The Gift of Anger

Interfaith Celebration Gathering

The Gift of Anger

When we humans were created, several quite powerful emotions were automatically installed. We were given the capacity to feel mad, bad, sad, glad and afraid. A few minutes after birth, most of us probably used anger quite loudly. Anger was a very natural reaction to being smacked on our bottoms. This not-so-gentle pat on our tushies was done to encourage us to take our first breath outside the womb.

As we were weighed, measured, and cleaned up immediately after birth, the difference between our safe womb and the bright lights and loud noises was probably quite striking to us, affording us an opportunity to feel mad, bad and afraid. By the time we were placed in our mother’s arms, we were very glad to see her. Thus we experienced all the range of emotions installed in us in a very short time.

Another thing that we came into life pre-programmed to feel was love. Anger (or aversion) and love are the two stimulus-response automatically arising emotions that even single-celled organisms display. All the other emotions that were installed in us are defined by and honed by our experiences with them. Through experiencing fearful situations, we learn how to feel fear. We learn sorrow and sadness by experiencing loss. We learn to feel bad when we have done something wrong, and we learn gladness when we first experience joy, elation, or fun.

Since we came equipped with it, we can reasonably assume that anger (like all our others feelings) has a purpose in our lives. Anger tells us when someone has overstepped our boundaries. (Likewise, other people’s anger tells us when we have crossed their boundaries.) Anger, then, is a wonderful tool for taking care of ourselves. It arises when we feel that we or someone else has been wronged.

Anger can also be a powerful motivator. It fuels our desire to detach from unhealthy situations. Anger at injustice is the basis for our passion for justice. Righteous anger has been the sustaining force for many wars in the course of human history. Without righteous anger, women and minorities would still be second-class citizens, without the privileges they now are supposed to have of full membership in our society. Historically, societal change has only been possible when enough people got angry enough about a wrong or injustice to step forward and do something to create change.

Yet, anger has also been one of the most misunderstood of our emotions. How we feel about anger determines how we handle our own and others’ anger. Many of us do not recognize that feeling angry is not just an automatic thing that happens to us. Thus when we encounter someone or some thing that triggers our anger, we automatically display it in varying degrees. On automatic pilot, we strike back at whatever engendered our anger. We make snide comments, or we rage. We wreak emotional damage on others as we all our anger to gain strength. We even sometimes hit or physically hurt the thing or person(s) that angered us.

Anger, once unleashed, also sometimes takes on a life of its own. With the heightened sense of fight-or-flight, our bodies course with adrenaline. Adrenaline skews our perceptions to the point that we feel we are in charge, we are powerful, and this can be quite an addictive process. People who are prone to the addictive process often become rageaholics, unleashing their anger on anyone whose behavior does not suit the rageaholic. When we are controlled by our anger, we allow it to abuse us as well as others. Many people even feel they have an inalienable right to 'go off' on others when angry.

At the other end of the anger spectrum are the people who hide from their anger, stuffing it inside themselves. When people stuff their anger, it surfaces toward others in a sideways fashion with little digs, smart remarks, or attacks disguised as humor. There are many people who live their whole lives denying that they feel anger, yet wondering why their relationships with others are always so testy. The relationships are testy because they are constantly being torn asunder by sideways anger. When this happens, we end up blaming everyone else for our poor relationships - unfortunately we look everywhere else except inside ourselves for the answers to why people steer clear of us.

So, how do we handle our anger? We need to learn that feeling angry is a choice we make, whether consciously or unconsciously. Since feeling our anger is a choice, we can also choose how we handle our anger when we feel it. We need to put something like taking a few deep breaths or counting to ten in between feeling anger and acting on it. We may even need to walk away from a situation saying we need a time out. Doing this allows us to take a time out so that we can take charge of our anger rather than letting it take charge of us.

During out time out, we need to determine several things about our anger:

1. Is the magnitude of anger we are feeling appropriate? Often the anger that has not been released elsewhere finds release in a wholly inappropriate venue.

2. Are we angry with someone else for things we ourselves do? What we dislike in others are often our own disowned characteristics.

3. What do we need to do to process our anger so that we are then able to talk about it rationally rather than acting it out irrationally on others?

4. What concessions do we require from others, and what concessions are we will to make ourselves?

Once we have determined the answers to these questions, we are then ready to deal successfully with our anger. After we have processed our anger, we can then approach the person or situation that engendered our anger with resolution as our focus rather than retaliation.

Dealing with our anger in this healthy fashion improves all our relationships, especially our relationship with ourselves. Mishandled anger leaves everyone involved lessened by the experience. Unprocessed anger eats away at us inside, requiring precious energy resources to suppress. Unprocessed anger often comes out as cancer. Rather than literally eating away at us, our anger through the cancer physically eats away at us.

God gave us the emotion of anger so that we could better take care of ourselves. When we use it in a healthy fashion, we become worthy of the gift.

May God add a blessing to these humble words.

AMEN