Nearly everyone of us knows someone who always seems to be Angry at everything (the world)? You might just know someone but just never really took time out to observe this persons behavioral pattern. While growing up as a young boy, I realized that my mom - a single parent at the time, would get angry every time she would come back from work. She would begin to go on-and-on, complain about every single thing, and eventually became apart of her life. It became to the point that if she wasn’t angry at someone or something she wouldn’t feel right about herself.
Sometimes when we feel anger, it is coming from a deep place that demands response and expression. However, anger can also become a habit, our go-to emotion whenever things go wrong. If you look at today’s society, more and more we are seeing habitual anger manifesting itself in people’s emotions. Often this is because, for whatever reason, we feel more comfortable expressing anger than we do other emotions, like sadness. It can also be that getting angry gives us the impression that we’ve done something about our problem. In these cases, our habitual anger is holding back both our ability to express our other emotions and to take action in our lives.
If it’s true that anger is functioning this way in your life, the first thing you might want to try is to notice when you get angry. For example, you could notice that it is always your first response or that it comes up a lot in one particular situation. If the pattern doesn’t become clear right away, you could try keeping a journal about when you get angry and see if you can find any underlying meaning.
One of good things about keeping a journal is that you can explore your anger more deeply in it—from examining who in your family of origin expressed a lot of anger to how you feel when you encounter anger in others. This kind of awareness can very well be the medium to your transformation.
Anger can be a powerful partner, since it is filled with energy that we can control and use to create change in the world. Anger is one of the most energizing emotions, and it can also be a very effective cleanser of the emotional system. However, when it becomes a habit, it actually loses its power to transform and becomes an obstacle to growth. Identifying the role anger plays in your life and restoring it to its proper function can bring new energy to your emotional life.
What role is anger playing in your life?
