In the Peaks of Anger Lie the Depths of Fear

“We’ll feel unbalanced until we express anger, change the circumstances that caused it, or forgive the person who sparked it.”

  - From the book, Emotional Wisdom, by  Mantak Chia & Dena Saxer

I've noticed over the years how very, very angry I can get, and it's been bothering me lately. I don't know how far back it goes, but my anger levels scare me, not in a way that I'm a danger to anyone else, but more so to my own physical and mental health. In public, I don't express my anger. In relationships, once comfortable, I express it through jealousy, possessiveness, sarcasm or passive-aggressive behavior. When I'm alone, I yell and curse, at times to the point of needing a deep breath in order to finish my enraged sentence.

I'm wondering why this continues to happen to me and if it's normal. Am I afraid of expressing anger in a healthy way because I've seen so much of it expressed the wrong way when I was young? Does everyone do what I do and just not talk about it out of shame? Will it ever stop on its own or will it require deep, inner work? I've done the work before and processed so much already. I'd hate to go back. But maybe I wasn't finished. Maybe we're never finished.

I read an article a while back about figuring out where repressed anger comes from, and I want to explore it here. The instructions are not exact, only as I remember them:

Identify the area of your life or relationship where the anger comes up most. List the underlying fear beside it and keep drilling down until you get to the main fear.

• When I sense that I'm being lied to, treated unfairly or taken advantage of. (Fear of being out of control, lack of confidence, fear of speaking up for myself, fear of being unworthy.)
• When I feel blatantly disrespected or disregarded. (Same as above.)
• When I don't have enough information to move forward on deadline driven projects at work. (Fear of not being good enough, fear of failure, fear of being fired, fear of not being able to pay my bills, fear of losing everything and living on the street.)
• When I'm in a relationship and begin getting jealous and possessive. (Fear of not being good enough, fear of being unworthy, fear of abandonment.)

Look closely at the main fear and see if it links to fears you experienced during events in your childhood or other times.

• Fear of being unworthy. (Parents divorced at age of 2; mother was gone all of the time; moved a lot; often lived with strangers; kept from seeing my father; physical and sexual abuse; attention, love, respect were given to the men in my mother's life vs. me and my sister, raped at 14)
• Fear of losing everything and living on the street. (Never had money, never taught to save money, lived on my own at 15; never experienced not living paycheck to paycheck; no family to depend on monetarily or otherwise)
• Fear of abandonment (parents divorce, mother never home - begged her to stay home, often cried and held on to her legs, stopped making friends due to moving too much and always saying goodbye, father died when I was 12)

Based on your understanding of the links between then and now, review the things that are still making you angry and consider what you need to address them.

• To overcome the fear of feeling unworthy, I need to learn how to confidently project and communicate to others that I am worthy of nothing less than honesty, fairness and respect.
• To overcome the fear of living on the street (or having no money), I need to find ways to become financially secure - save money, invest in my retirement and make smarter financial decisions.
• To overcome the fear of abandonment, I need to learn to love and accept myself, and learn to trust that another person can truly love me as well.

Deep stuff. How I'm going to do these things is beyond me, but at least it's a start. I feel like the fear of abandonment and fear of unworthiness are linked. They all are really. But I keep noticing over and over this general lack of self-confidence, this thing of seeking other people's validation before making decisions. I'm the one who asks for permission, who makes sure "it's OK" first, who follows instead of leads, who prefers to be behind the scenes, who hates being competitive, who fumbles when speaking in a group of people, and so on.

I'm reading The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, and speaking of anger, she wrote:

“Anger is meant to be listened to. Anger is a voice, a shout, a plea, a demand. Anger is meant to be respected. Why? Because anger is a map. Anger shows us what our boundaries are. Anger shows us where we want to go. It lets us see where we’ve been and lets us know when we haven’t liked it. Anger points the way, not just the finger. Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction.”

So very true. I'm tired of living in fear. I'm tired of being angry. I want to go to Amazon and use my Prime account to get free, 2 day shipping on a butt load of Confidence, a shit load of Security, and a lifetime of Self Worth. I wish it were that easy. :)