Anger Flowers

     Is Anger the flower of fear? Or, are there forms of anger whose roots are other than fear? I really intellectually distaste overgeneralizations such as this. However, in this case I think that looking at where my anger comes from is a useful activity for personal growth. I also think looking at its implications are developmental.

Implication 1: Do I misread my own annoyance or irritation at something done as anger? Or, do I manufacture anger from my own annoyance or irritation? I think both are true. Are these quantities also rooted in fear? Maybe 75-90% of the time, but I doubt they always are.

Implication 2: Part of my abandonement issues are bound to another's anger. If a loved one or someone close to me becomes angry at me, there is a little child inside and she is saying "they don't love us anymore". This may be a complex mess of childhood roots in divorce and an emotionally abusive stepfather...but it is also a childhood response to the difficulty of change, of the trauma and dramas of broken stability, and an adult need to cuddle that child and find my own sacred space....the secret solitude within me. In addition, there is an assumption here that I am overusing...that the anger in a loved one has anything really to do with me. It may have to do with their interpretation of me, or what they observe. However, their anger is their emotion still based on their own fears or other feelings and the assumptions and life path that has brought them to that point. I need to remember that as I soothe that inner child.

Implication 3: ACTIVISM CONTENT. Activism or even advocacy based purely on anger is self-defeating. I own that it is normal, that it may be young activism in development, and acknowledge its usefulness. However, if the root of the anger is fear in how another may act or regard us, it is unsustainable because we cannot control other people. We/I have to find a different root to graft our social justice passion onto. I suggest not the sympathy for ourselves or others, but the empathy to not only improve the lives of our own family, but to offer insight into other ideas for others who may themselves be rooted in fear against us.

I don't know the answer to this original question. I invite input.
Mother of Heaven, Compassionate One, Creator of all things, please coach and teach me to:

1. Develop that safe internal space
2. Learn to honor other's journeys
3. Question my own anger

So may I live into this promise.


Katy