Think Mars. Think about anger and sex. Energy and agression which stem from this planet. Do you think this planet may be more important than we realize? It deal with raw primal energy in our lives. The more I ponder it, how we deal with our anger, agression and energy determines a good part of who we are and our lives. Now where is that punching bag?
People avoid relating totally because of their anger of what has happened with other relationships.
People avoid people because of unprocessed anger. Probably anger is one of the least processed feelings I know and the one that gets distorted the most often.
Anger can shape a personality, relationship and attitude towards the world. It can sabatoge us when we least expect. It can distract us to the point of having a car accident. It can have us blowing up at a new friend who may have said diddly squat, but just the same reminded us of a past hurt. Anger is nearly always at the base of a murderer's psche. Anger fuels great art, music and self-expression too.
Most people look at anger as a feeling, an ugly one. Why not look at it as a feeling which motivates us to do soemthing about a situation or clear it out? Sometimes we are even embarassed to look at our anger and its consequent acts.
Are you ready for the topper? Through many years of therapy, I learned that anger is not so much a feeling but a defense mechanism to protect one from hurt. Think about it.
I also learned that anger is hurt gone too far. I see that correlation with ease. If you don't say: ouch, that statment or what you did hurt my feelings- , you could easily get angry and angrier about the hurtful situation. So is the time to talk or one of the ways to prevent anger from brewing might be speaking of our feelings before they get to rage?
There is also the issue that many cannot deal with hearing we are angry or hurt. They react and their reactions form their lives and our interactions with them. How might we learn to state our feelings in a less accusatory way? And then there are the people who always hear us as accusing them of something even when we aren't . They have heard a lot of anger in their lives.
What are your feelings here? How do you view anger
Consider this quote: If you knew the secret history
of those you would like to punish
you would find a sorrow and suffering
enough to disarm, all your hostility
That always sets me back when I read it.
Then there is another issue: when is the time to walk away from a hurtful situation because the other person cannot hear us? When there can be no resolution. How many of you have done that? Were you really sure there was no resolution or was it more comfortable to walk away?
Take a quiet moment. Think about your anger and how it might have shapped or determined your life. Has it been a strong force.?
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Thursday, July 16
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- Jacqueline Bigar
- I write for King features. Many of you have seen me on TV, read me in your newspaper or visit my webpage----www.JacquelineBigar.com.
10 comments:
There are many things to think about in this post! I can sure see your point about anger being a defense to protect from hurt. Thanks for the insight. Guess I'd better get this lesson figured out because it will certainly come back again.
Hi Jacqueline
I agree that "anger is hurt gone too far". I was deeply hurt by my best friend in March of this year. I knew I was hurt, but whenever I talked about it, emotional anger is what came out. It is a hurt that can't be reconciled because he will not answer calls or emails. When one is hurt that badly, days do not seem like they have passed. 7 months seems like yesterday. I keep thinking I'm ready to move on, and accept and forgive, then something happens to remind me of the friendship we once had, and I have to start all over again.
Sadly, the only person who would understand my anger and be able to talk about it, is the person who hurt me. So I hold it in and go on with my daily life and try to be a good person and not hurt people, and hope that one day, I will not cry anymore.
That is how I deal with anger.
When I was a very young Leo I was spoiled rotten, got everything my way, and had ZERO patients. My Gemini mother started dating my future Gemini stepfather who does everything excrutiatingly slow. After about 10 years of being late for everything, I finally learned patients which comes in handy for those rare time that I actually become furious. There are times in life when the world spirals out of control and all we can do is try to hold on and hope to survive. But there are times, especially when we can keep our faculties instead of "blind rage", we can calculate and manipulate this anger to bring about a form of resolution.
When a drunk gives me slack in a bar, or a woman is exceptionally rude during a social gathering, instead of throwing a punch or scream profanities, I get within inches of there face and calmly find ways of infuriating them further.
That's the extreme, and confrontations of this sort with the extremely unstable may inflict bodily harm upon your person, but a patient person can also see the warning signs to know when to just ignore the beligerant and bow out gracefully.
On the opposite extreme, there are "inconvieniences" such as a friend starting an exerise regimine without you because you were running 10 minutes late. Though you may internalize their callous behaviour, it is best to let aknowledge the anger for what it is (a violation of personal respect) and try to internally forgive the incident.
I guess what I'm saying is try to respect others as you would wish to be respected and when we find disrespectful activities we can either choose to ignore the action or try to bring about a change in the action's behaviour to find a more respectable outcome. Be warned however, as you can't always change the world.
May I ask a question Lisa? and I use you figuratively...why must everything be a lesson in life? Why do we choose to think that way? Is it the Purtian-Quaker roots of this country?
The tone of "lesson" to me implies hardship. If we add some joy to our lives, we might smile more and ne happier as individuals, people and a country.
How wonderful you used this blog to remind yourself to be more sentive of hurt as opposed to anger.
Thank you,
Jacquie
Hi whispers..
I did manage to copy and paste your note as I found I wanted to talk about. so here goes:
I agree that "anger is hurt gone too far". I was deeply hurt by my best friend in March of this year. I knew I was hurt, but whenever I talked about it, emotional anger is what came out. It is a hurt that can't be reconciled because he will not answer calls or emails. When one is hurt that badly, days do not seem like they have passed. 7 months seems like yesterday. I keep thinking I'm ready to move on, and accept and forgive, then something happens to remind me of the friendship we once had, and I have to start all over again.
+++ I am sorry to see you locked in rage. By trying to deal with him, you are increasing your rage.
I ask you: who in your life turned their back on you when you had strong feelings? This is not about him but about you and your past. Make a list of every person, starting with Mommy or Daddy if need be.
He is only a symbol of people ignoring your feelings or not caring how you feel.
Resolution does not come from the other person and talk. It always comes from within. +++
Sadly, the only person who would understand my anger and be able to talk about it, is the person who hurt me.
+++ He cannot possibly identify with you or he would have made amends. He also probably would not done what he did-which I can only imagine.+++
So I hold it in ---+++++
NO! Please get some help working this through. Aren't you angry at him for ignoring you? I would be. Start now saying how you feel. Talk to the sofa and pretend it is him and take a nerf(sponge) baseball bat and let him have it while sharing your feelings. Cry. Or get a punching bad and dress it up as him. But get it out -for you.
When anger is held in like this it comes out in physical illness more often than not...
Take care of you. Please.+++
and go on with my daily life and try to be a good person and not hurt people, and hope that one day, I will not cry anymore.
++++cry more. yell more. get it out+++
If I did not publish your comment, please write me at JacquelineBigar@aol.com. I think I missed some and a couple I held, mainly because I was not clear as to who "you" was.
Thank you,
Jacquie
I have comments on a couple of subjects -
Wisprjet - My mom always says "You have to get the bad out so there is room for the good to come in". I think this is true. Take care of yourself.
Jacquie,
I don't think of lessons as being a hardship. Some can be great fun and an adventure. Seems like if you don't pay attention and build your strengths, you repeat the same painful scenes. If you do learn, life is much more joyful. My mess at work is somewhat of a repeat of something that happened around 14 years ago. I didn't handle it well then. We will see if I do better this time around.
Hi Jacqueline
I have given a lot of thought to what you have said.
Thank you for caring
Wisprjet
What I forgot to say Whispers, I am sorry you have had to experience this terrible hurt. But I remind you there are ways, there really are of processing the pain without the person.
I wish you the best. I do.
Thank you Lisa
Wisprjet
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