Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 101): Anger is Self Destructive - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning in Boer Tove and welcome back to our 10 minutes of meaning it's great to be back post holidays and jump right back into the M who has taught us and teaches us how to live the best version of ourselves how to realize our potential how to have the most meaningful and satisfying Day by tapping into the best of who we are and who we can become I want to thank our generous sponsors KH and Lenny grunstein in of's father Mr Aron Tambor Aon Ben have an Aliyah and a reminder if you'd like to sponsor a future class you can email Lee at BRS online.org we are in the path of the just 12 steps to being the best version of you we started with zirus how to live a life of mindfulness and cautiousness how to live a life of Consciousness how to be present in all that we do and in everything that we say and in every decision that we make we then moved over to zus how to live life of alacrity and Zeal and enthusiasm how to accomplish how to set a goal and then make a resolution a plan measure how we're going to succeed and then we moved over to the mid of nikus how to not be on the battlefield but how to have conquered territory if you recall we spoke last time Battlefield means that it's an ongoing battle what I eat what I look at what I say what I listen to How I Feel regulating my qualities my emotions my behaviors that is the daily battlefield of life and then there are areas of life that we can move over to conquered territory we can feel so much better about ourselves that I no longer struggle with that I haven't conquered it in perpetuity I still have to defend it it could be taken from me but at least it's not the same as a ongoing Perpetual Battlefield it's a sense of conquered territory and here the ram delineates countless areas of our daily lives that we need to be working on ourselves to self-improve to grow from our eating habits to our speech to we listen to to regulating our emotions and that leads us up to we spoke about arrogance envy and it leads us up to anger we've been talking about the quality of anger and raal has developed the notion that anger is the most pernicious the most negative the most destructive the most damaging the most sabotaging of all the negative qualities when a person loses their cool they fly off the handle they get filled with rage they're no longer thinking with good judgment like a human being right the studies show they study the human brain when it gets angry and the blood flows to the brain the animal parts of the brain light up and the uniquely human judicious parts of the brain shut down fight or flight someone bothers us someone does something differently than the way we want them to or how we drew it up someone disappoints us or frustrates us and we fly off the handle we're no longer thinking strategically we no longer have good judgment we're no longer a human saying here's the outcome I want how do I get there but rather we forfeit our Humanity we become like an animal we yell we scream we fly off the handle we lash out God forbid a person can even become violent and therefore anger is the most negative Mida means measure all qualities belong in our recipe in our repertoire of life in some measure two qualities don't belong at all categorically bad and they are anger and arrogance anger is categorically bad because it's a pure emotion with no intellect and it causes us to self-destruct it self sabotage we ruin our relationships and we ruin that negotiation and we ruin that outcome that we claim to want all because we fed and gave into our sense of anger we allowed it to escalate we allowed it to build and allowed ourselves to lose our cool yes so we've been developing the different forms of anger and why it's so terrible and why we need to remove it remove it and now is talking about there are people with unrestrained anger it doesn't take much they fly off the handle yell scream everyone around them walks on eggshells lives in fear because the other person is going to lose their cool lose it that person doesn't realize that they don't really have any real relationships in their life and there's another form of a person who gets angry and it's not the type of person who flares up over every conflict they don't lose their handle the handle whether it's large or small um but rather this is the person who doesn't get angry easily but when they do boy do they get angry we all know people like that the daily little things of life that others get upset about they're able to overlook they don't get angry easily but when they get angry they get angry when they get angry it's not a category one two three or four it is a category five storm it's hard to get them angry but k when they get angry boy it's hard to get them to cool back down and that's terrible says if you go from zero to 60 so quickly even if it's unusual even if it's infrequent but if you go from zero to 60 so quickly you will destroy things there will be unintended consequences there will be casualties along the way and the things that you broke the things you shattered the things you made crooked you cannot repair so somebody flies off the handle it goes from 0 to 60 and then texts something or post something online in that fit of anger it's part of the permanent record permanent footprint of the digital world you can't undo it a person who says things that are particularly hurtful or harmful can't unsay them a person who takes actions that cannot be undone and that's why we have to be so self-aware and so s careful and so so self-regulating to never allow ourselves to get to that point of anger because the damage that can happen when we're not in our right mind not strategic not calculated not thoughtful or thought out but when we're not in our right mind the kind of damage that can come as a result is irreversible there's another type of person who gets angry which is a lower level they don't get angry quickly coton when they get angry it's a restrained anger they don't fly off the handle they don't yell and scream they don't grab their phone or keyboard they don't throw things or people it's a very restrained anger it's a very restrained anger and they don't lose their senses but they'll nurse that anger it's a better anger it's less destructive and damaging it's more recoverable however it's still damaging even that individual who doesn't fly off the handle and lose their cool immediately but such a person who um in that moment is not being thoughtful in that moment is indulging in emotion that has no intellect and therefore is not in their right mind any anger is not of sound mind that doesn't mean that we can't have outrage outrage is okay to have outrage against a principal who denied the Holocaust who is potentially being reinstated to the public school system to teach children we should be outraged we should be outraged against Injustice and inequality we should be outraged against anti-Semitism we should be outraged against bias and discrimination outrage is thoughtful is intellectual is calculated outrage is in control rage is never allowed rage is purely destructive and damaging and we need to regulate ourselves between the two one we are communicating outrage as a productive quality and when we are feeling Rage which needs to be regulated and that needs a high degree of self-awareness to know what are the triggers what set us off what make us lose our cool to avoid those triggers or to see them coming and to be determined not to allow them to trigger us to previous fits of Rage that had such devastating consequences and outcomes we have to have self-awareness and thoughtfulness we have to already predetermine anticipate a different Behavior a different response in other word responsibility is response ability Steven kavy says our ability to respond we can't control people or things around us but we can control how it makes us feel we can control and we are responsible for how we react that is up to us and therefore we're responsible and there's yet another lower level of anger someone who anger is slow to anger and when they get angry they don't try to destroy they don't try to obliterate it's a small restrained anger and how angry it lasts for a moment we know people like that they say you know I'm really angry I'm really disappointed anyway what are you doing for lunch the people who it's a very restrained moderate anger and they're able to recover and move on from it quickly the moment they start to feel angry they also feel anger is not doing anything it's not going to accomplish anything and therefore they're able to let go of it quickly and our Rab's labeled this type of an anger someone who is slow to anger and very quick to move on and that is we should have no anger but if we're going to try to grow and have incremental steps and improvements in the areas of our anger that is certainly the better one to have namely to be slow to anger and to recover from anger quickly that's our nature our human psyche is when things frustrate us or upset us when people we feel violated then we get angry we get angry it's natural but it is an idolatrous thought it is an egotistical arrogant thought so we have to realize we're not in control of the world and we can't control everyone and everything and let go and instead be calculated in how we respond be thought thoughtful in what will be productive what will accomplish our goal what will bring about the outcome that we claim to want and only in that way can we lead our most PE peaceful and our most happy and our most meaningful lives 8:45 we continue with living with amuna please join us same places and nine o'clock tonight we're going behind the beima with judge RI frier looking forward to hearing about how she balances and reconciles her different worlds cic World from which she comes with being a judge the criminal court of New York and the founder of the ezas nasham women's uh women's emergency response have a great day