Part 2 of my series on emotions.
The news and radio chat shows has recently mentioned the world is becoming a toxic place, people are becoming more distant and polarised about politics, religion, race & nationality. Judgementalism is on the increase as people are being ridiculed for their life choices.
With that in mind, it led me to think about another emotion…
Anger:
Anger is an ugly emotion.
It deepens if not released, it hardens the heart.
Anger does not know love, anger knows hate.
If you let the sun set on anger without resolving it, then overnight it seeps into the skin, the core of the body and makes itself at home.
If left unattended anger builds a stronghold, a wall around the heart, around the brain, around emotions. It locks down true feelings and manifests raw, nasty feelings often revealing themselves through words, deep cutting words, Full of hate, venom and vengeance.
Anger can affect your looks, when that twisted demon has sat inside you for so long and all you do is spit acid words at or behind the backs of people, it starts to show on your face. The eyes lose their sparkle as the windows to the soul go darker, the face becomes gnarly and sad.
The world around you becomes harder to navigate as everyone & everything annoys you.
You become trapped in the deep rooted anger, that one day probably started as a niggle or argument that wasn't resolved.
Anger can be planted at a young age by the way we are nurtured and once installed over years can be very nasty indeed.
So why am I talking about an emotion in a dog blog. Well it's because our emotions definitely "rub off" onto our dogs as I discussed in my last blog about Love.
We too frequently see in the media about a dog attacking a child or adult, of course not all of the attacks are from dogs surrounded by anger, but many of these dogs are "trained" and brought up aggressively by irresponsible owners or gang members or rescued innocently by a person with good intentions but not being experienced enough to rehabilitate an aggressive animal. Some of these poor dogs are used as strength & status symbols to boost the ego & delusional social standing of people believing they can gain power in society by aggression, anger and fear mongering.
Many of the bull breeds have been used in this way, especially Staffordshire bull terriers or "staffies", these totally lovable dogs, know in the past as the "nanny" dog because of their caring and loving behaviours have been used in such a bad way through breeding & poor ownership into a much feared dog by many people. I have walked some bull breed dogs in my work as a professional dog walker and seen people actually cross the road in judgement, just by the breed they have been led to believe is a devil dog because of media coverage and poor ownership.
There will always be medical issues that can make a dog aggressive. Pain or hereditary issues can unbalance a dog, so it is always worth seeing a vet if you believe your dog is acting out of character.
The issues society is creating for itself with increasing anger, lack of socialisation and being more & more obsessed with technology is definitely having an affect on our understanding and being in tune with nature and the animal kingdom around us, including our own pets at home. It is so clear that nature around the world is suffering in this era because many human beings have lost focused on what really matters and many now don't even engage with the outside world in anyway.
There is nothing more therapeutic than walking in the countryside with a dog. We not only engage with what is around us, but our dogs bond with us and take in all the scents & sounds around them. We meet new people on the walks and our dogs make new friends with other breeds and sizes of their own species. If we approach our walks with a happy confidence that everything in the world is good, forget about the news, politics and what our next working day will bring, but truly connect with the walk and our best friend by our side, we can walk with a huge smile on our face reconnecting with our surroundings.
This is so healthy for our mental health too, so many of us struggle with this issue nowadays and I believe some of our conditions are caused because we have lost our connection with true life and that involves a simple mindset and connection to nature. Our dogs have it in abundance, they live in the moment, they don't stress about anything if brought up without carrying their human owners anxieties! They never judge or get angry, we may see an angry dog or a short show of aggressive behaviour but that mostly is them finding their place in society and the pack. If a dog is always aggressive to others, that unfortunately has been nurtured by an owner never letting them socialise and through their own fears have created a pet who would rather fend off the approaching threat rather than say hello.
So in conclusion to this blog, anger is an awful emotion when let manifest into an aggressive and hard heartened state, it will cause no end of issues, not only for ourselves but our immediate family and pets and even fellow road users!
There is an anger that if kept in check is a healthier anger. That is righteous anger, the kind of anger that fuels us to do good, to stand up for the underdog, to help our world around us for good. Righteous anger is an emotion driven by witnessing poor treatment of others or helpless creatures, being driven to help and having a compassion ignited from within to right wrongs.
To combat tendencies to getting angry in life, we just need to look at our dogs. Be happy with the small stuff, find joy in just being alive, don't lie and be honest, play often, stretch often and run around like no-one is looking.
until next time...