Do You Think Suppressing Emotions Helps To Reduce The Emotion That We Are Trying To Suppress?

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Tolerance really means doubling the anger. Tolerance means to suppress continually. One will realize this when the spring of coil i.e. the suppressed anger rebounds one day.” – a quote of Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan.

By suppressing emotions, the emotions don’t reduce; they sooner or later do get expressed. For example, many times you must have tried suppressing your anger. What happened? Did your anger reduce? No, you do succeed a couple of times, but thereafter, the anger gushes out with a much greater intensity; isn’t it?! This is because you have tried to suppress the emotion rather than getting rid of it. Emotions are akin to a spring; the more you suppress it, the greater is the force with which it springs back when you let go!

How to reduce the impact of emotions?

Emotions can be reduced through right understanding. The emotion automatically begins to dissolve when you gain an insight into why this occurred, what are the reasons for its repeated recurrence, and what is the right thing to do to lessen and lighten the impact of this emotion.

A 4-step method will help us make this happen:

1. A firm determination of ‘It is indeed wrong to get angry’.

To overcome anger, first and foremost, it is important to know, with a 100% conviction that ‘getting angry is indeed wrong’. Even after the determination, the deed or action of getting angry may continue for some more time. You don’t bother about it; rather you just ensure that your inner intention of ‘I do not want to get angry’ is always clear and pure.

2. Do a deep analysis of ‘why anger is wrong’.

Study how and why is getting angry wrong. Analyse in detail the negative impact that anger has had on you and on your relationships, and also list down the advantages you are deprived of only because of this emotion that you have harnessed in life. Find out the real reasons why you get angry – is it because of your expectations, or you wanting to have things your way, or your insistence of ‘do as I say’, or you not wanting to let go of the control… – what is it that makes you furious?

3. Seek forgiveness with sincere repentance, each time the anger arises.

Ask for forgiveness every time you get angry, by doing pratikraman. Pratikraman is a 3-step process, performed by recalling the God residing in the person on whom we got angry and:

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a) Apologizing. I have done so and so mistake.

b) Repenting. Please forgive me for the mistake.

c) Promising. I decide not to make the same mistake again.

Pratikraman i.e. Asking for forgiveness is a scientific process which, when performed with sincerity, will surely yield good results and you will experience the difference within you!

4. Never ever protect anger.

Whenever you protect anger, be it knowingly or unknowingly, you are actually encouraging the anger to grow within. Therefore, whenever you get angry, your constant effort should be to maintain an inner intention of, ‘This is wrong, Getting angry is very wrong.’ This will help you reach a stage one day, when you shall no longer get overpowered by the emotion of anger.

These four steps can be applied to any emotion or weakness that is harming you and you are wanting to get rid of soon.

To conclude:

One can reduce the unfavourable emotions through right understanding rather than suppression. As we have discussed, it is important to oppose these emotions and evaluate the reasons as to why they occur. The deeper you delve into with whom and why the negative emotion occurred, the faster it will begin to reduce, and you shall experience great peace. Further, ‘pratikraman is an immensely powerful tool to heal the effects of any negative emotion that got expressed by you.