A Personal Story in Anger Transformation

Few years ago my mom was visiting me in Chicago. She happened to see on my phone that I had some exchanges on Facebook with the nephew of a family member who had brought a lot of grief to our family and especially to her in the past. Since this person was the nephew so I felt he had nothing to do with it so its ok if I responded to his hello message. I ended up having a casual chat with him. When mom saw the chat messages, I think it was like a trigger of an old memory that brought pain to her, the closest thing that can describe it is PTSD (post traumatic disorder).  I think I didn’t understand the magnitude of the pain the family member caused her until this incident.

She started crying and venting her anger. Lot of things she was saying were completely out of context and illogical to me. After few minutes of patience, anger got to me and I fired back few words at her. This only added fuel to fire and after few minutes, she stormed out of the apartment in tears. I followed her in my car so that she couldn’t see me and she walked to a nearby park where I watched her from afar just walking around. After a few hours she returned to the apartment.

At this time my brain had no idea how to handle the situation well. One thing I knew was that trying to converse with her with logic will not help the situation. So I sat down and thought what to do. Who would I go for help in a situation like this?

Swami Ji’s blog. I scrolled through a few articles that were probably around anger, love, compassion although I don’t recall that clearly. I just remember reading and feeling better. As I was reading the blog I thought of picking up one of Swami Ji’s book “Ancient Science of Mantras” which I had been reading briefly. I had read somewhere in the book about seeing the divine in everyone, seeing mother in everyone. So I picked up the book and found the section where Swami Ji talks about the divine mother and seeing the divine in everyone. Then I went into the room where my mom was sitting on the floor and with my eyes closed put my head on her feet and said something along the lines of I’m sorry mother I hurt you. Mata resides in everyone and she resides in you. I pray to you for forgiveness. Next thing mom hugged me in her arms and lovingly said my son I love you, its ok. 

The situation had diffused and in fact, there was so much more more love in our hearts. I was only thinking about how much love my mother has for me, how she has cared for me and given me the best life and gifted me with this life. Few moments ago my mind couldn’t stop saying how mom was overreacting and taking the matter completely out of context and ruining my peace. Now a few moments later, it was a complete transformation, my heart was full of love and only love. 

I must admit, I feel pretty good that in a heated situation I was able to recognize my anger and listen to my heart than my logical mind that was protecting its ego. I sometimes think if Swami Ji were present, how would I conduct myself. It’s just those few seconds where we have the freedom to choose how to respond or react. I have had conflicting situations like this before, but in this case I handled it differently. It wasn’t about what changed my mind, its about what changed my heart. It’s been only possible because Swami Ji’s wisdom and teachings went from my head to my heart and I can only strive to continue to do so. 

Here is a video of Swami Ji on anger that I have watched many times.