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I was recently asked to discuss my view on anger in a relationship and how it’s effect can be so destructive. I found myself giving some thought to this question and, in my mind, I don’t believe that it’s anger that’s really that destructive.
Now I can hear objections already. However, it’s not the anger that’s really the destructive part. It’s the actions that come out of feeling anger that make the difference.
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How many times in your life have you been told to “calm down” or to “not get so upset” about a situation? Recently I recall one of my family members posting about how “cooler heads” should prevail and that you should keep your anger inside where no one can see it. This mindset can be more destructive than feeling anger ever could be.
Anger is a natural human emotion. We all have it, and we all feel it at one time or another. As children, we are taught to suppress it and keep our feelings of anger inside. We want to be peaceful and to promote good behavior over unacceptable behavior. While acceptable behavior is the goal, suppressing emotions is not the healthiest way to achieve it. Recently this has been challenged by suggesting parents validate and acknowledge the child’s feelings and help them learn to manage their feelings of anger and healthily express them.
Many of us have been taught to suppress our anger and to keep inside things that upset us. We bottle things up inside us in order to “keep the peace” and to “get along” with the people around us. This pattern plays itself out in relationships especially. Partners hold back their feelings in order to avoid arguments and conflict within the relationship, and often this means feelings of frustration, resentment build within them. If held back long enough, anger can turn to apathy which eventually leads to depression.
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In western culture, we’ve equated anger with violence. In our movies and video games, you don’t need to look far to find a character, motivated by rage, becoming incredibly violent regardless of the justification. Men key into this especially as episodes of violence have been driven by suppressed anger.
Anger, is often considered one of the few emotions men allow themselves. Somehow we have received the message that in order to avoid violence we must suppress our anger even more and thus the cycle continues. Men, we must break this cycle.
Anger is often our guardian. It keeps us safe from what we fear the most. Get past a person’s anger, and you will find their deepest fear. A fear that is very often deeply rooted within themselves containing a message that has continuously been reinforced since childhood.
Messages like “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t make it on my own.” Anger is what we feel when we encounter something or perceive something that we fear the most. Until we face that fear, change that message that’s replaying over and over in our heads, the anger remains.
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Anger can also be a very effective tool for change.
Anger at an injustice often promotes a willingness to make a change. Some changes are subtle, such as buying locally or ethically produced products. Some changes are not subtle such as a populace voting in a different government, standing up to bullying, or protesting. Anger can be a fuel for changing something that we desire to be better, and it can be a motivation for passionate expression.
The healthiest form of expressing anger comes in the form of passion. Passion is anger turned around. Anger, in the way of passion, can also be an attractive quality between partners creating and inviting connection.
There can be something extremely attractive about a person working and playing in their passions. It is often cited between partners as one of the first things that they found attractive about one another. Passions are the key to who we are inside and actually tell us the most about us. Being in your passion is an incredibly intimate way to be your authentic self.
Learning how to take the anger within and express it as passion can be a challenging path to take. Forging it takes commitment and determination, but passion can ignite the flame within us all to be the best version of ourselves. Best of all, passion is contagious!
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This post was originally published on passionsnorth.wordpress.com and is republished with the author’s permission.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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