A friend recently posted on Facebook and it led to a lively and somewhat heated discussion. She was questioning whether anger is always negative, or if it is justified in the right circumstances. Is it a harmful emotion that we should eliminate from our lives? Or are there times and places where it is valuable and necessary?  

There are various schools of thought. Some say anger is a natural, healthy emotion that alerts us to circumstances that are unjust, or violating a social norm, and anger is what prods us into taking much needed action. Others believe that suppressing anger is harmful and finding healthy ways of expressing your feelings is important for health and well-being. Buddhism teaches that anger is a destructive emotion that must be eliminated because it brings us confusion and misery, rather than peace, happiness, and fulfilment.

It's an age old debate and just reading these different views may well have triggered an angry response in you. If so, that's a good thing, because there is no better time to start using some of that critical thinking I mentioned in the previous blog post. So what goes on for you when you get angry? These days there are so many things to be angry about and so many ways to express it, but what's really important, is getting to know what happens to you when you get angry. What happens in your body? Where do you feel it? Neck? Stomach? Throat? What do you say? What response do you get? Does it get you the result you want?

Living wholeheartedly is a tricky path to walk. Too much one way and you're lost, too much the other way and you've wandered off again. There is so much advice out there on how to deal with anger, how to express it healthily, let it go, forgive, set boundaries, it's enough to make my head spin. But to really come to terms with anger, we have to get to know it from our own experience. We have to risk being a bit experimental for a while. What happens if I speak up? What happens if I keep quiet? What happens if I act? What happens if I let it go?

This is how we come to know anger with all it's contradictions. Understanding the consequences of our responses, both for ourselves and others, is how we create the opportunity to make informed, healthier choices for our life.