SKG Articles: Tevet - Teaching on Anger

We are now in the Hebrew month of Tevet, kabbalistically, perhaps the most challenging month
of the year. Unlike the expansiveness of the previous month of Kislev, when we contact our
dreams and visions and go forward in life, in Tevet, we have a great opportunity to uproot the
remaining negative forces within us and the world. Tevet is known as the time for the purification
of anger and other negative emotions. Most likely, there will be numerous opportunities this
month to see the many different faces of anger and explore them. Remember that the things that
most feel like a thorn in your side provide the greatest opportunities for healing and
transformation.

During this month, we need to take note of what triggers anger within us and try not to be
reactive but give ourselves time to explore the real root of our anger   Most of us hold anger
within us, no matter how much work we have done on ourselves. This month provides a special
opportunity to free ourselves from the hold of anger in our lives though careful respectful self
observation, meditation, prayer and therapy if needed.

We transform and heal our anger most powerfully by accepting the challenges that we face this
month as gracefully as we can. . There is goodness within every challenge you face and nothing
happens by accident. Everything that challenges me and you on the outside is a mirror of what
needs fixing within us. For example, when we understand the root of the negativity in our
encounters with others, and release the hold that the negativity has within us through deep
feeling work, we gain a certain detachment and   loosen our energetic attraction to those kinds
of negative encounters that we experience in your life. When we can let go of people who have
been powerful triggers of challenge in our lives with love and blessing, we can free ourselves
from repeating the similar scenarios with them or others in the future. If we continue to carry the
resentment and anger for previous wrong-doings we experienced in life, we often attract people
and situations that will trigger the same feelings we are defending ourselves against. It is ironic
that it works like that but it often does.

In the month of Tevet, more than other months, we may even find that people appear
unexpectedly from our past and we are now given an opportunity to heal unresolved conflicts and
release anger that we have been carrying inside. According to an astrologer friend, the Venus
retrograde occurring now indicates that we will be confronted with the karma of previous
relationships even more so this month than in previous months of Tevet.

Rabbi Isaac Luria tells us in Gates of Holiness that when we refrain from anger, we engender in
ourselves a spirit of humility and the spirit of the Shechinah can rest upon us. We must however
remember that humility is quite different than low self esteem and self deprecation. Some of us
must learn how to stand up for ourselves, to express our needs and desires in a powerful direct
way, rather than keep our anger and resentment buried inside. Others of us need to learn how
to stand back, to not express our anger, to relax, to trust ourselves and the universe that we are
taken care of. Most of us to what group we pay our dues. Regardless of which group we belong
to, we all need this month to increase our compassion for ourselves and others. Though we work
on forgiveness this month, this does not mean that we condone negative acts or continue to be a
doormat.

Remember that we are all in the month of Tevet together so we need to be extra compassionate
to ourselves and each other if we find ourselves or others becoming more angry this month.
During the month of Tevet, there often is a lot of change. People lose jobs, and friendships
change. Some of our relationships with people and situations that have been disharmonious in
the past may actually heal and become harmonious . We may also find that other relationships
will cease this month because we see that they no longer serve a useful purpose and whatever
karma we had with this person is more than completed.

For additional information about the energy of Tevet, along with meditations, teachings and
exercises on how to transmute anger and negativity, please read my book Kabbalah Month by
Month.

Author: Melinda Ribner
Source: Beit Miriam E-mail Group