Are you feeling angry right now? You know, upset, mad, or ticked off?
Or maybe you are a little more than that . . . like irate, infuriated, incensed, or livid? Did someone just push the right buttons today that made your blood boil?
Are you feeling frustrated with anything or anyone? Because you can’t seem to get anything right (and, let’s just be honest here, neither can they)?
Maybe you’re feeling irritated. Is there a certain someone that keeps interrupting your work and won’t stop talking?
Or perhaps you’re feeling annoyed. It’s easy to get annoyed at things—the fifteenth red light on your way home, or those loud people at the store when you have a headache, or even that co-worker that annoys you just by looking at his or her face.
Are you crabby? Cranky? Bugged? Mad? Impatient? Grumpy? Grouchy?
If so,
CONGRATULATIONS!
You just recognized and identified that you’re feeling anger!
Anger is the main emotion to all of these emotions above.
And anger has a message right now specifically for you.
(I love this 10-year-old’s depiction of the girls’ emotion that has come to help them know what to do. See more children’s artwork in the gallery.)
So now, it’s established, you are feeling the emotion anger.
PROBLEM: You are feeling anger, and it doesn’t really feel very good.
Want to know what your emotion is trying to tell you?
Anger’s message is that a boundary has been violated. So your first step is to find out what kind of boundary your anger is notifying you about. Is it a physical boundary? (Like the one I posted about here?) Or is it an energetic boundary? (Like what I discovered here.) Maybe it’s a different kind . . . take some deep breaths and visualize a fuzzy ball of anger inside you. Now ask that ball, “What boundary has been violated?”
Wait for the answer. Words might come to mind, or maybe an image will flash into your mind’s eye. You might even just have a bit of understanding wash over you. And you will know what kind of boundary has been violated.
Now you can find out what to do about it.
Remember, your emotions are messengers that always tell you something that you need to do.
So you got to find that out next.
Take a deep breath, then ask that fuzzy ball, “Okay, so how do I reestablish that violated boundary?” Sometimes, something must actually be restored to rebuild your boundary. Other times, you can just visualize recreating that safe space around you. You can also ask, “What must be restored?” – which is a question from Karla McLaren’s book The Language of Emotions. Be open to any kind of answer. If you have expectations, they will hold you back from receiving the message.
So ask your questions, and wait for the answers.
. . .
. . .
Did you get it? Did you get the action item from your anger?
If so, now do it!
Remember, your emotion will never tell you to hurt someone or cause anyone harm.
If you didn’t get an answer, send me a message! Leave a comment or contact me through the contact page. I’d love to connect and help you work through it so that next time, you can do it on your own.
And that’s it! You did it! You worked through your anger. It’s job is done, and it should now release and leave you. How do you feel now?
Option A: Much better! Wow! It really worked. That was amazing! I’m going to tell all my friends about it!
Option B: A little better. But there’s still something else there. Maybe I should look to see if I’m carrying emotions or if there’s another emotion I should work through.
Option C: It didn’t work! I couldn’t get the answers. I’ll contact you and maybe you can help me.
This is a simple process that you can do every single time you feel anger, or any emotion that falls in the anger category. You can do it. I know you can!
SOLUTION: Recognize your emotion is trying to tell you something, then ask the questions to get the action item. Now do it!
Let me know how it goes. And if you know someone else who could use a little help in this area, send this their way.
Life is hard. Hard enough that you don’t need to carry around that extra anger. Recognize it, ask the questions, get the answers, and act on them. You’ll feel so much better. I know you will.