Is anger an unconscious choice and emotion?
This is an interesting question for me. I will be honest, there are times when I find myself getting angry. Mostly with myself and my children. As I have paid attention to my conscious choices, I have realized that Anger is truly an unconscious “reactionary” emotion, and that getting angry takes the control away from me being able to direct my life.
This quote provides some great insight on this emotion
“Patience and Compassion are stronger than Anger. Anger is an unconscious emotion which arises without you thinking about it. Nobody consciously chooses to be angry. Nobody chooses anger, it just arises, like a knee-jerk reaction. Patience is a conscious emotion. Patience and Compassion have the energy of pure consciousness behind them. That’s why Patience and Compassion are stronger than Anger” – quote found on MMAquotable.com
How does anger hold you back from making conscious choice about how you want to direct your life?
Choose your P.A.C.E 
Definitely could be true. I find it takes far less conscious effort to get into a state of anger over a situation than to stop, relax, breathe and remain calm – especially when that’s often far more preferable.
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agreed. I think a key word in your comment is “effort” it does take effort to live consciously…which may be one reason why we sometime just go with the flow. as always, thanks for your insight Chris.
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Did you have a window into my morning yesterday? This is directed right at me! The harder route…the conscious effort to control anger and use patience and compassion…far out weigh the guilt and regret that come after anger. I was reminded of this after my anger yesterday. For me, it’s constant work, but so worthwhile.
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isn’t it interesting how alike we all are. I agree that the effort it takes to be patient and compassionate outweigh the “aftermath” that anger usually brings. The point is to learn to be conscious….then we all can choose what we want to do, instead of reacting to what life throws at us.
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A great post, perfect timing for me after the night I had. Would I have had that experience if I didn’t get angry?
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I noticed the similarities in our post today as well 🙂 Anger is an interesting topic. I definitely feel that for me it is an “unconscious” emotion that usually causes me to react in a way that I probably wouldn’t have if I would have taken a moment to look at the situation, and then made a “conscious” choice on how I wanted to respond. That conscious choice could have still been to be angry, but the difference is that I was conscious about the emotion and the decision, instead of just reacting to it. What do you think to your question?
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I did see the similarity and your post are often fantastic timing for me 🙂
I think Anger is an emotion that can be undone easily by reframing the scenario and seeing – Eg lastnight I saw the list of things to do, the lack of time, the lack of help, and my little one not listening…and I immediately went from a nice dinner at mums to angry. If I would have come home and gone from a state of anger to a state of gratitude eg I’m so lucky I have a home to come to, I’m blessed that I have a son (6 years ago it was a dream I wanted so badly), just changing my attitude to “I’m blessed”. I could have had a much better night. I have read a lot of Anthony Robbins about state and as he says- you can change your state in a heartbeat. Sometimes anger is just an overwhelming feeling of not being able to process everything and if anger is the default emotion to when we are tired, overwhelmed etc we tend to go to that state to feel safe and its a predictable state eg I’m angry so everyone will back off. I could go on and on about this topic. What do you think about the state?
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Very wise words and incredible insight. I agree completely with your thoughts, and agree that most people have a default to either get angry or run away when they are in stressful situations. That is the point of making conscious choices. When we do this, we take control over our emotions and then we can choose how we want to respond.
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True. I was a little disappointed at my choice lastnight and I would have had a better night if I corrected the emotion as I knew I had the choice as I continued carrying on. Lesson of the day… I need to take a minute 🙂
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