Anger is a protective emotion

Anger is a protective emotion.

Anger signals to us when we are facing a threat that needs to be addressed with swift aggression and force.

Failing to heed that warning can be fatal.

All our emotions are part of our neuro-feedback system. None of them are “bad” or “good,” “negative” or “positive,” “vice” or “virtue.” Emotions do not have moral values attached to them any more than a nerve response from hitting your funny bone has a moral value.

Only our actions, or lack of action, have moral implications.

Men lacking sufficient agency to take responsibility for the situation triggering their anger and then act wisely on the information that anger conveys end up frustrated, bitter, hopeless, and suffering from inpotence in the face of injustice.

These men often blame anger for their discomfort. This is another way they try to evade responsibility for dealing with the causes of their anger.

Other men evade responsibility by suppressing their anger, pushing it down into the bottom of their soul, where it festers and comes back up as something poisonous.

But men of agency who take responsibility for their lives and surroundings listen to their anger, take lessons from it, and act to address the injustices and threats that cause anger to come up.

This requires wisdom and emotional training. The foolish, untrained mind misdirects its anger, taking it out on the wrong person or wasting it in a temper tantrum.

The wise man knows how to ask himself the right questions to discover the root causes of his anger so that he can address them.

We are in an age that should trigger all good men’s righteous anger and arouse us to action.

If you are suffering from unresolved anger, don’t despair; I will help you. In a single session, my clients discover a path to acting on their anger in productive ways that leads to better lives and true inner peace.