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My teacher Junpo once said a line I have never been able to put down. I have never known an angry person who did not care. Sit with that for a second. Every time you have lost your temper, underneath it was something you cared about.

This one is for the person who snaps at the people they love, then sits in the guilt an hour later. Steven starts with a simple picture. Anger is a hammer. In the right hands it builds, in the wrong hands it breaks, and the answer is never to throw the hammer away. Without anger nothing would ever change. You would not be whole without it.

The trouble starts young. Don't make a fuss. Calm down. So we learn to sit on it, and what we sit on leaks out sideways, a sharp word, a slammed door, a silence that strips paint. Steven calls anger the bodyguard. It is almost always the second feeling, stood in front of something softer, a hurt, a fear, a sense of not being heard. Drawing on Mondo Zen, the teaching of Junpo's lineage, he names what tends to sit underneath. Fear, sadness, and a deep caring.

Then the line that stops you short. No one can make you angry. The reaction is yours. He is honest that even he argues with that one, and uses a real disagreement with his parents the night before to show how little space there can be between the spark and the fire. That space is the whole thing, and it is what meditation quietly widens.

There is a question that takes the heat out of almost any row, for the other person and for yourself. I can see you care. Tell me why it matters. You walk round the bodyguard and speak straight to what it is guarding. Steven takes it all the way into politics, sitting down for a cup of tea with people he disagrees with, and finding the caring underneath every single time.

He closes on another of Junpo's lines. Your angst is your liberation. The tight, angry knot is exactly where the freedom is. So next time the heat rises, before you do anything with it, ask one quiet question. Not who is to blame. Just, what am I really trying to protect.

Why listen

• See your anger as honest information and a guard over something softer, not a flaw to be ashamed of
• Learn a simple question that defuses an argument, at home or with someone you cannot agree with
• Understand why you snap fastest at the people closest to you, and how to find the gap before you react
• A kinder way to hold your own temper, drawn from Steven's teacher Junpo and the Mondo Zen tradition

Quotes

"I have never known an angry person who did not care." (Junpo)

"It is not the hammer's fault. You need that tool in your toolbox."

"Anger is always the second feeling. There is always something softer underneath."

"No one can ever really make you angry. The reaction is yours."

"I can see you care. Tell me why it matters so much to you."

"You cannot meet anger with anger and expect everything to be okay."

"Your angst is your liberation." (Junpo)

"Be kind to your anger. Don't throw it out."

Companion meditation

A short meditation goes with this episode, over on Inner Peace Meditations. A few minutes of practising exactly this, finding the gap and meeting the heat before it runs the show. Sit with it once or twice this week. It will do more than any amount of talking about it.

With gratitude to

Alyce, Kim up in the Yukon, Mayer, Ken, Linda and Michael for keeping the show advert free this time, along with a few kind souls who chose to stay nameless, including one wonderfully generous gift. To the regulars who keep it going month after month, Audra, Laura, Laurie and Stuart, and so many more of you. And a warm welcome to Sue, Jude, Jenna, Mia and Rita, who started supporting this month.

My teacher, Junpo, once looked directly at us and said a line that, to be

honest, I've never been able to put down.

He said, "I've never known an angry person who did not care."

And just sit with that for a second.

So you think about it, every angry person you ever met, every time you've lost

your own temper, underneath it there has been something you cared deeply about

So here is the question that can take the wind out of almost any

row that I use, if I remember.

Next time someone is angry at you, instead of defending yourself, instead

of putting your guard up, try this.

Say to them, "I can see you care. Tell me why. Tell me why it matters so

much to you." And watch what happens.

The anger has nowhere to go because you have walked round the bodyguard.

You have spoken directly to the thing it was guarding

Hello, I'm Steven Webb, and this is Stillness in the Storms, the podcast

that helps you find some, just some of that firm ground in difficult times.

No fluff, no quick fixes, just honest, down-to-earth wisdom from someone who

living it every single day, same as you

But just before we get into it, let me say a proper thank you to the people who

keep this podcast completely advert free.

This time it's Alice, Kim up in Yukon, Maya, Ken, Linda, Michael,

along with a few kind people that chose to stay nameless.

Thank you.

And including one wonderfully generous gift I can only thank

quietly, I gotta be honest.

And to the regulars who keep this going month after month, people

like Laura, and Stuart, and so many more of you, thank you so much.

You are the reason it stays free.

And finally, a warm welcome to a few who started supporting this monthly.

Sue, Jade, Jenna, and Mia, and Rita, you guys are awesome.

Lovely to have you with us all.

So there are others.

You are awesome.

If you would like to join them or you've got something on your

mind or an idea for meditation, just head over to stevenwebb.uk.

It's in the show notes, and I always do answer.

So let's get on with the podcast.

I've … So hot over in the UK and Europe at the moment, but we're here.

We're showing up.

as you know, I love analogies, and it just puts something in my brain

that just makes more sense to me.

If it's a wall of text or a diagram, I find it really hard to understand.

But when someone puts up an analogy, I'm like, "Oh, I get it now. Now it

ma- makes sense." So a good analogy I've always used for anger is a hammer.

You know, the hammer is anger, and used correctly in your

toolbox, it's an incredible tool.

Used incorrectly, used to do damage, used to smash things down

when they're not supposed to be done, then it's a terrible tool.

You're using it in the wrong way.

Above all, it's not the tool's fault, but you need a tool in your toolbox.

A- and I think having … becoming that calmer person that you no longer have that

anger in your toolbox, you're not whole.

Your toolbox is not whole.

All your emotions are not complete in a way that makes us brilliant humans.

To throw away the hammer and go, "I'm, I'm never gonna get angry again.

I'm never gonna get frightened again.

I'm never gonna get anxious again," you're throwing away incredibly

evolved emotions that have done incredible things in the past.

Without people being angry, we would never have a better voting system.

Without people being angry, nothing would ever change.

Without people being angry, we would never develop democracy.

Without being … people being angry, we'll never improve on the

democracy that seems to be going a bit sideways at the moment.

But you should be angry at starving children.

You should be angry at abuses and all that, that hu- hurt

humans or animals or the planet.

There's nothing wrong with that anger.

It's what you do with it.

There's nothing wrong with a hammer.

It's what you do with it.

So you learn to pick it up and use it when it's there in the right way.

It's a brilliant tool

The problem with anger is that as children, when children get angry,

you know, the, the terrible twos where they're angry about frustration,

like, okay, they're not angry about world issues or democracy.

They're angry because you turned up with a red T-shirt and they wanted a green

one, and you've destroyed their world, or they're hungry and they wanted,

I don't know, an ice cream before going to bed, and all the things in

the world says you shouldn't do that.

They're angry because you're destroying their world.

So it's uncomfortable for us.

We don't like to see our children angry, so as a way of guarding that,

we try to not let them be angry.

We try to prevent that.

"Come on, calm down. You don't have to be angry." Ang- and they learn

that anger is a bad thing, and I don't think anybody teaches us that out

of knowing that they're not actually helping the situation longer term.

It's the best way of dealing with it as they see fit because anger l-

very often leads to terrible things.

We don't very often do these terrible things when we're not angry.

You know, we just wouldn't do it.

We wouldn't say those horrible words.

We wouldn't say those things that we learn to regret, those horrible

names, or I would hope people wouldn't say it out of calmness.

There is people that do, but that's a different story,

probably a different podcast.

But on the anger side, anger is what makes us do so many things the spur of

the moment because we're not used to it.

That child doesn't wanna kick their mum, but they do it out of anger

because they've got this feeling of rage that's overwhelming them.

It's a good thing sometimes.

You, you need that overwhelming because if you're gonna stand there and try

hugging the bear in the forest for 300,000 years, you ain't gonna do very well.

"Oh, just stay calm. Don't worry about it. It's only a bear." That doesn't work.

But sometimes we're … Well, most of the time we're not with

that bear in the forest anymore.

So-

That word that we just look up and say and that moment that we make

everything so much worse because we haven't learned to deal with the anger.

Anger is just information.

Anger is telling us something.

Anger comes from a certain place

Which leads me onto the bodyguard, because that's what anger is.

Anger is the bodyguard that steps in and says, "I'm gonna sort this.

I'm gonna make sure this doesn't happen again.

I'm gonna put the justices right.

I'm gonna make sure no one parks in my space," or, "How dare they do that?

I'm gonna make sure they don't say that again.

How dare they betray us?

How dare they treat us in that way?" All of these things, and

there's something softer underneath.

It's, anger is always the second feeling.

I cannot imagine … I … Please enlighten me in the comments or message

me where anger is not a second feeling, because there's always something

deeper underneath it, a hurt, a fear, a being unseen or something like that

Jampal's always taught us that beneath it there's a fear, a

sadness, and a deep caring.

You care about something, and if you don't know how to fix

the situation, you get angry.

Fair enough.

I care about kids starving.

I get angry about it if I see it on the TV.

Sometimes I might wanna turn the TV off or turn it over because it's

painful, and that anger just … And I think, "What can I do about it?"

And it builds, and it's horrible, and it's almost paralyzing But anger can lead to

the most intense clarity

And ultimately, no one can make you angry.

Yeah.

Whenever I say that, th- there's always something in me, that little voice

inside of me goes, "Really? Do you believe that, Steven? Do you really

believe that?" Well, I think I do.

When I think about it in the cold light of day, I do believe that.

No one can ever really make you angry.

It's a feeling that is chosen after the feeling of deep caring.

There's a reaction.

The reaction is yours.

Now, here's the thing.

Sometimes we get so angry so quick, or we tend to stay on the edge of

anger for so much of the time that there's almost no time between

what happens and when we're angry.

If you're always in that fight/flight frame of mind, if you're always ready,

if you're living in a situation where things can go wrong very, very quickly,

then there's very little time between what happens and then the reaction.

And I do it with my daughter because I'm emotionally charged

when it comes to my daughter and my family and different things.

I'm much more likely to snap at them, shout at them.

I … We had a bit of a disagreement about something last night, me and

my parents, and we didn't fall out or anything, but I got quite teasy.

They got quite teasy, and we was like … Well, we weren't shouting at

each other, but we were frustrated.

I was feeling that they weren't respecting me, they weren't

I wasn't being heard.

But I wasn't thinking that at the time.

I was just thinking, "You're wrong, and I'm right." But I care deeply that

they hear me, and they give me some credit for some of the knowledge I know.

But meanwhile, I wasn't doing the same to them.

So again, it comes that back to that deep caring about something.

We care if someone says something.

We care if the words hurt

So there is a gap between that spark and that fire.

Doesn't have to lead to a full-blown argument.

It can lead to, "Okay, I really care here. What can I do about it?"

If there is something really practical you can do about it,

take a step back, go and do that.

But it's very rarely practical to shout and scream.

And see, this is what, where meditation steps in.

Meditation gives you a gap between what is arising, what you're feeling, what

you're seeing in this moment, what your, what a thought is, the train that arrives.

So instead of sitting there on the bench, going back to my analogy that

I've used recently, if you're sitting on the bench and you're not thinking

about the trains and all that's coming in, the thoughts that are coming in,

if a train that you really don't like comes in and it triggers you, you're

gonna jump to anger straight away.

But if you're sitting there being aware that the train might not be one you like,

that that person might say something you're not gonna like, you can be

ready and go, "Okay, it's not about me.

It's more about them." We can be ready and go, "Do you know what?

Well, I'm just not gonna get on that train.

I'm just not going to rise to this anger."

And we're all capable of it.

This is what our awakened mind does, and you're all capable of

it because me, you, and everybody you know has been able to respond

wisely sometimes, or at least once.

So therefore, you are capable of wise response, deep heart-mind, as Mondo Zen

would say, which is Junpo's teaching.

You know, come from deep heart-mind.

Don't come from the head that's angry or the heart that's angry.

There's no space there for wisdom.

and there is a question that disarms this for them and yourself.

So if someone's really angry and getting in your face, if someone's really trying

to make a point and you're not listening, and you're trying to defend your position

and you're not So nobody's listening.

If you're both defending, if you're both coming out fighting, no one's listening.

You know, there's no point in fighting your side if the other side are not

listening or they're fighting their side.

There's no brain power for the two things.

But what I will say is you can look up and go, "I see you care deeply Tell me

why. Tell me why it matters to you. You can say, "Look, I'll, I'll shut up a

minute, and I know why it matters to me, but I don't know why it matters to you.

Please explain." And I think when we do that, it just takes

the heat out of the moment.

It, it brings in a bit of wisdom and a bit of heart and a bit

of kindness and compassion.

You cannot meet anger with anger and expect everything to be okay.

Look at the political situation at the moment in the UK, in some of

Europe, and in America at the moment.

We're meeting anger with anger.

We're meeting name-calling with name-calling.

We're meeting ignorance with more ignorance and more ignorance.

Instead of going, "Okay, why do you care deeply about this? What is so

important about this?" And I tell you what you'll find again and again, because

I sit down and have a cup of tea with members of, like, Reform, which in the

UK are very much right of right, um, and Conservatives and Green members.

I'm a Liberal Democrat, so I'm kind of in the middle.

And when I sit down with them and we have a cup of tea, if politics comes up, it's

very often it feels like we're miles apart and we both want to defend our position.

And when you just say, "Explain to me why that matters to you or why

you think that way," nearly always it'll come back to that caring.

It'll come back to that important reason, maybe from their past.

Maybe they got a fear of the future or something.

Maybe that car park space down the road that they park in front of their house

and don't like anybody doing that.

I think there's loads of places like that.

I get loads of emails about people not being able to park in front of

their houses, and we've had a problem in this road for many decades.

And I do think, "Why is it important to them?" And sometimes it's because

they might have a disability.

Sometimes it's because they're fearful of something and they need that escape route.

Sometimes it's about nothing to do with a car park space at all.

It's about trying to show some authority because they haven't been listened to.

Who knows?

The truth is everybody cares, and it's getting down to that

bottom bit of what they care about

And finally, before I hand off for this week, and Junpo always said, used to

say this, and I, I think as time goes on, I understand it more and more.

"Your angst is your liberation." So where we've got that tight knot,

where we're angry, where we're res- reacting instead of responding,

that's where our liberation is.

If we can deal with the reaction by creating more space between what's arising

and what we care deeply about and our anger reaction, what we do with the hammer

Then ultimately we'll have a lot more peace in life and a lot better

conversations, a lot deeper conversations.

We might actually realize that in politics we're not that far apart.

We might actually realize in whether it's race or all the other things, we

might dislike a certain type of food, but ultimately we all care about kindness.

We all care about love, and we all care about each other, and we

don't want people to die ultimately

We don't want people to suffer

And I think when we get beyond the anger and put the hammers down when

we're using them in that way, that's where things really start to change

So, so here is what I will leave you with.

Your anger is not your enemy.

It is a frightened part of you in armor doing the only job it's

ever learnt, keeping something soft from being hurt again.

And it does not need banishing.

It needs hearing.

It needs listening to.

It needs understanding.

And the moment it is truly heard, it tends to lay down its armor.

It tends to stop fighting.

So next time the heat rises, I'm not talking about the heat in the UK and

here at the moment, but next time the heat rises, before you do anything

with it, try one quiet question.

Not who is it to blame?

Just what am I really trying to protect?

And always remember Junpo's line

You only get angry about what you care deeply about.

So somewhere in there is something you love, something you care

about, and the same for them.

I have recorded a short meditation to go with this one.

It's over on Inner Peace Meditations, and it's called Space Before You React.

A few minutes of practicing exactly this, finding the gap, meeting the

heat, meeting the anger, meeting that cindo or that spark before it

runs the show, before it takes over.

And sit with it once or twice a day, or just once or twice this week.

. It would do way more than just talking about it.

Understanding it philosophically, that's one thing.

Understanding it in your heart and living from it is a differ- different story.

So that is what your anger is really saying.

I'm Steven Webb, and thank you and everybody who keeps this going.

If you can, please follow the show and leave a review,

especially on Apple or Spotify.

That really does make a huge difference.

I do always get to read them.

Might take me a little time, but I do always get to read them.

And thank you so much and take care.

That … Just be kind to yourself.

Be kind to your anger.

Don't throw it out.

And I love you