Anger: The Consuming Flame Within
I have been told many times in my life that I seem angry, when I didn’t feel that way at all. When I was younger I would just get impatient and frustrated, but as I got older I began to do some self reflecting to try and diagnose why I appeared angry so often.
Anger, an intense emotion, often directs our energy away from constructive action, becoming an emotional and reactionary force. While some argue that anger can motivate improvement, it's crucial to recognize it as a complex emotion, often a secondary response to primary feelings like fear, offense, or disrespect. These underlying emotions, if intense enough, morph into anger.
Here is an excerpt from Jon Gordon’s newsletter THE POSITIVE TIP 2/27/2024. Click here to subscribe.
The Problem with Anger
I spoke at a large event in Dallas this past week. One of the speakers who spoke before me told the audience that you have to get angry in order to be successful and that anger should drive you. Most of the men in the audience cheered. They loved hearing this, and they loved him for saying it.
It occurred to me that a large majority of people today are drawn to angry speakers, angry commentators arguing on television, and angry messages because they feel powerless, and anger gives you a feeling of power. It’s why so many men who have been hurt and wounded in their past love it.
Anger gives you fuel that transforms depression and helplessness into energy and action. You no longer feel like a victim, and it feels better to be angry than sitting on your couch feeling fearful and sorry for yourself.
The problem with anger is it’s like steroids of the soul. You think you need it because it makes you feel better, but it’s temporary and doesn’t last. Like a drug, you have to keep returning to it to feel powerful and have an edge, but like a drug, it’s actually destroying you on the inside.
Anger fuels your past hurts and wounds. It doesn’t heal them. And unfortunately, anger prevents you from healing. While it makes you feel less like a victim, you are still victimizing yourself with it.
So, if anger isn’t the solution, what is?
Love is the answer. Love is what heals and restores you. Love is more powerful than fear. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love sustains you, drives you, and provides you with the real power to create sustained success.
Gordon’s perspective on anger is both poignant and profound. In one statement he says all that needs to be said about anger,
“Anger fuels your past hurts and wounds. It doesn’t heal them. And unfortunately, anger prevents you from healing. While it makes you feel less like a victim, you are still victimizing yourself with it.”
Anger is brutal because of this, you can’t heal. It impedes healing by anchoring us to our past adversities, blocking the path to recovery.
The coexistence of anger and forgiveness within the heart is impossible, where forgiveness symbolizes the absence of anger. A life without forgiveness is an existence of pure misery.
The hope for us all lies in mastering our emotions, learning to navigate them in ways that exclude anger from our repertoire. Through understanding and addressing the primary feelings that precede anger, we can embark on a journey toward emotional freedom and resilience, fostering an environment where love, not anger, prevails.
So, as a result of this lesson I have learned over the years about anger, I also learned that my appearance of being angry was not just an appearance after all, but a true emotion that was deep internally. It existed because of my inability to manage by emotions to the point that my emotions often managed and ran my life.. I have learned to be more aware of my emotions, so that I can let love prevail in my life.
Expect to Win!
#xp2win
