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Monday, May 23, 2022

I get angry when my opinions and my choices are questioned and rejected! Atman Nityananda


 I get angry when my opinions and my choices are questioned and rejected! 

One of the patterns of behaviour caused by the ego is to react with irritation, annoyance, resentment or anger when others do not approve or accept, ignore, reject, question or dislike our opinions and choices. This is because our ego causes us to perceive it as a threat, a rejection or a diminishment of ourselves and our worth, rather than simply our opinions and choices, and this, in turn, occurs because we identify with our opinions, beliefs and choices and identify them as our self.


Whether we react or not and with what intensity depends on how strong our self-confidence and self-worth are, how significant the subject is to us and how identified and attached we are to it, how valuable that person is to us and our energetic and psychological state at that moment.


It is one thing, for example, to have our religion questioned or not accepted, and another to have a fruit that we like. It is one thing to be challenged and have our opinion devalued or rejected by someone we do not know or do not valye them as important, and it is another thing to be challenged by someone we value and want them to have a good opinion of us or approve our opinions or choices. How we react also depends on how the other person challenges or rejects our opinion or choice.


Don't tell me what to do


It also happens that we get irritated, upset or angry when someone advises us or tells us the consequences of our choices and actions because our ego perceives it as a threat, a rejection, a devaluation and an oppression. 


That is, instead of listening with an open mind to assess whether what we are being told is true and can help us correct our mistakes and avoid painful consequences, our ego feels threatened and reacts irrationally as if it is the words of others that harm us and not our own choices and actions. 


In reality, calmly listening to something (even if it seems false to us at the time) cannot harm us in any way and we can later examine it in detail to see if it has any value to us.