An Episode About Anger | Jacoby Ballard
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 6 July 2022
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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In this episode, the social justice educator and activist Jacoby Ballard talks about a universal, or near universal, issue: anger. And, he offers us two mental skills that can help channel anger into something even more powerful and effective. Those skills are forgiveness and equanimity.
Ballard is a meditation and yoga teacher and the author of a new book called, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation
Content Warnings: There are some brief references to sensitive topics, including trauma and suicide.
In this episode we talk about:
- How he went from an activist largely fueled by anger to a dharma teacher with a very different approach
- The sometimes useful role of anger in activism and the danger of being stuck in anger mode
- The subtle but powerful move of getting in touch with what is beneath our anger
- Using annoyance as a jumping off point for inner investigation
- Ways to work with anger and learning to discharge the energy in our body
- Forgiveness, including forgiving ourselves
- Getting over our need to be right
- Equanimity, or as Jacoby calls it, his "tussle with equanimity"
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jacoby-ballard-470
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% happier podcast. |
| 0:06.3 | I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:09.1 | Hello. |
| 0:10.8 | Okay. |
| 0:11.8 | Today we're going to talk about what I suspect is a universal or at least near universal |
| 0:16.4 | issue. |
| 0:17.4 | Anger. |
| 0:18.4 | Speaking personally, this is one of my most prominent inner struggles. |
| 0:21.6 | Anger can be clarifying and motivating, but it can also make me extremely stupid. |
| 0:27.5 | Most of the apologies I've had to issue in my life are the result of my having been carried |
| 0:32.6 | away by rage. |
| 0:34.8 | Today though, we're going to talk not just about anger, but also about two mental skills |
| 0:39.0 | that can help us channel our anger into something even more powerful and effective. |
| 0:44.4 | And those skills are forgiveness and equanimity. |
| 0:47.9 | My guest is Jacobi Ballard, who's a meditation and yoga teacher. |
| 0:52.0 | We talked about how he went from an activist who was largely fueled by anger to a Dharma |
| 0:58.1 | teacher who has a very different but no less committed approach. |
| 1:02.6 | We talked about this sometimes useful role of anger in activism and other aspects of |
| 1:06.6 | life, but the danger of being stuck in anger mode. |
| 1:10.9 | We talked about the subtle but powerful move of getting in touch with what is beneath |
| 1:15.1 | our anger, using annoyance as a jumping off point for inner investigation. |
| 1:21.6 | Basic ways to work with anger, including sitting for tea with it, which I changed to having |
... |
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