Anger is something we all deal with. But how we deal with it is different from one person to another. Some of my clients are really good at bottling it up. They turn their anger inward and become depressed, passive aggressive, or ill with inflammatory disease. These are clients who tend to choose their words carefully so as to not stoke the wrath built up inside. Others are not so picky. They say what’s in their head, whether you like or not, and use yelling, cursing and blaming liberally. Neither have learned how to work with anger effectively. And for both of them anger is a problem.
But anger itself is not the problem. It is our woeful relationship with it. All good relationships have the following qualities:
- open/honest communication
- accepts responsibility
- focuses on the positive
- asserts healthy boundaries
- keeps commitment (which includes follow through/repair after conflict)
These qualities require us to be mindfully aware, or else they are ineffective. Now lets apply them to our relationship to overt anger (akas rage, the beast) and how we can be more mindfully upset.
1) When we feel angry, communication with others and with ourselves is, at best, difficult. For one, we may not even be aware that we are angry. Instead we may feel entitled, righteous or defensive. Honest communication means that we listen to the voice inside that yells I’m so mad. We keep listening to this voice and begin to …
2) … accept responsibility. It is us who experiences this anger after all; this anger is in our care. At this point we may feel tempted to blame others for how we feel, make them feel hurt, try to get even or default to shaming and blaming ourselves. But responsibility is civility. It values ownership and respect. We respect the raging voice inside and take full credit for it. We acknowledge to ourselves, and if necessary to others, that we are angry.
3) Focusing on what’s good about anger is no easy task. We typically think of anger as an ugly thing, the one with bulging eyes and bared teeth. We want to get away from it — which is exactly what we do when we don’t take a closer look and ask what it is trying to tell us. But all of our emotions have important things to say, ugly or not. Focusing in on the experience of anger (bulging eyes, bared teeth and all) moves our anger more effectively through our nervous system and helps us orient ourselves (even if just a little) as the storm rages. We may even begin to get a sense why we got so mad and what needs we did (or could) not protect.
4) If we were unable to focus on what’s good about our anger in the heat of the moment, it is important that we focus on it after the fact. When our head has cooled off, there is still something to learn. We can ask ourselves what we could have done differently. This implies that we admit, wholeheartedly, that we have messed up. But we don’t dwell on this. Extending compassion and forgiveness to ourselves, we assert healthy boundaries to ward off possible assaults of shame and guilt which readily like to prey on our beaten self after we’ve “lost it”.
5) Thus fortified, and while fully accepting any unskillfulness on our part, we follow through with a commitment for repair. We ask for forgiveness and make amends. We own our actions (including our bulging eyes) as we care for ourselves and for the person we may have hurt. Cutting out one or the other undermines not only the efficacy of commitment but the very power which it is supposed to serve: Love.
Healthy relationships are built on love, permeated by love, and transformed by love. Can you imagine loving your anger next time you get mad? This probably sounds crazy and may take many (failed) attempts. But is it impossible? And what could happen?