The themes included Respect, Forgiveness, Commitment, Communication, and Belonging. Since our children have become more knowledgeable about these, I thought we should, too. Forgiveness is typically preceded by an act motivated by anger. After many years they met and forgave one another. Perhaps by acquiring a better understanding of anger we could prevent situations that require forgiveness or at least be prepared to forgive more readily.
Anger is a natural human emotion.
Anger is a secondary emotion, meaning that another feeling was experienced first, sometimes only a split second before, that triggered the anger. Some of the feelings that typically precede anger are fear, disappointment, embarrassment, guilt, jealousy, inadequacy, pain, and even fatigue or hunger. The factor all of these feelings have in common is the sense of vulnerability they leave us with. We are not comfortable with being vulnerable, much less admitting our vulnerability to others, so we revert to anger which makes us feel more powerful. Anger prevents us from taking responsibility for and dealing with our true feelings by allowing us to direct the energy from those uncomfortable feelings outward, against others.