Anger

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The chapter this week in Fresh Brewed Life is called: Interview your anger. Her whole point is that when we find ourselves exploding at our spouses or kids over minor things (laundry, dishes etc), we need to interview ourselves to find out what it is that we're really angry about. She talks about how women are so afraid to admit that they are angry because we're afraid of anger, and we don't want to be labeled as angry. So we stuff, bury, hide, avoid, deny, close up and shut down. Wow...quite the list.

I remember when Joel and I were first together, I was afraid to even disagree with him. I had been through a very brutal time with my ex-fiance and I was afraid to get angry with Joel because I was terrified that he would leave me. I thought that being in a relationship meant that I had to bury my emotions and make sure I never did anything to 'rock the boat'. Joel was awesome. He told me time and time again that it was okay to fight once in a while, and assured me that he wouldn't leave me. It took me quite a while to learn that one.

I loved this quote in the book by Harriet Goldhor-Learner, "Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on self and less of an expert on others". I know there is some underlying anger in my life that I'm going to have to unearth and deal with so that I don't blame my loved ones (Joel, the kids) for being the cause of my distress so often. "Psychologists tell us that anger is made up of fear, frustrations, and hurt. What are you fearful of? Where have your feelings been hurt? Why are you frustrated?"(p. 98). I need to examine why it is that I get so ticked off sometimes when I'm cooking dinner and Joel isn't offering to help. Slamming cupboard doors and sighing really loudly really doesn't help the situation at all now does it? (yes, sometimes I am the Queen of the land of Passiva Aggresivia-one of my favourite Grey's quotes). If I would just realize that my feelings get hurt (or whatever), and ask him to help me, we could avoid a whole lot of anger, couldn't we? I am so stubborn sometimes.

She says the next time we get angry about issues such as this, we should ask ourselves "where does it hurt". Are we feeling unloved? Abandoned in the middle of a lot of work that needs to be done? By doing this we give ourselves the opportunity to transform our tone and demeanor from a warrior on the warpath, to a softer, tender woman who feels alone. She explains later that we as women will do almost anything to keep from feeling powerless or helpless or rejected, so we hurt others so we don't feel hurt ourselves. It's a defense mechanism.

I also love where she talks about our God-anger. "It's essential to own up to how angry most of us are at God for making us live in a fallen world" (Hicks and Lee-Thorp in Why Beauty Matters). She says that we have to realize that our husbands and kids can't handle our God-anger, but that GOD CAN. He isn't afraid of it, or us. We can bring our anger to Him and wrestle with Him and He will keep it from destroying us. I know I have felt a lot of God-anger regarding certain things in the world. The depravity of the world and how it hurts me, and how it will hurt my kids when they get older. I get mad when I see how SICK the world is, and that God lets the world continue on the way it is. How society continues to get sicker and sicker and gets away with more and more filth as the years go by.

So this week I'm supposed to interview my anger. To allow God to show me the areas of my life that cause rage inside of me. Yes, I'm a little scared. I wonder how much I'll be able to open myself up to that. Will I continue to bury, deny, stuff?

I hope not.

Mel