{"id":4955,"date":"2014-09-11T23:31:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T05:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=4955"},"modified":"2014-09-11T23:31:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T05:31:43","slug":"recognize-it-control-it-and-let-it-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/recognize-it-control-it-and-let-it-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Recognize It, Control It, and Let It Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHolding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.\u201d \u2013 Buddha<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

As I thought today about the past events that took place on September 11th<\/sup>\u00a0I couldn’t help but think about the amount of anger and hatred those people had that committed such horrible acts so many years ago today. \u00a0That day should serve as a lesson to all of us regarding how toxic anger can truly be and the importance of not allowing ourselves to let anger into our hearts. \u00a0Anger changes people. It corrodes their souls. \u00a0And left unchanged it eventually turns\u00a0to hatred. \u00a0And hatred…well hatred destroys the person who carries it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.\u201d\u00a0 – Mark Twain<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Stopping feelings of anger or letting go of feelings of anger isn’t always easy. \u00a0When someone hurts us, or wrongs us, or threatens us, it is a natural reaction to instantly feel anger. \u00a0But it’s learning to recognize the anger, control the anger, and let the anger go that matters, and those are skills we all need to master to have a happy life.<\/p>\n

Controlling our thoughts is the best way to control our anger. \u00a0In those moments we have to force ourselves to think logically about things. \u00a0We have to recognize that what is manifesting itself as anger is most likely actual feelings of hurt or disappointment or frustration. \u00a0But in those moments it feels safer to be angry than it does to be hurt. Anger feels more powerful and hurt feels more vulnerable, so its easy to see why so many people choose to default to feeling angry. \u00a0Being vulnerable is admitting that you could be hurt even more than you already are and no one enjoys that.<\/p>\n

Some examples of how we can control our anger with our thoughts would be – We have to change our thoughts from “I have to have” to “I would like”. \u00a0Thinking “I have to have” leaves you nowhere to go but angry if you don’t get it, but “I would like” allows you to feel grateful when you get it rather than angry when you don’t. Another example is when things go wrong we can’t allow ourselves to think “everything is ruined”, rather we have to think “I am understandably disappointed but this is not the end and eventually\u00a0things will be okay”. \u00a0When it comes to relationships we have to stop thinking “I hate this person” and change our thoughts to “I don’t agree with this person, or I am hurt by this person, but for my own sake I am going to forgive them and move forward.”<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone can hold a grudge, but it takes a person with character to forgive. You release yourself from a painful burden. Forgiveness\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0mean that what happened was OK, and it\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0mean that person should still be\u00a0welcome in your life. It just means you have made peace with the pain, and are ready to let it go.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine how much better things would be if all of us controlled our anger and never let it grow into hate. \u00a0Hate is such an ugly word. \u00a0The world would be a much nicer place if that word was no longer a part of it. \u00a0I think it would be an awesome tribute in honor of all those who lost their lives as a result of hatred on September 11th, 2001 or any other day,\u00a0if we all committed to make more of an effort to\u00a0recognize our anger, control our anger, and let our anger go.<\/p>\n

And let’s be honest – being happy and loving is SO MUCH MORE FUN \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0 \u00a0 Have an amazing weekend everyone!<\/p>\n

~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHolding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.\u201d \u2013 Buddha As I thought today about the past events that took place on September 11th\u00a0I couldn’t help but think about the amount of anger and hatred those people had that committed such horrible acts so many years ago today. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4947,697,699,1964,820,2579,556,515,3991,743,1679,4945,55,180,375,4542,103,464,104,716,769,4950,4951,2748,349,4946,4105,1050,4952,1546,2142,115,1897,516,4949,2347,4948,4656],"class_list":["post-4955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-acid","tag-anger","tag-anger-management","tag-angry","tag-buddha","tag-burden","tag-cognitive-therapy","tag-control","tag-die","tag-forgive","tag-frustration","tag-grudge","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-hate","tag-hatred","tag-hurt","tag-joy","tag-let-go","tag-letting-go","tag-logic","tag-logically","tag-manifesting","tag-mark-twain","tag-peace","tag-poison","tag-reaction","tag-recognize","tag-release","tag-safe","tag-september-11","tag-september-11th","tag-skills","tag-thoughts","tag-threaten","tag-ugly","tag-vessel","tag-vulnerable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4955"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4955\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}