Cool Anger

 Anger is a necessary but complicated emotion. Combine anger with fear, with loss, with helplessness, with Depression, with Anxiety, with even physical pain; it is a toxic mix. What helps me, is to think of anger like a cloud. Anger gets bigger and more intense when combined with other emotions. And it's often, in my opinion, combined with other emotions. 

Which makes anger harder to work through. Anger driven by other feelings tends to make up stories about what is happening, about what happened. That has to be put aside.. Focussing on your feelings not on stories about others is what helps, me anyway. 

If I can say what I did wrong, apologize...again learning. If I feel my pain, own it...the hurt, the helplessness, I feel freer. I gave my feelings a voice. They don't necessarily need action.

 If I only justify, if I refuse to reflect or focus only on right vs wrong, tell myself a story that could or could not be true about what happened/ about how I was hurt... Well, closure takes a long time with bitter learning around not trusting people. Separation. 

Which is different than letting go. Letting go, forgiveness, they are about my value system...how I want to be. And here's the hard part; when you suffer with loss, letting go has elements of another loss. Harder to bear, harder to let go of something, someone. Loss feels compounded. It makes us vulnerable to staying too long. Of choosing long term hurt over loss. 

Waiting until anger is cooled can give some strength; in setting boundaries, in listening to our hearts and heads.  Cooled anger can help... to not put ourselves in harms way again. To have compassion and understanding combined with self honesty.  Listening to cool anger means having room to listen to how we want to show up in the world. And sadly, I know I'll continue to have losses in my life. It's a part of living.