Earlier this year I went ‘all in’ on a punching bag without boxing gloves, and I saw the blood coming from my knuckles but I still kept on punching. I was just full of rage, so blinded by anger I could not stop. Since then, I have realized that very often when I cold bath I get angry, I get in touch with that suppressed anger. My jaw has been clenching lately as well and I need to do all kinds of strange facial expressions to let my anger out. Sometimes when I’ve been juggling, every time I drop and have a tiny moment of downtime I am just constantly making faces and tensing my jaw in all different directions to release some steam. I’ve also been screaming out loud whenever I am alone in nature and I’ve been surprised by how intense it gets. I’m really screaming as loud as possible with every cell in my entire body screaming and screaming until there’s no voice left, my throat starts hurting and I have to stop myself before I injure my vocal chords but some part of me still wants to keep on screaming.
I’m starting to meet myself with more awareness in this anger now as lately it’s been taking over my life. Where does this anger come from? And at who or what am I angry? It’s been a confusing process as it’s strange to have so strong emotions but don’t know what they’re related to.
This lead me to some interesting youtube videos like this one:
Dr. Gabor Maté on How to Process Anger and Rage
He explains that as a child I have probably been in a situation where the best option for me then and there was to not show my emotions or show my anger. Meaning if I am my authentic self I get rejected by the people that are the most important to me as a 3-year old; my parents, siblings, kindergarten teachers etc. No one did this intentionally it’s just a result of their trauma patterns and stress that carries over. And when my emotions get suppressed they don’t go away, they stay in the body and lead me to numbness and passive aggression.
So now to the core of anger, why do we have this emotion at all?
Healthy anger is a spontaneous response to a boundary being infringed upon.
I’m paraphrasing from Dr. Gabor Maté, but it’s really a protection mechanism. If someone is on the bus scrolling TikTok with the sound glaring out loud, it can be frustrating, but tolerable. Imagine now you are in the back of the bus and cant move and this person is standing right next to you with the phone in your face. You would tell them to either turn off the sound or move back a bit as there’s space behind them. If they do not respond to this request you would have to push them away, and the feeling that motivates this push is anger, protecting your boundary.
I have learnt to be so nice and kind and not respond with strong emotions and now my body is going crazy about it, needing to scream and punch and kick just to be able to concentrate on simple tasks.
Tying this back to last weeks letter on Interdependency, I realize that a lot of my anger comes from my lack of boundaries, or rather lack of listening to my boundaries. So by becoming obsessed with this other person I stop respecting my own needs. I have also realized I get angry when I tell myself that I am going to do something and then I don’t, for instance respecting a time slot I’ve told myself where I will do a certain task, go to bed or call a friend. Procrastinating hurts.
Dr. Gabe Maté also talks about Tara Brach, a Buddhist who developed a method for anger management where you don’t have to punch someone in the face, nor pretend like nothing is happening when anger arises.
He calls it the RAIN method:
Recognize - Oh I have anger in me, I am angry
Allow - I am being here with my anger, letting it be as it is, accepting it
Investigate - what is this really about?
Nurture - having compassion for the person that had to suppress all that rage, it could be you as a 6 year old or you 3 hours ago
I’ve recently heard about someone where their anger came from negative self-talk, criticising themselves so hard when they don’t manage to do a small task. Here the trick for them was to imagine that it’s their friend that made the mistake, whenever they catch themselves in doing this. The idea here is that they would never tell their friend “YOU SUCK HAHA YOU CANT EVEN DO THIS??” but that might be a common way they’re criticizing themselves.
Imagining that we are talking to our friends instead of ourselves can lead to being kinder and giving better advice. A friend told me they were at the psychologist and struggling to handle a certain situation in their life. The psychologist suggested they swapped seats and then they asked ‘imagine that I am you, what advice would you give?’ and then it became super obvious what my friend had to do. Getting that emotional distance can really be helpful, it’s hard to see clearly when we’re in the eye of the storm.
With love,
AngermanagementJ
Nice post : )
I too have recently opened my eyes to meeting challenges (such as strong anger) with exploration. I find that it also helps when being indecisivr and cold exposure.