Ways of Seeing: Anger should be handled like fire

Posted on June 6, 2013 |

• Opinion
• Joanna Colwell
• Op/ed
• Ways of Seeing

By Joanna Colwell

I was talking on the phone with a dear friend, and boy was she mad! She was so angry that her voice had a hard edge to it, her breathing was rapid, and my chest felt tight just listening to her speak. Her emotion was so immediate, so current, so fresh. The incident at the root of the rage? It happened 24 years ago.

Here’s the thing about anger. It is like a fire that makes us hot. When we tell the story of what someone did to us that made us so angry, we are feeding the fire, adding more and more dry kindling to encourage the blaze.

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