Beware The Angry Heart

Anger can lead to real heartbreak. A person's risk of having a heart attacked increased nearly five-fold within two hours of having an angry outburst. According to a Harvard University review of more than 6,000 people who experienced a cardiovascular event. The risk of stroke increased more than threefold. Anger ups heart rate and blood pressure and makes blood vessels stiffen, straining the cardiovascular system.

At one time I was one of the angriest people you could possible know although with a great deal of will power I kept my anger in check. The problem was because I wasn't dealing with my issue of anger it became harder and harder to keep myself from exploding in someone's face. 

I knew I had to deal with my anger when it got so bad that I literally felt my arm starting to slug someone independent of any conscious thought on my part. I was able to stop myself in time but that incident scared me. It made me get to the root of my anger. That's when I discovered that anger was the worst form of self-abuse we can inflict upon ourselves. 

When we don't love ourselves sufficiently our default system is one anger, this is especially true for people brought up in an environment where they had a lot of angry and abusive people in their life.

Today, I rarely feel any angry impulses at all.  It took loving myself sufficiently to exchange my angry heart for a heart of  peace and understanding of myself and others.  If you want read my journey from Self-loathing to Self-Love, click here