Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions (34 page)

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Authors: June Hunt

BOOK: Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions
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2. Don’t Hesitate to Evacuate
If you were to suddenly realize you were holding a live grenade, I’m pretty sure what you would do—toss it, or drop it and run! Yet when it comes to dealing with an explosive person, many of us ignore the best defense: safe distance. We remain engaged in battle, on the angry person’s terms, long past when it is productive or prudent to do so. Perhaps we feel withdrawal is the same as surrender. But every good general knows retreating and regrouping today is sometimes the only way to advance tomorrow.
Here’s the bottom line: Protecting yourself is paramount. In extreme cases, where physical violence is a possibility, it is vital you leave immediately. Don’t wait until after a blow is struck. If you feel threatened, go!
Now
.
But even when you aren’t subject to bodily harm, there is no need to submit to an angry emotional beating either. It is important to learn how to recognize when the heat of rage has burned away any possibility of reason or compromise. When that happens, it is time to retreat to avoid further emotional abuse. The “time-out” can last minutes, hours, days, or longer.
The point is, you are entitled to maintain a safe distance as long as you continue to feel threatened by the flames of someone’s unresolved anger. The writer of Proverbs tells us, “A prudent mans sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it” (22:3).
3. Call for Reinforcements
Sylvia’s friend, the one who dialed the number the night Sylvia spoke to me on
Hope in the Night,
understood we are seldom called to face a giant one-on-one like David did Goliath. More often, we’re able to face our angry enemies in the strength and safety of supportive company—friends, family members, fellow believers, a trusted pastor, or a professional counselor. When physical violence is present, help can also come in the form of court orders and police protection.
The truth is, an angry person’s chief weapon against you is psychological and emotional control—something that’s all too easy to achieve when you are isolated and alone. You need others to remind you of your rights and to stand with you in securing the boundaries you set for yourself.
Sylvia eventually saw the wisdom in that. With the help of a support group for abused women at her church, she began to change her mistaken beliefs about what God expected of her and claim her right to be safe. As a result, she moved out of the house for a period of separation to let Gene know she was serious about being free from his angry, threatening behavior.
“I could never have done that without backup,” she told me later. “Others helped me see it wasn’t about changing Gene. Only God can do that, and I still pray He will. But now, it was about changing me and protecting myself and making the most of the life God gave
me
.”
The biblical call and necessity of giving tangible support is undeniably clear:
“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”
(PROVERBS 24:11-12).
Don’t battle the blazing fires of anger alone. Even firefighters know not to send one of their own alone into a burning building. Engage reinforcements, and be better prepared to face anger flare-ups.
Out of Harm’s Way
Your heavenly Father wants you to be safe and free from the effects of living with an angry person. But He never intends for you to take harmful risks in securing a safe and peaceful environment.
God expects you to love angry people, to forgive them, to treat them as you would wish to be treated—but at a safe distance. He does not expect you to helplessly endure and continue to facilitate their fiery incursions into your territory.
Know your rights.
Draw your boundaries.
Guard them firmly.
Fire Extinguishers: Beating the Heat
A fire cannot flare up to full force unless it has three things in abundance: heat, oxygen, and fuel.
A fire extinguisher will live up to its name only if it succeeds in taking away one or more of these elements. However, not all extinguishing materials are right for every fire. Water is great for robbing a blaze of heat, but it can scatter liquid fuels and make matters worse. It can also conduct a dangerous current in an electrical fire. Extinguishers filled with carbon dioxide or baking soda may cut off a fire’s supply of oxygen, but do little to cool things down when the heat is extreme.

 

In the same way, a one-size-fits-all approach to disarming anger won’t work well, and could even make matters worse. (Confront exploding anger with a similar explosion, for instance, and you could detonate a blast of devastating proportions.) Instead, you want a variety of “fire extinguishers” in your emotional arsenal, each filled with specialized anti-inflammatory agents. Acquire firm and fair boundaries—compassion, prayer, and faith in God’s healing love—and practice using them to extinguish flare-ups. They’ll help you manage even the fiercest blazes… and keep you from getting burned in the process.
16
QUENCHING THE COALS
How to Plan Ahead for Anger Flare-Ups
“The wise turn away wrath”
(PROVERBS 29:8 ESV).

 

“I DON’T MEAN to be so mad.”
“I feel guilty about getting so angry.”
“I fly off the handle…then hate myself!”
Each weeknight, during our live two-hour call-in counseling program
Hope in the Night,
people call to share their life struggles and receive real solutions. Regularly, I hear callers say things like:
“My temper comes out of nowhere—like a monster in my closet!”
“I live with a rage-aholic, and we all walk on eggshells.”
“She makes me furious, but now my own anger frightens me!”
Many people feel miffed for even experiencing anger in the first place. They don’t know where it comes from, and don’t know what to do with it. What they do know is it causes pain, and they want to get rid of it.
Anger by Another Name
During the first year our small Hope for the Heart staff in Dallas met for a weekly devotional, I asked everyone around the circle to share about what made them the most angry. After I and several other members of our team had shared, I turned to the person to my right and asked, “What makes you the most angry?” Looking at me with the sweetest smile, Nancy batted her beautiful brown eyes and said, “I don’t get angry.”
“You don’t ever get angry?” I probed. “No,” she answered confidently. “Really?” I questioned. Again, she responded ever so sweetly, “No, really.”
So we went on to the next person, who explained that her anger arose when, as a pastor’s wife, she and her children had been criticized for not being “perfect.” Then the next person said, “Well, I begin to feel angry when I want to communicate but I get no response. I get put off, then I feel rejected. That really hurts!”
We were more than halfway around the circle when Nancy—who has to be one of the dearest people in the world—interrupted, “June, excuse me: I just realized I
do
get angry. I really do; I just always called it
frustration
!” It turns out Nancy did have an anger bowl—by another name.
Sadly, the sum total of what most of us think or know about anger is this: We have it, but we don’t like it—not in ourselves, and certainly not in others. Anger is usually as welcome as a broken toe or a bad toothache.
Who can blame us? Anger can be dangerous, destructive, and dysfunctional. It can make us feel embarrassed and ashamed, or wounded and victimized, depending on whether we’re dishing it out or receiving it. We’ve all seen the devastating damage anger can do to relationships, physical and mental health, and spiritual well-being.
After I taught on anger at our Hope Biblical Counseling Institute, one of our staff members, Jennifer, shared a story from her past. Her father’s anger threatened to leave her awash in grief, resentment, and anger
.
Would she lash back?
Buried Anger
Jennifer’s father called to say that her grandmother (his mother) had been admitted to the hospital. Although Jennifer’s “Gammy” was expected to be in the hospital only a short time, Jennifer promised to visit the following evening.
However, the next day this young mother of small children came down with the flu. Not wanting to expose her sick grandmother to the flu, Jennifer stayed home and suffered through her own illness. She was bedridden for four days.
After Jennifer recovered, she phoned her dad to ask how Gammy was doing. His curt reply was, “We buried her yesterday.”
“Wh-what?” Jennifer stammered.
He robotically repeated, “We buried her yesterday.”
Jennifer was stunned. She couldn’t process her father’s words. Suddenly, she was overcome with sorrow, regret, and anger.
“Why didn’t somebody call me?”
“Apparently you were too busy to come see her, so why bother to call?”
Jennifer tried to explain she had been sick and that she wanted to avoid spreading a viral infection. At a loss for words, she stuttered and stammered—then became silent. She doesn’t remember how the call ended or who ended it. She just knows she was horribly hurt and unbelievably angry!
Reeling from the shock of the news, with sorrowful sobs, Jennifer vowed
never
,
never
,
never
to speak to her father again. How could he be so heartless…so unfeeling…so vengeful? How could he so nonchalantly throw out such callous, uncaring words about her beloved grandmother—“We buried her yesterday”? Beneath the blaze of her anger, she suffered through the anguish of deep sorrow.
As she vowed never to subject herself to her father’s cruelty again, she also determined to shield her children from his flaming arrows. She felt this injustice gave her the “right” to sever the relationship.
Seeking comfort, Jennifer returned to a collection of cherished letters from Gammy. Letters filled with encouraging words helped Jennifer survive the turmoil of living with an alcoholic father. Gammy’s example of Christlike love, despite the faults and failures of others, was a legacy Jennifer could treasure.

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