The Destructive Nature of Anger
www.HealedHeartMinistry.com
Anger destroys relationships and has significant consequences in a person’s mental, emotional, and physical health. Depending upon circumstances of the experience the emotion, anger, may manifest itself in varied intensity from simple frustration to full-blown rage. We use these words to describe anger at various levels of intensity: frustration, annoyance, bitterness, resentment, rage, retaliation, violence, murder, hate, temper tantrum, and more. Yet, even simple frustration over time can accumulate and lead to more intense emotion such as bitterness. A person with a temper (short fuse) is a person that has accumulated a lot of anger in their life. All have experienced anger, many times justifiably so. But if the anger persists, it will impact our life in a negative way.
Consequences of Anger
Angry children become rebellious: Rebellious children are constantly at odds with parents, schools, and other authority figures. The conflicts with authority lead to outcomes that further infuriate the rebel which escalates the intensity of their anger and compounds life problems.
Angry people experience a lot of rejection and abandonment: Anger may have started in childhood because of rejection and abandonment. Through life, the cycle continues as acquaintances and friends are repelled away by the anger and negativity. Broken friendships, wounded family relationships and loss of employment are consequences of anger.
Anger is linked to diseases: Medical science research has linked anger to cancer, heart disease, strokes, and more. Anger is a major source of stress in people’s lives—stress is a major source of disease.
Anger is a source of mental health issues: Anger is linked to depression. It is important to note that medical science has found that depression is often linked to heart disease.
Anger destroys a person’s sense of reality: Some who have committed domestic battery have expressed that they blacked out from the anger and literally don’t remember committing the assault. Anger at any extreme can define who we are, and in some cases can lead to a life of delusion.
Anger leads to sin in God’s eyes: It is God’s desire that our lives not have all of these consequences. While anger is a God-given emotion, we are not to commit sin in our anger and we are not to hold our anger into the next day.
Why People Become Angry People
When people hurt us, offend us, or stand in the way of our will and desires, we get angry. The experiences can represent real offences or we can perceive that we have been hurt. A child is not able to understand the broad view of events, so that this lack of perception opens up a child to more hurt than adults. But adults can be hurt also. These events are stored as memories. Many times these memories do not accurately represent the true nature of the event.
People readily accept the fact that our brains seek out and retrieve memories. For example, we know the answer is “4” when we see the math problem: “2 + 2.” Reciting a poem and recalling answers while in a spelling bee are similar examples. What we don’t readily perceive is that the brain retrieves many of life’s answers from memory. Regarding our emotions, we likewise don’t see our brain searching our memories for insight on how to respond when someone is rejecting us. Our past experiences guide us in the present even though, just like the math problem, we don’t perceive the process of recall. The emotion of anger and what we believe about rejection in the past events come forward to help us deal with the present situation. The potential problem is the belief and emotion of the past may not be helpful to us today.
Some childhood experiences that cause anger are as follows: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; rejection, abandonment, traumatic experiences, and more.
The emotions of jealously and envy can develop anger when a person doesn’t get what they desire. Failures can also lead to anger developing and growing in a person. This anger might be directed outward or it could be internalized—blaming one’s self for the failures. Anger can also be learned through parents and previous generations. Usually, if a child grows up in an angry atmosphere, they will be angry also. See http://www.acestudy.org/ for more information on adverse childhood experiences.
Anger Management
Anger management is a program to help people cope with their anger. The intention primarily is to reduce aggressive actions such as domestic violence. Many people are required courts as a requirement of their sentence to take these classes. Anger management may reduce violence, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem. Because the anger is still present in a person they will still suffer from the other consequences of anger. Violence may be a temporary emotional release for a person. When violence is managed, other negative forms of release may be sought out such as drugs or alcohol. The real solution is not anger “management” but is getting free of our anger.
Get Free of Your Anger
The bad news is anger accumulates as a person experiences the bumps of life. The good news is that the imbedded anger in a person’s life can be eliminated. Forgiveness is the antidote for anger. Two important elements of forgiveness are as follows:
First, forgiveness must be totally unconditional. This means that you cannot expect anything in return forgiveness whether it be an apology, justice, restoration, or anything else. The purpose of forgiveness is to get free of the anger. Any expectation of restoring the relationship will usually sabotage getting free of anger. Forgiveness which leads to freedom, cannot have strings attached. Ironically, after true forgiveness occurs, the possibility of restoration increases.
Second, forgiveness must be specific to the offense. This means that if an offender has done a whole list of things, we must specifically forgive the entire list of issues.
For more information on forgiveness see the article: “Forgiveness, the Antidote for Anger."
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Neil Elmer is author of the book PreScriptures for Life: A Believer's Guide to Praying Scripture. His ministry helps people achieve peace in life and be set free from the bondages of sin and oppression.
PreScriptures for Life
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