Flowing In and Out of Anger
One morning I realized I was becoming increasingly
angry with persistent e-mail ads from a retailer I'd bought a small item
from, in spite of my having unsubscribed countless times and even contacting
their customer service (they also sent me an unsubscribe link, which I
followed - to no avail). I'd been carrying this resentment as if it nurtured
a flame, forgetting the quote from a friend that "resentment is like taking
poison and expecting someone else to die." This is the way our patterns
work. Not useful? Even detrimental? "Who cares?" our unconscious shouts,
"It's familiar and I've got the groove!"
Of many approaches to managing anger, a traditional
one is Rational Emotive Behavior (REBT).
Albert Ellis
described our
response to given events as conditioned by irrational beliefs (e.g.,
"They
should not...!" "I can't stand it that....!" "How awful that...!").
He suggested monitoring your level of anger (mildly disappointed? enraged? something in between?),
seeking out your irrational belief, and countering it with a
rational
statement. This brings your implicit beliefs to the surface and makes them
available for examination. It also levels out your emotional response and
leads to behavior more
appropriate to the actual situation and more productive. My client Will, for
example, was furious that one of his reports hadn't met her weekly goal. But
instead of lashing out he explored his internal beliefs and realized he was
thinking: "She should
have reached that goal. We're never going to meet our budget!!!"
His internal belief
was "irrational" in this
sense: it isn't cast in concrete that anyone should do anything. People will do
whatever meets their own needs. Will countered
his belief with
a more rational appraisal of what he felt in the moment:
"Actually
I'm disappointed; I know the goal was almost impossible to meet but I don't want to have
to deal with my own boss." He then said to her,
"I'm frustrated
and you probably are too. How can we get ourselves out of this problem?"
And they were on their way to a solution.
A more modern approach is
Solution Focus. Here's a good
example from Coert Visser's blog,
Solution Focused Change/Doing What Works:
Advice From the Future
– Case sent in by Jo Hanssen from Curaçao
One day, I walked past the room of one of
my vice principals. There she sat, opposite to a student. In that
small room the both of them had managed to create a maximal distance
between them and you could see steam clouds escape. In other words,
there was a crisis. She gestured me to come in. It turned out the
student had been rude to the caretaker and she thought he should
apologize. He, however, thought the caretaker had snubbed him so he
was right. The more she tried to convince him, the more he opposed.
His mother had already been called to come to school to talk about
this.
The conversation had turned very grim and
seemed like it could only escalate further. After the vice principal
and he both had told their reasonably similar stories I asked the
student which class he was in. It turned out he was in HAVO-5.
Then I said that I expected someone at the level to be able to solve
problems in a positive manner. Next, I asked him where he would be
in two years time. He said that he would then be studying in
Rotterdam. I asked what he would be studying and how things would be
going. He began to explain enthusiastically and his body posture
changed from leaning back in chair to leaning forward. The vice
principal's body posture started to change too. She leaned forward
and started to listen with interest.
After the student had described many
things about how his life and study in Rotterdam would be, I asked
him whether he would then still be having this kind of problems.
Then he started to laugh. No, he would then be able to handle this
type of problems. Then I asked him whether he, as this future
student, would have some suggestions for this younger version of him
that was now sitting in the vice principal's office. We were very
surprised when started to choose practically all the solutions that
the vice principal had just mentioned in their conversation. His
mother was called off, I could leave, and the two of them took care
of the situation.
The most comprehensive recent
suggestions I've found are from
Think Simple Now.
When you read these "Fifteen Ways to Overcome Anger" you'll find them very
consistent with my approach to change, framed as ways to
interrupt a pattern:
When negative
feelings arise, we have two choices,
-
To follow the habitual pattern we’ve learned since we
were young, to react and allow the negativity to consume us.
-
Or, to interrupt the pattern we have been conditioned
to follow, and in doing so build new neural pathways that allows for
alternative possibilities.
There are essentially three ways to interrupt a behavioral pattern:
-
Visual
– Change your
thoughts.
-
Verbal
– Change your language.
-
Kinesthetic
– Change your physical position.
Think Simple Now's first of
fifteen ways to overcome anger is, simply, "Look Up!"
The fastest way
to change negative feelings is by changing our physical position right
away. The easiest way to physically change is by moving our eye
position. When we are in a negative state, we are likely looking down.
Suddenly looking up (into our visual plane) will interrupt the negative
patterns of sinking into the quick sand of bad feelings.
Any sudden
physical change will do the trick:
-
Stand up and stretch while letting out an audible
sigh.
-
Exaggerate and change your facial expressions.
-
Walk over to a window where there is sunlight.
-
Do 10 jumping jacks.
-
Do a ridiculous dance that pokes fun at you.
-
Massage the back of your neck with one hand while
singing happy birthday.
I'm particularly intrigued by the
power of kinesthetic changes, because I shifted my "snit" about the e-mail
ads I was receiving with a kinesthetic response I'm learning called "Flowing
Zen." I won't attempt to describe the deep relaxation head to toe and
energetic flow, but encourage you to find someone local who teaches a form
of
qigong, "the art of training intrinsic energy... one of the marvelous
methods of maintaining health and practicing Zen."
Controlling Anger - Before It Controls You!
Notes
from Anger Kills
