Pain and fear can be great motivators. Think about the last time you had physical pain, enough that you had to stop your regular routine and tend to it. When we are in the grips of real physical pain the ONLY course of action we can take, is to make it stop by whatever means possible. To find the cause and treat it. Physical pain is by its nature all-consuming and requires a focused approach.

Emotional pain is a little more tricky. It is powerful enough to color our experience, including how we perceive ourselves and others, and how we are responding to people and situations. Untended emotional pain festers and creates emotional infection, the kind that eats at us from the inside out.

Picture yourself having a tiff with a loved one in the morning. It is left unresolved. You marinade in it all day, perhaps for a month. The situation gets a bigger and bigger charge. To distract yourself from your own self-inflicted misery you go out drinking with friends, or you shut down emotionally,...

Anger expressed in a non harmful way can be cathartic or positively fuel forward momentum.

Anger expressed harmfully leads to guilt and shame which perpetuates the causes of anger.

Anger unexpressed is the slow poison that eats one from the inside.

If we dig deeply enough there is anger and resentment at the core of many of our struggles.

One of the deeper sources of anger or rage is when our boundaries have been transgressed. We hold resentment toward the perpetrator for overstepping, and toward ourselves for not holding the boundary. We build stories around our anger to justify it. We vilify those who are perceived as antagonists.

As long as we point the finger outward we are missing the greater opportunity of self healing.

It’s tough when you are dealing with anger as you have to be willing to feel it, to for example dump all the yucky judgements and rage filled thoughts onto a paper, and keep going until you get to the core wound.

Now you work on self forgiveness and over...