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Even though my sons are in their mid 20's now, and I'm past the roller coaster years of PMS, and fortunately had an easy transition into menopause (at least emotionally I felt my roller coaster take its last plummet downward towards an even keel ride, resembling more like those peaceful gliding water rides)....I still have struggles dealing with the regrets of how I handled my anger when my sons were younger, yelling and ranting and raving way too much; any was too much for me, not to mention all the other regrets from my past. But then, I didn't handle my anger very well when I was a child myself...didn't understand it all, I guess. My anger seemed to point out an imperfection in me, and that scared me, and made me even angrier with myself, to the point where I would be mad because I was mad.
Learning about God's grace and mercy, His unconditional love for His children, has been the most transforming for me...a lifelong process. Thank you God, Amen!
Fortunately, for all, I went through an early natural, albeit weird, menopause at the age of 41. I would still get angry after that, but I began to choose my battles a bit more wisely, not letting the small stuff get to me as much and being able to recognize the triggers that used to put me in an instant rage...and maybe that is just a normal process of getting older...learning what's really important in life.
And even after all those years of trying to rid myself of anger, I now realize what an important healthy part of our lives anger can be. Anger is a warning sign that something is not right in our lives (I must have read that somewhere, I'm not that profound), and we should take the time to deal with our anger when it arises. It's the ways in which we deal with our anger that may not be so good, for ourselves or others.
Learning to set up healthy boundaries in my life (thank you Joyce Meyer for sharing all of your books; that's probably where that profound thinking was processed from) has also helped with dealing with anger in a healthy way. But to be fair, I didn't discover having healthy boundaries till after menopause, and hopefully, applying the knowledge of healthy boundaries would of helped some in taming the hormonal beast within if that shift in hormones wouldn't have happened sooner in my life.
Another thing that does help, even in my PMS era, is exercise...doing so releases endorphin's, giving one a better sense of well-being...and when Mom's happy...everybody is happy!
Learning to understand my anger, and the anger of being angry, maybe could have saved my marriage from its death. Maybe, maybe not....it does take two to make a good one, well two plus God...not two plus three gods. Even though God will always be God, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow...when we tend to live our lives as if we are our own gods, in our mind's eye God can kind of then become just another god...and that is not good, for anyone.
