Resolving Anger

Thankfully, negative emotions like anger do not last forever, or at least should not last forever.  We can dwell on them, perpetuate them, and allow them to simmer.  Anger can turn inward.  It can also transform into a hatred.

A friend responded to last week's blog by asking how we deal with those negative emotions that often lead us to overeat, smoke, drink and otherwise engage in self destructive behaviors.  In addition such emotions also can lead to harmful actions against our neighbor that destroy relationships and in the worst cases, are harmful to others.

I've stewed about it.  I've smoked, and drank till I could do so no more.  And then I've stewed some more, ruminating into the wee hours of the morning for days on end.  Thankfully, I think that I've learned something through many years of therapy, through Alcoholics Anonymous, and simply through self reflection.

Here are my thoughts:

Name it.  One of the least helpful ways to deal with anger is to not deal with it, to deny it exists, and to internalize it all with the hopes that it will just go away.  I was not given permission to be angry when I was growing up.  In general, emotions were considered weakness.  One of the most difficult things for me to distinguish early in my therapy was the difference between emotions and thoughts, and to name the emotions.  "I think" was often followed with an emotional outburst.  "I feel" often led into a thought or a judgment.  Getting those straight is part of naming.  I think that our immigration policy is unjust and cruel.  I am angry that children are taken from their parents and that we still are unable to reunite them.  My thoughts and my anger are two separate things.

Own it.  One of the most important lessons I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous is that my emotions are mine, and mine alone.  They originate within me.  I am never a victim to my emotions.  Others don't "make" me mad.  I experience emotions because I am who I am.  I may resent others or their actions, but the resentment is mine.  I react in this way, for example, because of a disparity between personal convictions about how things should be, and the reality of how they are.  Injustice shouldn't be, but it is, and so I react.  But the reaction is mine.  I am not an emotional victim.

Discern.  There is a difference between righteous anger and unrighteous.  I get angry when innocent people are hurt.  Child abuse, for example, results in my being angry.  I also get angry when I don't get my own way.  The first is an example of righteous anger, the latter of unrighteous.  If I discern that my anger is just because I don't get my own way, perhaps I can let it go and experience a more appropriate emotion, such as disappointment.  Also, righteous anger more appropriately has as its object actions, not people.  When we focus on the people, we risk emotions becoming more intense.  Anger becomes hatred, and hatred endures.  For example, I am angry that a teacher abused me during my adolescence, but if I allow that anger to become a hatred toward him, it will consume ME.

Act appropriately.  Regarding my history of being a victim of abuse:  I remember that it wasn't until my own children approached the age that I was when I was abused that I was able to recognize and name my own abuse for what it was.  I became angry.  I imagined killing anyone who did that to one of my children.  Not appropriate.  To work at freeing victims from abuse, protecting children from abuse, punishing the perpetrators of abuse appropriately through legal means-- these are appropriate actions.  I believe that righteous anger's appropriate role is to motivate action.  But not just any action will do.  "Appropriate" is the key qualifier here.

Let it go.  My memory is one of my curses.  I can name something my wife did within the first twenty four hours of our marriage that I got angry about.  We've been married over forty years.  If I dwell on it, I can resurrect that anger.  Not good or helpful.  When I forgive someone, I become free.  The greatest impact of forgiveness is on the one doing the forgiving.  By the time I recognized that I was a victim of abuse, the abuser was dead.  Eventually, I was able to forgive him, or at the very least, I'm working on it.  But that forgiveness is important for me-- he's dead and quite unaffected by it.

In all of this, a good friend, a spiritual guide, a confessor helps.  In A.A. we have sponsors.  For some people it will be a pastor.  I've used a therapist extensively.  The primary purpose is to have someone who can help who is not blinded by an emotional fog.

Related to this is prayer, at least for people of faith.  Prayer, when offered for the one whose actions have resulted in our being angry, can help.  It can change our attitude and our emotions.

Self destructive behaviors do not help.

This became clearest for me my last night drinking.  No matter how much I drank, the rage I was experiencing did not go away.  It was persistent.  My "solution" nearly killed me.  I hope that I'm in a better place now and more capable of dealing with those emotions.