Anger and the Heart

In spiritual terms, illnesses can be a wake up call or a time of reckoning where we are forced to take stock and see what changes in life we might want to make. Illness is not necessarily bad, it is a message from the body that something is out of order or needs to change. If you think that you can’t change a job you hate now, knowing that you could die in six months helps you realign priorities and you take action.

I was pondering the effects of anger on the heart when a co-worker went for heart surgery. He is a vitriolic man at times, which I will explain. Before going in for heart surgery, he was suddenly sweeter. While recovering, he came in to visit a couple of times and he was nice, calm and complimentary. That is not what I expect of him. I thought the whole experience was going to change him for the better.

Back at work for maybe three weeks, my co-worker told a new male employee to help induce his wife’s labor by the advice ‘kick her’ and ‘push her down the stairs.’ He may think that this is funny. He then offered a valuable piece of merchandise that is supposed to be sold to another salesman under the condition that he gets half the sale. Personally, I saw this as extortion and told my co-worker so. I was told to shut up. Three weeks after his recovery from heart problems, he is more acidic and still grasping for more than he knows that he deserves. Nothing has changed.

What goes around comes around. In spiritual terms, if you give to the universe, you get back. What you get back may not make you wealthy but is abundance in the form of warm relationships, help when you need it most, more food that you expect or other surprises. If you spread anger and hate, it winds up flowing back to you in terms of angry people or situations around you.

I am thinking about my co-worker wondering how his behavior actually affects the heart as an organ. I never think about this man more than I have to so I have never looked for information about his heart. Reading this, I notice I have not thought about how I could help him. I have never read anything about the effects of emotion on the heart, only stress on the body overall. Stress has been connected to physical ailments and cancer. As always, I am left with more questions than answers.