Did you know that anger and hurt go together?

Did you know that anger and hurt go together? Yep they are like brother and sister, two peas in a pod almost best friends if you will.
You really can’t have one without the other. Let me give you an example. Let’s go back to high school for a minute. If your a male and your girlfriend just broke up with you and you go to school sad and crying what are your friends more likely to say about you? They will probably laugh and tell you to stop being a punk, right? Now let’s take the same scenario but this time you go to school angry about the break up and display it by hitting lockers, cursing and talking very negatively about your ex. How do you think your friends will respond to you now? They will probably accept you more and show you a little more emotional support. So what does this prove? Well what it proves is that even as children we are taught that it is more socially acceptable to show anger verses hurt which prevents us from being able to distinguish the two. We see anger and don’t even realize the hurt is there.
Now keep in mind there are some people who only know how to show one emotion and that is usually the emotion that has been the most socially accepted which is anger. This is especially common with men and young boys.
So with everything that is going on in the world today we are seeing a lot of displays of anger but realistically, it’s hurt that is just showing up as anger. Now I want to be clear that there is nothing wrong with anger or being angry. Anger is actually a healthy emotion as the Bible says be angry but sin not. It’s definitely OK to be angry as it’s a healthy emotion, but the problem comes into play when we allow our emotions to over rule us and we display terrible behavior as a result of our anger.
So what can we do about this? How can we start the process of learning how to recognize our anger as hurt and deal with  it accordingly? Well for starters we have to understand the different emotions that we feel and understand that it’s okay to feel them. For example, we have to know what sadness feels and look like and know it’s okay to feel it. We have to know what fear and anxiety feels and looks like and know that it’s okay to feel it. We have to make sure we know what these various emotions look like for both males and females, young and old. Doing this will save our relationships, our families and ourselves. How do you ask? Well let me tell you. If your living in a household where yelling is constant, no matter what the issue is someone in the house is always getting yelled at. This in return teaches you that yelling is the way to go. Now I know there is always the exception to the rule but just humor me for a minute. So now that you have learned how to yell, you take this behavior to your new relationship only to find out that your mate does not take well to yelling, in fact it causes them emotional trauma and pain and if you choose to continue with this aggressive behavior it can surely transfer down to your children which does nothing more than repeat a cycle. And there you have it, untamed emotions  that have ruined your relationship and your family. The good news is WE can heal and keep our relationships and families if we make it more acceptable to talk about our emotions and learn how to show them appropriately so we don’t just show anger all the time. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place to show and express your anger however in most cases it has been done in relationships and families to excessively ruining families and relationships. 
So let’s work at understanding all our other emotions by learning how to express them making it socially acceptable within our relationships  and friendships to talk about and display our emotions the right way. Learning how to express our primary emotion which is generally hurt and sadness is especially important so that our secondary emotion does not continue to destroy our relationships and our lives.