Anger: Friend or Foe?

I've been struggling lately with how to deal with anger.  My anger is a little sneaky sometimes; I don't really realize that I'm angry until I've started talking about something and I'm off on a rant about it and I have to pause and think to myself, "Oh, I guess that really upsets me."  Mostly I try to hide any anger I feel from everyone, including myself, because let's face it, I am hard pressed to find a time when I ever expressed anger in a productive manner and had a positive outcome.

So, my typical response to a discovery like this is to find books to read on the topic.  The first book seemed good....except that it left me thinking that I have major anger issues that are with me every minute of every day and they can only be solved by accepting Jesus Christ into my life and allowing Him to determine my worth and not the people around me.  Oops, wrong book.

The second book gave great descriptions of different styles of anger and focused on how to let go of your anger.  This book showed me how sneaky my anger is -- this is why I didn't really recognize it as anger for a long time.  This book was ok, but still left me searching....

Finally, I stumbled upon The Gift of Anger by Marcia Cannon!  So far, this book is amazing!  It presents anger as natural protection against our environment.  She likens anger to the flashing lights at a train crossing warning you of a problem in your life or your immediate surroundings.  This allows you to feel ok about having anger -- nobody would say that those flashing lights at train crossings are inherently bad things!  She offers examples of how anger helped people do things that they needed to do -- stand up for themselves, protect themselves, etc -- and she even offers an example of when anger saved her own life!  She makes you feel like it's totally ok to have anger and like there's nothing wrong with you if you experience anger.  Anger is not something you have to banish from your life.  The book tells you how anger makes you stronger and even refers to it as a "Power-Boost"!  This left me with such a warm, comfortable feeling that I was able to think about my own anger without such resentment towards it and without the absolute goal of banishing it from my life for all time.

Then the book eases you into trying to think about your own anger and realizing that you already have ideas and attitudes about your anger.  No, the book does more than that, it makes it so ok, so natural that you would already have ideas and attitudes about your anger -- of course you would, you're a thinking being with experiences, memory, and emotion!  It only makes sense that you have thoughts and opinions about anger, so let's just go ahead and address that right up front and talk about it and talk about ways to avoid letting those opinions get in the way of dealing with and understanding that anger.

I'm so excited to continue this book, but I wanted to share it with you in case anyone else was also struggling and wanted to read along with me!