Avoidance Anger’s Best Friend

To confront the problems in our lives and live an authentic existence may be an elusive accomplishment that many fail to achieve. Some of us hate to confront the things that are enviably making us unhappy. We hear our emotions telling us that that we need to make changes in our job, marriage, health and life’s focus, yet we ignore and AVOID these signals to our detriment.

All of us know intuitively what is good for us and what is not so good; but, for some, it is just too hard to deal with the emotional upheaval that will result when we decide to make a change. However, no matter how we try to avoid change, our emotions signal the existence of problems through feelings of fear, anxiety, apprehension, frustration, exhaustion, depression and discomfort. Some fail to listen and the result is a feeling of vulnerability and defensiveness.

This defensiveness creates hyper-vigilance. Such hyper-vigilance is like proverbially living with the hand on the gun. Any perceived attack by the outside world, whether it be from another driver, spouse, co-worker, pastor, friend, child, or the unsuspecting man on the street is viewed as attack on the self and ANGER comes in to defend what beliefs and values we hold dear. This process all starts with avoidance and, while it is not the only way to explain anger, it is one of the ways that is associated with dreams unfulfilled.

Carlos Todd, LPC, NCC, CAMF
President of the American Association of Anger Management Providers
Anger Management/Executive Coaching of Charlotte, North Carolina
www.masteringanger.com
www.angeronmymind.com
www.angeronmymind.org www.aaamp.org