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Why You’re So Angry
It Could Change Everything
If kids come into the world with anything, it’s emotions.
Crying is the only way to express need when you’re freshly hatched and have no words.
In my childhood religious environment, the only emotion that was permitted was anger, but not for ME.
I wasn’t allowed to be angry, or sad. Happiness was sort of irrelevant.
I was just supposed to be GOOD.
“I’ll give you something to cry about”, said Angry Dad.
Great, because adding more fear and more repression is SUPER healthy.
Add lots of rules and authoritarianism combined with fear of hellfire, and it’s a recipe for a lifetime of terror, anxiety, shame, and emotional illiteracy.
Like my last post discusses, learned helplessness is the eventual outcome of powerlessness that goes on and on and on.
enter ANGER.
Anger is not just irritability. It’s not just a bad mood. It’s not just lashing out.
Anger is the spark, the flash we give before we gasp and give out completely. It can save us from learned helplessness, if we learn to use it properly instead of judging it, avoiding it, or misusing it.
