TJ and I have been discussing anger a lot lately and how we want to handle outside influences on our family. We are trying to find a way to teach our girls that anger is a healthy emotion that has a lot to teach us but also teach them how to handle it in a productive and kind manner. Within our family, we deal with anger head on and we work to find solutions so that it does not infiltrate the fabric of our family bonds. We have a great handle on dealing with anger between the four of us, and we have worked hard on creating an atmosphere where forgiveness wins out in the end. But when outside influences come in, it’s not quite so easy.
See, for many people, anger is a difficult emotion. For me, it’s one of the most difficult.
I think like most people, I spent a long time feeling like anger was bad and always misplaced, that if I was feeling angry I was doing something wrong.
But slowly, I’m starting to realize that this isn’t always the case. We were given anger for a reason. Like most negative emotions, it can alert us to situations that are amiss.
There’s that quote going around Facebook and Pinterest that says something like, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.” And I think that says something helpful about the best way to handle anger. We must acknowledge that our anger is our responsibility, and we must deal with it in a helpful manner.
But what about the times when anger really is correctly placed? What about the times when our barriers cannot protect us from the negative advances of others? What happens when you have repeatedly closed in your boundaries to protect yourself and your family and yet the aggressors keep finding a way to get in?
When is it time to call it quits and say enough is enough? When do the benefits of offering grace and second chances and understanding fail to make up for the harm that is caused by allowing someone into your life to repeatedly degrade and attack you?
I’ve always believed in forgiveness, and I still do. But the older I get and the more experience I accumulate, the more I start to understand that there is a great difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. It’s our duty to find a way to forgive. If we don’t, we are the only ones being harmed. The poison of anger will only kill us. But reconciliation goes a step further than forgiveness, and it’s simply not always desirable.
If we offer reconciliation when it is not warranted, we risk the effects of having someone continually and persistently injure us. We are putting ourselves in a situation where we will continually be brought down into anger and the havoc that can wreck on our psyche. We injure our God given dignity.
I’m not sure how much I’m making sense here. I’m just trying to understand when self preservation must outweigh reconciliation. Regardless of the importance of a relationship, when must we say no — when does our moral responsibility towards our souls and those we love make it imperative that we break bonds? In other words, when do we throw in the towel?
And when we have made that decision, how do we convince ourselves that we are worth it?