Anger is a wound that festers.  Sometimes it will lie there dormant ready to wreak havoc wherever its tentacles will stretch.  We march around with grins on our faces pretending it is not there, but the body knows.  For every piece of anger that we hold onto we lose a part of ourselves.  There is no denying that anger is a healthy emotion when we learn to harness its power instead of allowing it to cause us torment and angst.

The unfortunate aspect of being human is that we all make mistakes and we will cause others pain for that is a part of the journey we call life.  Life is neither black or white and it is often messy and chaotic.  We can inadvertently cause pain as we search to discover  who we are or who we are to become.  When we go against others preconceived ideas of who we are or what they want us to be, voila, we have trouble.  The problem with anger is that many of us allow it to blind and to close off a part of our hearts.  We give away our compassion and the care we feel for another allowing our anger and ego to take full front and center.  We stop seeing the other as an individual with their own dreams, thoughts and desires.  We cannot have things the way we want, so we lash out.  We want others to feel our pain.  We want to make them hurt the way we hurt.  The ego and the limbic brain wants payback.  It does not want to learn from hurt or pain.  It does not want to care for another who unintentionally has hurt us.  Some of us find joy and pleasure in our self centeredness and feel that anyone who has hurt us deserves our wrath.

As we mature and walk through life, we come to understand that hurt and pain are unavoidable if we are to be true to ourselves.  When we love and care for another in an unconditional way  we want that one to be happy.  We want them to reach their full potential and live the life they were put here to live.  When it is all about us, we want them to be all about us as well.  Wrath and anger stings and causes hurt and chaos but when we hold on or lash out, it only eats us from the inside.  For some admitting our vulnerability and our need for another is akin to torture.  We may feel it makes us weak and we want to be invincible.  Through the illusion of strength and self assuredness we can say to others we are islands.  However, no man is an island.  When we stand in the path of another’s anger, compassion helps us to understand.  Empathy allows us to feel but we must also protect our own space and health.  We must refuse to accept the continual barbs of slings and arrows and passive aggressive behavior.  We can comfort, support and love but we must take care of our health and space.