It's Okay to Be Angry Read online

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  Here is a survey on anger beliefs that well over 1,000 women completed. Before going on to the next chapter, please take a few minutes and complete it for yourself. You’ll find it helpful in applying the rest of the information in this book.

  Anger Beliefs

  Please read through the following list of anger beliefs.

  If, at any time in your life, you have either outwardly agreed to a particular belief or, by your actions, have functioned according to it, circle the number that most accurately expresses the degree of your agreement with that belief.

  1 = Strongly Agree 4 = Moderately Disagree

  2 = Moderately Agree 5 = Strongly Disagree

  3 = Neutral

  1. God is love and anger is the opposite of love. Therefore, God is against anger. Whenever we allow ourselves to be angry, we are sinning.

  1 2 3 4 5

  2. If a person never looks or sounds angry, she doesn’t have a problem with anger.

  1 2 3 4 5

  3. Anger always leads to some form of violence and, therefore, it is never good to be angry.

  1 2 3 4 5

  4. If you express anger to someone you love, it will destroy the relationship. Anger and love don’t mix.

  1 2 3 4 5

  5. The best way to deal with anger is to ignore it. If you ignore it, it will go away.

  1 2 3 4 5

  6. The best way to deal with anger is to snuff it. Expressing anger breeds even more anger and leads to loss of control.

  1 2 3 4 5

  7. The best way to deal with anger is to dump it, just get all of that anger out of your system. You and everyone else will feel better when you express it.

  1 2 3 4 5

  8. Nice people don’t get angry.

  1 2 3 4 5

  Please answer the following questions true or false.

  9. It is more acceptable for men to express anger than women. T F

  10. I often feel guilty about my anger. T F

  11. I don’t know how to express my anger appropriately. T F

  12. I wish I weren’t such an angry person. T F

  13. I’m afraid that if I get in touch with my anger I will lose control. T F

  14. It’s hard for me to know when I’m angry. T F

  Please respond to the following questions and statements.

  15. What are some of the factors that increase your vulnerability to anger?

  a. ____________

  b. ____________

  c. ____________

  d. ____________

  16. When you hear the word “anger,” do you tend to have a positive or negative response to that word?

  Positive Negative

  17. From your point of view, is anger primarily a positive or a negative emotion?

  Positive Negative

  18. When I get angry I . . .

  19. When someone around me gets angry, I . . .

  20. When I was a child, the primary times in which I saw anger expressed were . . .

  21. The ways in which I saw anger expressed were . . .

  22. Who taught you how to become angry?

  23. Who taught you how to express anger?

  24. If there is any one question that I could have answered about anger it would be . . .

  2

  What Is Anger?

  Gary J. Oliver

  In the sticky spring air of that Texas night, the smell of honeysuckle hung in the air. The howling of mating cats woke Lowell from his tormented sleep. Years ago his back had been broken in a fall from a Santa Fe Railroad water tank car that had jerked into action before he could get down the ladder. He had fallen on a pile of rock and crushed his back, costing him nine months in a body cast. That old injury prevented him from getting a good night’s rest, but this night was noisy, too, and that meant trouble.

  Lowell rose from his hard bed, cursed the cats under his breath, then went straight to the closet where he kept his .22 rifle. Since the house was in the country almost at the end of the road, there was a lot of open space and no ordinances. Lowell walked out into the backyard, listened for telling sounds and fired into the darkness. A screech, the silence, as the bullet found its mark. In silence he returned the gun to the closet and himself to the bed for a few more hours of fitful sleep until dawn broke.

  At dawn Lowell pulled on his shirt and faded blue denim overalls, pushed his flat feet into the old brogues he wore daily. Outside, the dew hung heavy on the vines, grass and flowers. On the edge of the garden near the rows of foot-high corn lay the cat, still and quiet. Its gray form was stiff from rigor mortis, its fur matted with dirt and thick red blood that oozed from the fatal wound. Lowell picked her up by the tail and walked toward the carport, intending to throw the cat in his truck and haul her away.

  Ruth was up early cooking breakfast and the smells distracted Lowell from his task. He dropped the cat along the edge of the flower bed and came inside for bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy. Forgotten were the events of the night before when Lowell left for work. With her husband fed and gone, Ruth washed the dishes and got ready for another hot day of housework.

  Their daughter, Laura, awoke, trying to remember if what happened last night was real or a dream. When she heard the closet door open last night while the cats fought in the yard, Laura did what she had done so many times before to “disappear.” She pulled the pillow over her head and stuck her fingers in her ears, hoping not to hear the gun go off. How she hated that sound. This morning she was not sure if it had really happened.

  In her usual routine, Laura arose to inspect the flowers and garden to see what miracles had appeared overnight. The hollyhocks were open wide—pink, white, red and rose colored with big-bodied black and yellow bumblebees already at work inside them gathering nectar. There were giant golden squash blossoms on the sprawling green vines and tiny white bean flowers. As Laura ran to the flower bed, she spotted Patty’s gray fur, the blood almost dried. Stunned, she stopped, caught her breath, then wheeled around and ran in the house crying.

  By the time she reached the back screen door Ruth heard her sobs. She thought Laura must have been stung by a bee as she investigated a flower too closely. If only that were all it was! Laura ran to her mother, sobbing and screaming, “Why does he do that? Can’t he stop shooting long enough to see?” Why had her dad shot her cat, not the stray tom that had come courting?

  There were no answers then, or ever. Obviously, Lowell had forgotten the cat after breakfast, leaving it to be found by his heartbroken, terrified child. Laura never knew what he would find as a target next. One day her cat, the next a rabbit. When would it be her turn? Somewhere deep inside she knew her dad would like to turn her into a target also. She felt marked for death as surely as if she wore a red circle on her forehead.1

  This is a true story. Laura grew up learning that anger was harmful, dangerous, destructive and something to avoid. And she tried hard to avoid it. For most of her life she repressed, suppressed, stuffed, denied and ignored anything that even came close to anger. After all, she had learned well the effects of anger by watching her father Lowell. She knew that nothing good ever came from being angry.

  As she got older it became harder and harder for her to deny and stuff her anger. She didn’t want it, she didn’t understand it, she didn’t know what to do with it, but it was there. She was concerned about her spirituality because she had been raised with the misbelief that “nice Christian girls don’t get angry.” She had also learned the “no talk” rule. Whatever went on at home should never be talked about to anyone outside of the home. Thus any kind of counseling was out of the question.

  Over time she realized that her struggle with the emotion she didn’t understand but could no longer deny was affecting almost every area of her life. The walls she had built and the emotional medication of busyness and denial that had for a time been helpful were no longer effective. God used a crisis to lead Laura to move beyond her fear and reach out for help.

  Ange
r Defined

  What is anger? Anger is one of the most complex and multidimensional emotions; it is thus one of the most difficult to define.

  When I have asked groups of people to define anger, I have received almost as many different definitions of anger as there were people in the audience. A. D. Lester, in his book The Angry Christian, defines anger as “the physical, mental, and emotional arousal pattern that occurs in response to a perceived threat to the self, characterized by the desire to attack or defend.”2

  The English word anger is derived from an old Norse word angre, which means “affliction.” In German, Arger is the noun of arg, which means “wicked”; thus Arger is the emotional response to “wicked” stimuli. In Spanish, enojar (to get angry) derives from en and ojo—“something that offends the eye.” In these languages, anger refers to uneasiness, displeasure and resentment.

  Another valuable way of understanding anger is to look at what God’s Word has to say about it. As I began to study the emotion of anger, I started by looking in the Bible. I was surprised to find that the Word of God has a lot to say about anger and uses a number of different words to describe the various types of anger. The first mention of anger occurs in Genesis 4:5, the last reference to anger is found in Revelation 19:15. In the Old Testament alone anger is mentioned 455 times with 375 of those references dealing with God’s anger.

  In the Old Testament, the word for anger actually meant “nostril” or “nose.” In ancient Hebrew psychology, the nose was thought to be the seat of anger. The phrase “slow to anger” literally means “long of nose.” Sometimes people’s nostrils can flare as the intensity of their feelings causes physiological changes.

  Numerous synonyms for anger are used in the Old Testament. They include ill-humor and rage (see Esther 1:12), overflowing rage and fury (see Amos 1:11), and indignation (see Jer. 15:17). Anger is implied in the Old Testament through words such as “revenge,” “cursing,” “jealousy,” “snorting” and “grinding the teeth.”

  Several words are used for anger in the New Testament. It is critical to understand the distinction between these words. I’ve had many people remark that the Scripture appears to contradict itself because in one verse we are taught not to be angry and in another we are admonished to “be angry and sin not.” Which is the correct interpretation and which should we follow?

  The most common New Testament word for anger is orge. It is used 45 times and means a more settled and long-lasting attitude of anger that is slower in its onset but more enduring. This kind of anger is similar to coals on a barbecue slowly warming up to red and then white hot and holding that temperature until the cooking is done. But it often includes revenge.

  In two places in the New Testament where the term anger is used, revenge is not included in the meaning. In Ephesians 4:26 we are taught, “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (NASB). In the Greek, the term used for anger in the first part of this verse (orge) is different from the anger in the second half (parorgismos) where we are told not to let the sun go down upon our anger.

  In Mark 3:5, Jesus looks upon the Pharisees “with anger.” In this passage and in Ephesians 4:26, the word anger refers to an abiding habit of the mind that is aroused under certain conditions against evil and injustice. This is the type of anger that Christians are encouraged to have—an anger that does not include revenge or rage.

  Another frequently used Greek term for anger in the New Testament is thumas. Thumas is anger as a turbulent commotion or a boiling agitation of feelings. This type of anger blazes up into a sudden explosion, whereas in orge there is an occasional element of deliberate thought. Thumas is an outburst from inner indignation and is similar to a match that quickly ignites into a blaze but then burns out rapidly. This type of anger is mentioned 18 times (see, for example, Eph. 4:31 and Gal. 5:20). This is the type of anger we are called upon to control.

  A type of anger mentioned only three times in the New Testament, and never in a positive sense, is parorgismos. Parorgismos is a stronger form of orge and refers to anger that has been provoked. It is characterized by irritation, exasperation or embitterment. “Do not ever let your wrath [your exasperation, your fury or indignation] last until the sun goes down” (Eph. 4:26 AMP-CE).

  Important Characteristics of Anger

  What do we need to know about anger to help it work for us rather than against us?

  Anger Is a God-Given Emotion

  No human being—nobody, male or female—is immune from experiencing the full range of human emotions. God created us this way. One of the occupational hazards of being human is that we experience emotions, all the emotions, including the basic human emotion of anger. From the nursery to the nursing home, the emotion of anger is a universal experience.

  Anger Is a Secondary Emotion

  Anger is an almost automatic response to any kind of pain. It is the emotion that most people feel shortly after they have been hurt. When you trip and fall or stub your toe it hurts and you may experience mild anger. When your spouse forgets a birthday or anniversary, it hurts. When a good friend says she will meet you for lunch and then doesn’t show up, it hurts, and you may experience anger. When your teenaged son or daughter is out two hours past his or her 11:00 p.m. curfew and hasn’t called, you may experience concern and fear. When he or she waltzes in the door and calmly announces, “Sorry, Mom, I forgot to call,” you may experience anger.

  Anger Is Often the First Emotion That We See

  Sometimes it’s the only emotion that we are aware of. However, it is rarely the only one we have experienced. Just below the surface are almost always other emotions that need to be identified and acknowledged. Hidden deep underneath surface anger are fear, hurt, frustration, disappointment, vulnerability and longing for connection.

  At a very early age, many of us learned that anger can help us divert attention from these more painful emotions. Anger is safer. It provides a sense of protection for the frightened and vulnerable self. It can provide a temporary sense of distance from our seeming helplessness. It doesn’t take long to learn that it’s easier to feel anger than it is to feel pain. Anger provides an increase of energy. It can decrease our sense of vulnerability and thus increase our sense of security. It is often a false security, but it is a kind of security nonetheless.

  Anger Is a Powerful Emotion

  In our experience, when most people think about anger they associate it with the most painful and violent expression of anger they have seen or heard. Anger is often associated with (and confused with) hostility, rage, aggression, violence and destruction. And it is true that when anger gets out of control it can be expressed in horrible ways. But the problem isn’t the anger. The problem is the people haven’t learned how to understand and value their anger, how to listen to their anger, how to hear the warnings their anger provides.

  Anger Involves Power

  When you are angry you feel “charged up” and ready for action. Physiologically, anger triggers an outpouring of adrenaline and other stress hormones to your central and peripheral nervous systems, with noticeable physical consequences. Your voice changes to a higher pitch. The rate and depth of your breathing increases. Your perspiration increases. Your heart beats faster and harder. The muscles of your arms and legs may tighten up. The digestive process slows down. You may feel as though a war is being waged in your head and stomach.

  Anger Involves Passion

  Anger causes many people to feel alive; it gives them a sense of safety and power. It makes them feel they can do something. Many women have discovered that moving from a position of passivity, vulnerability, helplessness and frustration to anger produces a wonderful sense of security, safety and power.

  Anger Would Win the Prize as the Emotion “Most Likely to Be Mislabeled”

  When people are asked, “When is the last time you remember experiencing anger?” they frequently have difficulty remembering a specific time. Why? Since many people view anger only in its
out-of-control form, they are unaware of the various ways the emotion of anger can be experienced and expressed in everyday life.

  Because there are taboos on anger in many evangelical circles, Christians can be particularly blind to the value of this powerful emotion. Instead of identifying the emotion and facing it squarely as a fact of life, they either try to shut out and silence their anger or they allow it to dominate and control their lives.

  A person who is worried usually looks and acts worried. A person who is depressed usually looks and acts depressed. A person who is overcome by fear usually looks and acts afraid. But a person who is angry may or may not look and act angry. They may appear to be worried, depressed or afraid, or there may not be any external indication of their anger.

  Of all the emotions anger is the one most likely to be labeled as something else. Of all the emotions anger is the one most likely to be identified as dangerous. What are some of the most common disguises anger can take? When we begrudge, scorn, insult and disdain others or when we are annoyed, offended, bitter, fed up, repulsed, irritated, infuriated, incensed, mad, sarcastic, uptight, cross or when we experience frustration, indignation, exasperation, fury, wrath or rage, we are probably experiencing some form of anger. Anger can also manifest itself as criticism, silence, intimidation, hypochondria, numerous petty complaints, depression, gossip, sarcasm, blame, passive-aggressive behaviors such as stubbornness, half-hearted efforts, forgetfulness and laziness.3

  An important part of learning how to make our anger work for us is to be able to identify the many masks or disguises of anger.

  Anger Is the Emotion “Most Likely to Be Blamed” for the Effects of Other Emotions

  Think about it. Is there any other emotion that people are encouraged to avoid as much as anger? Is there any other emotion that is more likely to be labeled a sin? Is there any other emotion that people are more uncomfortable talking (or reading) about? This God-given emotion has a bad reputation.