There may be greater or lesser intensity to anger, yet anger is anger. Something makes your blood boil. Even though you well know that anger is not worth its salt, you still have it. First there is upset, and then upset bare its teeth and becomes downright anger. Odds are the anger seems to be caused by a relationship, some kind of communication barrier. You do not feel you are being heard. Whether the apparent cause is an insensitive customer service representative, your wife, an employee, a traffic jam, or obtuse bureaucracy, you feel stymied, as if you are up against a stone wall. You do not know how to make yourself heard. At these times, you are forgetting yourself, beloveds.

Whether you simply feel the rushing anger in your physiology, or you grit your teeth and clench your fists and keep silent, or you explode, the damage is done. There is no anger without damage. Leashed or let loose, your sense of anger has gone out into the environment. A message has been sent. It is a message that says war is justified. It doesn't matter if it is a war only between you and one other individual -- it is still war.

You may think there is a righteous cause for your pure anger. The ultimate cause is that you do not love yourself enough. The situation becomes a federal case because you are not being heard, and, therefore, by, your interpretation, not being valued. Because you do not yet value yourself, you have not yet learned to shrug your shoulders and put out the fire of anger. Talk to yourself a different way before anger begins. Give yourself reasons not to be possessed by anger rather than all the justification for anger.

Naturally, you do not want to feel angry. You never did.

When you feel love and loved, you think someone caused you to feel love. Someone or something stirred the love that is already yours. Just so with anger. Your anger was already there within you waiting to burst forth, beloveds. You are the source of your own anger.

Anger has to do with control. Anger gets you by the throat and brings out the beast in you. I said beast not best. You become a haughty boss of life because you do not know your true power, and you feel helpless, and so you feel angry.

Do not think I am oversimplifying. If you loved yourself enough, you would not feel the need to react.

I know a lot is said in the world about how you must express your anger. But here's the rub:

No matter what a nice person you are, no matter your usual way of operating, when you become angry, you start operating in a bully mode. You feel forced to control. You are going to make something happen. You are going to change things. You become selfish, and so you yell. In one way or another, and you want to beat up on the seeming cause of your anger. Bullying was never honorable, beloveds. Saying what you feel is one thing, bullying another. Anger does not give you the right to bully one other Human Being.

When you feel yourself getting angry and justified for your anger, stop right then. Say, "Whoa."

When anger overrides you, find a way to get rid of it that does not hurt you or another. Pound nails, run two miles, play squash ball. Write a nasty letter, if you must, and tear it up. Find a way that works for you. Have a plan for when you become angry. Get the anger out of your system as quickly as possible without taking out your anger on those around you.

You do not have to vent your anger. You do have to get rid of it.

It is never all right for you to yell or scream at anyone. Yes, of course, you will kiss and make up. Kiss and make up now, and leave out the yelling.