How do I "challenge" my anger or fear?

How exactly do I challenge my fears, anxieties, anger and jealousy?

The first step in challenging a painful emotion is to be come aware of it.  Once you recognize how your body feels and the types of thoughts you have when it is present, you will no longer need to label it "anger," "fear," "jealousy," or anything else.  You will know it as an old familiar experience that you want to change.  Then you can challenge it directly. The simplest way to do this is to say to yourself, "I challenge this. I will not have this energy in my energy system," and mean it.

The first time you challenge your anger, fear, or jealously, it will not disappear.   You must challenge it again and again and again.  Eventually, it will loose power over you, and you will gain power over it.  This is how you create authentic power - decision by decision.  You cannot pray, meditate, or wish it into being.   You must challenge the parts of yourself that you want to change, and cultivate the parts that you want to keep.  This requires the use of your will.

If you do not challenge your anger, fear, or jealousy, you will die with it.  Growing older does not automatically mean growing kinder or wiser.  Millions of people die angry, frightened, and jealous.  Unless you heal the parts of yourself that are causing you pain, they will not change.  This is because no one can change them but you.

Putting yourself in the position of the other person challenges your anger.  So does the intention to discover the pain that lies beneath your anger.  Putting the needs of another above your own needs challenges your impatience.  Looking for miracles in your life challenges your depression.  Every time you cultivate a part of yourself that you wish to keep, you challenge the parts of yourself that oppose it.  You cannot be grateful and depressed at the same time.  You cannot be angry and joyful at the same time.  The choice is yours.

    An interviewer asked a Tibetan monk.  "Why are you so optimistic?  Tibet may never be free again."

    "Because," answered the monk, "it makes me feel better."

Do you cultivate your inner landscape like this monk, or do you give yourself reasons why you cannot be joyful, grateful, and optimistic?  Cultivating a landscape takes time and effort, vision and perseverance.

Everyone has an inner landscape. You have the power to choose what grows in yours.

                    What is growing in yours now?