Yellow Cake
09/09/09 17:37 Filed in: Emotions
Of all the emotions, anger is probably most maligned. What do you associate with anger? Yelling, pushing, hurting, breaking? Or maybe you have been on the receiving-end of the silent treatment? Fundamentally, anger is an emotion, like any other: it is an internal state of being. But terms like “getting angry” lead us to think of anger as a behaviour, not a felt sense. Other emotions, like sadness or fear, are more associated with their internal sensations, like feeling heavy, or restless.
In the same way that other emotions are profoundly useful and needed parts of our lives (how do we grieve without sadness? how do we avoid danger without fear?), anger is an essential component of healthy living and relating to others. To get an idea of what life would be like without it, think about how you would feel if you were accused of a crime you didn’t commit. Without anger, you would meekly sit there, and accept your punishment.
Too often, though, anger becomes a problem not so much for its absence, but for it being all-too-present. Rage, or unchecked anger, is something to justifiably be afraid of.
So what to do with anger? I suggest you think of anger the same way you might think about uranium: You can use it to make a big explosion, which leads to harmful destruction; you can swallow it, in which case it will do you harm internally; or you can use it to generate power (of course, here the metaphor breaks down - anger power doesn’t create the toxic waste that uranium power does!).
So the next time you feel angry, consider how you can channel your anger in such a way that it makes you more powerful. You may find then that you are able to use that power to put right the wrong actions that made you angry in the first place. Or, to put it another way: ‘don’t get mad; get justice.’
In the same way that other emotions are profoundly useful and needed parts of our lives (how do we grieve without sadness? how do we avoid danger without fear?), anger is an essential component of healthy living and relating to others. To get an idea of what life would be like without it, think about how you would feel if you were accused of a crime you didn’t commit. Without anger, you would meekly sit there, and accept your punishment.
Too often, though, anger becomes a problem not so much for its absence, but for it being all-too-present. Rage, or unchecked anger, is something to justifiably be afraid of.
So what to do with anger? I suggest you think of anger the same way you might think about uranium: You can use it to make a big explosion, which leads to harmful destruction; you can swallow it, in which case it will do you harm internally; or you can use it to generate power (of course, here the metaphor breaks down - anger power doesn’t create the toxic waste that uranium power does!).
So the next time you feel angry, consider how you can channel your anger in such a way that it makes you more powerful. You may find then that you are able to use that power to put right the wrong actions that made you angry in the first place. Or, to put it another way: ‘don’t get mad; get justice.’
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