I have spent a lot of time being angry. In retrospect, who knows if it was warranted or not; however, I do know that most of my anger was a waste of my time. I’m not saying that being angry isn’t natural; however, I am also saying that the mindset of someone who is angry is limited because when we are angry, our focus is like a bull with a red target and we forget to appreciate what is around us.

Over the years, I have learnt how to calmly my anger down or acknowledge it and then move forward from it.
Here are 3 things I wish I’d known about anger before I became an adult:

1. Don’t let anger get in the way of your future.

My teenage years and early twenties were spent being angry and full of rage. Even though, for the most part, I perceived myself to be happy and put well together, I had a lot of inner anger. Now that I have grown, I can sum up being angry as a result of how I felt I was treated by men. In my mind, I was a victim and therefore I had a right to be angry at how men had treated me throughout my life.

Little did I know is that all that anger was only hurting me. 8 years ago, I decided to leave my anger behind because I noticed how it was self-inflicted and stopping me from achieving anything valuable in my life. Once I released my anger, I noticed a big shift in my life. I went from being a perpetual victim to a victor and took a stand in the right direction towards healing and forgiveness.

2. Anger triggers our bodies’ stress receptors. I am a yoga teacher and spiritual guide. What I have learnt in myself and others is that being angry releases stress receptors into our bodies and creates inflammation which internally has tremendous negative effects on our health.

One of the foundations of yoga is calming the body down to unify it with our mind and soul. I noticed that anger stopped me from unifying my body and took it out of its natural state: well-being. When we are at peace, our bodies can do what they are meant to do without being bombarded by fear and anger.

3. The best way to have control is to be at peace about something. One of the most fundamental turning points of when I was in my twenties is when I decided to stop blaming men for the reason why my relationships had not been working out. You see, I had adopted the toxic female ideology that all men are bad and it created deep anger within me and it blocked any man coming into my life because I was convinced that all were bad.

So even if a good and wholesome man entered my life, I was stuck on being angry and dating men who triggered this emotion in me. After this moment of realization, I have had my angry moments yes! However, I can feel my anger arise and choose if I want to partake in it or not. Sometimes anger is useful but being angry all the time is not the direction of where I want my life to be in. I want to aim for peace and surrender so that I can leave situations knowing that there is only so much I can do and I leave the rest up to God.