Paul Brian
There’s an election coming up in the United States and the bitterness and chaos are only growing.
A recent debate between the two candidates shocked many people because of how confusing and unhinged it was and the outrageous behavior of the President.
Constant interruptions, rude comments, personal attacks …
And on the other side, the Senator from Delaware mostly stood his ground but also made a number of confusing statements about the Green New Deal, about the pandemic, about his plan if he gets into the Oval Office.
There’s no nice way to say it. The debate and the entire American political scene – not to mention the political scene of many other countries – is a total sh*tshow.
It’s not the lack of that infamous “civility” that’s the real problem here. One can recall various past leaders using all sorts of “civility” to lie the people into horrific wars and keep making the poor poorer.
No, the real problem is the glaring truth on display for everyone to see. The ugly truth:
These guys don’t have it under control.
These gerontocratic gabbers aren’t really in charge.
They aren’t going to fix the situation in America or in the world.
They’re not really your representatives, they’re stuffed suits. One may be more emotionally balanced and rational than the other, certainly, but he’s far from blameless in the wrongdoing of the past either.
So why do people give their power away to their leaders? Why do they hope each time around that something could be different this time, that their team will finally really represent them after so many years of disappointments and lies?
Giving your personal power away is a syndrome of our times. But fortunately, there are real ways to take back your power.
If you’re tired of this sh*t and you’re angry there’s nothing wrong with that. Repressing or denying your anger is not the way forward.
We’re made to feel guilty and ashamed of anger, to think there is something wrong with us. We push it down and let it sap our energy and focus.
The way forward is actually to embrace your inner beast.
In his free masterclass, the shaman Rudá Iandé explains how to do this and his teaching is really worth your time to try out for yourself.
It’s vital that we take ownership of our anger and stop letting it be manipulated by those outside us through cynical ideologies and tactics.
Society creates rules of false normality that try to tame our inner wildness and stop us from coloring outside the lines and remaking the system by freeing those around us.
It’s time to rescue our anger and retake our power from those who want to use us for their agendas and divide and conquer us through an us vs. them mentality.
Manipulators know that anger is a deep part of our nature and has to come out at some time. So they give us free reign to let it out on the “bad guys.” Those who are different or from another culture or religion. Those with different skin colors or who believe different politically than us, be they conservative, liberal, anarchists or any other ideology.
They are the “bad guys,” but us? We’re the good guys. We’re right.
I think it’s important to understand this goes both ways, too. As someone who is more to the right on most cultural and social issues I have experienced a lot of intolerance and outbursts of anger from so-called “progressives.”
Growing up in an area that was very progressive and attending a university that was progressive and so on surrounded me with a feeling that I was not allowed to believe differently or hold different convictions, which increased my own resentment and cycle of repressed anger.
Having covered the 2016 presidential election in New Hampshire I’m also quite certain that a lot of people who voted for Trump felt the same way: culturally excluded and vilified. As I watched people cheer in the crowd and scream at the media they looked full of glee, not sadness: they were happy to finally let out their resentment against the progressives who’d been telling them they were evil and hateful for decades.
They voted for him because he promised to smash the system and laugh in the face of the polite establishment; of course the reality is that he has only intensified the hyper-capitalism that’s gutted the working class.
Still, I think it’s important for those who are apolitical, political or attuned in any way to realize that just because you are certain you are right or moral does not give you the right to dehumanize another person, and doing so will often intensify whatever negative qualities or group affiliations they represent in your eyes.
The so-called “tolerant” side frequently met me with exclusion and cold rejection instead of engaging with me or trying to win me over by persuasion and kindness. In addition, feeling very alone like I was always the odd one out has made me shift further to the right in many cases, rather than moderating my views, a perfect example of how angry opposition to people who are different than you often just sets them in their ways.
Don’t embrace and own your anger, use it against those degenerates, those idiots, the controllers tell us.
But what does that really accomplish to try to bring others down? To convince ourselves we are the good guys?
We stop learning, we shut down, we enter a state of locked up energy and fixed ideology.
We fight symptoms and never notice the disease. We become furious over issues that are personal to our lives instead of noticing those who’ve framed the big picture we’re all part of.
It’s a lose-lose scenario for most of humanity; the only ones who win are those who feed on chaos and egotistic attachment to being right.
As Rudá explains, violence is the lowest level of anger not its true manifestation, and anger actually has positive aspects that are deeply linked to our core vitality and life force. There’s nothing wrong with being angry and embracing that instinct to turn it into personal power.
Politicians who feed on anger and fear are taking advantage of a worldwide disease of repressed anger and letting people channel it for their agenda. Blaming them for taking advantage of that does nothing.
Owning our personal power and growing as a person who understands our anger and uses it to solve systemic problems is what empowers and fosters change. Using anger to create solutions instead of just intensifying a cycle of bitterness.
It’s important to separate our anger with what people do from being angry at them as individuals or on a deep level. We must see the system of values and reality that their actions and beliefs come out of.
Anger can be fuel instead of repressed fire. I know that I’ve channeled it into fitness, into my writing, into playing music and physical work. I’ve found ways to let anger clarify my objectives and resolve in the face of confusion and distraction.
Anger can be a catalyst to motivate us and force us to differentiate ourselves. It can drive us to the edge where we make bold decisions to live our own lives, follow our dreams and commit ourselves to the causes that form our life’s mission instead of fighting other people’s battles or recycling hatred at the wrong targets.
Anger is powerful and potentially positive: it all depends how you use it.
Check out embrace your inner beast, the free masterclass by the shaman Rudá Iandê. Embrace your inner beast is a shamanic critique of the state of politics in the world – and offers guidance on what to do about it from a personal perspective. Register for the masterclass here.
