"All anger — even the irrational kind — has a significant underlying cause and an important message for you. Just as you can learn many spiritual lessons through love, you can learn powerful spiritual lessons through anger. Knowing yourself is a joy; a large component of knowing yourself involves listening to the deeper messages that come with anger. When you look at yourself from a spiritual vantage point, you'll discover that anger can lead you to gratefulness. It can take you to your soul.

"For anger to transform you, however, you must be willing to struggle with existential questions and existential anger. When you face the fundamental reality that life is unfair, you'll confront the inevitability of loss and death. You don't like things to go wrong because it reminds you — at least on an unconscious level — that there are many things in life you can't control. That's why when you get a flat tire you kick the car, when you lock yourself out of the house you throw your wallet, when you break your favorite antique vase you swear. Anger and loss are part of life, as are personal disappointment and family turmoil. Life doesn't go smoothly, things go wrong, you can't control others, you can't control your beloved; eventually you and your loved ones die.

"Fortunately that's not the entire story. There is the other side. When you get a flat tire you may feel angry because you'll be late for your appointment, but you can feel grateful that you have a car. When you lock yourself out of the house, you might feel frustrated that you have to pay the locksmith to make a house call, but you can express your gratitude that you have a roof over your head. When you break your antique vase, you can be sad for the loss and thankful that you were able enjoy it for a while. When your sweetheart dies, you can feel grateful that you were blessed with so much love. ...

"To find the spiritual lessons that anger can bring, we must be willing to see the bigger picture; we must shift our focus away from our inconvenience and upset toward the joy that is always present in our lives. We must step back from our anger so that we can be grateful.

"Life and loss, beauty and death, love and anger are closely intertwined. When you react to everyday annoyances as if the world has just come to an end, it's a signal for you to explore life's bigger questions, to search for the spiritual nugget.

"The more anger a situation causes you, the more you need to look for the spiritual lesson it holds."