❖ Anger and action are different
Anger is not the same thing as the action prompted by anger. We often confuse the two different aspects of human experience. The anger may prompt us to act a certain way, but we always have a choice as to how we react.
I don't have to hit or yell or break something when I'm feeling angry. The emotion of anger carries no obligation to act a certain way. I may feel as though the anger makes me act a certain way, but this is faulty reasoning. What happens is I let my anger take control of what I do. In the "Risk" lesson we will examine this dangerous outcome more carefully.
Go back to Journal Entry #1, Anger Associations. How many of the words you used are behaviors?
Keep in mind that these actions are not the same thing as the emotions that precede them.
Next: Principle 13: What we do can affect how we feel