In today’s world many people cringe at the word “aggression.” This is because the shadow side of this emotion is the primary focus of the media. But we live in a world of duality, which means there’s two sides to every coin. This week in Deeper Thoughts, we’re going to talk about the more positive side to aggression.
Aggression is an essential tool for survival, especially when your life is on the line in the moment. It’s what has kept our species alive throughout the millennia. We aggressively hunted and foraged for our food to keep our family and tribe alive. We aggressively fought and conquered those who threatened our said family and tribes. Aggression is an important force in our arsenal of existence.
Think about when you’ve had to defend yourself in the past. Sometimes aggressive body language was enough to prevent others from coming at you. Maybe you had to get aggressive with your words and tone. If you’re lucky that was enough but sometimes you had to throw punches in order to keep yourself safe.
Sometimes you’ve had to channel it to assert and protect your boundaries. Other times you’ve used to tackle challenges people didn’t think you could overcome. You may have had to use aggression to get yourself out of rough situations. In these ways it can be used in a positive manner.
The problem is when this force isn’t channeled properly. When things trigger us and we start throwing punches at others when it’s not truly warranted, like hitting our spouses and children, breaking things, yelling and screaming, and scaring other people. This is what happens when we let aggression control us, instead of the other way around.
Everyone has aggression in them. Those who say they don’t are lying, either to you or to themselves by denying it and suppressing it, only for it to expose itself in other ways they’re blind to. Many people experience their aggression but have learned healthy ways to channel and process it.
Learn ways to HEALTHILY channel your aggression, and even better, learn what causes it and how you can heal it. So how can we do this?
Exercise:
-Lift weights
-Take martial arts classes
-intense cardio
This helps you transmute that rage and anger into physical activity. It allows you to burn it out instead of letting it build up like an inner inferno. As an added benefit your physical body improves, helping you increase your strength and the martial arts allows you to better defend yourself and others should the need to fight ever arise.
Journaling:
This helps you put things into perspective. It can help you see patterns that trigger you, while also clearing the clutter of your mind. Your brain can only process so much so when you write it out it clears up space so you can analyze better. This is especially helpful when you write out not only what happened but what your thoughts are AS THEY ARE HAPPENING.
Make art that expresses this aggression:
This is a healthy way to transmute that aggression into another form of energy. It can also give you a visual depiction of what sort of unresolved trauma may be the core of your triggers.
Talk to a therapist:
Be it a friend who can see the bigger picture or a professional that can help you work through the aggression issues, preferably without medication. Talking it out can be a major source of comfort. There’s the added bonus of getting an outside perspective that can see the things you’re blind to.
Practice awareness so you recognize when you’re triggered and look into why you’re triggered (this works best if you can do it right there in the moment). If you can’t take the time to do it in the moment, then the journaling tool or therapist can be helpful for when you have time to sit and process things.
This is a small, but effective list that can help you channel your aggression while you study why it keeps popping up. Aggression is a powerful tool when used properly. It can keep you and your loved ones safe and help you take on goals no one thought was possible. Learn to master it so you can utilize it to your benefit instead of falling under its shadow side’s control. Let it be something that you can build yourself up with instead of tearing you down.
As always, I thank you for reading and hope you have an enlightening day!
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