Managing Anger with God | Anger as a Window of Grief

Managing Anger with God | Anger as a Window of Grief

Tizita Seifu MA, LPCS

Engaging Anger in Helpful Ways:

As a Therapist that supports clients through personal, professional and spiritual development, I see common misunderstandings about understanding and managing anger in helpful ways.  Anger can have value and can be engaged in ways that can lead to greater self awareness and peace. Increasing your understanding and connection to your anger in helpful and constructive ways may be the beginning of your way to experiencing more peace and ability to make the most of the present.

Mentally Healthy Grieving with Anger:

Anger is often a secondary emotion often reflecting sadness and grief. The primary emotion often associated with anger is sadness. Anger and sadness are often different sides of the same coin. Anger and sadness are both valid emotions. When we are feeling angry, it is quite likely that there is a sense of sadness whether we are conscious of it or not. Your anger may be revealing sadness about many things such as unmet needs, disregarded expectations, or the grief of a loss of hopes, dreams or love. Your anger may also be revealing anxiety or depression.

There are some ways of grieving that can be helpful and healthy, and other ways that can be harmful and hindering. While grief is a common experience, the journey of grieving is an individual experience. While there are common experiences to grief, everybody grieves in their own way. When you are ready and as you move beyond the shock and disbelief that can come with grief and loss, allowing yourself to feel the normal feelings of grief such as anger, disappointment, sadness, and guilt can be healthy.

Spiritually Healthy Grieving with Anger:

It can be normal to be angry with God when you have gone through hurtful things. It may be difficult to trust God or have faith in God after deep pain. No one knows the challenges of wrestling with your faith like those navigating life and faith after being deeply harmed. God cares about all of you, even the parts of you that are angry.

When our grief and loss is related to God, it can feel difficult to turn to God in our pain. It is ok if you may not want to talk to God when you are sad, anxious, or angry. If you are looking for an additional way to cope with your grief and loss, being honest with God can be a healthy way to cope; this can be healthy for your mental health and spiritual health.

As a Therapist, I find that there is a common misunderstanding among Christians that you should never be angry and that you should definitely never be angry with God. God teaches in Scripture such as in Ephesians 2, that anger has its place and anger has its value and should be managed carefully. God also teaches in Scripture that avoiding transparency about our pain will generally add to our pains and struggle, rather than minimizing it, such as in Genesis 2.

Sharing your anger with God and healthy community can be a healthy way to cope with grief. Feeling anger toward God can be a normal experience of grief. Expressing anger with God can be a normal experience of grief. All of these things can be healthy ways to cope with grief.

God makes room to struggle with His decisions, while still calling us to trust in His character. This room that God creates is not one you have to navigate alone. There are people that understand and offer support in this space of acknowledging and wrestling with anger in healthy ways.

Normalizing Feeling Anger with God:

The hurtful thing that you have gone through, and the disappointment has made it hard for you to turn to God. The truth is you are feeling sad. You are feeling angry. You are feeling disappointed. You are not sure if God is a safe space right now.

I want you to know that one of the healthiest things that you can do both from a mental health perspective and spiritual health perspective is to allow yourself to be honest about the part of you that is feeling angry with God; the part of you that is struggling to turn to God; that part of you is struggling to feel like God is someone you can be honest with, someone you can experience as safe. I hope today you will begin to allow yourself to acknowledge that and seek support if you need to continue to work through that in healthy ways.

Addressing Anger with God:

You may be wondering where to further continue in the process of managing your anger with God or others in healthy ways.

Here are a few sentences that can reflect experiences of anger that you may consider if you want to go deeper in reflection or dialogue with yourself, God or others in ways that are normal and can be healthy mentally and spiritually:

1. I find myself being more irritable than normal.

2. I learned that I am not supposed to be angry but the truth is I do feel angry.

3. Being honest about my anger with you God feels like I am disrespecting you or doubting you.

4. It is hard to talk about what I have gone through because I am not sure how it would help, and I already have a lot going on.

5. God our relationship feels distant because I am not sure how to deal with these thoughts or feelings.

6. It is hard to know what to do with my anger because I have rarely seen examples of others managing their anger in constructive ways.

Next Step for Managing Anger:

As a clinically and Biblically trained Board licensed Therapist, I would be honored to support you in navigating your anger or loss in ways that may reduce the intensity of pain and disconnect from enjoyment and peace.

SCHEDULE APPOINTMENT:

Additional Grief Coping resource: