Anger is the unannounced visitor that keeps dropping by, again and again.
Some
of us hide, hoping this troublesome guest will go away. Others of us
let it take over, which just leaves us even angrier, without friends,
where we feel isolated, alone and misunderstood.
However, there is
another way. We can make friends with our anger and try to understand
what makes it tick; where it comes from and why it erupts. By so doing,
we create an opportunity to learn a lot more about ourselves and make
real, lasting changes in our relationships.
We get angry at our
partners, our children, the man at the dry cleaner's, the woman cutting
us off on the freeway, our boss who just doesn't understand, our dogs
for barking too much. We get angry, but we rarely understand why.
Anger a powerful emotion:
Anger
is one of the most powerful emotions, and deemed to be one of the most
difficult to deal with. It's also probably the least understood. But for
me anger is highlighting a deeper issue of hurt or pain or even trauma
that is still unresolved. I have come to understand in the work that I
do in healing relationships that it is the underlying issue that is
difficult for many of us to deal with.
Rather than working with
the anger we push it down even deeper. We have got so used to burying
the pain and unconsciously making excuses as to why we feel the way that
we do, which not only intensifies the hidden pain but also forms
behaviours that are not a true reflection of who we are. But one day it
will surface and cause us further hurt and damage, even destroy our
relationships, especially the one that we have with our self, as well as
our health and our job.
Buried emotions will show themselves
eventually in some form or another and that is because of who we are. We
are souls expressing our self through the human journey and as such we
will find avenues in which to release inner pain and suffering. As souls
we have a wonderful gift to express the love of Creation through each
one of us. Our souls are continually growing and expanding our awareness
and in that growth, negative thoughts, beliefs and behaviours will come
to our attention as our inner (soul) light throws a bright light upon
our inner dysfunction.
When you next get anger or feel it
surfacing embrace it; make friends with it and let it show you what the
real issue is. Find out what beliefs are fuelling the emotion and
holding its roots firmly in place in your subconscious. Maybe you also
grew up in a household with angry parents, where anger as he norm of
expression?
When we venture inward and investigate the story, the
anger can just dissolve, or we may need some help. By enquiring within
we can find new ways to transform and heal our anger: -
• By going into the emotion,
allowing ourselves to feel the feeling we can help it to dissolve. A
part of us wants to be heard, so it is up to us to listen and become
more aware. Listening to the emotion and focusing our mind only on the
emotion, we can sense the thoughts coming from the emotion, so we
uncover more of the issue. By writing down those thoughts, assists us in
building inner trust whereby we get to know our self a whole lot more.
Having more clarity diminishes any fear of the anger so it loses its
grip over our behaviours and lessens unfounded future angry reactions.
It also gives us choice to heal.
• Beliefs that triggers the anger.
By looking at our beliefs around our anger can be both surprising and
very enlightening. Seeing what thought patterns are holding the anger in
place presents us with even more choice. We get to clean up negative
thinking and any beliefs built on judgement.
As a brief example
where a mother is constantly yelling at her child to pick their clothes
up and finding herself getting very angry in the process. By going into
the feeling of the anger and connecting with it, the mother may well
find below the anger is a real sense of feeling isolated, alone, not
being listened to or she may hear the distant echo of her mother's voice
yelling at her when very young. She may also uncover beliefs around the
anger such as, " children must be controlled, kept in check",
"children must be punished", "my life would be happier if the people I
lived with weren't so messy", "if I don't keep the house tidy my husband
will be angry with me". Maybe her relationship isn't how she had
hoped it to be and is afraid express her true feelings". Until we go
within we won't know and we deny our self the opportunity for healthy
change.
Anger definitely separates us from ourselves. The soul has
shown me that many gaps exist within us that come from fear and painful
emotions and there is always a root cause, a reason attached to the
thread of the emotion. Those weeds can be rooted out very gently; it
does not have to be a traumatic experience when you venture in. Just
take your time. Be kind to yourself and know that you are uncovering the
absolute wonder of who you are. You are in there!
Know too that you are a real gift to our world.