By Bart Sharp

Two friends Todd and Jerome were at the seemingly at the end of their relationship.  They created a business together and after almost five years had run its course to a dismal end.  There was numerous levels of blame to go around to each party and both men resented the mistakes the other had made.  Not only was the business ending but the friendship was on the last ends of disravel.

It seemed like both young men could tell the habits and moves of how the other made their business recede.

First was Jerome’s ongoing flirtation with customers as he was going way over the line contended Todd.

Jerome responded Todd’s too anal analytic approach always made customers feel he was incompetent as Todd made sure every account was checked twice making their clients wait too long for services.  It made Todd look insecure.

Todd felt that Jerome’s personal life intertwined with the business too much.  When his former girlfriend came into the office and accused Jerome of cheating on her in front of some of their clients was a huge loss that the business never recovered from.

Jerome declared Todd’s serious demeanor of rarely cracking a joke while working never created an invitation for people to continue to see them.  The customer never felt welcomed with Todd.

The accusations continued as a litany of mistakes were revealed between the two men.  It was a pathway through the past of how they created a failure.  The commonality of the two men was they were hiding behind how they were right and the other person was wrong.

Being right and the other person is wrong is a perspective hides the judgment that maintains a fear we will be found out by others and in this case the fear of being exposed that we are inadequate seems to resonate.  Both Todd and Jerome are quick to point the finger at on another yet maintain a defensive position that does not allow them to see their own self’s actions.  It is all talk with no listening.

Sadly if Todd and Jerome dissolve the business and start anew it is very likely they will create the same mistakes again because they did not do two crucial things.  They were not willing to see how they created the situation and were willing to admit that they were wrong.

There is release or a freeing feeling if you can admit that there is a possibility that you are wrong.  In Todd and Jerome’s case they learned early that making mistakes opened them to criticism and shaming.  Acceptance and love from their parents depended upon them being accomplished and successful (even as children).  So they associated admitting weakness to being unloved or being rejected.  However in doing so they created a judgment that vulnerability is a weakness instead of an openness to see a different point of view.

Admitting we are wrong opens us to the possibility to see our mistakes.  What most people misunderstand about mistakes is it is nothing to feel ashamed about.   Making mistakes is an important part of the learning process.  If Jerome and Todd could begin the process of seeing how they created their business from their errors (and even laugh at them) they could see how learning from our past mistakes can free their entire lives in so many ways.  They could have a different outcome than one hundred steps of blame that lead to tragedy.

By Bart Sharp

Some anger is very intense and seems overwhelming, wrong for us to have it and/or scary.  Anger should not be judged first as right or wrong.  Instead if we just look at it non-judgmentally we can often see it more clearly than we ever have before.

I asked to get in touch with my deepest hidden killing energies deep inside my body.  When I ask that question my body usually responded with a part of  me resonating with a certain strong dark intensity.  It was a heavy vibration in my lower abdomen like something repressed away deep within my bowels.  It was something that was stuffed in the most secret recesses of my psyche.  Somewhere in my past I had decided this should not be seen.

The message of this shameful memory was a deep desire to kill, harm, brutalize.  It was a very dark inside that I did not wish to see as well as a heavy weight holding me back in my everyday endeavors.

I sat and felt it.  I did not run away but remained present with this energy in an observing way.  It was a powerful desire, a source of energy.  It was odd but it did not have a feeling of anger or hatred.  Yes it felt like a destructive force but like one of an animal of prey that kills to survive.

As I sat and paid attention to the energy its location became more specific.  It was of so much in the lower abdomen in originated in the perineum and went up into the stomach.  The perineum is a place that is blocked by repressed sexual energy.  At the same time it is an area that sexual energy comes from.  When our issues of repressed anger are released our sexual energy flows freely and our second chakra is vibrant.

In that moment I realized how the killing energies and the generative sexual energies are intertwined in the perineum core that goes up inside of us.  It is the death and rebirth, transformation and destruction.   This consciousness was not bad or wrong I had created it that way by judging that all anger is wrong.  Thus I repressed it and could no longer access it as a working tool for me.  Instead my fear of angry expressions made it as a force working against me.

I thought of Jesus on the cross as a great example of allowance of his own death to transform other lives.  Even if it resulted in death he was not reacting as a victim because he knew it would result in greater lessons for humanity.  There was much anger and killing energies from all sides of this conflict except within Jesus, he allowed it to become a greater purpose.

We do not have to be a victim to allow anger.  A friend of mine was very angry and yelling because she felt her spiritual teacher was manipulating her.  As I sat with her I first had a reaction inside that it was my fault as I was the one who introduced her to the man.  Then the judgment that I need to defend myself by arguing with her came up.  I decided to not address the situation this way but let down my defensiveness to her and listen.  Soon I could feel her pain instead of her aggression.  I then started questioning her in emotional reference questions such as. “Are you feeling angry at him because you perceived that he lied to you?”  There was a confirmation from my friend we were able to process the situation quickly.

In another situation I was with my long haired twelve year old godson in the men’s restroom at a local restaurant.  We were at the sink area washing our hands when a man looked at the youngster and said, “Maybe you should be in the girl’s (restroom)”.

I stared back at the man and said, “You are being disrespectful to a young man that you do not even know!”  I said it with enough force he knew I was angry.  I did not attack him but simply addressed the behavior.

The man stopped, mumbled to him self and walked out of the restroom.  If I had not worked on my own suppressed angers I would have most likely reacted in two ways; either said nothing and felt ashamed of myself or over-reacted and risked the situation become more than a quick verbal exchange.

In our interaction with anger we do not need to react in fear to it but as an energy to take action.   The embrace to be the killing energy (or anger) that it empowers us in our life.  It is not destructive or hurtful but an impetus to change.  This is what the power of our second chakra is all about.

By Bart Sharp

Pablo was a gentle mannered dark skinned Cuban man in his mid-forties living in New York City in the late fifties.  He made his living rolling Cuban cigars and selling them to local shops in the city.  Pablo was a kind man however he was a someone whose conviction to himself could completely own any emotional quality from anger, violence to complete compassion as this story describes.

On day after making his rounds on another side of town he decided to stop in a bar for a beer.  He had never been in this neighborhood bar before and he entered to find a working class clientle of a few men drinking after a hard days work.

Upon entering the bar Pablo received the glares of all of the customers and the bartender.  Pablo returned with a welcoming broad mouth smile and sat down at the bar.  As soon as the bartender visually addressed him Pablo said, “One beer, please.”

The bartender snarled and said, “We do not serve your kind here.”

“We are all men here and I am thirsty.  I would like a beer.” Responded Pablo.

The two men continued to exchange verbage with neither backing away.  Pablo knew he had a right to drink here and the bartender refused service to blacks.  The confrontation escalated to anger resulting in threats from the bartender, a physical confrontation of attempting to remove Pablo from the bar and finally Pablo breaking tables, chairs and glasses during the heated exchange.  By the time the police came to escort Pablo to jail the bar was in shambles with several tables and chairs destroyed and broken glass from a large mirror on the floor.

Pablo was sentence to thirty days in jail for disturbing the peace.  The bartender was not charged for any offenses.  However his bar was practically destroyed.

Pablo waited patiently for thirty days for his release.  Upon getting out of jail he headed to the same bar.  It was in the afternoon and the same slow trade of customers were drinking after work.  The bartender had finally reconstructed his establishment with used tables, chairs and salvaged pieces from the fight.  He could not afford new furniture and was barely able to buy what he needed to replace what was broken.

When the bartender saw Pablo enter his place he choked in the frustration that swelled in his throat and at the same time anger was steaming in his stomach.  He immediately blurted out, “You are not welcomed here.  I will kick you out again!”

Pablo approached the bar, he smiled and said,  “I would like a beer, please.”

The bartender turned red as he looked into Pablo’s gentle face.  Some of the regular customers who had witnessed the last confrontation stared in disbelief wondering if they needed to call the police again.  Others readied themselves to pounce on the dark skinned Cuban as soon as the confrontation became physical.

Pablo stared intently on the bartender with a kind smile on his face.  The same smile he gave to his wife, children and customers.  Before the bartender could respond to tell him no Pablo spoke again, “Look, before you are going to say what I think you are going to say.  You clearly know what I will do if I am not sold a beer.  What da say we do it different?”

Pablo looked gently into his face like he was gazing at his own child.  He waited patiently as the bartender stood muzzled in his thoughts, his anger, his fear that his bar would be destroyed and the puzzlement of why this man came back to kindly stare him in the face.   His heart could not bear it.  The bartender quickly turned to pick up a glass to fill Pablo a beer.  The barman handed Pablo the beer and the Cuban quickly handed him a dollar.

Pablo took a quick drink of the drink and said, “You know what I do?  I make the best Cuban cigars in New York City.”  He promptly removed a cigar from his jacket and handed it to the bartender.  Pablo pulled out a match and offered to light it for the bartender.  The bartender accepted.  Pablo then proceeded to offer every customer in the bar a Cuban Cigar.  The men all sat together smoking cigars, telling stories and drinking beer.

The moral of the story that Pablo teaches is to stay present with our anger and find a solution with it.  If we can find some way to express our anger we receive the benefit of why it was created in the first place.  The purpose of anger is to move us to take action.  Like Pablo it does not necessarily mean to be violent but to motivate us to some kind of resolution.

Unfortunately aggression or the possibility of violence is all too often associated with anger.  Anger should push us to resolution not violence as it rarely resolves the anger but perpetuates it.  Anger is there to push us to find a constructive place whether that be processing our fears, confronting with a proactive approach, discovering the pattern that unconsciously sabotaged us to anger, expressing your anger to another in a constructive way, finding an alternative solution that does not make us angry and many other possibilities.

When anger (past or present) arises we can simply look at it and question what does this have to teach me?  If we ask something within us will bring to presence what we need to know about anger.