(photo by Tom Delaney, Sherburne County, Minnesota, 2025)

This little patch of Black Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia herta) showed up in our woods for the first time this year. There must be just enough of a break in the overhead canopy of pines to provide the sunlight that these flowers bask in. Black Eyed Susans are an early successional prairie species (we are oak savanna borderline prairie around here), which means that when you get into restoring prairie and native species, these are among the first species that will arrive on the scene. Along with a robust population of American Fireweed (Erechtites hieraciifolius) in the woods, another native species and early successional pioneer, it would seem that our efforts to reestablish natural habitat with with native species is making good progress.

There’s a classic 1960’s tune by Jimmy Ruffin, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted. It is considered to be a song in the genre of soul — which is a perfect term for the ability of songs in this genre to stir us deeply in the emotional and spiritual places within us. Maybe songs in this genre could even be said to be unmatched in this ability. Jimmy Ruffin’s song is no exception, and … ready for this? … it is my intro to talking about anger.

You’ve probably heard it by now, “anger is a secondary emotion, it comes as a reaction to pain.” In past posts I have explained that anger is a natural response, and serves the healthy purpose of energizing us to get out of situations that are hurtful. Forgiveness researcher Robert Enright also points to the example of justified anger, and that standing up for one’s rights is not only healthy for a individual, but can also create greater fairness in our society. In that way, when we are angry at injustice toward ourselves, we are practicing self-respect.

We use a lot of words without knowing their origins, and what those origins can reveal to us as ways of understanding something, and “anger” is one case of this. The word actually comes from Old Norse, the language of the old time marauding Vikings and Danes (who were actually pretty peaceful most of the time) and it meant distress and grief. The emotion we call “anger” was understood to happen when something was lost or taken away from us in a way that affects us deeply, and associated with a feeling in our emotional and spiritual heart, In this way, we can see that even the original meaning of the word “anger” tells us that when it happens, we feel it deeply, and usually the way back from anger is probably going to need repair, restoration, replacement, or acceptance to give a sense of wholeness in our hearts again.

That all said…and very unfortunately… sometimes instead of getting out of a bad situation, anger can get us stuck in a bad situation when we repeat it over and over and over again in relation to a transgression or hurtful event. That’s called “chronic anger.” In worse cases, the healthy purpose of anger to get out of a situation can be flipped and used as the energy to get into a another hurtful situation, something we sometimes call “getting into it” or “starting” with someone. It can again become something we repeat over and over again in our relationships, and be the worst version of chronic anger for all the emotional and mental damage and trauma it does, even from generation to generation in a family. I know, it seems pretty contrary to have anger as grief, and then turn it into more grief for yourself and the people around you, including loved ones. When it happens, it’s a real sign that something isn’t right.

Very good forgiveness research by Robert Enright suggests a simple insight that we can hopefully remember for ourselves: “Anger begets anger.” Here is a short list from Enright of how this looks in real life:

• Using venting to express anger, but not addressing underlying problems leaves us as angry or even more angry than before.
• Repeated and frequent intense venting can become just one more dysfunction added on top of dysfunctional anger that we carry around with us and that hurts those around us.
• Our anger can cause physical and mental health problems in the people who are the targets of our anger.
• Repeated angry blaming causes even deeper patterns of anger in a home.
• One person practicing angry venting can cause venting to become a norm in the home that is picked up by others.
• Deep seated patterns of anger for households, and the persons in the household, prevents people from moving on with their lives in ways of personal growth, quality of life, and human flourishing.
• The three D’s – distance, divorce, death – are often looked to as solutions for situations of anger, but more often people take their anger with them and are still struggling with it years later.

You, or members of your parish or faith community, may have experienced some of the things in that list. As much as there is a lot of risk for anger to become deep-seated and long-term – effecting our own health, relationships with others, and the health of those others – there is good news.

I’m an educational psychologist, and one of the main ideas I work with every day in my business is that new ways of thinking, feeling, and doing things can be learned, and changed with learning. I also believe (and for very good reasons) that how and what people learn can change them as people. Let me put it more simply, you can change for the better by learning ways to be better. We can apply those ideas to anger, and see that anger is a learned behavior and not just an uncontrollable response to our experiences. We also see that we can change anger through a learning process that involves thinking through the exact source of the anger (a person, and event, our experience of that) and reframing our thinking with moral reasoning skills so that we replace anger with a moral solution of empathy and full forgiveness. This is exactly what an effective forgiveness process like the REACH Forgiveness Process taught in Live and Forgive presentations, guided retreats, small group series, or wilderness walks, does for the people who participate in it.

Sometimes we may think that anger is just something our brains do and can’t be helped: there are just angry people because they have angry brains. Approaching anger with an effective forgiveness process uses the ability of the brain to change in response to learning experiences using something called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the capability that we all have, at probably all ages and especially at certain ages, to change the way our brain works by getting rid of neural pathways that we don’t need or aren’t really working for us in good ways, and growing new neural pathways that we do need and that can work for us in really good ways. It is an absolutely amazing connection between our day-to-day experiences and the way our brain works that we can use to make ourselves think in more productive and healthy ways, that in turn show up in our feelings and the way we act. That’s a Think-Feel-Act chain. The REACH Forgiveness Process is a learning process that connects to neuroplasticity in an intentional way so that we can let go of the anger that is not working for us and is not healthy for us, and replace it with the empathy as well as the positive thoughts and feelings that work for us and make us healthy.

So…what does become of the brokenhearted? From what we have reviewed, you can see that anger is deep grief, a feeling of loss and distress. When you’re angry, you are plain brokenhearted — and needing repair, restoration, replacement and acceptance. What happens to you then? There are many possibilities, from letting the anger become the deep-seated norm in your life and potentially for others around you, or the possibility of being self-aware of anger and what it’s doing in your life and those around you, so that you feel you’d be better off working with a proven forgiveness process like the REACH Forgiveness Process taught in Live and Forgive. Now might be a good time to also point out that one person can help another person get to that awareness of anger and its impacts, in a way that will help that person recognize that a forgiveness process will focus on their underlying grief and brokenhearted situation, and bring them back to health and wholeness. It is one of the best gifts that anyone can give to another person in a lifetime. By the way…you are totally capable of doing that.

This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

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If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com—Tom will be glad to connect with you in a spirit of welcome, respect, and shared faith.