How Am I Angry? Let Me Count The Ways!

Anger is one of the strongest emotions that we experience. It can range from mild annoyance to full blown, over the top fury that consumes you. Feeling anger when something happens that is hurtful or upsetting is normal. Unfortunately, for a lot of us it’s also normal to continue to carry anger for years, or even for a lifetime.

What we don’t realize when we continue to carry anger over our past is the toll that it takes on us. Anger is an active emotion. It takes energy to stay angry…energy that could be better used in any number of ways, if only we could let go of the anger.

Somehow, though, we feel that letting go of anger at someone who has hurt us would amount to letting them off the hook. They did something awful, they really hurt me, and they should have to pay. The big problem here is that YOU are the one who is paying, over and over and over.

Many of us were raised to believe that anger was an inappropriate emotion. As a child, we were warned angeragainst outbursts of anger. We learned to hold that anger in, to hide it from the world. We got so good at hiding the anger that at some point it even was hidden from us. We hide it, and then somehow we manage to consciously forget all about it. Anger? What anger??

Because so many of us have gotten so good at hiding and forgetting about our anger, it’s not a part of our daily awareness, but it’s always there, in the back of our mind, working to protect us for all the hurt and pain in the world. It’s always ready to pop out at a moments’ notice, ready to do its’ job, which is keeping us safe.

You will never forget the bully who lived down the block from you and picked on you every time you left your yard. You won’t forget your fifth grade teacher, who singled you out from the class and embarrassed you repeatedly. The reason you won’t forget them is that the anger at them is still there, hovering just beyond your consciousness.

This is an area where EFT can make profound changes in your life. Once you have identified the core issues behind your anger, tapping can help you to let go of the anger. It’s hard to imagine the level of relief that you can feel once you’ve tapped on some of your anger issues. Suddenly you realize that you have reclaimed all that energy that you were sinking into maintaining the anger. Suddenly you feel lighter, since the weight of all that anger has been lifted from your shoulders.

In order to be able to eliminate the anger, you have to be able to specifically identify the causes so that they can be tapped on. The questions below are designed to help you do that. Get some paper and a pen. Sit down quietly and really give some thought to the questions. Write down the answers. Most important of all, be honest with yourself.

What’s My Anger All About?

1. Who am I mad at?
2. What did that person say or do to me to make me angry?
3. What was so bad about it that I’m not able to let go of the anger?
4. When this person did whatever it was that they did, how did that make me feel?
5. Did they cause me emotional pain? If so, what kind? How bad?
6. What would it take for me to be ready to let go of the anger?
7. Do I really WANT to let go of the anger? If not, why?
8. How would I benefit by continuing to hold onto the anger?
9. How would I benefit by letting go of the anger?
10. Do I feel like letting go of the anger would be like forgiving the person who hurt me?
11. What is getting in the way of me being able to release my anger?

If you can honestly answer the above questions, you will probably have lots of thoughts, feelings, emotions and memories to plug into your own tapping statements in order to work on your anger. Good luck with your anger work, and if you’d like some advice on crafting your anger tapping script, email me at pat@seeking-serenity.com.