Anger

AT,

I think it’s different for everyone, but I can offer some thoughts about what has helped me.

– Recognize that anger and the search for blame are closely related. Take, for example, the weather. If it rains on your picnic are you angry or bummed? The two emotions are very different. Usually, we’d be more bummed than angry. Now, imagine that someone throws water balloons at you while you are having a picnic. I’d guess we’d all be more angry, than merely bummed. I’ve learned to see the Church more like rain than water balloons, if that makes any sense to you. Letting go of the need to blame someone is a good step to take.

– Find a way to compartmentalize the faith that people have from what they believe in.

– Look for new treasures along the new path. While I might like to go back to a time pre-faith-crisis, I sometimes have to acknowledge that there are many things I am open to now that I would never have found on the old path. At the same time, try to value the things you have experienced in the Church. There are many things for which I am grateful, both from my prior life and my present position in the Church. I’m also grateful for how I have been able to expand since by FC.

– I’m saving the most important for last. Anger is not productive over the long haul. It is natural to feel anger in certain situations, and it can be a driver to do the right thing, but if it becomes THE driving force, it is destructive. With that in mind, accept that anger is an emotion that we allow in ourselves, it is not put there by anyone else. If it comes to us by us, it can be overcome by us.

I agree it’s different for everyone. It took me several years to be mostly over it but there are still triggers.

The biggest difference for me is who/what I am angry with. I was angry with God but realized (after years and coming here) that that anger was misdirected and God had nothing to do with it. My anger then shifted to “the church” but I soon realized it had nothing to do with it either. The anger is really about things I had been taught or led to believe which are false – which means I either have to be angry with lots of people or let it go. I have tried to let it go.

I also recognize that it’s not all actually anger, but much of it is hurt that manifests itself as anger. That’s the part where I still have triggers and twinges. Think of Kylo Ren and his light saber when he’s angry – very much the same.

(FWIW, this is why I am the dark Jedi – the anger is the dark part.)

I agree it is different for everyone, so maybe sharing what I felt is another angle to consider.

I never really had an “angry” phase. There have been times I was angry…perhaps like Lt. Dan moments from Forest Gump…times I was just needing to vent in the moment. If it was a phase for me, I moved through it pretty quickly…perhaps less than a month. Probably not really longer than a week…since my personality doesn’t really tend to have me be an angry person. I’d rather be apathetic than angry.

I was never mad at the church, or the leaders, or really at God. I was just more disappointed. I was going through the worst experiences of my life, and my family falling apart, and feeling very alone and not feeling like the promises I had faith in were being delivered to me. Upon further study, I could see I believed things that probably are unrealistic and untrue and I assumed they were and took them on face value. My bad. Won’t happen again.

I believe God wanted me to to experience things so I could let go of the things I believed in…and walk away from them without disbelieving all things.

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” Rene Descartes

I think the natural progression for people is:

– Shock

– Denial

– Anger

– Bargaining

– Depression

– Testing

– Acceptance

While different people take different times for these stages, you start working towards new transitions when you have hope there is a direction to head to. Some aren’t looking for “new” anything, but only looking back at what was lost…and I think are stuck in anger longer that way.

By reading other books from Joseph Campbell and starting to see the cycle of the Hero’s Journey and seeing the patterns others go through (not just me and not just mormonism)…then I think it becomes less angry and more accepting that it is just the way it is…so…now it comes to a choice. You can’t really go back to the way it was before. You can go back to the place you were before, but with a new viewpoint and approach to the old place with the new outlook.

There needs to be hope it can be OK again someday. When that light comes on…it actually starts to look like it can even be better than it was before things were lost.

One thing I would never tell my friends is “Don’t be angry”. Being angry is just the way you feel. Don’t stifle it. Learn from it.

It comes and goes. The feelings of betrayal run deep. In the worst of it I felt like I had been set up to look guilty by the one who actually committed the crime — and all my loved ones believed the guilty instead of me. I cannot think of a more effective seed of anger.

I then learned something about forgiveness being the best revenge. The more I hold on to anger the more I lose.

You have probably heard this quote:

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

A cool head and loving approach is so much more effective, no matter our objective.

Today I measure myself by my ability to forgive. I’m still striving and have a long way to go, don’t get me wrong, but what we focus on makes all the difference. The way I see it when I look for justice I’m sipping at the poison.

Fortunately, I have had to deal with seeing things differently than most people at church (nearly everyone at times) for all of my life, so anger never was a major problem for me. I also had to come to grips with believing even church leaders were wrong about some things as early as the first time I read the Book of Mormon and realized I thought what was written didn’t match what people believed about it – at the age of seven.

What helped me the most in maintaining peace and perspective was a deep, abiding, unshakable belief that, by and large, those people were good, sincere, faithful people – whom I simply believed to be wrong about an expanding list of things relative to our shared religion.

I know that will sound arrogant to many people, but it is what it is. I have learned to accept myself AND others with whom I disagree, even about things that are vitally important to me. That acceptance is the key reason why I don’t struggle with anger – except in specific situations where I see unreasonable abuse, rejection and alienation. Even then, the compassion I have striven to develop mitigates against extreme, lasting, bitter anger.

I’m still right pissed off!

😈

No one could have been more TBM than I was….ubber orthodox. Grew up in the same stake as many of the GAs did,…smack dab in SLC. The whole area was orthodox. The level of anger I still wrestle with reflects the depth of TBM I was.

!()!&*$)~*@$(~%*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!