Dealing With Anger and Fear

[Ann]

Anger Is Not An Emotion!

Anger is not an emotion. It is an attitude. At best, it is a secondary emotion. A secondary emotion is one that is felt as a result of first feeling a different emotion. An attitude is the mental framework which results from having an emotion and adding your thinking and beliefs to it. Anger would then seem to fit the second definition, that of an attitude. Since many folks are reluctant to say that Anger isn't an emotion, referring to it as a secondary emotion is fine.

Let's take a look at the last time you got angry about something. First off, take a few minutes and think of the last time you got angry about something. It doesn't have to be a major upset, it can be a simple anger, like the nice person that cut you off in traffic today, or finding yourself standing in line again when you have to be somewhere else in eight minutes.

Remember the last time you got angry? It happened (snap!) that fast. Someone said something or did something, or we realized something and (snap!) we're angry!

This is, by and large, what we experience with a simple anger. The nice person cuts us off in traffic, almost causing an accident and we are angry. It is a snap decision. Someone says something and we're angry about it. They insulted us and we are angry. In actuality, there is much more going on here. There are many thoughts and decisions that occur within different parts of our mind before we actually get to the point of anger. These thoughts and decisions take place very fast and very quietly, so that to us, it is practically instantaneous.

Let's look at the situation where someone said something that insulted us. First, we heard the comment. Then we asked ourselves a question, one that we didn't even hear ourselves ask. Then we decided that their comment said something negative about us. We may have realized that their comment may even hold some negative consequences to it, and felt some fear about it. Since we haven't learned yet how to turn hurt and fear into Teachers, we do with them what it is we learned to do with them from watching other people: We Get Angry.

How do we deal with it? Answering these questions might help:

1. What does the event tell you about your "self"? [ Pain from the past.]
2. Is it a positive or a negative message? [ Pain from the past.]
3. Does it push some long ago created button that causes emotional pain?
4. What are the possible outcomes of the event? [ Fear of the future.]
5. Are the outcomes potentially dangerous to you, as when someone cuts you off in traffic, or when they accuses us of something that we haven't done? [ Fear of the future. ]
6. Is there an element of fear there somewhere? [ Fear of the future. ]

And if there is hurt and fear in this, must we not protect and defend ourselves? Even if it's from a minute ago, emotional pain is from the past. Even if it's only a moment in the future, all fear is from the future. Take a look at the last five times you got angry about something. Run these events through the chart above and ask yourself the questions again. Write down your answers. Give the fear and/or hurt that lies behind your anger a name.

This is why anger isn't an emotion. It is hurt or fear or both combined with our need to protect and defend ourselves. So we take our feelings (hurt or fear) and add our thinking to them (the quiet questions we ask ourselves and the decisions we make about the situation based on those answers) and the result is anger.

Behind all anger is fear or hurt or both. These two emotions can teach us a great deal about our "self".

Once we begin to understand the fear and hurt behind our anger, we can begin to heal from the negative basic assumptions we have about ourselves (hurt) as well as to take the opportunities that fear presents.

Fear the Enslaver Turns Teacher

Fear. What is fear? Is it not, as Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous put it, the "realization that self sufficiency may fail us ?" When I am crossing the street and I suddenly see a car coming at me that I didn't notice, I get scared because I realize that I may not get myself across the road in time. Self sufficiency may fail me. When the boss calls me into the office unexpectedly and I am anxious about it, I am afraid that I might have done something wrong, that somewhere along the line, I was insufficient in some way. Again, self sufficiency may fail. Any time I get angry, I need to take my own inventory, I need to stop and examine what is behind the anger. And when I find fear there, I know that I am relying upon myself only in that given situation, that I haven't invited Spirit to help me in this way.

Many of us have never truly developed a real relationship with our Higher Power. And, if we are to work to a point of not having anger in our life, we must remove fear. Another way of saying this is that if we are to remove anger from our lives we must learn not to rely solely upon ourselves to achieve the result that is the best for all involved. If we must not rely solely upon ourselves, we must learn to rely on our Higher Power, in addition to ourselves. We must first trust our Higher Power. I use the term "faith" to describe this relationship: faith = Trust in Our Higher Power.

Faith isn't blind. at least not in my experience. Faith is built over time. After taking risks and trusting Spirit in new ways and ending up Okay in the situation, I began to trust Spirit more and to take larger risks. Just like a friendship develops, faith develops as we work through our fears.

As we begin to ask Spirit for help with these fears, we begin to co-create our lives. Example: I go out and fill out job applications. I have a fear (anxiety) that I won't find a good job. I say to Spirit "I will do the foot work, you find me the right job, guide me to be in the right place at the right time." Or when I need to discuss a touchy topic with someone and I'm afraid that it will turn into an argument: "I will take the risk with this person, Spirit, and will discuss the situation. I need your help in making sure that it doesn't turn out bad. I'll take the risk that if I'm open and honest and calm in stating my truths that you'll help make sure the conversation is a good one." We do what we can and leave the rest (the outcome) to Spirit, trusting that it will be the best for all involved. In this way, as we see time and time again that the outcome is better than we have done on our own in the past, we begin to trust spirit. This new level of faith allows us to co-create our lives as we learn to have less fear and we find that as time goes by we take more risks. The wheel turns, and ewe have fewer fears and more faith.

This is a process, not an event. At first, we sit down with pen and paper, writing down our angers and look at them to see what fears are behind them. In learning what fears are there, we become more in touch with our fears, seeing them before we turn them into anger, for now we have something else to turn them into: faith (trusting our Higher Power).

Fear the Enslaver becomes Fear the Teacher.

* Higher Power is a generic term used to refer to our concept of a Creator or a Creative force in the Universe. Some of us may have Jesus or Buddha in this position, others may have several Gods and Goddess in this role. Whatever your individual case may be, please translate the term "Higher Power" to reflect your individual beliefs.

Fear of the future,
Pain from the Past,
I understand my dilemma
At last, At last!!


Final Note About Anger

There will be times when we get angry. Sometimes, the "now moment" isn't the time to stop, ask ourselves "Is it fear or hurt?" Sometimes we need anger in our lives to protect ourselves. Especially the women in our society who tend to internalize more than men do. Sometimes, when we have a history of not sticking up for ourselves, we need anger to break the cycle. Sometimes in abusive relationships, we need anger to motivate ourselves out of the relationship. Sometimes we need anger to get ourselves out of that lousy job. Anger has it purpose and it's place. But when we are turning our fear and our hurt into anger on a regular and habitual basis because we have never learned another way, we are living in anger.

This affirmation is about not living in it.


What about pain from the past?

The emotional pain behind our anger is usually related to a basic assumption that we have about our "self" and that basic assumption is usually false. These beliefs are often negative beliefs. For example, say we did something "stupid", like locking our keys in the car and someone laughs at us. If we feel stupid for doing it and have a basic assumption that we are stupid, or not intelligent, we get angry with that person. Upon examining the anger, we find that we tend to believe that we aren't intelligent. Examining the origins of this basic assumption, we find that time and time again, we were called stupid when we were a kid or by a spouse or other "big people" in our lives growing up. Perhaps even society has told us we're not as smart as the next one. Even though we may hold a job with responsibility like raising kids and taking care of the home or managing 50 people, even though we may have earned a degree or may have educated ourselves in the use of a computer and the internet --- we still get hurt because of the basic assumption that "we are stupid." This example illustrates how false basic assumptions cause us emotional pain.

Locking our keys in the car and getting mad at someone who is laughing at us may also indicate that we have some fear about the time lost and commitments we need to keep. Either way, our anger can teach us a good deal about what goes on in our quiet consciousness. By taking some time each evening, we can sit down with pen and paper, or in a quiet spot and think about our angers, hurts and fears. We can begin to disbelieve our false basic assumptions and replace them with honest basic assumptions about self. By acknowledging our fears, we can begin to understand what areas of our lives we have yet to co-create with spirit.

In truth, our anger can become one powerful teacher, one that, as time passes, we will need less and less as we continue to learn healthier ways of interacting with the world around us.

From Reiki Teachings

[indigo]

Thank you I can relate to that.
namasté
indigo

[Ann]

Even if it's from a minute ago, emotional pain is from the past. Even if it's only a moment in the future, all fear is from the future.

This jumped out at me. If anger is about fear and pain, and they are about the past and the future, then living in "today" is truly a good way to keep our balance.

Hugs
Ann