ANGER: A REALITY CHECK

Often,  clients who struggle with expressing and getting over anger say “I don’t feel comfortable expressing anger” (as if holding it IN somehow feels better!)

 

Or they say, “I don’t know how to express anger in a positive way.” Which actually means something like “How can I express my anger without raising my voice, telling the whole truth, or pissing somebody off?”  Well good luck with that.
All emotions (e-motions, energy in motion in the body) actually, resolve when we express (laugh, cry, sigh, yell) the energy that moves us. Anger, unlike wonder for example, is an emotion designed to make us uncomfortable, edgy. Willing and ready to act. To run, or maybe to yell, while wonder has us gazing up at the stars and sighing. Just like wonder though, anger is resolved by fully feeling and /or expressing the energy moving through you as sound and/or actions.

NOBODY ‘feels comfortable’ expressing anger, so when you stop pretending that you can or should ‘feel comfortable’ and just let yourself be uncomfortable and express anger anyway, you will feel relief. The discomfort will dissipate. And you can get over yourself.

Honest expression  isn’t a ‘drive by shooting’ in which you blast someone with your judgments then run like hell.  Very few of us grew up with good role models for expressing and getting over anger. This leaves most people you know with a very distorted and dishonest version of communicating resentment that involves over dramatizing or seriously downplaying whatever’s really going on.  So it will take practice.  Want to be positive?  Learn what HONEST anger is compared to blaming, whining, judging, withholding and manipulating.   (You might read RADICAL HONESTY or THE BOOK OF HOW for more information)

Trying to “express anger in a positive way” rather than in an authentic honest way often makes us lie about what we feel, what we think and what we want. We also are taught that if we ‘do it right’  the other person, will say 'I’m sorry’ or they will change or ‘get’ what we’re saying. Give that up.   None of that may happen, and you can still get over being angry.

 Anger, like grief, is inherently  POSITIVE…these are just ‘messy’ emotions to express involving snot and tears and sobbing or yelling. People are trained up to pretend that they can ‘express’ these emotions ‘nicely’ and it’s complete bullshit.  Sure, if you catch the irritation fast and express it before it turns into a tsunami, you might come across with very little emotional ‘charge’. But let’s face it, that’s not the level of resentment that haunts you in the middle of the night, or triggers you to bad mouth someone, or to cut them from your life.

 So when you have a Big Charge, you will need to learn how to separate what happened (just the facts) from the make wrong, judgments and name calling (the victim story). Otherwise that you will end up arguing about who is ‘right and who is wrong’ (which is worthless, and will get you nowhere unable to get over anything and probably more pissed off than when you started). 

Instead of “Why the hell did you do that? I can’t effing believe you would disrespect me that way! I want you to apologize!” you might in all Honesty say  ‘I resent you for not showing up!  I imagine that you didn’t consider how I’d feel! I imagine that you will always put what you want first!  I feel unimportant. And sad. ”  Now there's a real opening for relating.

Expressing anger authentically requires  practice.   I usually spend a fair amount of time on this when coaching. Most often, people learn to get over resentment and are much happier for it. Their relationships blossom, their stress level drops, and they are more at ease in life.

 

 A few clients, though,  masterfully find ways to ignore the assignments that require honest expression of anger, and default to blame, victim thinking, being ‘nice’, trying to make people change, pretending they’re fine, secretly punishing the offender, and manipulation. 

Holding onto anger makes us stressed out, careful, sick, isolated, needy, judgmental and just plain annoying to be around. What could POSSIBLY make you more uncomfortable than that?