{God} given emotions

I have struggled with emotions my whole entire life – especially anger.

Sadness is an emotion I feared having or felt ashamed for having, where anger is an emotion I have always felt was wrong or sinful; especially if it’s towards someone (which explains my passiveness kind of personality my whole life)

I am the type of person that would rather swallow my anger and allow the feelings to fester inside, than to own up to it and face it, and honor it.

Anger is one emotion that I have worked with in therapy for a long time. I have written past blog posts about my anger and how I work with it, and yet I still always feel this guilt and fear inside for being angry.

When I am angry my right ear gets hot, and I burn up inside, and I always almost always wait for that feeling to pass no matter how much I want to speak it out and say what I need to say.

Sometimes it leaks and I am able to push through it, but more times than not I keep quiet. Silence by anger.

In the past month or so, I have had anger built up inside and I feel it all around me. This is not an anger I have ever felt before, it’s stronger and more intense.. its the kind that has my fist curled up when I think about it or allow myself to think about the anger inside.

I have gone to confession, I have talked to my priest, I have prayed the rosary at night asking God to release me of this anger I have inside… but it’s not budging – the anger is still present and very much still here inside of me.

My therapist and I have talked a lot about my anger, and I get little bits and pieces out, but he told me the other day “you are not done being angry, that is why you are angry inside, that is why you feel that deep sense of anger inside”.

I have a hard time with it, I feel it’s a sin to be angry, that God wants us to “let it go”… but lately I feel it burning inside of me.

I have talked to people trying to justify my anger inside, everyone keeps telling me “you have the right to feel this anger”, and yet I still swallow it trying to honor the grace of God.

One night I was doing some reading on Anger and God, and I came across this person who speaks a lot on theology, and when I read this, I was nearly in tears. This is a part of what she wrote

“Scripture clearly answers such questions. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are shown to have intense emotions, including anger. Certainly, the Godhead is holy, and experiences anger. But can we? 

God gives us emotions as signals. These signals can tell us when our boundaries have been violated, when we have sinned and failed to repent, when we are living out of balance, when we are ignoring our physical health, spiritual health, mental or emotional health, and so much more.

So it stands to reason that if we are unable to properly name what is happening in our hearts, then we are not living from our truest heart. Anger usually comes from hurt or fear, and therefore must be attended to”.

When I read this, my heart raced, and I had this small feeling of relief that what I was feeling inside was OK and it was God’s way of talking to me. God speaks to us through our emotions.

My therapist always tells me “God would not give us emotions, if we were not allowed to feel them”. He told me about the story in the bible of when God over-turned tables out of anger because he was deceived, and how much that hurt him, and he felt anger around that.

The funny thing is, I can picture myself turning tables and slamming doors, I just never admit it. But I also have this fear inside that if I let out the anger I have inside, will it ever stop?

I read another quote that also touched a lot of the thought inside about my emotions and the anger I have inside and it read:

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

I have prayed about it, meditated over it, talked about it with higher power, and it all comes down to, this is how I feel. I am angry about alot of things, and I need to find a way to express, talk about it, and let it be free.

The anger inside started in a big way when I came home from the hospital at the beginning of May when I was in there 4 days.. things started to become more clear to me, I really was grasping onto life in a way I never have before, and I have been in this anger since.

I think my therapist is right “I am not done being angry”… and I need to find a way to let it go, so that I dont have to hold it anymore and let it fester inside ruining MY insides. I have held onto enough in my life, this is one less thing I need to hold.

I trust my support is there to carefully and gently hear my anger, and help me move through it, and I have to trust that God also understands my anger.

I just want to say thank you to this woman Mikki who wrote a great piece on “how god speaks to us through our emotions”.. it really made me see things in a different perspective.

I now truly believe God has given me the right to feel how I feel – he created me and all my emotions.