Here’s an interesting paradox.
Only the pain of anger can tell us who we really are.
And yet, anger is the mood we are the worst at controlling.
Because most of us never learned how to allow that emotion to work for us. Our parents and teachers never told is that we could actually domesticate and metabolize anger before it turned into resentment. What a concept.
Lincoln was a master at this during his presidency. Whenever he felt the urge to tell someone off, he would compose one of his famous hot letters before going to sleep. The president would pile all of his anger into the note, set it aside until his emotions calmed down, and then write at the bottom, never sent, never signed.
What’s your ritual for discharging anger? What’s your emotional catharsis for letting it all out, without the repercussions of true engagement?
Each of us needs this kind of tool. Because when situations arise that provoke genuine appropriate anger, we need outlets for discharging it. Otherwise those feelings are going to find a home in our body.
Pohl’s book on how to restore physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance makes an interesting point on anger. The doctor writes:
In the same way that lightning always finds a path to ground, feelings always find a path to expression. And if we don’t allow ourselves to feel and talk about them, then they invariably come out sideways in indirect forms via our unhealthy, defeating or explosive behavior.
Proving, that anger isn’t unhealthy, the way we’re expressing it is.
Next time you get the sudden and uncontrollable urge to choke one of your coworkers with a phone charger, try taking your anger and putting it into your pen.
Start writing an angry letter to that person, and by the time you’re done, you’ll be signing it with love.
Or, not even signing it at all.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
When anger dares you, will you rise to the occasion?* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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