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Is it wrong
to feel angry?
A good question. Certainly anger is not a comfortable feeling to have. It may be
a slow smoldering feeling burning us up inside, or perhaps a fierce boiling
feeling ready to overflow into words and actions at any moment.
Actually the feeling of anger is very simply the reaction inside us to something
someone has done or said or an event that has occurred.
When do you feel angry?
"I feel angry when someone has let me down, lied to me or ignored me. Beneath
that is a need in me to be valued which has not been met."
"Sometimes I feel angry over an injustice and that spurs me on to do something
about it, if I can."
There is nothing morally wrong about feeling anger at something, but most of us
would agree that it would be wrong of me to hit my husband, because I was angry
with him. What we do with our anger is so important.
Destructive
anger
Feelings of
anger may not last, but we can develop an attitude of anger, which is not
actually an emotional thing. It's when we hold on to our anger, offence and
resentment, nursing it and feeding it, so it grows. Bitterness can follow on and
hardness of heart, an unwillingness to forgive and a desire to hurt someone and
make them pay. That sort of anger can be very destructive - it tends to distort
our view of reality, making it even harder for us to forgive and heal a
relationship.
We can become
more and more focused on the injury, the injustice or hurt. It draws all our
focus onto our hurt, onto the issue. We no longer see the other person's point
of view. We withdraw into ourselves, trying to punish them, even by our
coldness. It kills relationships.
Some people
never realise the damage until their loved one dies. Have you come across people
in this situation? Something happened to cause anger and disagreement and the
situation was never dealt with properly. Over the years the hurt and bitterness
grows. Death brings them face to face with a different set of values. Suddenly
it's too late to put things right and the hurt doesn't seem as important as it
once was. Their eyes blinded by anger and unforgiveness are finally opened to
what they really lost.
Handling
Anger
What do we do if
we discover anger has taken a hold of us? Admitting that the anger is there is a
good start.
We all have
different ways of handling anger that we've learnt as we grew up. Some of us
can't handle it, we let it pour out of us like molten metal, burning everything
in range.
We may hold it
in, smolder and become more and more resentful, or we may boil over quickly and
it's all gone.
The trouble is
if we boil over, the damage may be done before we've calmed down. Words can be
said that cannot be easily forgotten.
Anger often
makes us lose sight of others’ needs totally and focus only on our own hurt.
It's amazing what a keen sense of justice and injustice we have when we're the
injured party.
Perhaps
something between the two is better. If we can hold on to our angry words long
enough to think rationally about things, then we may manage to make some
decisions about what to do with our anger. Anger can be expressed calmly. It can
be expressed in a way that doesn't seek to destroy another person. It can be
used to push us into sorting a problem out with someone else rather than just
brushing it under the carpet. Ross-Campbells' book,
How to Really Love Your Teenager
has a really good section on handling anger, which is good for adult
relationships as well as parenting.
The hurt behind
the anger may be very real. We may need to talk about it, either with our
partner or with someone we can trust. If you talk with your partner, try and
remember they may not have intended hurting you and may regret it.
Forgiveness is
an important step - making a decision not to demand revenge. It's hard to do
this if we have a sense that someone is "getting away with something". We may
need to remember some of our own past mistakes and what it meant to us to be
forgiven. It takes a lot of courage to face up to mistakes and to own up to
them. One never knows what reception one may get. Treat others as you wish to be
treated yourself.
We may need to
say sorry to our loved one for holding onto the anger and being unforgiving. It
may also help to recognize how we were hurt. Perhaps we were expecting too much
of our partner; perhaps we were too easily offended or too sensitive.
Some good advice
I've heard at a wedding was never to let the sun go down on a quarrel or anger.
It is always possible to start the healing process by saying sorry for hurtful
words. A good nights sleep and time to reflect may bring some wisdom on how to
sort things out further. Using conflict constructively to sort out problems and
resolve issues can really strengthen a relationship.
At the end of
the day what is more important - your relationship or giving vent to your anger
and sense of being wronged?
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