Reliving Anger Sabotages Your Happiness

You are not free until you’ve set your mind free.

When my dad died, my family battled his will for years. My half-brother, who is the eldest, challenged my dad’s will — accusing my mum of falsifying it. Luckily my mum had medical reports and bank statements of my dad’s transactions up until a month before his death. The court case was ruled in my mum’s favor.

In Nigeria, writing a will is not as popular as it is in Western countries. Most wealthy men still believe the first son is responsible for sharing his father’s assets, and the wife of the deceased is often left with nothing. If she has no child, she is likely to be sent back to her parents unless she agrees to marry any of her late husband’s brothers and have bear children in the name of her late husband.

Yes, that’s how messed up most African culture is. Women are properties that can easily be disposed of any time they outlive their usefulness.

My dad chose a different part. He was an international businessman, traveled mostly to Asia and European countries. He wrote a will and authorized its execution to two people in other to protect my mum’s right as his sole and legal wife. He knew my elder brother would be negatively influenced by his mum when he dies, which was exactly what happened.

My mum married my dad after his first wife abandoned him with six children and remarried twice. The eldest was twelve years, and the last child was two when their mum left my dad. So my mum raised all her husband’s children as if they were hers. We were treated equally; even outsiders dn’t know we had different mothers. Which was why it was heartbreaking for my mum to be betrayed by the same children she had called her own.

Watching my mum defend her rights from my brother and the tenants who refused to accept the will written by my late father was depressing. I felt helpless. I was battling my own health issues then. I was jobless and broke. As each day passes, my anger and frustration grew.

I was weak, but I had to stay strong on the surface because I dn’t want to add another burden to what my mum and siblings were already going through.

For years, I kept reliving that anger, and my depression was getting worse. Even after my elder brother gave up on fighting my mum, I still hated him. I held onto that grudge, nursing it day by day so I never forget how he had mistreated us. It’s not easy having your own blood throw you out of your father’s hometown. My mum was in possession of the estates in the city but everything else in the village my elder brother took it. As the first son, tradition gives him the right to since the estates weren’t included in the will.

I wanted to avenge my mother. She was too kind to forgive my brother, and I saw it as weakness. She had surrendered one of the estates to my brother and his siblings even though the will stated otherwise. Some clauses in the will denied my elder brother and his siblings their inheritance should they challenge the will. But my mum ignored it.

I dn’t want to be weak. I was using crutches at that time, so there wasn’t much I could do, matter how bad I wanted to. I was hopeless, miserable, and depressed. All these emotions kept build-up, hindering my recovery.

When my condition deteriorated, I decided to seek spiritual healing. I started going to church, reading spiritual books. Paula White and Joyce Meyer were my first inspiration. Then I started following Joel Osteen on Twitter and reading Zig Ziglar’s books.

My life changed when I finally became born again. I dn’t know when all that anger melted away. I became a different person. Forgiving easily and determined to be successful. Later my mum sold some of the estates, and we moved to the United States.

My emotional healing dn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual process. Though I have backslid, writing this story has made me realize how we quickly break our promises to God after he has answered our prayers.

For years, I let anger ruin my happiness, just like some of you are doing. There’s a lot to be angry about. Obviously, negative feelings — worry, sadness, and anger — have been rising worldwide, up to 27% from 2010 to 2018. Grudges or resentment are like poison. It slowly weakens the person from the inside, leaving nothing but misery in its wake.

Unforgiving people tend to be hateful, hostile, and angry, which more than often leads to depression. Likewise, being around a grudge holder can make us feel uncomfortable and, to some degree, experience emotional or physical pain. When we refuse to forgive, we become fixated on plotting revenge. The more we think about how they’ve wronged us, the more determined we want to pay them back.

Unhappy people are good at holding grudges, but there is freedom and peace in letting go of things that cause us pain. So unless we want to stay miserable, we need to learn how to forgive others even if they don’t deserve it. We can learn to accept the discomfort we experience around a grudge holder to improve our personal growth.

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