From Anger to Love

Anger. No one likes the feeling. Your body tightens. Your blood pressure heightens. You feel out of control.

Have you ever asked yourself why you get angry? The tendency in our world is to think that someone or something has made us mad. The truth, however, is that our anger comes from being mad at ourselves. We’ve disconnected from our hearts and, instead, are listening to our heads.

Imagine it’s Saturday morning. You’ve had a crazy week and finally got a decent night’s rest last night. You have no plans for the day. You are thrilled! You decide to stay in bed for a while. It’s not often you get a quiet weekend morning to lie around.

“Hmmmm…what do I want to do?” you think. “I know! I’m going to read my new book.” You’ve had this book for over a month and, due to your crazy life, have not read one page of it. So you pull it off of the nightstand, fluff your pillows, and bury yourself deep into the covers.

The book is awesome! It is more than you hoped for. “I think I’ll stay right here and read all morning,” you say to yourself, and snuggle in even further.

All of the sudden the phone rings. It’s your mother. She says she needs you to come by this morning and do some errands for her. “Okay,” you say with hesitation. This isn’t what you want to do, but something inside says you have to. This is a battle between your heart telling you what you truly “want,” versus your head shouting what you think you “should” do. You know you DO NOT WANT to run errands, but instead of speaking your truth, your head wins, so you crawl out of bed.

You feel resistance growing inside of you as you head to your mom’s. As the moments tick by, you get angrier and angrier. “Why do I always have to be the one she calls? Where is everyone else?” These questions scream in your head. You feel absolutely overwhelmed. “When am I going to get a break? I need some rest.”

When you finally get to your mom’s home, you are so angry you can’t speak. The tension between the two of you is thick. You take your list of errands and leave. Your day is ruined. Anger spills over to everything. Even the cashier at the grocery store makes a remark as you push your cart out the door, “Man, what’s her problem this morning?”

Your problem is that you are angry with yourself. You think you’re angry with your mom, but that’s not the truth. The little child inside of you is mad at YOU.

Each of us has a little child inside of us that needs to be nurtured and loved. This little kid is the heart of who you are. It’s up to you to parent this little child within. That means you must acknowledge this child, nurture this child, and, in this case, give the child permission to rest. It is when we don’t take care of ourselves this way that we get angry.

Anger is a red flag telling you that you are not loving yourself. In this particular situation, the loving thing to do would have been to speak your feelings to your mother and tell her the truth. But you didn’t. Out of some old belief that says “you are selfish if you do something for yourself,” you denied your feelings and are now filled with anger.

It is time to flip the switch on your belief. True selfishness is when you are walking around angry. You took your anger out on your mother, the grocery store clerk, and all the other drivers on the street this Saturday morning. Wouldn’t it have been better to speak your truth and take the day for yourself, recharging your battery, so that you could face the world with love, especially towards your mom? It would have been so much nicer for you, and for everyone.

Your anger is a gift telling you that the little kid inside of you is mad because you are not listening to your heart. Your heart on this particular Saturday morning wanted you to stay in bed. That was the loving thing to do. You needed rest. Instead, your head won. Out of some old negative belief, you made the decision not to honor yourself.

When you honor yourself, you honor God. Anything in your heart that creates more love is honoring God. That’s because God put the message there in the first place. When you feel rundown and need to take a rest, it is God telling you to love yourself. Think of it this way: when you don’t listen to your heart, you’re not listening to God. When you dishonor yourself, you dishonor God. When you deny yourself, it’s as if you are pointing your finger at God and saying, “God, you made a mistake when you made me. Everyone else is fine. And they deserve to be loved. But not me. You really screwed up when you created me.”

Baloney! God did not make a mistake when you were made. You deserve to feel nurtured and loved. When you give yourself permission to acknowledge, honor and love the little child inside of you, you fill your cup so full that the love overflows to everyone. It is when you deny yourself and your needs that you create anger. That’s because you’ve disconnected from God. You’ve disconnected from your heart.

The next time you get angry and want to blame everyone for your unhappiness, stop, take a breath, and ask what the little kid inside of you needs to feel loved. This is where anger is released and you create a connection to God. It is in this connection that you become an example of love.