Emotional Healing of Anger and Frustration:
Ayurvedic Perspectives
Dr. Rashi Sharma
Transcript done by
Dr Varsha More
based on the lecture available at
“Emotional Healing of Anger and Frustration: Ayurvedic Perspectives”
It is the ability to acknowledge events and circumstances in our lives that may hinder us from moving forward. Emotional healing involves integration of the fragmented parts of our soul to help us not only understand our past experiences but resolve them effectively as well, so that they have no emotional response ever. With emotional healing, the past traumatic experiences will no longer control our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and hence positive change will take place on our deeper soul level.
Emotional healing allows us to combat events and circumstances that have occurred in our lives, in our past life. Once emotional healing work is done to release past emotional blockages, we not only integrate these experiences into our lives, but we also allow ourselves to grow and develop emotionally on a deeper, more profound spiritual level of our life. Hence, the ultimate goal of emotional healing is to break through from your mental stress and regain your spark and power.
Emotional healing helps you to transform your emotional trauma into strength. Ultimately, emotional healing will lead us from previous emotional trauma; it will again help us to regain our spark and power, and hence we are again back with our strength.
Triggers for an emotional outbreak–
What are the events that actually trigger emotional outbreaks once again in our lives? An event that triggers a past memory at the subconscious level can be difficult for us to understand and fully comprehend in terms of changes within the body, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. We may react to environmental triggers without understanding why we are doing so. Continuous exposure to devastating words in our environment can lead to illness if we react angrily.
Ultimately, continuous reactions in the form of anger, and the persistent use of devastating words in our lifestyle, can lead to the destruction of our brain power and our power of the subconscious mind. Emotional outbreaks can ultimately lead to mental trauma. In our mental state, negative thinking, rage, anger, frustration, etc., and in the emotional state, emotions such as sorrow, anxiety, depression, fear, jealousy, etc., can arise. These mental, emotional, and physical patterns relate to our past life experiences.
An emotional memory block can manifest in different parts of the body, including organs, tissues, and muscles. These manifestations can be recognized through pain, aches, heaviness, and physical distress such as allergies, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, heart problems, asthmatic conditions, headaches, migraines, digestion issues, hormonal imbalances, and other chemical imbalances.
Emotional healing uncovers incidents that happened in childhood or in our previous life which may have no connection to ourselves today. It’s important to recognize that in the present scenario, we may not have any direct connection with past emotional upsets, yet they can act as catalysts in releasing patterns of behaviour that affect us on a daily basis, reactions that we may or may not be aware of.
The memory and emotional impact of past life events are held within the body’s memory and can be clearly seen by the trained eye as they are encapsulated within the aura and chakras. The energy system, namely the chakras and aura, hold the key to unlocking such previously experienced traumatic events that occurred earlier in our lives.
The role of chakras and aura in emotional healing-
Chakra is a Sanskrit word which means wheel. Chakras are spinning wheels of energy that correspond to energy points within the body. In addition to the chakras within our body, there is a corresponding energy field surrounding the body known as the aura or auric field.
The chakras and aura form the human energy system, where energy can become trapped or blocked. Any blockage, whether it originates from the mind as anger, from the physical body as pain, or from emotions such as sorrow, can cause fragmentation of the aura. This fragmentation may manifest as broken parts, leakages, holes, or muddy spots around the aura, and could stem from past or earlier life experiences. It serves as the motivating factor for our reactions to stimuli in our environment.
Healing the fragmented aura results in healing not only physically, mentally, and emotionally, but also at the soul level. Thus, when we address previous or earlier life experiences through the lens of the aura, we are essentially healing our soul. Once balanced, individuals no longer have emotional responses to situations that previously caused trauma.
For example, someone who has experienced abuse may no longer feel traumatized, anxious, fearful, guilty, ashamed, emotional, or angry when recalling the abusive incident or encountering similar experiences. Releasing emotional blocks held within the body’s energy pattern leads to the release of associated emotions. While the strongest past emotion may be anger, the underlying emotion could be sorrow.
Though the memory of the incident remains, the emotional charge dissipates, resulting in effective and lasting change in life. Emotional healing can be instantaneous and enduring because the change occurs not only within the emotional, physical, and mental bodies, but also within the body’s energy system—the aura and chakras—where all past experiences are encoded.
On a mental level, without the fearful or negative response to trauma, individuals can more powerfully create a future based on compassion, love, and abundance rather than on the fear represented by the blockage.
The stages of process of healing-
An individual passes through five different stages during the healing process, which can last for varying periods of time and may replace each other or coexist.
Stage one: Grief and Denial
This stage involves experiencing intense emotional suffering due to the loss of a relationship. Grief arises from feelings of abandonment or rejection, regardless of how the relationship was perceived. Initially, there may be denial of the loss, with thoughts like “this isn’t happening to me.” Denial serves as a defence mechanism against painful emotions but gradually gives way to accepting reality. Over time, acceptance is achieved with courage and a growing optimism for the future.
Stage two: Anger
Following grief and denial, individuals often experience anger. Questions like “why me?” arise, expressing frustration and resentment. For example, divorced individuals may express anger towards the destruction of their marital relationship, regardless of whether they initiated the divorce. The underlying trigger for anger is often the question “why.” Recognizing and acknowledging anger is a crucial step in moving forward.
Stage three: Bargaining
After anger comes the stage of bargaining, where individuals may attempt to negotiate or make promises in hopes of reversing decisions or outcomes. For instance, someone might say, “I promise I won’t hurt you again if you give me another chance.” This stage reflects a desire for acceptance and reconciliation, often involving attempts to persuade others to reconsider their decisions.
Stage four: Depression
Depression sets in as unexpressed anger turns inward, leading to feelings of helplessness and loss of self-worth. Passive individuals may feel unable to alleviate their suffering, leading to withdrawal and exhaustion. It’s essential to express and address passive anger to transform it into active anger, enabling a more objective perspective on the situation.
Stage five: Acceptance
Acceptance marks the acknowledgment of reality and the acceptance of one’s circumstances. While not necessarily a happy stage, it signifies the release of pain and the end of struggle. Faith develops, and growth becomes possible as individuals embrace a new beginning. Acceptance can be stimulated by crises that prompt a break from old habits and facilitate new changes. Healing involves identifying emotional needs and setting realistic goals to move forward positively.
Anger-
Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism towards someone or something which we feel has deliberately done wrong. Anger can be a good thing. It can give us a way to express our negative feelings, but excessive anger can cause problems such as increased blood pressure and other physical changes that are associated with anger make it difficult to think correctly and harm our physical as well as mental health. Anger again is a basic human emotion that is experienced by almost all people. It gets triggered by an emotional hurt.
It is usually experienced as an unpleasant feeling that occurs when we think we have been injured, mistreated or misbehaved, opposed in our long-held views, or when we face obstacles that keep us from attaining personal goals. The long-term physical effects of uncontrolled anger may lead to increased anxiety, high blood pressure and headache. So, anger can be a positive and useful emotion if it is expressed appropriately or within certain limits.
Long-term strategies for anger management usually include certain types of regular exercises, learning relaxation techniques, and most important, the counselling of the individual. These are the signs of anger we actually found in a person i.e. clenching of jaws or grinding of teeth, headache, stomach ache, increased and fast heart rate, sweating, feeling of heat, trembling and dizziness. Anger usually triggers the basic flight or fight response in our body. Primarily, it causes an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels. When anger is recurrent and unmanaged, metabolic changes inevitably affect not just our health but overall, quality of life is also hampered only because of anger or unmanaged anger.
What an unmanaged anger can cause in our body:
Unmanaged anger can cause serious ill effects such as heart attack, stroke, digestive problems, anxiety and depression, poor kind of immunity, skin disorders, poor sleep or disturbed sleep, raised blood pressure, migraine, migraine is definitely a certain type of headache, negative emotions and at last complications in pre-existing health conditions of the person.
Frustration:
Frustration is an emotional response to some opposition related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfilment of an individual’s will or goal and is likely to increase when a will or goal is either denied or blocked due to any kind of reason.
Anger vs Frustration:
A feeling of anger or annoyance is caused by being unable to do something. However, the state of being frustrated is something like that causes feeling of anger and annoyance. It is the effect of being prevented from succeeding or doing something. Although frustration and anger are related emotions but they are not exactly same. Anger on the other hand is usually a response to a threat, being embarrassed or feeling like something is not fair or according to ourselves.
While ongoing frustration leads to anger which is a stronger or a powerful emotion. These are the signs of frustration we observe in a person i.e. losing of temper, incessant bodily movements such as tapping of fingers constantly and perpetual sighing, giving up or leaving, feeling sad or anxious, lack of self-confidence, troublesome sleeping, moving towards drugs and alcohol and irregular eating habits.
Ayurvedic perspectives say about anger:
According to Ayurveda, Pitta the type of emotions like anger, heat up the blood, liver and heart, creating internal fire or exaggerating heat of the body, they can thereby cause hypertension i.e. raise blood pressure, insomnia, irritability and other mental and nervous imbalances.
What Ayurveda can do for management of anger as well as frustration.-
Ancient tradition of Ayurveda offers the tools of most important thing, Satvavajaya Chikitsa. Satvavajaya Chikitsa is enhancing the sattva guna in the individual by different methods. Later on, Rasayana Chikitsa can be done by intake of Rasayana dravyas and drugs. We can also apply medhya drugs as well, such as intake of Brahmi preparations, Shankhpushpi preparations, Amalaki preparations and medhya rasayana drugs.
Apart from that, pranayama and meditation also bring equanimity and peace to the mind. Regular frequency of pranayama and meditation have proved to enhance peace to the mind and calmness to the mind. It is advised to develop a regular or even daily yogic practice to help fighting with anger or to help to combat anger. So, Ayurveda apart with pranayama and meditation can help a lot in dealing anger. Now, anger is an emotion particularly associated with aggravated pitta dosha, likewise we have discussed before. So, out of the tridosha, theory, that is, Vata dosha, Pitta dosha and Kapha dosha, anger is associated with aggravated pitta dosha in the body.
So, to control anger, we have to incorporate pitta controlling measures in our life. For example, we’ll have such kind of drugs, such kind of medications which will or may help to pacify Pitta dosha in our body. For example, intake of raisins, intake of almonds, intake of ghee regularly can help pacifying pitta dosha in our body.
Apart from that, all the characteristic symptoms of pitta dosha such as ushna dravyaas, ruksha dravyas, drava dravyas, amla dravyas need to be prohibited in our diet and also, we are supposed to change our lifestyle from excessive heat towards cold or colder reasons so that aggravated pitta dosha can be pacified in that manner also. Therefore, we should follow a pitta pacifying diet and lifestyle so that anger can be controlled on our behalf according to Ayurveda perspectives. Now, according to ancient Ayurvedic texts, all kind of madhur dravyas which means sweet tasting food substances are actually pitta pacifying in nature and therefore they are important in emotional healing of anger as well as frustration.
Since both anger and frustration are commonly related to each other that is why overall application or usage of intake of madhur dravya that is sweet tasting substances will help in combating anger or aggravated pitta dosha on their behalf. For example, intake of sweet apple, sweet grapes, apricots, sweet berries, guava, ripe sweet mangoes, watermelon, papaya, sweet orange, pears, plums that should be only sweet and prunes they are effective in pacifying aggravated pitta dosha in body. See, these are the examples of a variety of eatable or food items which are easily available in our market which can be easily taken by anyone we don’t have to follow we don’t have to go to certain specialized kind of medicated centres for that.
So, even a common individual if we if he or she know that intake of madhur dravya can pacify pitta and therefore emotional healing of anger and frustration can be obtained. So, the individual who wants to reduce who wants to pacify anger he or she can go to the simplest market and obtain such kind of food items and itself they can treat themselves by having such basic kind of food items in their diet. Further, it is also advised to maintain a spiritual diary. Writing a diary can be helpful in reducing intensity of anger as per researches done previously on such kind of writing habits. So, while writing habits we actually express our feelings we actually express our negative emotions in that note in that writing this actually pacifies our intensity of anger. Anger is reduced or pacified or least sort of anger is remaining behind while we keep on writing our or express our emotions in a spiritual diary.
At last, Satvavajaya Chikitsa can be undertaken for overall emotional healing and frustration. So, while talking about Satvavajaya Chikitsa .
What is actually the Sattva?
Sattva is the manas guna. We have manas dosha as well as manas guna. Manas dosha comprises for the rajas and tamas while sattva is only shuddha that is why it is called as manas guna. It is devoid of any kind of impurities.
It is devoid of any kind of negative impacts on our mind. So, sattva is always taken as a purification or purified quality of our mind. So, if we continue to increase these purifying, these pure sort of mind habits, qualities of mind can be enhanced on the behalf of Satvavajaya Chikitsa
If somebody is having good will power and if we do something to increase that good will power it is actually a subset of Satvavajaya Chikitsa for that particular individual. So, in order to overall emotional healing of anger and frustration this kind of chikitsa can be undertaken for the particular individual. At last, apart from all we should practice patience.
Patience is of ultimate importance while controlling our mind, while expressing ourselves somewhere because in the heat of moment it is easy to say something later you will regret. It is always said that think twice before you speak. Whenever we speak something, we should think twice or more than twice can be done because whenever we say something that words cannot be taken back by ourselves, they usually can hurt or hit someone while we are in under the effect of anger as well as frustration.
So, especially in the conditions of anger as well as frustration or in any sort of mental disturbances we always try to think twice before we speak out to someone or somebody. So, because we have nothing left behind in spite of doing regret for our bad words or ill words on our behalf. So, in order to prevent ourselves in the condition of anger and frustration let’s do the thing we should think twice or thrice while in the control of anger.
So, we should take a few moments to collect our thoughts before saying anything. This is most important part while doing management of anger and frustration apart from Ayurvedic perspectives. Although we have pacified our Pitta, although we have taken huge variety of sweet substances, we have taken the Madhur dravyas, we have taken the Medhya drugs, we have taken the Brahmi, Shank pushapi, the Mandukparni as well as.
But if we are not controlling our thoughts, if we are not controlling our mind speech, it is all they will all go in vain. It means the previous regimen which we have understood before, they will all go useless if we are not controlling our thoughts before saying anything. So, we need to take a few moments every time to collect our thoughts, to recall our thoughts before saying anything.
Because before saying anything, we can correct ourselves to profusely say something which may go wrong in our future perspectives.
Summary
Once we need to understand what emotional healing is, we must comprehend what it does for ourselves and what it can be. Emotional healing is a process through which we refine ourselves, achieved by working with the chakras, aura, and auric field.
Further, we need to differentiate between anger and frustration. Although these terms are often used synonymously, frustration is distinct from anger. Anger arises from a sense of injustice or threat, leading to a desire to retaliate or assert dominance. Frustration, on the other hand, stems from thwarted desires or unmet expectations, resulting in irritation and impatience.
Recognizing the signs of anger and frustration is crucial for self-awareness and emotional regulation. Anger may manifest as heightened arousal, clenched fists, raised voice, or aggressive behaviour, while frustration often presents as restlessness, tension, sighing, or feeling stuck in a repetitive cycle.
According to Ayurveda, both anger and frustration are linked to an imbalance in the pitta dosha, one of the three elemental energies governing the body. When pitta dosha becomes aggravated, it can manifest as irritability, impatience, and emotional volatility. Learning how to pacify pitta dosha through Ayurvedic practices such as dietary adjustments, lifestyle changes, and herbal remedies can help regain control over emotions.
In addition to Ayurvedic techniques, cultivating patience, practicing mindfulness, and engaging in yogic practices like Pranayama (breath control) can further support emotional balance and resilience. By nurturing a holistic approach to emotional healing, individuals can cultivate greater self-awareness, inner peace, and emotional well-being.