Hello From Beautiful Montana:
“I am furious at you! ” “You make me so mad.” “I am so angry I could scream.” These are all angry responses to stress in life. While it may relieve some of the pressure of the moment, anger takes a price. It can cost you relationships, employment,respect by others, and love of family. A major cost is personal for angry people; health related and perhaps even your life. Road rage is an example of allowing the stress and annoyance of being stuck in traffic to escalate into a tragedy.
Benefits of Anger
Stress is a physical experience. All strong emotions such as anger, fear, excitement trigger powerful hormones which enables a threatened person to run faster, climb higher, shout louder, hit harder and do what must be done in order to survive a perceived attack. It is anger that is the catalyst of most great organizations that do good in the world. A mother’s anger that her child has been killed by a drunk driver channels that anger into Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It is the anger against injustice to schooling young girls in third world countries that motivates Greg Mortensen to write “Three Cups of Tea” and to build schools that will educate them.
Disadvantages of Anger
Angry people are seen as dangerous and others like to steer clear of them. They are handled like a loaded gun; others are aware that you could go off at any time and they are frightened to be around you. Those whom you need to have a fulfilling life
start to avoid you or if they cannot physically leave, tend to guard their words and actions so as not to offend or start a argument.
Not only will angry people find more problems on the job with co-workers and bosses, but will terminated more readily. Those who work with angry individuals tend to avoid situations which may result in an angry outburst and so are reluctant to suggest new ideas or methods of doing procedures, for fear of an emotional outburst.
Physical Changes in Body and Mind
Occasional anger creates no lasting harm to your body and emotions. However; chronic, sustained and ever present anger keeps the body in a constant state of emergency and relationships in a constant state of fear. This has an effect on regular body functions such as digestion, high blood pressure, auto-immune diseases, infections,headaches and many more that keep you and those around you from enjoying life to the fullest.
Questions For You
- What are your triggers to anger?
- Can you think of other ways to vent your emotions without getting so mad?
- Are there people in your life that you avoid because they tend to handle stress with anger?
- Has anger ever motivated you to do good?
- What do you think is the best reaction when a driver is clearly angry and experiencing road rage?
Thank you so much for being part of this community of kind and thoughtful people who want respect for all. You will want to claim your free ebook on encouraging words at http://www.encouragingwords.com
Your friend,
Judy Helm Wright aka Auntie Artichoke, family relationship author and keynote speaker
