Positively Pissed

I have gotten more comments and emails on my last post than any other. It seems I am not the only angry person on the planet. Go figure. There are many ex-Mormons / gay individuals that are tired of the fury, tired of letting their anger fester, but cannot figure out how to let it go. I was asked if it helped me to take up a cause. Sure it did, but that is because my Homo vs. Momo anger was very issue specific. Of course it helped me enormously to rant and rave and march and speak out. But what about anger that is a little more general? Will it really help ex-Mormons to work through their anger by making signs and marching on Ward houses every Sunday? Maybe, but only a little. (If you do, please wear costumes and take pictures – then return and report. I beg of you)

What about anger that is focused on something other than [gasp] a religion? All human beings have cause to be angry at something. Be it a religion, a government, a parent, friend, sibling, spouse, former spouse or lover, teacher, roommate, neighbor… We all get angry. Welcome to being human. I don’t think there is anything wrong with feeling anger. It is certainly healthier than depression and it does assist us in looking at things that we might otherwise ignore. Often anger is our deep down guts trying to tell us, teach us, something. It can be our inner selves screaming that something is wrong, that something is out of alignment. Anger makes us feel powerful in the face of something that we once felt, or currently feel, powerless to control. We are usually angry about something that has caused us great pain.

Feeling and experiencing anger is not the problem – it is being unable to move through it, to do something about it and to create something new out of it. It is getting stuck in it and setting up permanent housekeeping on Angry Ave. that becomes the problem.

Here’s how I see it. You’re angry. Okay, great, feel it. Voice it. Have a conversation with it. Out loud. “I am pissed off at --- because it makes me feel ---.” ‘I am pissed off at --- because it hurt me.” Feel the anger and feel the pain without making yourself wrong. Because you’re not wrong. Not at all.

Go running, lift weights, beat the hell out of your couch or bed with a plastic baseball bat. (I, personally, believe this item should be owned by every human being.) Get it out. Have a good cry. It’s not gone? Well, duh. It will be there as long as it’s there. You will feel it as long as you need to feel it. Get angry and then get up and do something about it.

If it gets you to take positive action – great. Feel it and tell yourself, “This anger feels good because it makes me feel ----.” And then, here is the vital part, close your eyes and breathe deeply and imagine how amazing it is going to feel when you no longer feel that anger. Take a few minutes and feel how incredible that freedom will feel. Tell yourself, “I am so excited for the day I no longer feel this anger. I have no freaking idea how I am going to get there, but I can’t wait to find out.” And then go on with your day.

As long as anger is something that we allow to flow through us in order to heal and affect change (rather than something we ball up and store in our guts like a two years supply of food) and as long as we don’t resist it and wrestle too unnecessarily with it and allow ourselves to become angry people, then it is serving its purpose. It is what it is and will be gone when it’s gone. The day will come when you will suddenly grow tired of lugging it around, when you have finally learned and become, and will find that putting it down and walking away is almost effortless.

I promise.