More on Fear and Anger

When ever you’re angry, ask yourself, what am I afraid of?

Emotions of fear and anger are primitive and based in the ancient limbic region, particularly the amygdala.  This is currently the focus of great interest for youth, in terms of brain development.

Master Yoda said, “Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”

Anger is an emotion, but is also a choice.  We excuse our use of anger by such things as stress, over work, others behavior.  Fact is we get angry because we choose to.

Unless we are in a “fight or flight situation, where we are emotionally hijacked by the amygdala, we have made a conscious decision to become angry in reaction to something we fear, which is based in subjective thinking.

When we fear the future (projecting) or the past (regressing), it is fear of a non-existent circumstance.

For youth (and adults) one of the lessons of “emotional intelligence” is that what usually makes us angry is lack of control of people and circumstances and that we want what we want.

For very self-centered youth, obstacles to getting what they want cause frustration and ultimately anger.  Lack of empathy and patience common in adolescence exacerbates the problem.  “If you are patient in one moment of anger you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” 

                                                                                                Chinese Proverb