How Anger Affects our Personalities

Have you ever spent the night tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep, rethinking an argument from earlier in the day? Laying there wrestling with yourself, imagining what you should have said, how you should have responded, catching yourself in that net of imaginary pain? The argument is long gone, and yet our minds reconstruct a reality within, recreating that internal combustion of anger.

Having grown up in an environment where expression of anger was forbidden, I developed a frightening ability to suppress that darkness inside. I can recollect as a child exercising a concentrated version of this; obsessing in the darkness, fists clenched, imagining what I wished I could have done. A toxic combination of memory and imagination fueled by years of suppression. Not a very good state of mind to come from to say the least!

As I have grown and come to terms with my past, I find myself releasing the rage in a pressure valve fashion. I also see that it has been an underlying controlling factor in the development of my personality over the years.

As a writer I have often experimented with a form of writing akin to “channeling,” where I utilize the format of a conversation on paper, with an imaginary advisor to get a better handle on what lies beneath the surface. It has surprised me the depth of the responses that surface during these exercises, sometimes answers emerge that I did not think I possessed myself; in fact they often seem to come through me, rather than from me during these sessions. As an example I recollect one of them here:

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK “FIREWALKER:”

I decided to place an ‘L’ in front of my questions and an ‘M’ in front of the answers, writing it in the form of a dialog…. I will call you Michael. Why not? Makes it more interesting. So I set down the first question.

L: “How do I change this flood of angry memories, how do I let it flow out of me and not drown me?”

M: “Don’t let it command your attention or consume your time. That’s where its power lies. You can’t reason it away; just know that you do not belong to that energy.”

L: “But how can I do this?”

M: “It’s like remembering something from long ago, a fragrance you can’t quite put a name to. Remember what you’ve forgotten. Teach yourself. Past and present, it’s an illusion…energy ever evolving. We are all things in all times and yet can change it instantaneously.”

L: “Sounds a bit like mumbo jumbo to me.”

M: “Here you are, hurtling through space on a tiny ball of rock in the middle of a void surrounded by burning suns…this is beyond imagination and yet you limit your perceptions to a mere fragment of reality. How can a bumble bee fly? Where did the universe start?”

My pen rested for a moment, circling long black curls of ink in the margin, then the M with a flourish again:

M: “You were trained well as a child. Anger holds a dark and romantic spell over you. You think your identity would be incomplete without it. The rage is residual, the remnants of what was done to you. If rage leaves, it’s almost as if it never happened, no proof of damage; and you have so needed proof, have you not? Proof that it was not all in your head.”

My mind felt on fire as questions tumbled over themselves to win favor.

L: “Why is proof important?”

M: “Why to prosecute the convicted of course. What justice without proof? What is to stop it from happening again if you do not keep that reminder alive?”

L: “And how do I free myself? How do I succeed?”

M: “Succeed? Success is a living-breathing thing. What you learn from failure can be success in itself. Forget finalities, there is no such thing as THE END. In that sense you are never done. It’s beautiful and scary at the same time.”

I held my breath for a moment, wondering if I had suddenly stumbled upon some hidden reality.

L: “I have always sought perfection; failure is not an option to me.”

M: “Joy may be in the very act of imperfection itself. The ideal of perfect is as solid as water, ever changing upon mood, culture, individual. Its very essence is imperfection, never complete. What you thought of as perfect one day will appear flawed the next.”

A childish anger flooded me. How can I be angry at myself? After all I’m the one holding the pen.

L: “The whole business of life appears like some dysfunctional game, ever chasing after a mirage.”

M: “You swore as a child a solemn oath, that you would never forget how to play.”

I paused, remembering that very moment in our Boston apartment so many years ago, sitting on the floor playing with toy cars. At five years old the patterns on the carpet had become a city to me. I looked at the grownups around me, so somber, and promised myself I would never end up that way.

L: “So?”

M: “You have lost your sense of humor, forgotten how to play. Why is it different now?”

L: “The stakes are far more serious.”

M: “Are they really? Didn’t the world revolve around those games with just as much significance then? It’s all in your perception.”

As the darkness pressed in over the desert, I thought I saw a large feathered shadow, a wingspan fleeting across the sand dunes and vanishing. Dark Bird of Duality…the thought lingered as I set down my pen and a strange calm settled over me...what a complex and amazing game this is...