Are You an Angry Bird?

In case you're unfamiliar with what Angry Birds is, it's a puzzle video game developed by Rovio Mobile for mobile devices such as the iPhone and Android-driven devices. It's one of the most successful mobile applications ever released. One of the marks of this success is the inclusion of Angry Birds in television and other advertisements.

I suppose the game developers chose to call the characters "angry birds" because of how the players are supposed to use them to demolish buildings and kill the green pigs that are the opponents in the game. Despite the fun theme, that's certainly what anger can lead to if left uncontrolled.

Within the context of this article, are you yourself an angry bird? We've all had moments of anger and depending on one's temperament and environment, it can be extremely easy or very difficult to get angry. There are many things that can trigger anger: a spoken word, an incident that evokes a bad memory, someone's face. If there are too many trigger points, then the anger can become a psychological issue.

But for most of us, we get angry, then we forget about it and move on. But energetically speaking, the "energetic scars" that caused the anger are still there and the "wound" can easily re-open if you encounter a trigger point. This is why it's not only important to deal with the anger itself, but the underlying causes. More often than not, this requires a high degree of self-honesty since you may not like what you discover about yourself.

The effects of anger are not just mental or emotional but physically detrimental as well. Increased blood pressure, heart pumping wildly, these things repeated often enough can't be good for one's health, especially if one already has pre-existing conditions.

Fortunately, while working on anger issues there are very simple ways by which one can mitigate or get one's anger under control. These are very simple methods from Master Choa Kok Sui's Pranic Psychotherapy and in fact you may have heard of them separately from other sources.

Do the following anytime you're angry or feel like you're about to explode:

1. Do deep abdominal breathing for at least a few minutes. By deep breathing that means you inhale, pause, exhale, pause, then inhale again and keep doing so until you calm down.

2. Chant a sacred word or mantra like Om or Amen. Try mentally saying the mantra at least 10 times and observe if there's any change. Combine this with deep breathing and observe the results.

3. Say a prayer or meditate on the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi everyday. The prayer goes:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury,pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

4. If you have the chance, do the Meditation on Twin Hearts everyday.

You may say that the above techniques are so simple. The question is, are you doing them?

The above techniques don't require any money or a huge investment in time and energy. It just needs your commitment to better yourself. There are just too many trigger issues in the world right now, so don't add to the world's problems (and your own) by getting carried away by anger. Instead, try to take a different path, the so-called straight and narrow way. It could save you a lot of hurt in the long run.

In Bo Sanchez's Facebook page, he put a nice quote:

"For every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness." - Anonymous

It's your choice. How are you going to spend your precious time?