Is Anger a Gift?
I wrote last month’s column on depression. This month I want to share some thoughts on anger, a first cousin to depression. Depression is called anger turned inward; a person becomes depressed, in part, because they are afraid to express their anger. Anger does not seem like a friend; in the array of God given emotions one often wonders what anger is doing there.
Anger is present from birth. It seems at first to reflect the fact that basic needs were not immediately met. Anger develops as a response to separation from parents, and the return of parents to the young child’s sphere of influence. There are two kinds of anger: the anger of despair and the anger of hope. The anger of despair arises from abandonment by the parents, for longer than the child can tolerate, or complete abandonment. The anger of hope is set off by the return of the parent; if the parent feels repentant enough about the absence the thought is that the parent will stay and not leave again.
Anger begins at the beginning of life. Anger is a part of the relationship fabric that nurtures and sustains a person. In the array of emotions which a person is endowed with anger is one among many emotions; love, sadness, shame, guilt, happiness are several other of the emotions which we experience as well.
Like other emotions, traits, and talents anger and the responses to it must be experienced over and over again. Constructive expressions of anger and approaches to situations, which provoke anger, need to be learned. Learning occurs through doing, observing, and watching how it occurs in the multiplicity of life situations in the course of one’s life. If one has to deny his/her anger, it will become fragmented. A person will feel wrong or bad if they feel angry feelings. Anger may become repressed if a person witnesses or is a victim of anger expressed in a fashion to shame another. Anger, expressed as uncontrollable rage, or vengeance, or power of one over another can push one’s anger consciously or unconsciously into the background of one’s life experience. The belief is that there is a penalty to either feel angry, or to express it. One will not confront the anger because of the potential of harm to one’s self or to the other.
People of faith constantly struggle with anger in the context of their beliefs about a world of peace, and God who inspires love and compassion, and a Creation, which is good. Many religious traditions reveal anger and related emotions either directly or indirectly in their histories, traditions, and sacred texts. In both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament there is portrayed a God who becomes intensely angry. The divine wrath is stems from the constant revelation of a God who cares deeply about what people do to one another, the way people are mistreated, used, abused, treated in so many ways unjustly. Whether God’s activity and passion for the well being of people are seen through caring acts done by ordinary persons, or whether as a Christian will read the New Testament and see that Jesus experiences the full range of human emotions anger has a real and important place in the lives or religious people. A person’s life’s journey has embedded within it experiences which bring on anger.
Anger is experienced, expressed, referred to or implied in much of religious history and religious writings. The individual task, when it comes to anger, is to know what is , as one has said holy energy or mere bitterness and hatred. The person striving to be in control of his/her own anger will want and need to know the source of the anger and ways to manage it. In this way they will know that they are also being faithful to their religious beliefs.
There are practical strategies and effective ways to identify the source of anger and to learn how to direct it. So often in the consulting room the role anger plays in a person’s journey to healing is huge. A course of study, which I do on an individualized basis with people who sign up for it, teaches a person to befriend his/her anger, learn some strategies to understand how the person has come to deal with anger the way they do, and to learn strategies for how to manage it better. The Real Solution Anger Control Workbook, which I use, is a helpful tool to employ to accomplish these goals.
Anger can be a gift for you: it is a part of who you were created to be. Its energy, passion, and power, is a powerful force for health and healing, for you and for those around you.
Dr. Paul Melrose
