Anger can come lightening fast after a feeling of shame or inadequacy which is why people get angry when they’re defensive.

Anger is also a byproduct of grief. As is shown as one of the stages of moving away from grief after losing a loved one.

My point is that your anger will lead you to another emotion which will explain why you feel angry.

So maybe you’re afraid of covid-19 and that it might kill you or someone you love. Maybe you say, “Well duh! Of course I am afraid!” If you are afraid, then dealing with the emotion of fear, most likely the fear of grief if you lose someone (I can only guess what you’re feeling), is what needs to be dealt with.

One of the biggest issues in America is that we blame others for our problems. When in reality, if we break down our emotion and take an honest look at it, we can take responsibility for how we feel. This is called being mature and is something that we all, as a nation, need to pursue.

If you fear the loss of a loved one, and therefore get angry when others don’t abide by rules which prevent the spread of COVID-19, then how do we deal with this fear?

I perform an exercise where I purposefully imagine the death of someone I love. I get very detailed about it in my imagination. If I don’t imagine it well enough to make me cry, then I am not taking the exercise seriously enough. I get to the point where I cry and my heart aches, then I imagine accepting death as a fact of life. I imagine myself in an extreme sense.

Ever seen Star Wars? You know when a master or a padawan dies and the master or padawan (whichever one survives) has this distant sort of look and then they just keep on fighting? It’s like they feel the pain, but then accept the reality if it and move on. For us non-fictional humans, we may not be that strong, but we can certainly aim for a high standard. So I imagine myself transmuting my pain into acceptance, and then very quickly recovering from the pain. Though I know, that I will still grieve a bit, I am no longer afraid of the grief, the pain, or the loss.

Through practicing this, I no longer am afraid to lose anyone that is close to me. Don’t misunderstand, if the consequences were immediate and life threatening, like a gun to their head, I would be scared. But COVID-19 is not something you should be afraid of unless you or someone you know has tested positive and is in critical condition. Even still, you have now trained for this. This will not be the first time you will have cried over their existence in this world. This is not new territory, and that will also make this a bit easier to deal with. That being said, common sense concludes that you should take proper precautions, like wearing a mask, social distancing, etc.

To conclude this post, let me summarize. Feelings of anger are ultimately a sign that you could take more responsibility for your own emotions. I know this isn’t fun to hear because it’s easier to blame others. But your anger is simply showing you that you have other emotions that you are being a victim of, whether you chose to consciously be a victim of them or not. Your state of mind is entirely in your own hands. Yes, it would be easier if others didn’t trigger you, but they do, and this is just how it is. So instead, learn everything you can about your own emotions, for that is how you figure things out and ultimately learn to have greater empathy for yourself and others.

— Brandon Battelle