Dear Miriam, 
I am so angry… I fight a lot, but how else can I undo injustice?
Nina

Dear Nina,

It seems to me that your ruling passion is justice. Your main strengths – fair judgment, readiness to fight for a better world – are fueled by a passion to fight wrongs. As a result, your inner life is tied up with an ongoing battle for justice. In my experience, all of the above characteristics show a person who is angry with their parents. We can live our lives being furious about being deprived as a child, treated unfairly, denied acceptance and nurturing. All of us know men who cannot marry or deeply relate to women, or women who feel that the boss is unfair, their mother-in-law is mean, her friends and relatives misuse her kindness… Talk to these people about their parents and you’ll find them infuriated over their mother’s lack of love, their father’s anger and withdrawal, and their favored siblings. They couldn’t write the wrongs in their childhood, but now, they’re ready to fight back.

Whatever the source of our anger, we are alert and ready to fight the wrongs done to us: the passion for justice creates a rage that can burn for an entire lifetime. We hold on to that fury, because it makes us stronger. Yes, justice makes us stronger, but the anger makes us sick. Rage erodes our bodies, our emotional lives, our thinking. When we hold on to our rage, we do more damage to ourselves than any of our enemies may have done to us. Rage makes us physically sick. I believe that when we are permanently angry, we expose ourselves to the possibilities of cancer, heart disease, ulcers, colitis, headaches, hypertension, and weakening of the immune system. Rage makes us emotionally ill: We pay for our ability to maintain anger from our capacity to love, to accept, to relate. We describe ourselves as being mad, we feel crazed and crazy. We forget out how relax, how to feel joy. But, worst of all, rage spreads and threatens every relationship we have, because they are all targets for our passion to right our wrongs.

Deep down, we know how much we allow it to get in our way. So, what can we do to let it go? If I were to tell you that there is a way to unburden your spirit of this load of madness you’ve been carrying around for so long… If I would promise you that you can heal, overcome your sense of deprivation, that you can restore the harmony in your life and bring back to your relationships a joy that you have forgotten was even there… Would you be willing to forgive? Decide to forgive. Decide to get the anger out of your way. If you are willing to work on the forgiveness, help is available. We can feel the pain, the hurt, and forgive anyway.

I know there are steps along the way that may be scary. To mention a few; we need to acknowledge the hurt, to heal the pain masked by anger. We need to acknowledge that most often, people who hurt us were acting not so much against us, but for themselves. This shift of understanding may be crucial for healing. We may try (if it’s possible) to communicate our anger, our pain, and forgiveness. We may be afraid and stumble over any or all of these things. Forgiveness is a journey, not a destination. Along the way, we can reclaim our joy, our health, our peace of mind… We can reclaim our lives.

Love,
Miriam