Have you ever felt like the man in the image – unable to think, reason or relax?

The chances are if you’re reading this then the answer will be yes, or maybe you know someone just like that. It’s frustrating isn’t it, to say the least. Anger is certainly an unwanted emotion that is so out of control that it destroys everything in its way. It is irrational, irresponsible, crushing, overwhelming and soul destroying for all involved, including the angry person themselves. It’s a bit like being on an out-of-control rollercoaster, knowing that the crash will come but we just don’t know when.

The thing is anger is a normal emotion that we should experience BUT it can become out of control especially when we don’t understand what is causing it. It is rational to feel angry when someone treats us badly. Normal anger may make us feel sad or allow us to see that the other person has an issue themselves and so we don’t take it so personally. Irrational anger takes everything personally. There is no reasoning at hand which can make sense of the situation. No ability to be aware of the emotion arising and no ability not to respond to it. All of those rational potentials have long gone and instead there is the twisted perspective that the words said or things done are very personal and that they must be challenged and overcome to restore justice and our sense of what’s right and wrong.

If we imagine that anger is like a tree. It has a root, which would normally have been embedded at childhood from a negative experience of some form. From then on, we would have adopted certain ideas about ourselves, others and how the world is, making us behave in a particular fashion. This is the forming and strengthening of the trunk, because we were not able to let go of the original experience the tree is now growing. As time goes by, we start to adopt anger as part of who we are. It can work for us at times and we may feel powerful but we start to experience its destructive force. We then begin to have conflicting emotions about our actions. We can feel guilty, have shame or feel embarrassed. All of which start to become the various branches of the tree, as we become more and more confused about what is happening to us. By now we have forgot the root of the anger because time has passed and our aggressive encounters are many. We may even have adopted the angry persona and be using it to our advantage. The fruit of the tree is the perpetual underlying feeling of anger. We have no peace, no calmness and no sense of humor when it comes to life happening in the way we don’t want it to. Everything is a drama to us and we deal with all of those events with aggression. The impact on those that are still around us can be severe and long-lasting as they are unable to comprehend the irrationality of the individual. If alcohol and drugs become involved to sedate the problem than these become a further complication to the issue because nobody can reason with an angry intoxicated person, not even themselves. Any attempt to stop being angry is impossible because the tree has been established. Changing thinking and reciting positive affirmations are useless because once the trigger has been pulled the explosion follows almost instantly.

The thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to chop down the tree of anger, branch by branch and all way down to its root. It takes method and understanding from an experienced guide who has traversed the path successfully themselves and it takes dedication, honesty and the real desire to change oneself from the inside out from the individual. If we can do that then we will finally be able to free ourselves from the destructive force of our irrational anger.