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LIFE EATEN BY ANGER -
how to release anger?
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Anger Blog. My father, my self: generations of deep anger problems.
Managing anger: not enough. But how to let go of anger, release anger?
Sept 8, 2009
LIFE EATEN UP BY ANGER - how to release anger?
Generations of anger - that's what's going through my mind. I don't know how far back it stretches, but I can't imagine a beginning.
My father didn't want to be angry - still, over and over, he exploded
I've spent years hardly getting angry - and then the situation changed and all over again, anger - anger day after day. I could always point outward: how can I help it, given what's happening? But so what? Years with masses of time eaten by deep anger, swallowed by anger coming out from the deep.
I've also had the anger cloud lift - and then suddenly, things look different. I remember such a lift most with feminism. I'd always been much closer to my father than my mother. My boyfriend was very supportive. And then, bang, anger at men as a group - a feeling I couldn't control, a feeling that felt totally justified, given all that men had done to women.
Except the anger was in me. It wasn't red hot anger, constant anger, but it was anger inside, anger within, anger brewing and coloring just about everything. I didn't recognize it as an anger problem because it felt so justified - how could I not be angry?
And then, as I said, things changed. The anger cloud lifted - and the world looked different.
It felt as if the anger was gone.
But it wasn't. It came closer.
A Martha Stewart story. Martha Stewart - the Perfect Home queen, the Perfect Dinner queen. She was married a long time, to a very nice person (from outside accounts). She constantly criticized: he was never good enough. A friend remembers
her attacking him because he didn't stack the wood by the fireside to her liking.
And then he met someone else. And she raged some more. An acquaintance remembers her shrieking at the woman.
In so many ways, I'm not Martha Stewart. But I recognize the impulse to be angered when something is not done to my liking. I feel so right, so justified. Even if I stay silent, anger brews inside me so easily.
I don't want anger control, anger management. Managing anger? It has managed so much of my life.
As a child, I kept deciding it wouldn't happen again. Never again. It always did.
As an adult I learned: recognizing anger is good and so is expressing anger in a constructive way. It took longer to learn: much anger comes from ancient sources, is a toxic brew generations old with the sources lost in the mists of time. A father battered when he was a child. His father ...? Who knows.
What to do? In some ways, I feel helpless - not in terms of controlling behavior. My father/myself. He could, most of the time, control his actions. He wouldn't strike - though he did smash objects, including the one item my mother had from her beloved grandmother.
What to do? My father did not believe in therapy, never even read self help books. This man who read the encyclopedia Britannica had no space for the study of psychology (that I knew of, anyway).
I've studied and learned and tried.
The biggest inner block, inner wall: over and over, I've found it hard to see my anger as anything but justified. In other words, it's not my problem. It will change as soon as what's getting me angry changes.
At the same time, I've recognized that the anger could eat at me - and the other person could totally not care, be totally unaffected. They might not even have a clue. So all the cost was mine.
Most recently I've been trying tapping - a form of acupressure to release unwanted things in oneself.
I don't want to understand the anger, control the anger, manage the anger. I want to get rid of anger - release anger, let go of anger.
I'm imagining my father sitting beside me, outside on a bench which overlooks miles and miles of countryside. I often feel him beside me when i sit on that bench.
There was so much to him - passion, intensity, enthusiasm. He had a four-year-old's eyes - so eager. The fire in him feels dimmer at the moment, in my imagining. He shifts his weight a little back and forth, one strong arm on the back of the bench, his strong hands folded in his lap.
I'm in the house. It's early morning - too cool to enjoy sitting outside.
A cat is curled beside me. Once again, today, I'll try my best.
Elsa
stirring inner fires
releasing inner riches
plus - expert
Click here to go from this anger blog
to father and daughter stories on the meaning of home.
Click here to go from this anger blog
to massive public anger, The Rage of the Righteous.
Click here to go from this blog on dealing with anger problems
to anger poetry, You Think That You Know.

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stirring inner fires
releasing inner riches
Anger Blog. My father, my self: generations of deep anger problems.
Managing anger: not enough. But how to let go of anger, release anger?
Signed, personal blogger, diary blogger
- anger blog on anger inside, anger within -
- anger blogging on deep anger, inner anger, misplaced anger -
- anger blogs on red anger, constant anger and how to stop anger -
- anger blog on dealing with anger, anger problems, coping with anger -
- anger blog on anger help, overcoming anger, anger release -
- anger blog on releasing anger, how to release anger, how to let go of anger -
- anger blog not on anger management, anger control, managing anger -
- anger blog not on expressing anger, but on anger disorder and how to release anger -
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