I have been struggling with anger for some time now. I get frustrated easily and sometimes overreact to small-ish things. I thought part of it was post-concussion syndrome, and perhaps that is still a factor. I also have anxiety and sometimes my anxiety comes out as anger. I have been trying to figure this out, not for myself, but because I don’t want to set that example for my daughters. I am trying to teach them to manage their emotions, but in truth I’m still learning to manage my own.

What I have come to realize though is that I don’t think I’m angry. I’m hurt. I have been hurt and rather than speaking up about it, I learn from it and move on. But I’m not really letting it go. I’m carrying all the hurts with me. I am not an angry person, but I have been in pain and the expression of that pain is anger. So, rather than “learning” not to trust someone or not to put myself in a certain situation again, I need to address the hurt and rather than simply moving on I need to let it go.

It doesn’t really matter what the hurts are–by carrying them with me, I’m more likely to be hurt again. I’m more likely to take something personally or be triggered. Why would I continue to do that to myself? Because I thought I was “learning”…I thought I was protecting myself. Here’s the thing though: you can try to protect yourself all you want, but you can’t prevent life from happening. And by trying to prevent the bad, you might actually be keeping out the good.

It’s taken a great deal of soul searching and help from various practitioners to get to this realization and it’s certainly not the end of my emotional story. But this realization makes me wonder, what if the world isn’t angry and mean but hurt and in pain? What if instead of trying to protect ourselves we focused on loving ourselves and others? I’ve been following what’s happening in the world and it makes me feel sad and hopeless. I’ve been wondering what the way out is, how do we get to the other side? How do we overcome? Is humanity doomed to extinguish ourselves because we have such a short memory? Because we keep repeating the same mistakes?

I’m not helping the problem by falling into the same trap. What the world really needs is love. That’s all it needs. What if instead of being angry with each other we showed compassion, empathy, and kindness? What if we expressed what we need instead of shutting down or lashing out? If the capabilities of humanity can be this horrific, couldn’t they also be the opposite? Why can’t we focus on love? I think the answer is fear. Fear of being hurt. It’s a vicious cycle.

I want to show my girls a better experience, a better life. I think all parents do, that’s one of the reasons we have children. But in the process, your children force you to face both the best and worst parts of yourself and they challenge you to be better every single day. I thought the difficult parts of my parenting journey were infertility, a twin pregnancy, and post-partum depression, but it turns out that understanding and loving myself as a mother has been equally challenging and ongoing. I didn’t let fear stop me from undergoing fertility treatment to have my daughters, and I’m not going to let fear stop me from loving them and myself.

I am not angry, I am hurt. But anger does not serve me, love does. Love is all you need.