Emotions are tiny seeds that grow on their own. When left untended they grow, rampantly and wildly, without direction or correction. Because our society has so many mixed messages about how men and women are supposed to handle their emotions, too often emotions are suppressed and not acknowledged. These emotions become like cancer, taking a life of their own, and dictating their own sense of reality stained by the perception these uncared for emotions create. So this tiny seed of anger, along with the repeated life-events that create more negative emotions, grows each time no resolution is reached to understand the emotion. This growing force becomes frustration which boils over quickly to rage from time-to-time. Where does it all come from?

The simple fact that I have a love for self - my inner-spirit - trespasses against my person generates a negative emotion letting me know that my boundaries have been crossed. If I have no voice, or no frame of reference or example to state what has just occurred, not only is the trespass felt but I also experience the added confusion and frustration of trying to make sense of what has just happened and no one to talk to about it. This brings up another important point to discuss; personal boundaries.

Each individual is different and as each person has different values, each person also has different personal boundaries. This speaks clearly to how each of us is equipped differently to handle different paths in life. Unfortunately, we didn't come with a user-guide of any kind and we are left to our own devices to discover the what and who we tend to be throughout our lives. Sadly, many parents negatively influence children to be more like a sibling, a cousin, or the vision of greatness the parent has for the child. Instead, parents are better served to sit down and have conversations with their kids to help them find their voice and to discover their truth. Like you do, having these conversations gives them access to more self-awareness, personal understanding, and strategies that can help them to manage life.

Some people are more emotional and some are more intellectual. Some are a combination of both. The more emotional a person is and the less equipped (through conversation, discovery, and example) they are to understand, manage, and choose, the more likely emotions will grow out of control to the point of rage. Rage is also rather subjective to each individual and their experience. Rage to a quiet laid-back person may simply feel like a flash of anger to someone who is far more expressive with their emotions.

So all this to say that the real problem, in my honest opinion, is that the less aligned with who we are, the less able we are to understand our emotions, the less able we are to process our emotions, the less able we are to control our emotions. The solution is to learn who we are, what we react to, what values are expressed in our reactions, what it means to us, and how we can express our truth with integrity and without conflict.

An additional observation: Reflecting on emotions, triggered in the body by memory, it is no surprise that we can be overcome by our emotions when recall memories of love, anger, and sadness, three of the most intense emotions we typically feel. Even when, in our intellect, we can see that what has occurred is for the best, the emotional reaction is still there in our body, whether we agree intellectually or not. This is where our higher awareness must take control of the mind and redirect the focus towards the positive. Otherwise, continuing to focus on the negative emotion continues to feed its' power in our body and reinforces the memory in the mind. Once the learning has been gleaned, the emotion accepted and nurtured, and the possibility for a better tomorrow is recgonized, then we must capture the vision for the better tomorrow and latch onto the new emotion of possibility. Don't stay prisoner to the negative emotion of victimization.