A Word About Anger

In order to be angry, you have to be bound to a particular position or opinion that is in jeopardy.  Anger is often a response to a threat to our essential need to be right.  It isn’t anger that takes people over.  It is the need to be correct, to be redeemed, to be superior that consumes us in those moments when we succumb to this darkest of emotions.  Anger is just a symptom of something else that is eating away at our souls.

To stay angry, you have to be committed to your position.  You have to be obsessed with your correctness.  You have to be dedicated to emerging victorious over the opinions and views of others.  But the perceived wrongs upon which we become fixated can be buried deep if left unresolved.  The anger may subside.  We may superficially appear to have gotten past the momentary flare-up.  The reality, though, is that negative emotions buried under the surface will slowly erode the foundation of who we are.  Like a fungus or a plague, they will envelop and engulf us, rotting us from within.  Then, with little provocation and with seeming randomness, the unresolved issues come percolating to the top, and we reveal the extent to which the hidden injuries have affected us by displaying anger.  

My unsolicited advice to you is to embrace your emotions when they hit you.  Feel the anger of the moment.  Embrace it.  Allow it to reveal itself fully.  Then, consider the “why” behind your anger.  Consider what it would mean to your essential, spiritual self if you simply accepted the wrong against you as a manifestation of someone else’s hurt.  The vast majority of the time, the things others do to make us angry are much more about that other person than about us.  Understand that it is THEIR pain to deal with and that the wrong is their attempt to transfer that pain, to suck you into their misery.  Don’t allow yourself to be a victim of someone else’s injured, angry ego.

Someone gave me the following advice:
  
Focus on the injury
Send it your purest, most sincere love
Tell it that you are sorry
Ask it for forgiveness
Thank it for the lessons that it taught you

Then, release it.

Love is more powerful than hate.  Compassion is more powerful than anger.  Love and compassion directed at the self are the highest sources of healing.  

As with all healing, it begins with our attitude towards ourselves.