Healthy Anger

You guys, we gotta keep our anger under wraps. Now, here's the thing. I actually believe anger is quite healthy; losing ourself in our anger is a whole different story. 

Have you seen Inside Out? If not, you totally should. It does such a fantastic job of describing the importance of all emotions, even anger. You just can't let that guy steer the ship. 

Anger is vital. It charges us to fight for what is right. It directs our attention with a different kind of focus. We need it. But we can't hang there and live in anger with everyone all of the time. First of all, living in anger is toxic to us.

But it is also toxic to our relationships. People gotta be free to make mistakes and to be honest. What's really dangerous is our fear of anger. We won't let ourselves feel angry because it isn't "nice." We don't want to make other people angry, so we keep things shallow only saying what we discern the other person wants to hear. Then some days we just all blow up and we're all, "Where did that come from?" 

We're actually responding and operating with unhealthy anger. Probably a good dose of us have experienced someone with a touch of unhealthy anger. Heck! We've probably practiced it ourselves. I believe practicing healthy anger looks a little more like love. You see, maybe it's kind of scary for you to speak the truth and the only way you can really be honest with someone is to get mad enough to say it. I get it. I've done it. It's a self-preservation kind of thing. But we want to be in the business of relationship-preservation kind of thing. We want to be on Team People, not Team Self.

So practice on someone safe. Just yesterday, I was hurt by my mom's response to something that felt like a pretty big deal. My knee-jerk reaction is to sulk and give her the ol' cold shoulder. But whenever I just spilled my guts and my fears and why that action was hurtful, it was healing for both of us. And guess what. After getting all of that out, I realized all that anger was based in a fear that had absolutely nothing to do with her response. It had everything to do with something completely different that I was hurt by. 

So sometime being honest ends really well. Other times, people can't handle honesty; they don't wanna hear it. But hearing the truth, not being driven by fear really is the best for all of us. We need it. Be angry. It's good. Just learn how to express it in love. 

All the love to you, my friends.

Stop being angry!
Turn away from your rage!
Do not lose your temper--
it only leads to harm. 
Psalm 37:8-9

x Keely

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