I’m mad. I’ve been mad for a while now. It’s a long, long story and I don’t need to bore you with the details, but I’ve had a few bad experiences lately and the results of those have been a lingering anger that I’ve come to see has been only hurting me.
Anger is one of those strange emotions. It’s primitive and instinctual and I always thought it didn’t really serve any kind of positive purpose. But that’s not entirely true. Anger puts all your senses on alert; anger causes your self-preservation instincts to kick in; anger helps you protect yourself and those you love. Anger can serve a very worthwhile purpose, but it can be a double-edged sword that will turn back on you and hurt you if you don’t wield it carefully.
Failing to heed anger, and failing to act on it can hurt you, because you might continue to exist in a hurtful situation for too long by disregarding the messages your anger is sending you. Holding on to anger after the initial danger or injustice has passed can hurt you, because it is a seething, negative force that will eat away at you from the inside out. Holding on to your anger after its usefulness has passed can cause physical illness such as ulcers and high blood pressure as well as emotional illnesses like depression and other serious mental illnesses.
So although anger makes sense and can be a useful emotion, it’s also very volatile and needs to be discarded once it’s no longer serving any positive function. And the only way to let go of anger is through forgiveness, which can be a mighty hard job. Wikipedia defines forgiveness as “the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake”, which I think is a very fine definition indeed.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to continue to associate with the person who wronged you, or that you have to stay in the same situation (with the same bank, or cable company or best friend) but it does mean that you have to let go of the anger, which at that point is only hurting you.
You may decide never to see the friend who betrayed you again, but if you don’t let go of your anger towards her, you will only be hurting yourself. The big truth about forgiveness is this:
We don’t forgive for other people…we forgive for ourselves.
So if you’re holding on to anger: let it go…forgive…get your own life back.
The Chinese symbol for forgiveness (shu).
I totally agree with this post. I’ve had alot of crap happen in the last couple years, including, but not limited to, my husband having an affair with my best friend. Almost two years later, I find the hurtful, angry feelings creeping up more often now then they ever have. It sucks, but I know that they are hurting only me at this point. Maybe I should consider getting that kanji symbol tattooed on my body as a constant reminder!
It is very hard to let go of hurt and angry feelings. It feels like a downwards spiral where you can’t escape.