-19072009

Anger is the primary protective emotion, designed to protect us from harm or from loss of something of value. The most physical of all emotions, anger sends action signals to the muscles and organs of the body to prepare us for one purpose and one purpose only: to neutralize or defeat the perceived threat.



lso by virtue of habituation, the repeated experience of anger in defense of the ego reinforces its sense of vulnerability. The more you experience anger, the more anger you need to experience.


Of course you have a right to be angry and to experience any kind of anger. (You have a right to shoot yourself in the foot, for that matter.) The more important question is this:

"Is my anger helping me be the person, parent, intimate partner, friend, or coworker I most want to be?"
This question invokes your deepest values, which are the foundation of your ego, as well as its ultimate strength. If your behavior remains consistent with your deepest values, your sense of internal value increases, reducing the need for ego inflation. With increased internal value, you become less dependent on getting value from others. With reduced dependency as others, you are able to see them as separate people, who, like you, are often blindly and sadly protecting their own inflated egos; in other words, you become more compassionate. You perceive less internal vulnerability and less external threat, which makes you less likely to stimulate reactive anger in others. In short, you make anger less necessary in your life. You begin to see anger as not at all a bad thing but an important signal to get back to your core value.