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Understanding, Confronting and Resolving Anger 7- Ignoring Anger

 

Photo by Andre Tan

Let us not look back in anger nor forward in fear,
but around in awareness.

~James Thurber~

So far we have considered the nature of anger, where it comes from, types of anger and targets of anger and narcissistic anger. Now it is time to address what to do about your anger no matter where it comes from or where you direct it. Here we will address the possibility of ignoring your anger rather than expressing it.

Getting to know your temper

Before we get to that, let’s look at the nature of your anger. Psychologist Andrea Brandt presents seven things you need to learn about your temper. She points out that your childhood wounds guide you toward how you deal with anger. When you become angry, these wounds may return to your awareness and you again react to them while also juggling new causes of anger. It is also possible that you might not remember trauma from long in the past until you have had some help uncovering it.

Brandt also notes that anger triggers the release of stress hormones that tend to make you react on the basis of your past traumatic experiences rather than in any rational manner.

Here are the things you should know:

  • Suppressed anger is like a volcano. When you try to stuff down your anger, it does not disappear. It just accumulates inside you and acts somewhat like a balloon you overfill. Sooner or later it will pop. Your anger will eventually erupt to the detriment of both you and others around you, whether or not it has anything to do with how you got angry in the first place.
  • Your anger is trying to talk to you. Troublesome emotions are a signal to you that there is something that needs your attention. Something in your life is not the way it should be or at least not the way you think it should be. You will feel unsettled and off balance. If you try to ignore it, you will continue to keep feeling out of sorts. If you make a habit of ignoring troublesome feelings such as anger, you will soon find yourself in constant turmoil.
  • Your body tells you when you are angry. Even though you push your anger from your awareness, it still lives somewhere inside you as a form of stress. Stress hormones affect your concentration, your respiration, blood pressure and digestion as well as your immune system. As you might imagine, being off balance physically takes a toll on your mental and emotional well-being.
  • Reactions can be controlled. You have alternatives available other than ignoring feelings such as anger. This does not mean that you can necessarily prevent yourself from feeling anger. It does mean that you can find healthy ways to address your anger. We will consider these a little later.
  • Your childhood is still making you angry. Events that trigger your anger now might be similar to what angered you as a child. Childhood emotions can be rekindled by your current experiences. In that sense, what happens now can be of more consequence to your emotions and thinking than it would be if you had not had those childhood experiences.
  • Reactivity can quietly destroy relationships. Reactivity means jumping to how you feel and acting on that basis alone rather than taking time to understand what is going on in the person who you see as making you angry. Angering you might not be this person’s intention at all. Skipping over the other person’s perceptions and motivations will only compound the difficulties you have with this person.
  • Mindfulness is the opposite of reactivity. Reactivity is a thoughtless reaction with no considered justification. Mindfulness is the process of paying attention to what is going on in the moment both from the other’s perspective as well as from your own. We will consider mindfulness further a little later.

Let’s look a little closer at what your feelings have to tell you. Emotions are not as simple as you might think. It seems that something happens in your life and then you have feelings about it. But plenty of things happen around you every day. Many of them you ignore. You hardly notice them, and they have little meaning in your life. You don’t have any feelings at all about them.

Things that happen in your life may also result in positive or negative emotions. You might see someone wearing a dress that reminds you of one your mother wore when you were a child. Are your emotions positive or negative? It depends on what kind of relationship you had with your mother. The better relationship you had with her, the more positive your emotional reaction is likely to be. If you had a particularly bad relationship with her, your emotions might be negative.

If you had unresolved conflict with your mother, you might well find yourself feeling angry when you see a familiar dress. Perhaps you were able to find a way to resolve your conflict. In this case, your emotions might well be neutral or even positive.

Rita Kaushal writes about messages that your feelings have for you. She points out that there are no negative emotions. Nor are there emotions that are always positive although most people think of them as good or bad. She reminds us that anger helps us protect our personal boundaries and fear tells us that something is wrong. Although our response to these emotions can be destructive, the emotions themselves are not good or bad.

She agrees with Andrea Brandt that not finding a good way to deal with powerful emotions can rebound on you and complicate your life. Her conclusion is that all emotions have a purpose. Accepting that is the first step in dealing with your emotions.

Once you accept that emotions are okay to feel, the next step is to experience a given feeling and learn what it is about. You can learn to understand your feelings and the messages they carry and then move on to consider the best way to react to them. Many emotions can have nuances which might at first be difficult to understand. Be patient with yourself and your emotions.

Kaushal refers to Karla McLaren’s series of questions which anger poses. They are as follows:

  • What must be protected? Remember when we talked about anger stemming from fear? Your anger may be a result of fear that something might happen to you or that something might be taken from you. What might it be that you fear losing and need to protect?
  • What must be restored? Perhaps you have already lost something. Are you seeking to have it returned or replaced? It might be your self-respect or something more tangible.
  • Have you contributed to your resentment? How did the situation which triggered your anger arise? Did you do something to incite or worsen what happened? Maybe it’s not all your fault, but you might share some of the blame if you are honest with yourself.
  • How can enforcing limits make you feel protected? Sometimes you do things or give away things you wish you hadn’t. It’s easier to set your limits before you find yourself in a situation which adds to your resentment.

Asking these questions of yourself and answering them will help keep your anger from building and decrease the chances of an explosion when you feel overwhelmed. Answering these questions is a good beginning, but there remains the task of deciding how to react to your feelings, anger in this case.

Not knowing what to do about your anger leaves you tempted to try ignoring it. You might also fear the consequences of expressing your anger for yourself or for someone else. Maybe you are concerned that you might be hurt by expressing your anger or that you might hurt someone else.

Kaushal reports that she has been experimenting with finding safe ways to express her anger such as beating on a pillow. I have heard of others having a tree they use as an object for their rage. She uses this as a way to let off steam and uses her pent up anger in a physical way which does not hurt anyone. The tree can take it. She sees physical release as an important way to defuse feelings such as anger.

In contrast to this approach, some psychologists see physical expression of anger, even when it is not harmful to anyone, as a way of practicing violence and not something we should necessarily indulge in since it reinforces violent expression of anger. How would you like to be Kaushal’s tree?

Kaushal goes on to discuss Lerner’s opinion that venting anger often does not lead to its reduction. She also cautions her readers against feeling that agreement between you and others is imperative. This can lead you into the trap of feeling that you must bring others to agree with your opinions. Sometimes this just will not happen, and you leave yourself open to continuing frustration. You can also agree to disagree with others and let it go.

Ignoring another’s anger

Heated arguments do not often lead to anyone changing his or her mind. They usually end with both sides withdrawing, possibly even more convinced that he or she is right and the other person is wrong. On the other hand, not responding at all is also likely to increase the other person’s rage. Just look at what is happening around our country right now,  So, how can you get the other person to tone down their anger?

Nadia Persun has some ideas. She quotes humorist Kin Hubbard as saying, “Nobody ever forgets where he buried a hatchet.” Unresolved conflicts might be buried, but seldom are they forgotten. Here are her suggestions for defusing another person’s anger:

  • Disengage and don’t take it personally. I have written before about not taking things personally, as suggested in the second of the Four Agreements presented by Don Miguel Ruiz in his book with that title. Engagement and taking things personally are closely connected. If you take someone’s anger as a personal attack against you, it is only a short step to engaging them in a war of words or worse as you look for ways to protect yourself from assault. If you can look at another’s anger as his or her problem, there is no need to protect yourself or mount an offensive. We talked earlier about your anger being a product of your fear. The same goes for others. They may be motivated by their own fears.
  • Avoid ego battles and rides to the past. Protecting your ego can lead you into significant conflict. Again, someone else’s anger is not about you. It is about them. Unless you allow yourself to be drawn into their emotional drama, it is not your issue even if it seems to be. Arguing about who did what, when, where and why only drags out the process. Also, remember that another person’s anger has connections to his or her past. You most likely had no part in the past misadventures which boil to the surface for him or her. Justifying yourself will not make things better for either of you.
  • Choose calm and sanity. It’s hard not to engage with an angry person itching for a fight. Yet it doesn’t help to react to the surface anger you see before you. Remember that this is not your fight even though it might be tempting and provocative. It’s hard to fight by yourself. The other person might rage on for a while but eventually will see that you are not in a fighting mood and will realize that you would rather listen than fight. Then maybe you can talk about why he or she is angry and what to do about it.
  • Give out an imaginary cupcake. This might seem like a silly suggestion. Remember that anger is an emotional response to loss or harm. This can be a very primitive feeling relating back to early childhood losses. Imagine being a four year old at a party where cupcakes are served. All the children including you get one. Then someone grabs yours and gobbles it down. How do you feel? That’s what I’m talking about. Someone might be trying to give you a message that he or she feels hurt or betrayed. Matching the other’s anger will not make him or her feel any better. What if you could control your own emotions and instead offer calmness as well as a kind and understanding response? It takes practice, but it is possible.

I think by now that you might realize that trying to ignore anger does not work very well. As we have seen, once you get to understand your own and another’s anger, trying to ignore either one is not very productive. It can have a negative effect on your health, physically and emotionally. It can encourage others to become more entrenched in their anger. It can worsen your relationships with others and prevent you from making any progress toward resolving your anger or that of others. If ignoring it doesn’t work, what does? That’s what’s next.