Other duties have kept me from being able to watch the next episode of this series until last night, but it's been on my mind, and I look forward to it each Tuesday. This episode focuses on the anger that surrounds an abortion decision. I believe the anger is one of the hardest phases to work through, especially if you are from a background like mine, where you were not allowed to express anger and other negative feelings, and anger was constantly modeled in the most inappropriate of ways. As the women in this episode discussed, and Vanessa verbalized in her side segment, the anger starts way before the abortion decision is ever made. Then it is compounded by the hurts that happen during and in the time of the abortion.
It is normal to feel angry with many people after an abortion. Many of us fight these feelings and push them deep inside our psyches, so deep in fact that we may not even know, or acknowledge that the anger really exists; or worse, we internalize it and blame ourselves completely and solely for our choice. Our abortion choices had many contributors, even people who were unaware of the crisis pregnancy at all. As Jill touched on in her letter to her parents, "why did you not stop me, why did I feel I couldn't come to you for help." There is a direct proven link between abuse in childhood and abortion choices. Abuse can take on so many different forms, it is no longer the old definition of children being beaten black and blue, burned with cigarettes or locked in closets. We now know that verbal and emotional abuse is just as damaging, if not more so, and can have long lasting, even devastating consequences.
In order to work through the anger that surfaces in working through your feelings about your abortion choice, a level of deep acceptance of the anger needs to take place first. Please, don't fight the anger, it is necessary, it is healthy, it is acceptable to us and to God. What we do with the anger is often where the problem comes in. I'm not saying it's okay to take your anger out by mistreating your spouse, your children, your friends or anyone else in your life. I'm talking about honest anger that is to be dealt with in healthy and constructive ways. Simply allow the feelings to come, and don't fight them, then do something to get them out of you, as you saw in this episode, writing a letter and ripping it up is constructive. Burning the letters is constructive, it is taking the anger outside of your body and disposing of it in such a way as to harm no one. Praying about it and asking God to take the anger away and release it from you is a wonderful tool in dealing with anger. Asking God to replace the anger with His love for the people that hurt you is a powerful way to release the anger and give yourself a sense of peace and calm where there may have been resentment, anger and even hatred at times. As you pray these prayers, breathe out the anger to the air in long, slow, deep breathes, while visualizing God's loving hands surrounding it and making it dissolve into nothing. In doing this, you are giving the anger away to the One and Only that can make something good out of something bad. Many people journal about their anger, or they write many letters, each one allowing a little of the anger to be expelled at a time, this is healthy. Talking about it and expressing it to a trusted friend or relative is constructive, crying and screaming and wailing is acceptable when you are alone or with someone you trust very much. Even physically releasing the anger is healthy if you enjoy physical activities, beating a punching bag, or pillow is cathartic at times. Just do what you need to do without hurting yourself or anyone else, and it will be beneficial; the most important point is to not fight the anger, instead accept that it is how you feel in this moment. Feelings change, emotions come and go, they are not facts. Just because I am angry today, that does not mean I'm going to be angry tomorrow or next week. It is just an emotion like any other, and if we can step back from it and look at it in this way, it helps to minimize its power in our lives. The distance will allow us to have a new perspective about these negative emotions.
Many people worry that if they start to allow themselves to feel the anger, that it will consume them. They feel overwhelmed by anger, and uncomfortable with the anxiety that accompanies anger. That is because in general, we haven't had healthy experiences with this emotion. Many people use anger in destructive and manipulative ways, and this leads to many hurt feelings, and damaged relationships, and broken hearts. It's hard to convince someone who has kept it bottled inside for years and years that it's okay to go into that anger, that they may feel overwhelmed in the beginning by this strong emotion, but that it is healthy to deal with it. Holding it inside only leads to disease and for many, emotional and psychological problems that can span a lifetime. I hope that you will allow yourself to feel the anger and will release it in healthy ways. As the women demonstrated with the rocks, if it is not released, it is baggage that goes with us everywhere we go, weighing us down and keeping us from our fullest potential, and robbing us of peace and tranquility in our lives. The anger that is left to fester will only cause us emotional pain, while those that we are angry with continue on with their lives oblivious to the fact that they have hurt us at all many times.
And finally, by taking a good, long, honest look at our anger without allowing it to control our lives, we stand to gain an amazing amount of insight and personal growth from having experienced it and worked our way through it. I think insight, understanding the underlying reasons we feel and do the things we do, is one of God's greatest gifts to us. It is quite a blessing to have a clearer view of our lives and the pain we have experienced, when it allows us to grow and make changes that have lasting and empowering results in our lives. The insight only comes if we unabashedly invite it into our lives, without fear of what will be revealed to us. We open the door wide to the blessing of insight, when we look, even trembling, full on into the face of our deepest emotions, with anger being a primary one. One of the reasons that anger is so important for us to work through is that it masks so many other things. I remember early in my counseling career a trusted mentor sharing with me the analogy of the onion and peeling away the layers, as being the same thing we do in therapy. We begin to peel back what we see on the surface (anger, outbursts, relational problems, eating disorders, addiction, etc.) to have a closer look inside what is driving these behaviors (hurt, rejection, fear, loneliness, poor self-esteem, psychological damage, etc.).
You and I are brave, whether we feel that we are all the time or not, we absolutely are. If we are willing to work at understanding our lives, our thoughts, and our behaviors; our pasts, and our presents, that takes courage. We have everything to gain from working on this, and nothing to lose but heavy "rocks."
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