How to be an Effective Force for Good, part 2

Act from a place of responsiveness, not reactivity

ETA: I wrote this before the US election and before the destruction of American democracy. I’m leaving this post as is, because this is the inner work of revolution, but by no means is this intended to blame or shame any individual. (Rage is certainly an appropriate response right now!) Rather it’s a call to action for those of us who are called to do this work.

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If we want to create a world that includes everyone, one built on kindness, compassion and wisdom, we have to recognize that the old conditioning—which is so ingrained that we call much of it ‘reality’—no longer works. In its place, we need new skills, ones that are in alignment with both scientific and spiritual laws.

—From the Counterintuitive Guide About page

Last week, I wrote about the concept of painbody and how to detach from it. Today, I’m writing about how to focus on building the world we want to create for future generations—even as dumpster fires rage around the world.

Reactive vs Responsive Anger

There are two kinds of anger, reactive or responsive. The differences are illustrated in this talk excerpt from Insight Meditation Center below.

The Buddhist word dosa is usually translated as anger. But it would probably be more accurate to translate it as “hostility,” provided that we recognize that hostility can be present in emotions ranging from minor annoyance to full-blown rage. While the English word anger can include hostility, it doesn’t have to. The West has a long tradition of accepting certain forms of anger as appropriate responses, for example, a forceful protest against injustice.

—Gil Fronsdal, Insight Meditation Center, July 1st, 2001 [bold emphasis mine]

Reactive anger is ineffective and bad for our health

Dosa is the kind of anger that Pema Chödrön advises against in her audiobook Don’t Bite the Hook. We all know that feeling of a specific resentment ‘hooking’ us, right? It’s not easy to avoid biting that hook! It takes a whole lot of practice in coming back to the moment. And there are things we can do not to feed the reactive painbody, which I’ll get to in a moment.

When we’re feeling self-righteous anger, expressing that can feel pretty good. There’s a reason “rage rooms” are a thing. Expressing reactive anger releases dopamine (yay!), but it also influences cytokines, metabolites that increase inflammation and hinder the immune system.

Beyond that, to quote another neuroscience-meets-Buddhism phrase, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” By holding onto our rage (which, ironically, includes expressing or ruminating on it), we’re training our neural pathways to react with hostile anger in the future. And, as you might notice, feeling hostile anger is the opposite of feeling inner peace.

Responsive anger is more effective and feels better

Responsive anger says “Something is unjust here, and I’m going to work to change that.” Unlike reactive anger, it doesn’t activate the sympathetic nervous system (at least, in my experience) and therefore doesn’t produce cytokines that can cause inflammation and health problems.

Responsive anger (in my experience) feels pretty calm, with a warrior-like quality of clarity and intention. In other words, responsive anger is rooted in acceptance of what is. Not acceptance that ‘everything is terrible and it’s always going to be this way’ but just… this is the way things are right now. As my friend Heather Pardon once said, “We can’t deny that we are where we are.”

As Fronsdal said above, it is absolutely possible—and more beneficial—to take action when our anger doesn’t have the poison tip of hostility.

Hostility leads to futility

There’s an old saying, “What you resist, persists.” And on an energetic level, that’s true. Whatever we push back against will only redouble in power and force.

Think of a phrase like “the war on drugs.” It’s been going on for more than 40 years, yet today, more people are dying every day than they were in the 1980s. Narratives framed as battle become a form of negative confirmation bias.

Even on a personal level, if you have a disagreement with your neighbor, say, over a shared fence or holiday decorations, there’s going to be a huge difference in outcome if you approach it as a war (resistance) vs a conversation to help both parties express their needs and gain mutual clarity (responsiveness).

In the United States, though, the phrase “The Resistance,” has become a movement. And it’s a powerful one, as long as The Resistance (proper noun) is not powered by resistance (energetic).

To avoid confusion, though, I suggest we change the ‘resistance’ idiom to “hostility leads to futility.” That captures the same essence without the confusion.

Sure, it’s not super-snappy, but hey, I’m working with Latin-based symbols and a rhyming dictionary.

Hostility leads to futility.

And the corollary: Humility leads to possibility.

Improve your inner peace set point

We all imagine that if only X would happen, we’d feel better—more peaceful, happier, purposeful, loved… The challenge is that we have no control over X, especially if we’re coming from a place of hostility or are in an emotional flashback.

In addition, there’s oodles of research that whether situations are bad or good, people tend to return to an “emotional set point” within six months. In other words, even if we win the lottery, if we’re generally accustomed to feeling miserable or angry, we’re likely to return to that state regardless of our newfound wealth. Similarly, someone who has built a solid and diverse tool kit for mental health resilience can bounce back emotionally from even the most devastating events.

Remove yourself from the chaos as much as possible

The collective hostility right now—around the globe—is like a gigantic magnet; if you don’t actively take steps to detach, it will pull you down and swallow you into the Upside Down. And that does nobody any good—especially you.

What could you do, in this very moment, to invite more calm into your body?

Here are some tips:

• Stay off social media as much as possible (yes, even BlueSky).

• Don’t watch television news (and avoid online corporate-owned news sites).

• Try not venting - don’t talk about the issue, don’t give it any more energy.

• Try not to feed your brain any more information about things that are completely outside your control.

• Do what nourishes you, whether that’s taking a bath, playing with pets or something else entirely.

The systems that created our current understanding of how the world works
are the same systems that have created the current world crises

Can you feel the perspective shift?

Below are two statements. See if you can feel the difference in your body.

• “I’m working to fight that monster who put babies in cages!”

• “I’m working to create a world where immigrant families can remain together and safe.”

Which one feels better in your body? If you don’t feel a difference, try speaking the lines out loud.

Everywhere you look in North America right now, people are holding onto outrage as a kind of proof of morality. It’s as though they believe that if they don’t express (and feel) outrage 24/7, that somehow reflects poorly on them. This is one of the pieces of conditioning we need to undo. Here’s why:

It’s far more effective to block out the noises of outrage and instead, take the exact same actions from a place of what you want to create. You’re still acting in a way that supports your values, just without energetically poisoning yourself and others in the process.

Be the change you want to see

Instead of pushing against what you don’t want, focus on what you do want to see, the world you want to create. It’s entirely possible to live in a calm, grounded world even when there’s chaos all around. The more we focus on behaving in a way that supports what we’re working towards, the more that will be reflected back to us. At least, that’s been my experience over the past 15 years.

When I start fighting against circumstances, the world suddenly seems a lot more hostile. When I come from a place of humility or kindness, the world suddenly doesn’t seem so awful.

In the comments, please share a sentence about the world you’d like to see. And, if you’d like, add something you can do to take a step towards creating that world.