I remember working with a teenage girl, about 13 years old, who was deeply hurt. Her best friend since she was a little girl had found a cooler clique and was ignoring her at school. She was very angry about being left out and excluded after being so close their whole lives.
Underneath anger is always fear. I was talking about this in my podcast this week. I used to have a lot of anger, so understanding the relationship between anger and fear has been helpful to me.
What’s the fear under the anger about? It’s the fear of loss, the fear of being wounded again, the fear that we’ll never heal. Underneath that fear is the actual wound, and the wound is pretty much always a belief in our unworthiness. It’s a wound we’ve created ourselves.
Anger is a symptom, like a cough or a sneeze.
It helps us become aware that we feel tender and vulnerable and can’t bear it anymore. The anger explosion is an alarm. In a sense it protects us from getting more wounded. A wound we ignore doesn’t clear up. It gets infected. Anger makes us aware.
Anger tells us to look for the fear and then the wound underneath the surface.
This teenage girl was ready to tell her friend off, and that was the ego speaking. Ending the relationship wasn’t what she truly desired. I asked her, “It sounds like there might be some fear here. What are you afraid of?”
She was afraid of losing her friend forever. She wondered what it said about her that her friend dropped her after so many years of closeness. Underneath that fear, I helped her see a question of worthiness: maybe she worried she wasn’t good enough for her friend. That wound of not feeling good enough was the real cause of the fear and the anger.
I asked her, “What if you told your friend how you really feel, instead of throwing all that anger at her?”
I suggested she say something like, “You’re really important to me. The closeness we’ve had for so much of our lives is so precious to me. I’d hate to lose it. What’s going on?
If you make your friend wrong and attack her, you’ll push her away. Maybe she can come to you with her heart and tell you what’s really going on.”
I didn’t go into the whole unworthiness teaching with her, because it wasn’t the right time. You have to know when someone is open to it.
Upsets are a way that we’re being presented with a healing opportunity. We’re never upset for the reason we think, A Course in Miracles teaches us. It also reminds us that everything is helpful. EVERYTHING.
We can use the upset like a tool to have us choose healing and rise up above the battlefield of life. There’s a healing opportunity here, and that’s helpful.
TODAY: If you’d like to stop taking the silence personally, join me TODAY for my Deep Dive Workshop, When Someone You Love Won’t Speak to You. If someone you love has gone silent on you today’s workshop might be your answered prayer. We can turn the silence from a weapon into a doorway. We can learn to peacefully hold the vision of the healed relationship. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it. This workshop is a BONUS for anyone who registered for Masterful Living in 2027.
What would you like to let go of or expand into next year?
Would the support of a program like Masterful Living help you to realize your heart’s desire? I invite you to consider joining me in Masterful Living 2027 – registration is open and the sooner you join the more bonuses you get. We have so many bonuses! The next one is a workshop with me this Saturday, November 14.
Book a FREE Exploratory Call with a Quantum Counselor to get the answers to questions about Masterful Living or any of our programs. These counselors have taken the programs and so they can answer your questions.
MEN: I’m offering a 5 week class Father Brother Son specifically for men who are challenged by the men in their family. This will be a deeply healing program with homework for those who wish to achieve the greatest benefit. We’ll go deep and we’ll remember to laugh. 5 classes spread out over the next few months. Click here to learn more.
TOMORROW SUNDAY: Family Forgiveness – another FREE Forgiveness Workshop. The holidays are coming. Thanksgiving is only weeks away. Old resentments and family dynamics come up for healing during this last 2 months of the year. Holding onto grievances blocks our faith, trust, and capacity for Love, the only way to have more Love is to be more loving. We’ll do the healing work together.
NEW PODCAST EPISODE: Resolving Your Anger. I explore why anger keeps coming back, no matter how well we manage it, cope with it, or talk ourselves out of it. If you’re tired of replaying the same upset and wondering why it still follows you, I share the word ACIM uses for what anger does. Imagine anger finally losing its grip on you.
