One of my biggest takeaway lessons from counseling (and if you are working through your own demons I’m sure it’s one you’ve heard before) is that anger is a secondary emotion.
That notion has become so engrained into my psyche that I have made it a practice to try my best to sit in anger rather than act on it.
Sitting with my anger has helped me to peel back layers and uncover the primary emotion that is responsible for my mad.
Once I get to the root of the problem I can process the problem and I find that my anger dissolves and my awareness strengthens.
I think anger is our brains way of protecting us from having to deal with the discomfort of all those other feelings. Feelings like hurt, fear, disappointment, embarrassment and the like.
Anger puts up a dismissive wall. It makes us feel indifferent and invincible and like we have the upper hand when what we’re actually feeling is vulnerability.
The proverbial “they” can say vulnerability is strength all they want but it sure as shirt feels like weakness.
Although recently I was pretty angry. The kind of anger that festers in your chest for days on end and I thought, “you know what? Anger IS a primary emotion because I’m forking pissed.”
It was the kind of anger that made me miserable and because misery loves company I was in pursuit of recruits.
And just when my certainty was about to boil into confrontation, I came face to face with the thing I was angry at and y’all.
I burst into tears.
And in that moment, a quote I had seen online came to mind.
‘I sat at with my anger long enough that she told me her real name was sadness.’
I think my anger thought it was helping me by holding back my tears but the truth is that recognition and subsequent release was what my spirit needed to soften.
All that to say- the next time you find yourself angry and ready to react, I’d like to offer you an invitation to instead…reflect.
For as long as it takes.
Pause and peel and ponder what your brain is trying to protect you from. Feeling is uncomfortable and hard and sometimes unbearable but if we’re feeling we’re healing and, friends, we are worth our healing.
If you like what you read, I wrote a book.
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