How Your Anger Can Actually Heal You

Anger.  It’s hard to live with, harder to live without, right?

I agree.

Whether you are confrontational or passive aggressive, no matter how you handle anger, you and everyone around you is affected by your anger.

Some people will give you techniques to “manage” it. Others will teach you how to “get rid” of it. I’m sure you’ve even adopted a few homegrown ways to “avoid” it.

I don’t know about you, but none one of those approaches worked well for me.

The more I avoided anger, the more it showed up like a bad cold.  It never seemed to never go away and there was no vaccine in sight. In between dreading it and trying to outrun it, I tried talking  me “off the angry ledge”, as if I could reason with it – that was a joke.

At one point I even tried analyzing it, believing if I could know WHY it was there, it would dissipate.  But that failed too.

The more I focused on anger the more it seemed to come.

Is anger a driving force in your life?

To find out, answer these 8 statements from Mental Health to see if any ring true for you.

1. I don’t show my anger about everything that makes me mad, but when I do – look out.

2. I still get angry when I think of the bad things people did to me in the past.

3. I sometimes lie awake at night and think about the things that upset me during the day.

4. I find it very hard to forgive someone who has done me wrong.

5. I get angry with myself when I lose control of my emotions.

6. After arguing with someone, I hate myself.

7. People really irritate me when they don’t behave the way they should, or when they act like they don’t have the good sense of a head of lettuce.

8. When I get angry, frustrated or hurt, I comfort myself by eating or using alcohol or other drugs.

If you answered “true” to any of them – congrats – you’re human!

If you found #1, #5, #6 or #8 to be true, you tend to like to make YOU wrong when you get angry. If any of the rest were true for you, you’re making EVERYONE ELSE wrong when you get angry.

Regardless who takes the beating for your temper tantrum, you should know it’s all normal - you’re alive!

What isn’t normal is letting anger take over your life.  No matter how good it feels at the time, even if you’ve been really “wronged”, it isn’t serving you.

But it could…

What if you became aware of your anger and didn’t resist it?

Trying to suppress your anger, or push it under the carpet to “keep the peace” is just delaying the inevitable. If you do react, and end up feeling guilty or even worse angry with yourself, you’re telling YOU your feelings don’t matter. (You might even be telling yourself it’s not ok to be angry.)

How are these techniques working out for you?

How would you feel if I met you, shook your hand, looked you in the eye and simply said, “Let’s get one thing straight, we can only hang out if your emotions never impact my day because I don’t have time for hurt feelings and drama on either side.” (Not good, I bet)

The sad thing is, I don’t need to tell you anything, because you’re doing enough damage on your own!

Every time you ignore your emotions, YOU’RE the one confirming YOU don’t matter.

Even if someone comes out and says, “You don’t matter”, it means nothing unless you believe them. No one can steal your power – you choose to give it away; even trying to ignore it or resist it is futile – it’s just a matter of time until it surfaces.

Trying to resist anger by ignoring it is like starving and not eating despite the fact there’s a plate of food right in front of you. The more you focus on your hunger, the hungrier you usually get. Even if you’re able to ignore you’re hunger for a while, it will still be there later. (You might even be even hungrier, right??)

Why would being angry be any different than being hungry?

You can use anger to see what is really happening, acknowledge it, and be grateful for the opportunity to clear the block you already had. Accepting the situation “as is” and finding the common trigger for the situations you’re holding onto will give you clarity to see the lesson you keep bringing to yourself.

Put a different meaning to this “lesson” anger is bringing to you.  It’s just doing its job – trying to get you to pay attention!

Any person who evokes any emotion, “good” or “bad”, should be seen as an angel who is trying to help you see the truth.  Your alleged enemies, the job you hate, or the verbally abusive relationship you might be in are just your way of bringing to you the emotions you require to experience in order to grow.

You are powerful.

You are loved.

And no one has the power to make you feel or be anything you don’t want to experience.

Stop resisting emotions like anger or sadness and accept you need them to experience growth.  Through a higher sense of awareness you can give them the space to come and go which will give you a feeling of incredible freedom – finally knowing there is nothing for you to “do” or “change” or “solve”!

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Posted in: Outrageous