Calming a Boiling Rage

Climbing and steaming—a temper to scar,

Heaven help us that we don’t go too far,

What can help in this rage that can cripple?

How do we ensure these bad effects don’t ripple?

Time to engage the rational mind,

And to reconnect with our sadness—it we can find.

***

Nobody, literally no one, is beyond the variety of rage that sees our rational minds abscond. Whilst we may have a strange connection with our rationality during these times, our choice is to run rabid and, truly, heaven help anyone in our way. So many life-ending and life-changing crimes are committed in such disposition of heart.

Responding To An Unanticipated Reaction

Bouts of rage are likely to occur without our anticipation. So, in a time of great weakness, where our self-control abandons us, we’re hit with a double whammy. We do not predict the event of the rage, nor do we predict how it manifests—how long it will last, who we’ll hurt, or what consequences (lasting or otherwise) will unveil.

We’re all secretly very scared of these types of events. We never want to be on the receiving end, and certainly never do we want be the perpetrator.

But there we have it; suddenly caught up in the event, like a whirlwind, we may be just aware enough to pray—‘Heaven help me and anybody else in the way’ and ‘Please, Lord, let reason return, and quickly’.

We sincerely, at a deeper level, don’t want to cripple anyone or anything and we don’t want the consequences of our rage to ripple into irreconcilable and self-condemning rites of passage. But sometimes it’s so difficult to access this logical depth.

Somehow we must just stop. Best it is to access the truth; this rage has been unfurled for a reason. Just knowing there must be a reason can be enough to compel us to stop, pause, and to commence a search at a level of the mind.

Accessing The Sadness Beneath

Beneath every fit of rage is an inconsolable sadness, one that is sometimes seemingly impossible to access, and one that holds the secret to our healing. As everyone gets angry, everyone has such sadness.

As we learn from our bouts of anger, exploring what happened immediately beforehand, dredging back through our minds, and feeling with our hearts, we can look for the sadness—which presents through anxiety, fear, rebellion, or submission, etc through the agency of counter-attack.

Anger is the typical cover for such sadness. We so often counter-attack when we feel attacked. If truth were to prevail on our consciousness we would recognise our sadness for having been—by situation, environment, or person—attacked. And the logical mind would empathise with itself. And the anger would dissipate because the sadness was heard.

***

Accessing the truth of our inner sadness is the key in responding to bouts of rage. This is about listening to ourselves and being real. It takes courage, but anyone can do it, if we so choose. We get angry for a reason. It’s best we explore it.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.