ANGER

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

~William Blake~

Many people spend their days in anger and aren't aware of it. The conditions of work and life make many of us angry; we feel powerless to change them, and our frustration angers us more...

If we examine our lives fearlessly, we may find many things that are in our power to change.

Since we cannot change, or do not choose to change some things, we'd do well to accept them, instead of spinning our wheels in unproductive anger or turning the anger in, against ourselves.

And when we summon the courage to change the things we can, our lives will bless us.

Our problems with anger and our problems in relationships go hand in hand. Some of us have held back our anger, which led to resentment of our loved ones. Some of us have indulged our anger and become abusive. Some of us have been so frightened of anger that we closed off the dialogue in our relationships when angry feelings came out.

Some of us have wasted our energy by focusing anger on people who weren't really important to us. Do we truly want them to become so important?

Yet, perhaps the important relationships got frozen because we weren't open and respectful with our anger. It isn't possible to be close to someone without being angry at times.

We let our loved ones be part of our lives by feeling our anger when it is there and expressing it openly, directly, and respectfully to them--or by hearing them when they are angry.

Then, with dialogue, we can let it go.

We have a right to claim our own feelings. Sometimes we get angry, but hold it inside because we think it's wrong to feel it. If anger builds inside us, it expands like a balloon ready to burst. If not released, it can make us depressed, or even physically ill. When we give ourselves permission to feel anger, we are better able to get rid of it in a healthy way.

Our inner voice can tell us how to let go of our anger. And once we've released it, we can easily get in touch with the feelings that caused it.

When we recognize our anger for what it is--one feeling among many others that makes us unique--it loses its significance, and we can prevent it from consuming us.

Indira Ghandi said, "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." When we let go of our anger we can honestly embrace each other with open arms.