We humans are born with a remarkable ability to feel and a concomitant ability to respond to and express these feelings. How our feelings are perceived, accepted and responded to depends on many factors.
Anger, as the other emotions: love, sadness, joy, fear, is a normal human feeling. Feelings reside very much in our body selves. Anger is an emotion that propels the person to move out in physical or verbal response to protect self others or things from harm. Fear, on the contrary, is an emotion that evokes a pulling back in self protection. Love is a feeling that energizes us forward to loving action and embrace.All of these emotions are fueled, inspired, by our mind’s perception of the object or person before us as positive or negative, life threatening or enhancing.
Of all human emotions, the one that seems most prone to be problematic is anger. Anger, according to its strength and our capacity to see clearly and deeply into its nature, can be an enormous source of suffering for us and others. Anger destroys family relationships, friendships, business partnerships...it may lead to bullying, road rage and all too easily sow the seeds of war.
Many of us grew up with the idea that anger was a “bad” emotion. Yes, “Jesus did get angry,” (at least once) says the Gospel. But - he was God. In their loving attempts to raise good children, parents sometimes squelch the early self protective energy (that’s what anger often is) that impels children to speak out their feelings when they perceive something as negative or harmful. Adults usually do this because they believe it is in the child’s best interests and in an effort to teach good and appropriate conduct. Sadly, if this happens too often the child grows into either a rebellious adult or an overly docile adult with little sense of how to make wholesome use of the energy of anger in personal or public situations.
Our hope in these hours of retreat is to invite all to look deeply at the God-given emotion of anger. We hope to offer insights into how this emotion can be used to strengthen us in our convictions and allow us wisely to caretake ourselves, those we love and our world. We believe that this will only happen if we understand deeply the roots of our anger and if we know how to tame its strength rather than fuel its sometimes inordinate desires.
Honest, fearless self-reflection can do a great deal to help us understand the roots of and negatives ways we deal with our anger. We can learn how to gently soothe ourselves and assure ourselves of our own goodness and value. We can find tools to help us to speak our truth mindfully and without blame or shame.
We need, each of us, to appreciate not only our own pain but the pain of others/ the pain of our world, so as to live and act with COMPASSION that is truly HEALING.
Pat and Tim will present a weekend retreat October 21 to 23, 2011 at Holy Family entitled, Dealing with Anger: Creating a Culture of Compassion. Click here for more information.
