This book is a Get Out of Jail Free card and a passport back into the playground.

The aim of this book is to set you free. But free from what? Free from neurosis. Free from the feeling that you have to obey authority. Free from emotional intimidation. Free from addiction. Free from inhibition.

The key to happiness, mental health and being the most that we can be is absolute and unconditional self-acceptance. The paradox is that many of our problems are caused by trying to improve ourselves, censor our thinking, make up for past misdeeds and struggling with our negative feelings whether of depression or aggression.

But if we consider ourselves in our entirety in this very moment, we know these things :

1. Anything we have done is in the past and cannot be changed, thus it is pointless to do anything else but accept it. No regrets or guilt.

2. While our actions can harm others, our thoughts and emotions, in and of themselves, never can. So we should accept them and allow them to be and go where they will. While emotions sometimes drive actions, those who completely accept their emotions and allow themselves to feel them fully, have more choice over how they act in the light of them.

Self-criticism never made anyone a better person. Anyone who does a “good deed” under pressure from their conscience or to gain the approval of others takes out the frustration involved in some other way. The basis for loving behaviour towards others is the ability to love ourselves. And loving ourselves unconditionally, means loving ourselves exactly as we are at this moment.

This might seem to be complacency, but in fact the natural activity of the individual is healthy growth, and what holds us back from it is fighting with those things we can’t change and the free thought and emotional experience which is the very substance of that growth.


How to Be Free is available as a free ebook from Smashwords, iBooks in some countries, Kobo and Barnes & Noble

The audiobook is available for free from iTunes and Google Play.

It is also available in paperback from Lulu or Amazon for $10 US, plus postage.

The ebook version currently has received 1,163 ***** out of ***** ratings on U.S. iBooks.

The audiobook version currently has received 128 ***** out of ***** ratings on U.S. iBooks and a 4.5 out of 5 average from 103 ratings on GooglePlay.

Sunday 24 November 2019

The Intoxicating Power of Anger

Illustration by Teguh Mujiono

Greta Thunberg has attracted a massive amount of attention. Some have pointed out that individuals who are actually coming up with practical solutions or are taking personal action to address problems get far less attention than someone who expresses anger at those who are intransigent on a problem.

Why is our attention attracted more powerfully to a locus of anger than to a locus of solution or inspiration?

It is sometimes necessary to do or say things which will make others angry. And anger is an appropriate response to many things - something that alerts us to the fact that there is a problem to be solved - whether that be a problem in the world or a problem within our own psyche.

It's a healthy thing to accept our anger, unconditionally, as it is to accept all of our emotions. To act on anger directly is not healthy. If we don't use our reason to come up with a workable solution to the problem it represents we will find ourselves in strife and we might cause great destruction.

But if we want a better life for ourselves and others, solutions are what we need to focus on. If loci of anger interfere too much with our ability to do this then we are not going to do well.

The Thunberg phenomena gives a good example of how the locus of anger works. To analyse it as such is not to say that it is not, in some sense, a necessary or unavoidable thing. Historically, protest has had its place in the necessary recalibration of society as circumstances change. But what I'm concerned with here is the psychology of interest attraction.

Thunberg gives people an opportunity to feel angry. Those who identify with her can feel angry at the fossil fuel industry and intransigent governments. Others can feel angry at Thunberg herself (viewing her as a whiny privileged virtue signaller), or at her activist parents, or at those who lioniser her. There is no doubt that she is an angry locus for the anger of many.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - MARCH 22, 2019: Greta Thunberg climate activist demonstrating on Fridays
Photo by Liv Oeian.

Anger can be very appealing as a form of escapism. We all make mistakes and most of us are prone to feelings of insecurity about our own worth - to feelings of guilt. The beauty of anger is that it focuses our attention away from ourselves. It's someone else's fault. For the moment, anyway, we are not the ones who need to make a change to ameliorate a problem.

In this way, anger is a like a drug, an intoxicant. And we can see how the professional media and social media are awash with this drug.

What have we come to when some people seriously say that they support a political leader because the people they hate hate that leader so much?

As William Blake put it, in The Everlasting Gospel : "What is the accusation of sin, But moral virtues' deadly gin?" Are we not drunk on angry accusations of other's sins? Anything to forget our own.

What this leads to is polarisation. Solutions to our problems require that we find some way to come together. How do we come together after calling each other "fascists" or "baby killers" or whatever?

If an addiction to anger arises from our propensity to feel guilt, i.e. compromised self-acceptance, then cultivating unconditional self-acceptance is how we break our addiction to anger. We will still recognise and respond effectively to unacceptable behaviour from others, but we won't be drawn away from focusing on practical solutions or forming bonds with others, even where we may have different beliefs on key issues.

Illustration by lightwise.

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