About a year ago, I took the brave step to speak to a councillor to help me with my anxiety and my anger. What I came to realise was my anxiety was driven by my guilt for feeling angry about things; Things I had no control over. I had been struggling with anger issues for some time and I had no idea why.
My councillor helped me come to my own conclusion: I grew up one of four children, being the only boy and nearly all obstacles removed. Extremely fortunate and forever grateful. But as you grow into adulthood, life presents you with situations in which you don’t always get what you want, it does present obstacles you have to overcome, and we adults tell ourselves we aren’t allowed to be frustrated, or annoyed. There’s every chance you may not get that job, you may not hit your personal goals, you may have a partner that disagrees with you on things. These could be big situations, these could be tiny situations, but if you’re not used to these challenges, big or small, then there’s every chance it will have a detrimental affect you and your mental health.
Now here’s what I’m trying to say: I learned that anger is allowed, it is a natural human emotion. Controlled anger is allowed no matter what the scenario. Once I stopped holding it in, fighting against it and started allowing myself to embrace my feelings and make peace with them, even though I knew my anger was okay, ironically I found myself to be less angry about things that are out of my control.
“Be angry, it’s okay. To be angry, that is very human. And to learn how to smile at your anger and make peace with your anger is very nice” – Nhat Hanh
