Why does everyone in our family have to get mad before we do anything?
Anger can be healthy
A friend relayed his brother’s question, “Why does everyone in our family have to get angry before we do anything?”
I smiled at the truth of the words and the brother’s question.
Anger can be a tremendous motivator to take action.
The question above isn’t simply for one family. It’s most of us. Many of us need to get fed up with the dysfunction, the abuse, the mistreatment to take action.
Anger is shunned in our society, especially for women. An angry woman is a bitch. 1
From my Mormon roots, I’ve struggled with anger. I misconstrued a well known scripture that contention is of the devil.2 In my shame, I blatantly ignored the scriptures teaching about Jesus’s anger with the merchants selling at the temple.3 4
You see, even Jesus got mad: a healthy anger.5
Anger arises when boundaries are violated.
“Anger typically arises when personal or professional boundaries are violated. Expressing it can be a sign of healthy emotions, indicating self-awareness and self-respect.” (emphasis added)6
During my healing from the ravages of childhood sexual abuse,7 I went through a stage when I was madder than angry.8 I was angry almost all the time. I had to fight to find peace and struggled to even see a joyful moment in my daily existence.
Spoiler Alert: I got through it. I made it. I used my anger to make foundational changes in many aspects of my life. My habits, my awareness, my thinking, and I changed many of the people with whom I interacted with on a daily basis. I changed my work and built a loving, psychic or spiritual family.
Anger is still not my easiest feeling or emotion. But, I know I’ve cultivated solid skills in expressing anger. I’m not always perfect with it, because it’s a skill that thankfully I don’t use often.
Healthy anger can be a catalyst to set boundaries, and healthy anger has helped me cultivate better relationships.
Feelings, especially anger, can be frightening. We aren’t robots. Feelings open us to the beauty of the exquisite human experience. Use your anger9 to make the changes you want for yourself and your own uniquely beautiful life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasty_woman
Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 11:29-30
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. KJV, Matthew 21: 12-13
Interestingly, I knew the teachings that my body is a temple. However, I could not bridge the disconnect in my mind about what was happening to me and my body and the teachings of my body’s sacredness. In my youth, I conveniently ignored that also. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2019/08/your-body-is-a-temple?lang=eng
For those of you who are not religious, or even believe in a higher power, please know that I am offering these stories for illustration purposes only. I am not a religious scholar, and am merely drawing upon a rather common story to illustrate an example of healthy anger. And the story of Jesus, furiously casting the money changers and the merchants out of the temple, is a good example.
https://masteringanger.com/blog/difference-between-healthy-and-unhealthy-anger/
Told in excruciating detail in Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots.
Hence, we named that section of the book, “Rage.”
In an overabundance of caution, I must state the following: don’t use your anger to try to control or abuse others. That’s not healthy anger, that’s abuse. Here’s a good article about overcoming destructive anger, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/overcoming-destructive-anger/201608/what-constitutes-healthy-anger, or see footnote #6.