Design Team Inspiration
Journaling Prompts
Rage: Do you allow yourself to express the full measure of your rage when you feel it? Are you fearful of the word rage, and its intensity? Does the idea of rage being back memories of people in your past that showed anger easily, or in destructive ways? Have you ever expressed your rage in a destructive way, and what was the impact of your actions, behaviors or words?
Men v. Women and Anger: Some might say that women are trained to turn anger inward, while men turn it outward. Have you found that to be true? Do you ever feel depressed and realize that you may actually be experiencing anger that you’re holding in? Do the men in your life express their anger differently than you do? What happens when you fight with your significant other? Do you have different ways of operating? Do you control your behavior to appear less angry, even when you are? Are you more apt to cry than scream?
Grudges: Sometimes we hold onto anger longer than we want to. In general, are you a grudge holder? Is it easy or difficult for you to let go of past hurts, injuries and losses? Are there cases in which you think it makes sense to hold on to anger? Has someone in your life held a grudge or held onto anger toward you, and how did that impact your life? Are you a person who can forgive and forget, and if not, do you feel that you should be, or do you allow yourself your human experience?
Hatred: Have you ever had feelings of deep, burning anger that come from an intense dislike of someone? Did your feelings come from something justified, or in hindsight, were your feelings exaggerated because of circumstances at the time? Are you good at concealing feelings of deep dislike, or not? When you’ve felt such feelings, have you ever been able to look within at what that person brought up in you that elicited that reaction?
Betrayal: Have you been betrayed by a loved one – a parent, spouse, or other family member? How did you express the anger and hurt associated with the betrayal? How deeply, and for how long, did this betrayal affect you? Are you a changed person because of it? Did the age or stage of life at which you were change your perception of the betrayal?
Fairness: Do you sense that the world and things that occur should be fair and based in any way on your own ‘goodness’, karma, or a sense of balance? Does it make you angry that life certainly isn’t that way…and that fairy tales of our youth may have led us to believe that things would work out if you ‘just tried hard enough’? Do you feel guilty about where you are in life and that perhaps you could or should have created ‘more’?
Everyday Annoyances: What things that occur in everyday life – traffic, missed appointments, losing your keys, make you angry? How peaceful are you about the ups and downs of daily living – kids needing your help, a spouse needing support, family demands, cooking, cleaning, etc.? How good are you at seeking the good in life to balance what makes you mad? Does your work create more peace or more annoyance?
Music
Quotes
Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them. James Fallows
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. Mohandas Gandhi
Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. George Eliot
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. Albert Einstein
Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him. Louis L'Amour
Anger is a short madness. Horace
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind. Robert Green Ingersoll
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. Mark Twain
Anger is one of the sinews of the soul. Thomas Fuller
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean. Maya Angelou
Expressing anger is a form of public littering. Willard Gaylin
Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts. Ovid
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Get mad, then get over it. Colin Powell
He who angers you conquers you. Elizabeth Kenny
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. William Congreve
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Buddha
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. Marcus Aurelius
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size? Sydney J. Harris
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. James Thurber
Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep. Mohandas Gandhi
Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Phyllis Diller
No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched. George Jean Nathan
One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end. William Butler Yeats
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Ambrose Bierce
The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough. Bede Jarrett
Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. Benjamin Franklin
When anger rises, think of the consequences. Confucius
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. Mark Twain
Depression is rage spread thin. George Santayana
How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey. Wilson
Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world. Grace Paley
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, expels diseases, softens every pain, subdues the rage of poison, and the plague. John Armstrong
People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing. Will Rogers
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear. Robert Anton Wilson
The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage. Paul Engle
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. Elizabeth I
Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat. Emily Dickinson
If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase. If you would cure anger, do not feed it. Say to yourself: 'I used to be angry every day; then every other day; now only every third or fourth day.' When you reach thirty days offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods. Epictetus
I have seen a peaceful expression turn to anger as fast as a whip cracks, and so the look on the face might mean less than what it seems to be. Erica Eisdorfer
Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can't last. Greg Evans
Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to. Harriet Lerner
Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry. Henry Ward Beecher
Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life. Joan Lunden
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. Malcolm X
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people. Mario Puzo
I have a right to my anger, and I don't want anybody telling me I shouldn't be, that it's not nice to be, and that something's wrong with me because I get angry. Maxine Waters
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. Chinese Proverb
Anger is not only inevitable, but it is necessary. For in its place is indifference, the worst of all human qualities. Anon.
He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. Proverb
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot. Proverb
No one is as angry as the person who is wrong. Proverb
The wrath of brothers is fierce and devilish. Proverb
Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest. Proverb
Indulge not thyself in the passion of anger; it is whetting a sword to wound thine own breast, or murder thy friend. Akhenaton
As the whirlwind in its fury teareth up trees, and deformeth the face of nature, or as an earthquake in its convulsions overturneth whole cities; so the rage of an angry man throweth mischief around him. Akhenaton
Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves. Mitch Albom
Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved. Marcus Antonius
Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way; this is not easy. Aristotle
When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life. Marcus Aurelius
Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt. James Baldwin
Temper is a weapon that we hold by the blade. James Barrie
If a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. The flame is not wring, but the coals are. Henry Ward Beecher
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves. Charles Caleb Colton
There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust. St. Francis De Sales
Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. Benjamin Franklin
The tendency of aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man... it constitutes the most powerful obstacle to culture. Sigmund Freud
Act nothing in a furious passion. It's putting to sea in a storm. Thomas Fuller
The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough. Bede Jarrett
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