In dealing with the eighth step of the Ladder, which is MEEKNESS and the LOSS OF ANGER, St. John presents three stages of freedom from anger. Overcoming anger is by no means easy. The Ladder presents three stages of progress to mastering this passion. The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred. If we are able to keep our mouth shut, even when we are upset, we are at least making a beginning of not giving in to anger. Despite what St. John says about     bottling up anger being far worse than losing one’s temper, it is also worth remembering that letting our anger out can often be very harmful to those around us. If we strive to refrain from acting or speaking in anger for the sake of others, rather than for admiration and praise, then we are acting with good intentions and we are at least learning to keep anger from dominating one of our faculties: the faculty of speech.

A second step in learning how to deal with anger is to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset. This step suggests that we must not only keep our lips silent but also our thoughts. We must learn not to dwell on an offense or to think bad things of those who we think have wronged   or wounded us. Anger dwelled upon becomes a grudge, a refusal to forgive and forget, a denial of humility. While we may speak well of     others, our thoughts can be full of cursing and arrogant condemnation. If these thoughts come from the heart – that is intentional thoughts that emanate from the sickness of our soul, rather than fleeting thoughts that enter our minds as temptations – they condemn us before God no less than if we uttered those thoughts aloud. When angered, we must learn to let the anger go. As St. Paul says, Do not let the sun go down on your wrath!