Justified Anger

Justifying anger just keeps it in place. There is a place for anger. Find out where that place is in this mini podcast.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

Find the written versions of these podcasts on John's podcasting site: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1628038

"The Grasshopper" is the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

• Mindfulness
• Peace of mind
• Creativity
• How to stay in the present moment
• Spirituality
• Behavior improvement

And stories that transform you to a wider sense of awareness that presents more options. And isn't that what we all want, more options? 

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Transcript

Justified Anger

“The hallmark of an often angry person is justification.” That’s what The Grasshopper offered on a walk one day.

We all get angry from time to time. Even Jesus threw a fit and threw the money changers out of the temple.

But, what about the person who’s almost always angry? What you'll hear if you listen to them is one justification after another about why they are angry.

This justification makes their anger all right for them as long as they can assign it to someone or something.

I don’t know about you but I don’t see very many, very old, angry people.

And the ones that are seem rather sickly. It seems that there is an earlier expiration date for the perpetually angry. Not only that, people, in general, are very uncomfortable around angry people and start to avoid them at every turn.

Angry people wind up alone with their anger and they keep it in place with their never ending justifications. Now that’s something to get angry about.

All anger isn’t unproductive. Some people build empires on anger. Others use their anger to structure a hierarchy of rules that provide guidelines for living more efficiently. Others bury their anger so they don’t become out of control.

Anger doesn’t serve you when it’s not serving a purpose. A couple of years ago I met an extremely angry man who was incredibly successful. He had a scapegoat for every bit of his anger and it was beginning to take its toll on him – on edge, short temper, acid reflux, hard to warm up to, and the list went on and on.

I mentioned to him that he was angry and he was angry that I noticed. After he calmed down a bit, I mentioned that anger has its uses but when it’s not serving a purpose, it’s turning on him. I had his attention. 

My suggestion to him was to notice his anger, not justify it. Instead of saying, I’m so mad because so and so did such and such, just notice that you are feeling angry without any justification. Just notice the sensation in your body. Just noticing your anger allows it to dissipate. Justifying it just keeps it in place.

Start noticing any anger you may have without justification. Justification is a drug that keeps us hooked on anger.

It only seems fitting to end this with one of my favorite quotes from The Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: you are the one who gets burned.”

All the best,

John