MENTAL HEALTH
Managing the Emotion We CAL
L
ANGER
ŝƐŚŽƉ Z͘ ͘ ,ĂŝƌƐƚŽŶ͕ WƐLJ
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o begin this topic, I want to begin with a question: Who is the angriest person in the Bible? If you answered “GOD,” you would be absolutely correct. If the same question were asked again and this time you answered “SATAN,” you would be correct, again. How so, would God and Satan be the angriest persons in the Bible? Please allow me to explain. First, a few thoughts about anger that I’m sure we all can relate to. Anger is one of three basic human emotions, as elemental as happiness, sadness, anxiety, and disgust. These emotions are tied to our basic survival and were honed over the long course of human history. Anger can be understood or defined as an emotional state that may range in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage. Anger may be accompanied by such physiological effects as raising the heart rate, blood pressure and the levels of adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol in the body. Research tells us that what makes anger so insidiously powerful is that it creates overwhelming physiological responses in the person experiencing the emotion— physiological responses such as clenched teeth and
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THE CHRISTIAN OUTLOOK
fists, pursed lips, increased heart rate, rapid breathing and perspiration are all outward signs that anger is present. In this context, Anger is related to the “fight, flight, or freeze” response of the sympathetic nervous system. It prepares humans to fight. Further, anger usually has underlying emotions that accompany it such as fear, low self-esteem, rejection, abandonment, family of origin issues, jealousy, depression, hurt, and anxiety. Yet, anger is something we all experience, often on a regular basis. If we were to pause and peel back the layers of our anger, we would find the underlying emotion from which the anger stems. Often times that emotion looks nothing like the anger that we express. In fact, we are triggered in the moment, but the underlying root cause is truly what our anger is about. That said, allow me to further explain how God and Satan are the angriest persons in the Bible. When we look at Scripture and Bishop R.E. Hairston, PsyD, at see that God is angry, it tells us gatchurch2@hotmail.com something very important, and that is PAW Committee on anger can be utterly right, good, Health Education & appropriate, beautiful, even the only Wellness Agenda, fair response to something evil, and Director the only loving response on behalf of
“GOD’S PROMISE TO PERFORM”
MAY/JUNE 2020
