At this stage, the developmental story becomes more complex, and due to space limitations and in order to stay on our topic, we’ll have to leave many levels of detail behind. But the stage is now set for our exploration of how anger develops. Anger starts at this point, with our lack of self-love, and the confusion in the boundaries between ourself and other people. These patterns set us up for struggle and anger in a wide variety of ways.

One problem that develops is that just as we looked to and depended on our mother for love, as we grow up we continue to look to others for love. Because we didn’t reach the level of internalizing love to be our own, we don’t trust the love in our own heart, so we spend our life searching outside of ourselves for a source of love and happiness. For obvious reasons this never works, and the split between self and other sets us up for endless struggle and disappointment.

All the sages and wise ones throughout the ages agree on this simple point: We can’t find happiness outside of our own heart. It’s a basic truth of life that only we ourselves can make us happy. If we love ourselves first, we can then share that love with others, and we can be in love with other people, but we can’t find true love in an external source.

For those of us with patterns of externalization this spells big trouble. Because we aren’t secure in our own heart, we seek love and happiness in things and people, continually looking to others to fill the void in our own being. Thus we spend our life in an endless struggle searching for fulfillment in places where we will never find it. Deep patterns of frustration and anger inevitably result.

Another problem we run into with externalization is blame. At the same time that we project our needs for happiness onto other people, we also give them the responsibility for our lack of happiness in life.

Because our own ego structure didn’t have time to develop properly, we aren’t equipped to handle the normal suffering that life brings, and this inability continues into adulthood. One way we learn to deal with this is to externalize it, to put in onto other people. Since we don’t have the emotional fortitude to sort out our personal and interpersonal pain, we deal with it by making it somebody else’s fault.

Of course, this strategy is doomed to failure, and when other people don’t accept our blame we become angry.  As the years go by we become habitual victims who continually suffer because of the failure of others. The ultimate result is that we live in a state of constant blame and anger.

Continued in Orgins of Anger VI…

By Craig Mollins