Why Am I So Angry?

Have you ever known someone who gets angry over the slightest trifle? Everything makes them blow their cork, and they chalk this off as part of their personality. I'm Irish, and I think anger is considered a family trait among people from the Emerald Isle. I think this is nothing more than a lame excuse for a life that is out of sorts.

Anger hurts our relationships and our health.
There's just one problem with having so much anger: it takes a toll on our relationships and our health. AAA recently reported that as many as 1200 incidents of road rage occur on America's highways every year. Angry people intentionally smash into others, intimidate them with firearms, or beat their cars with golf clubs.

Research studies have proven that angry people suffer from higher blood pressures, heart rates, norepinephrine, testosterone, and cortisol responses than people who know how to deal with their frustrations.

Everyone gets angry.
It's important to understand that it's okay to get angry. Everyone does from time to time. Anger is our heart's way of telling us that something needs attention. It's how we deal with our anger that determines whether or not we enjoy positive relationships and good health.

Romans 1:18 (NIV) tells us that God gets angry: But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

The Bible also tells us that Jesus got angry. Mark 11:15-17 (NIV) recalls the story of Jesus’ reaction to the anger he felt when he discovered people using the temple as a marketplace:

When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”

God made us in his image; therefore it is natural for us to feel angry at times. Anger is our built-in warning signal that tells us when something is not consistent with God’s Word. If we respond to it properly, anger can help us to get things changed.

Anger often stems from unmet expectations.
There are countless reasons why we might be angry. Someone shames us, embarrasses us, betrays us, forgets about us, criticizes us, tells our secrets, ignores us, starts rumors about us, makes unkind remarks to us, falsely accuses us, under-appreciates us, shows favoritism to someone else, or breaks promises they have made to us. While it is true that many events may spark our anger, I believe that there is a primary underlying cause for most anger: unmet expectations.

What has made you angry?
Take out your journal and write down as many events as you can think of that made you angry. Don't be surprised if you feel your pulse racing as you do this exercise. Remember, anger alters our body's ability to maintain balance.

We are often angry, because we have expected other people to provide us or someone we love with love, safety, warmth, comfort, reassurance, respect, success, or strength. We must all come to understand that no one person can provide all of these things for us, except Jesus.

Can you see any unmet expectations?
Look back over your list now and circle which incidents created anger because someone failed to meet your needs. It's surprising, isn't it, to discover how many times our basic needs for security, reassurance, respect, comfort, and love have been overlooked?

At the moment, every single person in my family feels anger toward my mother. Why? She has failed to support the victims of incest. Instead of coming to our aid with compassion and understanding, she has done everything possible to cover up the truth with lies and to keep her husband out of jail.

We have all expected our mother to take care of our needs, not her own. When our needs go unmet, anger usually flares. Our anger is our heart's way of telling us that something needs to be addressed.

Was the hurt unintentional or intentional?
Take a look at the list of things that made you angry. There are some incidents that can be dealt with more easily than others. If someone hurts us unintentionally, it's easier to understand how it must feel to walk in their shoes.

For example, we may be angry at our boss for giving us a pink slip on Friday afternoon. But if we discover that our supervisor was threatened with the loss of his own job if he didn't cut the department budget; we see things from a different light. Perhaps we may find a way to quickly forgive him, because we see that his needs were not getting met, either.

On the other hand, some incidents are difficult to forgive, because someone has intentionally picked us out of the crowd and victimized us. There doesn't appear to be a clear reason for the crimes committed against us, so we harbor anger toward our perpetrator. If we're not careful, this anger may spill over onto everyone we meet. And it may hurt our health more than it hurts the person with whom we're angry. That's why it's so important to listen to our anger and deal with it.

Traumatic events rewire our brains to always respond with anger or fear.
When we are abused or traumatized, our minds usually become rewired. From the point of trauma onward, we begin to view others with suspicion, expecting them to hurt us, too. We put up walls around ourselves that are made out of bricks of anger stuck together with the mortar of fear.

Tomorrow, we will learn how to re-program our minds so that we can move forward along the road to forgiving the people who have hurt us the most.

Today's Challenge
Make your list of events that made you angry, noting how your needs went unmet and whether or not the offense seems to be unintentional or intentional. Write out a prayer, asking God to help you to use your anger to move forward on your journey of forgiveness.