Turning Anger into a positive

When anger takes over it becomes a controlling force in your life. We have many emotions, and anger is an important one, but we should deal with it in the correct way.

I have not been dealing with my anger that great recently. Honestly I can’t exactly say why, I have a few thoughts, maybe hormonal (that seems a little too convenient to me), friendships, not being able to do the things I would like. I have been upset and that shouty woman who I don’t like has been showing up. J bears the brunt, and BB and LP get to witness strops that could rival any toddler tantrum. I know that I am not that person. It’s not what God intended for me. When I was feeling particularly rubbish I was praying about it, and opening up a copy of UCB’s ‘Word for the Day’ the post was Anger Management. I don’t think this was a coincidence. I love how God can get our attention like this. I read it along with the previous days entry as it’s part of a series over a few days. As I read I could relate, though I didn’t particularly want to. I know I’m not alone in feeling like this though. The trouble is, as the piece writes, is that often we are really good at blaming our anger on someone or something else, instead of taking responsibility for our problems. Anger is good, as it shows us something that we need to change, take ownership of and deal with. I however am really good at letting other things get in the way and then blame that. It always seems that when one thing goes wrong another quickly follows, ensuring a bad mood hangs around for much longer than it is welcome.

We had been eating our dinner, I was feeling tired and I knew J was going out later. LP wanted the lid off his drink, which I obliged with out of ease. BB was moaning about his fish fingers, and looking into the lounge I could see a mess of toys everywhere. I got up from the table to start to clear away and BB kept pestering me in the kitchen for a drink. I got distracted whilst checking something on the iPad quickly, before being reminded that I needed to get him a drink. Before I did that I picked up LPs dinner plate and as I walked through the lounge I dropped it ketchup and mayonnaise side down on the carpet. Muttering under my breath I cleaned it up, and went to tidy the kitchen mess. At this point I heard J shout at LP. His drink had gone all over the place. J came into the kitchen to ask if we had any kitchen roll. I replied grumpily (in my head at this point was you know where it is, why are you asking me, great another thing for me to think about). J cleared up the drink mess, and I tidied away the rest of the dinner things, and toys, and noticing the mess around the dinner table proceeded to hoover up all the crumbs. All the while I was just getting more and more cross, feeling like there was some sort of injustice, and that I had to to do most of everything.

In reality it’s not the case, J is great and helps me a lot. I just need to let him know how I am feeling and do a much better job of explaining things to him. I guess a part of me thinks that he won’t understand. He called me out and told me he was finding my outbursts hard to deal with. I didn’t like hearing that, but he spoke truth, and that’s important.

Turning my anger into a positive is writing this, it’s asking God to help me change what’s in my heart, it’s me taking responsibility for my actions and not blaming other people or situations. It may take some time, but step by step with God in control I know that I will change.

I am the daughter of a King.