Follow the feeling

6 min readOct 20, 2021

Anger is an emotion we experience with our first breath. We are pushed, ripped, or torn from one state into another without our consent. We are helpless, turned upside down, overwhelmed with senses we cannot recognise nor understand. It will take many years of patient teaching or harsh experience before we can begin to try to understand this strange state that overwhelms us without warning. No wonder, then, that anger is commonly referred to as the ‘red mist’.

Letting go of anger is not always easy

When we find ourselves lost in a mist, it can be difficult to find a way out. At one moment you are enjoying a pleasant view walking along a regular path, but on turning a corner, the way forward is blocked. Suddenly you find yourself caught between the rock face and a dangerous precipice. You freeze as a thunderous mist rages towards you, furious and wild, rushes up your legs, strangling and chilling, chasing blood as it rises upwards, crushing neck, drowning brain in icy rage.

How can we avoid anger?

Sometimes, we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to walk away from a situation that causes anger to rise in us. We can turn our backs, walk out of the mist, traverse the world in order to forget about it. But eventually, we will find ourselves enveloped, unaware and lost in its murky chill.

Sadhguru, the venerated Indian mystic, yogi, poet, was asked the question ‘How can we avoid anger‘? In his response, Sadghuru discussed the desire to avoid anger. When you are driving, he asked the questioner, do you have to avoid the moon? ‘Anger is not an entity, you become angry.’ Anger, he argues, is like poison. By becoming angry through our inability to instruct our minds, ‘we cause unpleasantness to ourselves’. Sadhguru goes on to say that anger happens ‘when ‘you have not done anything to take your faculties under control’.

This way of living, leaving our emotions untended, like a flock of animals left to roam wild and untamed, leads to chaos and an unending chasing after solutions to each new problem caused by our rampaging emotions. Sadhguru presents an elegant vision of anger as something we possess, something we can control through conscious self-observation. Anger is not an impassable monolith that blocks our path; rather, we allow it to increase within us, dominating our attention, like a child with a toy, to the point of utter distraction.

If the moon’s a balloon

We can take Sadhguru’s striking imagery of anger externalised as the moon and bring it closer, within our control, by imagining it as the size of a balloon. All children love balloons, and, like a child filled with pride at in a shiny red balloon, we sometimes inflate our anger to the point of a painful explosion or we let it slip our grasp, streaking like lightning across the sky for all the world to observe our foolishness. We are possessive of our toys, our precious things, blinded by the fleeting joys we feel when we take them out to play uncontrolled.

Let’s play an imaginary game. Imagine you have a balloon. It is shiny and red. It belongs to you alone, and you feel indestructible any time it starts to inflate. Everyone looks at it and you feel they are in awe of your balloon. There is one problem, however, which always ruins your enjoyment in the end. You are unable to control the air pressure whenever the balloon starts to grow. You have not figured out how to control the flow of air as it rushes into the balloon, there is no obvious tap or spigot to slow it down even a little bit. The sound of the inevitable explosion as the balloon bursts causes a headache for everyone around you, and leaves you in tears of frustration because the balloon grew out of control again, as it always does.

The secret to letting go of anger

Now, imagine that, one day, someone tells you a surprising secret! They point out that even though your pretty balloon always bursts, it is magically replaced every time. You have an unending supply of balloons to play with! The stranger goes on to tell you that there is a secret to playing with the balloon, and that learning the secret will allow you to control the balloon every time, without ever having to worry that it will upset you or anyone ever again. The secret is so simple, that you can start to use it straight away!

Would you like to know the secret? The balloon is a secret beacon, bringing a message each time it inflates! That is why it is red, so that it is easy to see! Each time you see the balloon start to grow, it is a warning that an explosion will inevitably follow, because there is no way to stop it from appearing and no way to stop it from growing bigger.

The key step to letting go

Each time the balloon starts to increase, and while you are still enjoying the sensation it brings, simply choose to let it go. You will never run out of red balloons, so you do not need to hold on to each one as it appears. Look at the balloon, acknowledge that it belongs to you, see the string in your hand, and let it float free. It is yours, but you can let it go, because there is an endless supply — there will always be another one. Enjoy it for a short time, remember the warning message, and let it go. No more explosions, no more loss, no more anger as you open your hand and let it float away.

Why you should let go of anger

By choosing to let your anger float away once you have seen it start to rise, you choose not to identify with the emotion. You can hold it for a little while while you remember that it is only a beacon, a sign of something no you, and choose to avoid the hurt you face each time it explodes. We all carry our precious little balloons and we often feel that it is the most important thing we possess. But the truth is, that we have many other toys to play with, many other emotions we can choose to feel. It is not necessary to hold on to one that we know will eventually cause us distress because we held on to it too long. We can be comforted by the thought that before long, another one will rise up to take its place.

The power in letting go of anger

It can seem strange to think we can simply let go of something that is precious to us, one that we consider an intrinsic piece of the complex puzzle of our identity, something that makes us feel strong and even proud. But letting go of very valuable things can bring us even greater returns. The awareness that we are in control of our reactions, even when we are not in control of a situation, can bring us great satisfaction and peace of mind. This self-awareness will not go unnoticed by others, and they will begin to re-evaluate their opinion of you. Their opinion will likely not matter to you, however, for once you understand the power of letting go, you quickly start to capitalise on the power that comes with the change you have experienced.

The value of letting go of anger

Chosen as the nation’s favourite artwork in an online poll in 2017, Girl With Balloon, by the artist knows as Banksy, made international headlines when a painting of Girl With Balloon suddenly began to self-destroy through a hidden shredder mechanism, just seconds after it was sold at Sotheby’s in London in 2018. Renamed Love Is In The Bin, the artwork was sold for $25.4 million USD, nearly 18 times the value when it was originally sold (and shredded) for $1.4 million USD. A simple but revolutionary act created an unforgettable moment in contemporary history, allowing us to expand our understanding of the joyful ripple effect caused by the simple act of letting go.