Tagged: “unhealthy anger”
I am very frustrated with someone who has hurt me many times. I do want to forgive, but now I am wondering if you would recommend that I first deal with my frustration and anger before I start walking the path of forgiveness.
Let us distinguish between healthy and unhealthy anger. By healthy anger I mean the short-term feeling and expression of discontent over an injustice. We all get angry or sad or disrupted in some way when people are very unjust to us. Such healthy anger shows that we see ourselves as people who should be treated with respect. It is good first to allow yourself this period of experiencing healthy anger before you start the forgiveness process. In contrast, unhealthy anger is a deep feeling of resentment that does not easily go away. It disrupts one’s concentration and energy. You do not want to wait until the unhealthy anger fades because, quite frankly, if you were treated with great unfairness, then it is not likely to fade without going through the forgiveness process. In sum, first allow a period of healthy anger. Start forgiving to reduce or even eliminate unhealthy anger.
My anger is what motivates me to solve problems and to uphold justice. Forgiveness is the “opiate of the people,” reducing anger and thus reducing our motivation to seek and to find fair solutions. Can you convince me otherwise?
This is a good challenge and so I thank you for the question. There are different kinds of anger. One kind, which I call healthy anger, is expressed within reasonable, appropriate limits and can energize us to seek fair solutions. You are talking about healthy anger.
We also have the kind of anger that sits inside of us and chips away at our energy, our well-being, our very happiness. This kind of anger we could call resentment or unhealthy anger. Forgiveness targets this kind of anger and helps to reduce it so it does not destroy the forgiver. As a person forgives, he or she sees more clearly, not less clearly, that what happened was unfair. Thus, someone who forgives is not likely to fall into an unnatural state of lethargy regarding the injustice.
So, keep your healthy anger and fight for justice. Forgiveness is not a foe of justice, keeping it at a distance. Instead, justice and forgiveness can work side by side for a better world. If you think about it, don’t you think that you will be better able to fight for justice if your energy is not brought low by unhealthy anger? Forgiveness can be of considerable help here in aiding the person to control the kind of anger that can thwart the quest for justice.
I think anger is normal. You do not seem to think so. Would you please clarify?
We have to make a distinction between healthy anger and unhealthy anger. Healthy anger occurs as a short-term reaction to others’ unfairness. The anger emerges because the one being treated unfairly knows that all people are worthy of respect, even oneself. Unhealthy anger occurs when the initial reaction of healthy anger does not end, but intensifies and remains in the person’s heart for months or even many years. At that point, the anger can have quite negative effects on one’s energy, ability to concentrate, and on one’s overall well-being. Healthy anger is normal. Unhealthy anger needs attention and amelioration.
Can healthy anger eventually develop into unhealthy anger?
Yes, this is possible. When treated unfairly by others, it is natural to have some anger because this is showing the other and you that you are a person of worth who should not be treated this way. If you continue to think about what happened, and if the anger starts to grow more deeply and pervasively, then you need an outlet for this development. Forgiving can be such a response. If, however, you do not have any outlet at all and continue with the rumination on what happened, then that anger can become so deep that over a period of time (perhaps many months) it develops into the unhealthy kind, leading to possible anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and even hatred toward the other. Forgiveness is an important antidote to all of this.
I cry a lot. It seems to me that this is who I am and I just have to get used to it.
Sometimes when we are caught up in grief and anger, it seems as if this is all there will ever be now in our life: permanent tears, permanent anger. Yet, please take a look at two different times in your life in which you were steeped in heartache or rage. The tears came. . . and they left. Today it may seem as if these will never end—but they will. Take a lesson from your own past. The pains were temporary. They are temporary even now. Consider working on self-esteem, reduced anger, forgiveness, and your inherent worth as a person. All of these may help the psychological effects of betrayal to be temporary.
