When Healthy Anger Can Be Good for You

While playing it safe just keeps you from your fear of failure, it almost always guarantees you won’t succeed either.  It just hammers your self-esteem and perpetuates the message that you don’t feel as if you deserve better. Courage means have loved and respected yourself enough to try. It means you can figure it out as you go, feel more empowered and take even bigger steps as you gain confidence and courage. It also means you get to actually start living the life meant for you instead of allowing life to pass you by. But sometimes you just aren’t ready.  Until, of course that final straw and then you become furious, with that anger that has probably been simmering for quite awhile.

Sometimes our courage to finally take action is fueled by healthy anger at an injustice, being fed up or just plain done.  I have always said that healthy anger – that does not include lashing out on others – can be a great catalyst for change if we let it be the adrenaline force that moves us out of hibernation.  I think this can actually be the first time a person begins to honor themselves with a healthy “No!” that says they’ve had about enough of the status quo.  Who knows what the tipping point will be for each of us, but I do know I have witnessed many of them over the years.  Some were obvious because the event felt so egregious, yet other examples, on their own seemed so benign that I didn’t connect it immediately.

I think sometimes when we lack self-trust from being exposed to manipulation and other craziness, we tend to “need” overwhelming evidence to justify our need for change.  It must be believable to ourselves that it is enough or maybe hold up on the imaginary social court we imagine in our heads.  Would they judge us for setting this big boundary? For leaving the toxic relationship or otherwise starting fresh? The scales might need to tip heavily in your favor.  But that is just indicative of how you’ve lost yourself, because you don’t need a heap of reasons to honor your own well-being.  Your feelings are your feelings and they are valid.

You will still have fear.  Tons of it. But maybe your healthy “that’s IT !” anger is needed to give you the push and the strength you need right not to get moving.  Don’t worry you won’t stay angry.  It’s simply what helps you push through the fear of setting the boundary and taking the risk.  When you get to the other side you will still have some anxiety, but I bet also a ton of relief.  You did it.  Finally.