person and having love for humanity is more important than being attached to views or opinions especially, I believe this matter most relevantly concerns subjects like race, gender or sexuality, etc. I think that all excessive attachments to one's preferences in extremes ultimately leads to prejudice, but I am also aware and accept that prejudice and imperfection is human nature.
I prioritise practising my love for humanity, and love for myself, for me it is more important than communicating with God or questioning the existence or non existence of God which is why I like Buddhist ideas because it is about perfecting your love for self and humanity, following some set moral codes, and mind development methods (which is what we call meditation) rather than God or worship.
When you block yourself from feeling what is emotionally within of any emotion, it blocks your ability to feel and experience all other emotions fully. The important skill to learn about anger is how responsibly you carry it, how to share it and how to receive it supportively and lovingly. Anger is hurt, pain, loss, blame and a feeling of injustice. Anger is a natural reactional response when you have been ostracised, criticised,punished, shamed or mistreated. Anger is an active emotion.Be aware of unexpressed anger,rationalised anger and denied anger. Anger is an emotion when mismanaged can be very destructive to everyone especially to myself. Anger is an energy that I can use resourcefully to create a productive energy flow in my life. Anger is an energy best used for making a success of my life. Anger is a powerful energy; please learn how to use it constructively. If you learn or practice receiving a person's anger supportively and lovingly by
encouraging them to feel what is within in a productive and creative manner it will help a person to let go off the anger more speedily and healthily. If you carry your anger responsibly by managing it and sharing it assertively and as lovingly as possible, yet it is never well received then you need to support yourself and remove yourself from the broken communication.
All religions encourages us to rush into forgiveness.A major injustice experienced requires a major expression of anger creatively, constructively and cathartically. Most people encourage the quieting of anger because most people are scared that it will get out of control.Find a safe place to express your anger and trust that it will not overwhelm you. Counselling or psychotherapy should be a safe places where you can express your anger,You can take care of your emotions, you have to practice and practice. Release your anger without feeling guilty and you will discover true peace within.
People get stuck dwelling on what they have lost, people get stuck and are unable to emotionally process or fully feel what is within their psyche. Emotional self rejection, develops emotional paralysis.Emotional blockages within can become ignored or denied. You are in psychic possession of your pain and your pain can be increased or decreased by yourself, don't dwell on revenge. We can ease our psychic pain, and the cause of the pain,when we ease our pain, revenge becomes a redundant goal. The effectiveness of my emotional management skills, my moral codes about emotions and social codes may restrict me from feeling what is emotionally within.
Rushing to forgive eases one s guilt about harbouring anger. Feeling guilty about being angry stops you from processing your anger fully and healthily.That is why when I process my emotions, my goals of emotionally processing are to make a contract with myself to not seek revenge and to not rush to forgiveness. The only forgiveness that is essential is forgiving myself.Silencing and repressing anger causes depression.Getting angry is a positive,understandable reaction to cruelty and injustice.
Anger is a natural healthy emotion and it should be constructively channelled into creative action and cathartic expression.Understand the cause and content of your anger.Anger often comes from a sense of being attacked,physically,sexually,morally or emotionally.Donot feel guilty or disgust at yourself for feeling angry,donot deny your anger. If you have been hurt in a major way then you will have alot of anger that will need to be expressed.Unexpressed anger causes a block to healing and forgiveness.If you fully express your anger constructively and creatively in artistic ways you will eventually be able to let go and forgive if you want to.Anger has to be expressed fully before you can truely and permanantly forgive.
Every tragic experience is an opportunity to transcend, learn and grow. I believe that if you have an experience good or bad you should take time to reflect on the experiential lesson(s) gained.
Most talking psychotherapies encourage you to discuss and regurgitate and recreate psychological pain without giving the client skills for mind development, self-empowerment and emotional expression skills.Talking psychotherapies encourages the development of emotional and verbal articulation to a
proficient level.
Emotions create chemical changes in our brains and bodies. I believe in feeling anger and processing it rather than reacting through violence or emotionally numbing up. Numbing up anger is like changing a stream into into frozen ice. It is obviously possible, but is it productive?
Reacting to anger through violence is like letting your water over boil, it is bound to hurt somebody. There is nothing wrong with anger and there is nothing wrong with boiling water, how you choose to carry your and anger and boiling water is the most important thing. Please ask yourself this question what happens when you make a natural biological response taboo? Think about the boiling water and the stream.I practice The Brahma Viharas meditations which is four meditations. Metta Bhavana is loving kindness, Karuna is Compassion, Uppekha is Equanimity and Mudita is Sympathetic joy.
Buddhists also have forgiveness meditation, but I would recommend practicing Acceptance of your anger for at least a year before you forgive a major hurt.Acceptance of your circumstance and acceptance of your feelings is important.It is okay if you never forgive your abuser, it is okay to be angry,it is okay to forgive yourself and it is okay to love yourself.Being grown up requires self-parenting, by nurturing and protecting yourself you are being a good parent to yourself.
It is okay to have attachments.It is okay to have sense desires.I donot have to let go off the past in order to live fully in the present moment. Lust,craving and sense desires are okay.It is okay if I never forgive my abuser.Forgiving myself is essential.I am present in my emotions and in my body. I accept my feelings.
I observe my inner world. I explore my consciousness. I am on the path of personal development and inner peace.
Practice the Emotional ABC's and then one day eventually or maybe never Metta Bhavana meditation and then Forgiveness meditation.
When I was a child my grandmother Madam.Boahemaa, who I fondly call Boahemaa Mathematica (see my poem entitled Boahemaa Mathematica), taught me a story it was a rare treat because we always studied the bible and did mathematics together. She told me a story about a man who was riding a horse and that the sun and the wind decided to compete to make the man remove his cloak. Well the wind blew and blew and blew and did not succeed in his goal. When it was the sun's turn she shined her warm light on the man and became brighter and brighter the man became hot and removed his coat. The moral of the story is tenderness brings change. I try to apply the sun's attitude onto myself and when managing my emotions.
I believe that society's obsessive attachment to stereotyping and race labelling is one of humanity's intentionally designed problems, it is a form of societal mind virus, which everyone is deciding to be psychologically enslaved under. My purpose in life is to make a positive contribution for all of humanity.I hope that one day people will not be deluded and will acknowledge that we all belong to one beautiful race, the human race.
This is an unfinished article please check back at a later date, thank-you.
