Anger...again...

Following on from my last post I have decided to muse upon the idea of anger. After my unexplained anger at the church service on Sunday I have been doing a lot of thinking...mainly because I remain angry.

The anger isn't an overwhelming 'I need to hit someone' anger in the slightest; it is a-knot-in-my-throat, agitated anger. The sort of anger that just bubbles in the background and pops to the foreground every now and again like a cameo actor. This is having the knock on effect of finding that I have a secondary anger - at the anger!! Talk about Catch 22.

So anyway, I have spoken to a couple of friends about it and they both assure me that it is a good thing and that being emotional is showing progress...etc...and although I know they are speaking the truth, I also feel like something that is unexplained and frustrating, holds me back rather than moves me forward.

One of the friends I have mentioned text me last night and said she had been reading a book which said 'Anger is the stimulus to action'. I quite like this idea but also find it confusing...let me explain...

Anger is an emotion that I did not feel for years, in fact for a majority of my teens I felt very little and other than the occasional emotional outbursts, when my body forced me to feel, I went along living life in a weird void. (I did not realise this at the time, and because I was a teenager no one really questioned it). This led me to some quite devestating actions, anorexia, bulimia (although I was rubbish at this and felt a failure because of it) and self harm (this I excelled at).
Now, although I may have a brief idea as to where this stemmed from, I still don't fully understand what I was feeling at this time because I wasn't...well...feeling - if you catch my drift. Cue frustration and disconnection with myself.

As an adult I can surmise that I was probably feeling anger - especially in relation to self harm - and so it follows that the action that anger stimulated in me was a bad one. Although I'm not sure it was - self harm is often misunderstood and leads people to think you are either suicidal or crazy. My understanding is that a person self harms in order to LIVE not die...it is a coping mechanism...so in this instance anger has stimulated me into action - the action of trying to stay alive, at whatever cost.

Also, anger at someone has led me to push myself more and more to make something of myself so that what they told me doesn't come true...again anger is a stimulus to my action.

To return to the problem at hand. This newest bout of anger (I use the word bout because it feels a bit like an illness) seems unjustified as I didn't disagree with the sermon and it doesn't seem particularly stimulating, more paralysing. I am at a complete loss as to why I should be feeling this way - the reasons I gave in my last post still stand but I feel like they are not good enough for the level of anger I am feeling. So I am now battling with myself over the anger and the action that I want to take and feel frustrated that the anger would push me into an old tried and tested method that answers the problem in the immediate but not in the long term...

So as to anger being the 'stimulus to action', I agree but am not happy with the action I want to take.

Why did God push me to go to Church that Sunday when He knew I would end up angry and disillusioned? I have to trust that He has a plan in this - indeed the words that people had that day were all about God tying up lose ends, even if it felt like everything was unravelling...interesting...only just remembered that part...

I must try to trust in God more and leave go of my control freak ways that mean I need to know and understand why I am as I am...easier said than done.