If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
“In your anger, do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
Ephesians 4:26-27
Are you ever angry? What do you do when you feel angry?
That’s quite a question, isn’t it? There are so many ways we might answer it:
- Count to ten
- Take a deep breath
- Explode
- Yell
- Hit something
- Stuff it/cover it
- Stop to figure out why you’re angry and deal with it
What is anger? The dictionary definition is “an intense feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility; a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt, or threat.” No matter how you define it, anger is a strong emotion that’s hard to overlook or just brush off. It’s a reality of life.
We all feel anger at some time. What does yours look like?
I’ll tell you what mine looked like. It was ugly! My face took on a frightening scowl, but I added to that scowl by exploding, yelling, hitting something (or someone), and/or throwing something. Obviously, my response to feeling anger was totally undesirable and inappropriate. It did not get me what I desired—protection, support, or resolution of a situation. Instead, it got me rejected, ostracized, and isolated. Which made me angry!
My anger was my identity ever since I was a little girl. No one tried to understand me and get to the real reason for my anger. They just wanted it to stop. I don’t blame them—I wanted it to stop too, but I didn’t know how to do that. I created a vicious cycle of anger. Something would happen to hurt, frighten, or frustrate me, and when no one helped me, I would get angry. Then people would get mad at me for my behavior, which made me more furious, and on and on it went. How to stop this?
I brought this cycle of anger with me into adulthood.
I carried years of unresolved anger, and I was always on the verge of exploding. I heard someone describe it as a glass filled to the brim with anger, and if it gets bumped even slightly, lots of anger spills out.
Here’s an idea of the power of the anger I constantly felt: In the original Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, there was a scene where Superman was too late to save Lois Lane, and she died. Superman felt such anguish over this that he took off flying as fast as he could around the world, opposite to the earth’s natural rotation. His flight was so fast and powerful that he reversed the earth’s rotation, thereby reversing time so he could go back and save Lois before she died. (Hey, it’s a movie.) But the powerful emotion Superman felt to fly so hard and fast as to reverse the earth’s rotation—that’s like the power of the angry feelings I was constantly holding back. I thought if I could fly that hard and fast around the world, it just might relieve me of my anger.
So what do you do when you feel that much anger?
As an adult, I knew it was wrong to express anger as I did, so I drank to tamp it down and hold it back. Drinking calmed me down for a while, but a calm drunk isn’t much of an improvement over an angry woman. Besides, the alcohol only numbed me. The anger was still there when the alcohol wore off.
Which brings me to my real point regarding anger: Why do any of us feel anger, especially to the extent I did? And what do we do about the anger we feel? Among the list of things I wrote at the beginning of this post regarding what you do when you feel angry, taking a deep breath and counting to ten are excellent ways to begin. The best answer is to stop to figure out why you’re angry and deal with it.
I learned that anger was my secondary emotion.
A primary emotion occurred quickly before the anger came, and if I stopped to figure out what that was, I could avoid the anger. This primary emotion, for example, could be fear, pain (physical or emotional), or frustration.
Of course, considering the intensity of anger I felt, I was like a truck going downhill at high speed—tough to stop, but not impossible. Before reacting when my anger arose, I learned to press my lips together and take a couple of deep breaths. Physiologically, I was stopping the rise of adrenalin that accompanies feelings of anger.
Stopping the adrenalin allowed me to think more clearly, and then I could pinpoint what I was feeling just before the anger came and determine the source. It became easier to resolve issues once the source was revealed.
Anger is not wrong or bad—it’s a feeling we sometimes have.
What makes it wrong or bad is our behavior when angry. God doesn’t tell us not to be angry. Even He gets angry! What He does tell us, though, is to be angry but not sin. My undesirable (sinful) behavior was a habit I developed because I wasn’t taught what to do with the anger that followed the fear, pain, or frustration I experienced as a child. It wasn’t until I stopped drinking and went through counseling that I learned my anger was not inevitable, nor was it my identity, and that there was a way to manage it appropriately.
I gradually dealt with all the issues I covered up with my drinking, and the anger I used to feel is gone entirely. Any anger that comes up now is quickly dissipated. In fact, I rarely feel genuine anger anymore, which leaves me with a lot more energy and a lot more joy in my life!
If you’re troubled with anger issues as I was, don’t let it become your identity or way of life.
Know that there is another way. True, it’s not easy and it takes time, but once you conquer your anger, a great future is waiting for you!
