What Are You Really Angry At?
Anger is something that happens to the best of us. But despite how common it is, what's not so common is knowing the source of it within ourselves. Let's talk about what you're really angry at.
What Sets You Off
Plenty of different things set people off. Most of the time, if you sit down and deeply think things threw after the fact, you weren't explosively angry about the final trigger that you blew up at. You had a fight with your partner or parent, you woke up late, and so forth.
But we're not just talking about going one step back, we're looking at the true root of your anger. WHY something angers you to begin with, WHY the things that set you off actually gets to you. Often times the source is something deep in our past and seemingly unrelated to the events taking place now.
But as many people have said throughout history, everything is connected. All of us have events from our past that powerfully impacted the person we grew into. In some cases it was a single experience that literally defined who we are. The same can be true of even the most positive experiences.
Understanding this is a crucial step to understanding why we get angry at things in the present. Spend time in deep thought about the things that upset and anger you. Think back to your childhood, to your past relationships, to how you were raised. Ask yourself why this thing or that makes you so angry, or if you're even really angry at it to begin with.
How You Deal With It
How you deal with your anger is just as import as figuring out its source. Just as venting it safely but never finding the true cause isn't solving the problem, neither is knowing the cause and not finding an outlet and solution.
Many of us have the root cause of our angers buried deep in our past. If this applies to you, there is no better way to resolve your anger than to confront the source. This could be anything from confronting someone who wronged you and getting closure, getting therapy for a deeply traumatizing event, or any other number of things. I can't tell you exactly what to do to confront your personal demons. All I can tell you is that you need to.
Confronting that source might feel like things are getting worse for a while, not better. It can be incredibly painful to dig up the past. But what is worse is to leave it to fester like an uncleaned wound or broken bone. Just as an infected wound or badly healed bone needs to be damaged again in order to heal properly, you may need to open old mental woulds in order to confront the source of what enrages you.
The pain of doing so can be immense, but it is far preferable to living with the unresolved and confusing mental state of never knowing why things upset you as much as they do. No one is going to slay those dragons for you. You need face the largest and most frightening ones: the ones inside you.
Where Does Your Anger Come From?
As always, I want to hear from all of you. Tell us about what truly enrages you, and what you've learned about yourself and the causes. Tell us how you've confronted the sources, and how it has bettered you.