“We are the sky; our emotions are the weather.”

That’s a therapy concept, addressing how we deal with our issues. Much of the pain, struggle, and obstacles we endure have to do with our perception of our reality. We can tend to, based on our experiences with abuse, dysfunction, and trauma, come to view our circumstances, and our responses to those events, as never changing.

We can get a false sense that our mental states will always be hopeless.

The emotion of anger, ever pervasive to painful life experiences, can be the tripping emotion, often leading us into some stormy weather.

It has been purported that anger is the existence of fear, hurt, and frustration, showing themselves individually, by themselves, or working together in any combination. Anger can show up as violent outbursts. It can also show up as depression, which has sometimes been defined as “anger turned inward.”

Whatever the case, anger is tricky. And our belief and our handling of it, can lead to some destructive weather for us personally.

Anger Can Be the Weather of Fear.

It’s not just the blowing wind. Left unchecked, it’s more like this…

The hurricane. The tornado.

Huffing and puffing and blowing our houses down. Overtaking and paralyzing us.

Anger, expressed through the element of fear, can have us reacting harshly to circumstances. Part of that is because we are reacting to threat, to danger. If we are abused or mistreated, the danger can be “I could get killed here,” and “I am unsafe with my emotions and my real self here.”

Therefore, we can go into overdrive, with the sole emphasis focusing on our self-protection. Fear can be the natural sense of struggling for air. The fear can give us the experience of suffocation.

Suffocating is a scary prospect.

We will fight for air.

If we have only lived in abusive circumstances, fear is in our hard wiring. Adrenaline courses through our veins at an intense speed; our fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses are necessary to us staying alive and intact. And fear can be the blowing weather condition that keeps us surviving.

Fear, whether it’s animal instinct or reaction to an adverse situation, is not meant to be a constant state. Adrenaline is for short bursts of danger. It’s not meant to be a “normal” part of living, like our hearts beating, or our natural breathing, both occurring without us needing to think about them happening.

Fear can be our hypervigilance running amuck. If it is constantly there, that’s a big indicator something needs to be addressed and dealt with in a healthy manner. Constant fear is not meant to dominate us, while being viewed as normal.

We need to learn and assess our circumstances for what they are.

Is every situation something that truly warrants fear?

That answer should be “no.”

Constant fear is not how we are to live our lives.

Anger Can Be the Weather of Frustration.

Thunder and lightning. The striking and the erupting anger. Frustration can be at its heart here.

It often exists within the context of “reactive abuse.” Often, this happens when we’re in an environment or involved in an incident, in which we feel trapped and stifled, at the mercy of the desperate, confining reality. We may be constantly bombarded with the demoralizing, abusive attacks. Eventually, we reach a saturation point; we fight back.

We fight back because we are frustrated with this no-win situation, and we have had enough.

We experience the weather of this angry expression of frustration. This weather, because of our hopeless, desperate feelings and reality of being trapped, can appear to last forever.

We can believe we will always be this enraged. We can believe we will be forever tormented with bitterness, and maybe even vengeance.

We, if left unchecked, can act out of a moment of anger, with destructive consequences.

And that will do nothing to help us heal.

Anger is a human emotion.

“Be ye angry, and sin not…”

Ephesians 4:26

There is also this question, probing our angry weather…

‘Doest thou well to be angry?’”

Jonah 4:4

This, should we heed the call, can be the opportunity to discern and address toxic circumstances.

Why are we angry, of the frustrated kind?

What is being blocked for us?

What is the abuse?

The mistreatment?

What are the circumstance that need changing, both inside of us, and in our external circumstances?

An angry storm can do lasting damage. Nature’s storms exist because that is nature. Sometimes, it can have deadly results.

But storms do not last forever. Ominous cloud formations pass. Different skies of white fluffy clouds and clear blue take their place.

When we are angry, through the mechanism of frustration, we need the reality check of passing storms and changing skies. Getting stuck may, in the moment, feel like unending reality. It is not.

Therapy, looking at our ugly truth, and taking empowering action, including acceptance of our human frustration regarding our issues, can help us to embrace the hope of temporary weather conditions, even when they are stormy.

The famous adage applies, “This, too, shall pass.”

Anger Can Be the Weather of Hurt.

Rain. Torrential downpours.

Sadness. Depression. Being wounded. Grief.

Anger can express itself through hurt. When we have been injured in our minds, our spirits, our souls, as well as our bodies, we valiantly want to protect ourselves against further injury… or reinjury.

Hurt often translates into deep sadness. The loss from violation. The loss, brought about by death. The loss of something that once brought us love and joy. And now, it has been replaced with hurt.

“It can’t rain all the time.”

“The Crow,” James O’Barr

In a state of hurt, sadness, and grief, it can feel like it will always rain. We will drown from the tears.

Simultaneously, we desperately want to fend against incurring further hurt, grief, and sadness. Now, we have the conflict of angry weather, reactionary of the hurt.

We are the exposed nerve. Nothing else can tolerated in this state. The weather forecast is rain. Flooding. Drowning.

We are fighting for our lives with this mentality mandating hurt must not be allowed. Ever. Escape, freedom from, protection from it are the only things that are allowed for us.

Life intrudes, however, with its reality. Death, loss, pain, and hurt are inevitable and inescapable.

It is “when,” not “if.”

It’s a Case of Weather Permitting: The Sky of Us.

Finding meaning can be the healthier response to the emotion of anger. Closure may not be possible. Some things are gone forever; we cannot get them back.

But the salve of meaning can remind us that there is value to what we have experienced. It has made us the people we are. That is valuable, even when it doesn’t feel that way.

We are the inherent valuable creation. We are the sky. Our experiences, and the emotions attached to them, are the temporary, changing weather. Life is about learning how to cope with and honor that changing weather forecast.

But we remain the beautiful sky, nonetheless.

Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse