Expressing Anger

Have you ever been the target of someone's anger? And were you their target when you hadn't even done anything wrong?

 

Everyone gets upset. Everyone experiences anger. Getting upset and anger are not inherently bad things. It is how they are expressed that is important.

 

I grew up in an environment were anger was regularly expressed in an unhealthy way. I and others who I loved were often the targets of this anger.

 

By nature, I'm a harmony-seeking person and am deeply impacted and effected by situations where there is conflict and unrest, especially when there seems to be no justifiable reason for it.

 

As a counter to being a target or witness to anger that was being negatively expressed -- I grew to think being upset or anger were wrong altogether. That anger was bad. Period.

 

Over my growing up years as that thinking developed, unknown to me, I began accruing anger of my own. Anger at the anger. And anger from what the anger caused. But it was being suppressed, or coming out in different ways than one may classically identify as anger.

 

So, by the time I was a young adult I had a lot of stuff inside of me -- a lot of anger. And I didn't know what to do with it. I was afraid of it.

 

But over the last few years I have learned something really important. I have learned that feeling anger is not a bad thing. That it is natural, and that in fact, without the ability to feel anger, I would be a lot less likely to avoid things that are harmful to my well-being. That anger can actually be a good thing. And that even some of the anger I had felt and accrued was part of what would ultimately lead me to grasp the important freedoms I would need to take hold of for the future survival of my soul.

 

I learned to admit that I was angry, how to express my anger, and to let it out in a positive way. I also learned to trace it to it's roots, and have thus become more and more unbound by it and the fear of it.

As soon as I understood that being angry was not the bad thing, but that the bad thing was taking it out on other people or expressing it in harmful ways -- I was released from so much. . .

And a door was opened in my soul to deal with my own anger. 

 

I also set a pact with myself; that when I am angry, to not take it out in a way that causes anyone (including myself) harm.

 

Do I fail in this? Sometimes, yes. But am I growing in this? Yes.

It's a process.

 

And it has become one of the most invaluable Gems for me to get ahold of and to seek to practice in the every day life of my soul.