Unmasking Anger

Many people believe that anger is "unspiritual," a damaging misconception that often causes us to stuff it inside. Spiritual traditions such as yoga and Buddhism can teach us how to react skillfully to anger without repressing it.

By Alan Reder

Exercise helped Brian process his anger; so did a friend who reflected Brian's thoughts back to him without taking sides. In addition, Brian began reminding himself to ask, "What result do I really want here?," instead of letting anger dictate his actions. All of these methods blunted the edges of Brian's emotionality and enabled him to reconcile with Sheila as a co-parent, if not as a husband. When Brian gets angry these days, he's more likely to "recognize my anger as hurt and then sit with that hurt a bit," rather than acting from rage.

The wreckage from Arjun Nicastro's fury couldn't be so easily fixed, but that made his turnaround all the more remarkable. Imprisoned at age 17, he escaped and, while out, shot and killed a man during a drug theft gone awry. Back in prison, this time with a life sentence, he tried to escape again. He was caught once more and sent to solitary confinement for more than a year. But the man who walked out was different from the one who had been locked in.

Anguished about a future that seemed as limited as his six-by-eight-foot cell, Arjun was floored one day by the realization that his predicament was entirely self-created. For the first time, he felt the weight of the suffering his behavior had caused others.his parents, those he had robbed, the family and friends of the man he had killed. He also realized that if he had ruined his life, he had the power to fix it. He started the repair job on the spot, by committing to stop reacting thoughtlessly to his anger. .I didn't have any methods to help me live differently, but I had the intent,. he says.

A series of fortuitous circumstances then equipped him with the psychospiritual tools he previously lacked. A new therapist at the prison introduced him to Gestalt therapy, which helped him release anger through focused awareness on its thoughts and physical sensations. A fellow inmate handed him a copy of Bo Lozoff's book We're All Doing Time, distributed free to prisoners via the Lozoff-led Human Kindness Foundation. The book taught Arjun basic yoga, meditation, and pranayama, wrapped in a prisoner-friendly condensation of universal mystical wisdom.

Arjun began practicing Lozoff's teachings daily. His new spirituality turned an incorrigible hothead into a model inmate. Lozoff, who had begun corresponding and meeting with Arjun as part of the Foundation's Prison-Ashram Project, convinced the parole board that Arjun's efforts were sincere and offered to house and employ him in the Foundation's spiritual community if the board would grant Arjun his release. Arjun was paroled in 1998 at age 40, after 23 years behind bars. Today, Arjun oversees much of the Foundation's work with prisoners, sits on the Foundation's board, and is married to a Foundation staffer. Anger, he says, "is not what I want to put out in the world. There's enough already. I don't need to be adding to it."

Turning Heat into Light
Does anger ever serve us? Some insist it does. Anger, they point out, alerts us to wrongs that demand redress.for instance, when our rights are violated. In sports, some argue, anger helps fuel the desire to win. Anger fuels our efforts to correct social injustice, others say.

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