Rethinking Your Anger

Anger isn't all bad. Growing up, many of us got raised to believe anger is wrong, unladylike or uncivilized. Anger often travels with emotional partners, like hurt. Direct and appropriate expression of anger is a skill that emotionally healthy people need to develop. Cultivating a healthy respect for managing stress, frustration and anger is a key skill.

Nobody gets what they want all the time. You will run into traffic. Your boss will demand unreasonable things. Your partner and your children won't always read your script. Things will break. How you handle that frustration makes an incredible difference to your health and your close relationships.

If you don't manage anger well, it can negatively impact your health. One study in Psychosomatic Medicine (January, 1998) identified a correlation between anger and high blood pressure and heart rate, as well as neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses. More recent studies suggest a link between anger or repressed anger and elevated cholesterol, hypertension, heart attacks and cardiovascular disease, immune system disorders, asthma, diabetes, anorexia nervosa, backaches, headaches, stomachaches, diabetes and increased susceptibility to pain.

There are patterns of aggression in close relationships which can drive others away. Threat-based aggression includes threatening things when you don't get your way. I've treated couples where one partner threatened to end the relationship or divorce almost every time they didn't get what they wanted. This is both immature and exhausting.

Irritable aggression includes lashing out at others when you are in pain, uncomfortable, or annoyed. It's like having the people close to you take a verbal lashing because of your discomfort. This is not a good way to manage your stress.

Frustration-based aggression involves a person being stopped from what they desire, when they really expected to get it.

Instrumental aggression happens when we take aggressive action to get something we want, like a child who hits their sibling to take a toy.

Indirect aggression is sort of a sneak attack that instigates a problem situation.

In relationships, individuals need to listen deeply, and also speak up assertively and respectfully about how each wants to be treated.  It's much healthier to go direct to the person you are hurt, angry or disappointed with than to hold it in or be indirect with passive digs at the person. Direct and appropriately expressed anger or hurt can be a relief, healing and constructive. Pouting, sulking and suffering in silence get the relationship nowhere.

Being appropriate with anger means talking with that person one on one. (No audience, please.) Don't yell or scream. Talk about how their behavior made you feel, and what you want from them in the future. Focus on one issue only. Don't label the other person or hurl insults. In close relationships we have to train the other person how we want to be treated. Not everything is okay in terms of behavior, and expressing justified anger directly and appropriately is an important counterbalance in the relationship. Withdrawal is not always healthy.

The National Institute of Mental Health suggests using the acronym RETHINK to better manage anger:

R- Recognize what you are feeling.

E- Empathize with the other person. Use "I" messages, not "You" messages.

T- Think about your thinking. Am I being reasonable? Will it matter next month or next year?

H- Hear what the other person is communicating to you.

I- Integrate respect for every human being. (I'm mad, but I still love you.)

N- Notice your own body responses. Take time to calm yourself down. Most of us need 20 minutes to cool the fight or flight responses to strong anger.

K- Keep on topic.

All feelings are okay, including anger. It's what you do with it that matters. Being effective at expressing anger directly and appropriately will help you have more satisfying relationships and optimum physical health. Anger sometimes has important information for us, like boundaries we need to set. Identify when you are angry and what you need to do about it to be a good role model and someone who is safe to be close to.

Yelling Is the New Spanking (and Adults Don't Like It Either!)

This morning, the Orange County Register newspaper has a great article about the negative impact of yelling at children as a parenting style. The article suggests that just as most educated parents don't spank their children these days, (as perhaps we were in childhood), that screaming and yelling at children is also damaging to the child, their self-esteem and the parent-child relationship.

When I ask parents in counseling about a dictator style parent who spanked and/or yelled and how that impacted their relationship with the parent, usually they explain that they didn't open up to that parent, or confide in them when they had a problem. Often, yelling or spanking is about a parent feeling overstressed and losing their cool. Neither spanking or yelling are effective ways to discipline children or teens. Discipline has to do with teaching the child something and a consequence is usually a better way to go.

Remember, if you lose your cool with your child, that's probably all they will remember from the situation. They will likely be thinking about how mean you are, not about what they did.

Parents hold their child or teen in a kind of "empathic envelope", with much of family life occurring along the envelope's edge with parents letting children out for more freedom, or setting limits and pulling them back in. When you explode at your child, it's as if you blow up the whole envelope that holds them in a safe relationship with you.

Parents still need to be the co-architects of the family, and children need reasonable limits, with more freedom as they are making more responsible choices. If you don't know how to do this,  a parenting class or a few sessions with a family therapist can help you upgrade your parenting skills to be more effective. If you really want a child who turns out to think for themselves, be kind, responsible, and able to be close to other people and feel safe, your parenting is the path that helps get them there.

While we are at it, not only is yelling at your child a bad idea, but so is yelling in your relationships with other adults you care about. I think of yelling as primitive and unskilled behavior. We can do better. we owe it to our children and all our adult relationships to find healthier ways to manage our stresses, set limit , and communicate when we are upset.  Is yelling the new spanking? I sure hope so.

Why It's Uncool To Freeze People Out

Have you ever had somebody get upset or angry with you and stop speaking to you?  I notice that it happens frequently, with my patients reporting how painful it is to be on the receiving end of the Big Chill. It can happen with not only children, but with full grown and educated adults.

Putting loved ones in the chill box and shutting down and not responding to them is highly unskilled and emotionally primitive behavior. It doesn't look good on a small child, but this poor coping strategy looks even worse on adults.

If you recognize this pattern in yourself, it's time to do some self-reflection. Where and when did you learn this passive aggressive pattern of behavior? It can actually feel worse to your loved one than punching them. Your behavior is actively making the relationship less safe for the other person. It's a power grab of sorts, in an unfair and childlike delivery.

Is this how you watched the adults in your family solve differences or work through competing needs?

Who did you go to when you were upset as a young person growing up? Was there anyone safe who would listen compassionately, or did you learn to stuff your upset feelings inside and get your retaliation by refusing to speak to others?

Perhaps now is the time to update your skill level if you notice that you have this tendency to punish others by not speaking. Emotionally mature people use words to express if they feel angry, hurt, or mad and need a little time out to cool themselves down before talking things through.

It's perfectly okay to be upset, hurt, or angry. In relationships with another person, you won't always get your needs met. You are not always more important than the other person. You won't always get your own way. Dealing with disappointment and frustration are two things we all need to get good at. It's part of our human experience.

The next time you have the urge to pout, sulk, or freeze your loved one out by not speaking to them, think again. Choose a better, more grown up path. Your relationship can only be as close and secure as you and the other person cab build it. Don't dismantle what you are building because you are reverting back to childish tactics. You deserve better, and so does the other person in the relationship with you. Develop some new strategies. The deep freeze may be a good place for ice cream, but it's a bad place to put your most valuable relationships.

When Adults Throw Tantrums

Have you ever seen a full-grown adult have a meltdown? If you are observant, you can see adult-sized tantrums occur wherever you go, including when driving, at home, at work, in stores, in parking lots, and in restaurants. These tantrums occur when some adults don't get what they want, are frustrated, have to wait, have people cut in front of them, or others don't do what they want.

Adult-sized tantrums, in either women or men, aren't pretty. They actually make you look a bit silly and like you just regressed to a younger age. I like the saying, "You can tell the size of a person by the size of the thing that upsets them."

Tantrums can make you red-faced, throw things, scream, yell, curse, and drive unsafely. Getting into a tantrum can make you feel justified to say extremely hurtful things to both strangers and those you love. Hurtful things that are said can never be erased. The other person could always remember them.

There is a long-lasting impact of tantrums and blowing up with your loved ones. It's hard to get over it. It's very difficult to feel safe enough to be physically or emotionally close to someone you don't feel safe with. You never know when a rupture is going to happen next. It keeps the other person on guard and wary of you.

Here's something else to consider: adult tantrums usually have an audience. What is your partner, your child or teen, your co-worker, employee, or other person thinking and feeling about you when they see you lose it? It makes the adult who is throwing the fit look ridiculous.

When it's your parent who tantrums, it's very confusing and hard for young people to deal with. I know children and teens who are frightened by their parent's rage when driving, as well as anxious when parents throw things, slam doors, stomp off, don't speak to other family members for days, or call them ugly names in anger. What's a child to do about it?

Your relationship with your child is like an empathic envelope you hold them in, with much of daily life occurring on the edge of the envelope, where children push the limits and we let them out a bit and pull them back in as needed. Losing it and throwing tantrums with your child is like blowing that relational envelope to bits.

Disagreements and differences of opinion are normal and can be expressed in healthy ways. This includes sitting down with the other person, listening actively to the other person, and also expressing your thoughts and feelings. Fighting fairly can actually help you understand each other's needs better, grow your confidence that you can work through differences respectfully together, and bring you closer.

Having a tantrum, including screaming, raging, throwing things and wounding the other person with hurtful and curse words, is incredibly unskilled behavior. Instead, own that you are upset and take 20 minutes to calm yourself down before talking things out calmly. Remember, everybody gets older, but maturity is entirely optional. Developing enough of a governor to recognize that you are upset and losing control of your anger is a basic requirement for being an emotionally mature person. If you want great, healthy and close relationships, you can't afford to tantrum. The cost is way too high.

Why Anger Isn't All Bad

Anger can get a bad rap. It's not always bad to be angry. Getting angry in certain situations is understandable, and learning to figure out what is going on with yourself when you feel angry is useful. While you don't want to act out with anger, or take it out on other people, you do want to recognize it, and channel the anger towards constructive action if at all possible.

It's not good to let anger marinate inside you. Internalizing anger can make you feel sad, powerless, and depressed. There are gender-based differences in the expression of anger. Women are more likely to not recognize anger, and turn it inwards to self-blame and sadness. Men are more likely to express anger, and less likely to express vulnerability.

Sometimes recognizing what you are REALLY angry and frustrated about takes some thought, meditation, quiet time to reflect, or a good workout. Underneath strong anger there is usually some hurt. The next time you get really angry, you might stop and ask yourself what you might really be hurt about.

Anger, once identified and reflected upon, can be channeled.

I have known people who got so frustrated with supervisors, meetings, and unnecessary bureaucracy at work that they made a plan and became an entrepreneur. That’s good use of anger.

There are people who figure out that when they are uptight and feel like picking a fight with their partner or children that they need to go for a run to release that keyed up feeling and be ready to be relational again. Again, that’s excellent self-awareness of tension and anger building.

It's so important not to project your unexamined anger out on others. It's been said that “I'm never really upset for the reason I say I am.” There is some truth to that saying. Each person is responsible for sorting out their own anger and frustration, and figuring out what it means. Perhaps you hate your job and are taking it out on your loved ones, when you really need to address the career issues. Maybe you are holding on to unspoken resentment with your partner, and need to assertively claim more equity in the relationship.

In her classic book, The Dance of Anger (Harper and Row, 1985), Harriet Learner beautifully addresses the unique issues faced in expressing anger. The feminine archetype often doesn't include anger. Many women are conflict avoidant, and are so focused on keeping harmony in their relationships that they don't even recognize when they are being stepped on, taken advantage of, and need to speak up on their own behalf. In relationships we need an 'I' and a 'We.' Women are socialized to be nice, sweet, and relational. Women are afraid at times to assert their own needs and desires for fear of being thought of as bitchy or demanding.

Anger can be a guide to understanding more about our authentic self, and what we need in life and in relationships. While we don't want to act out and hurt others with our anger, or blame others, we do need to understand it and have our anger help us understand that we need more of a partnership, more consideration and caring from a partner. Anger can be a signal we have some negotiating to do. Anger can tell us we need to do something different, at home or at work.

It takes courage to break out of the relationship dances we get into, but if you are noticing that you're angry, it's time to reflect about changing your dance steps. Learning a few new dances could be fun, and surprise a few people. It's never too late to learn a few new dance steps with regard to how we grow from our anger.

Mending a Broken Heart

Break-ups are hard at any point in life, but almost everyone has been through it once or more than once. It's a part of our human experience, and helps us appreciate the fragile nature of close relationships.

What do we need when a relationship ends? How can we process what has happened? What can we do to help ourselves move through the grief?

It's important to remember that loss is always felt in direct proportion to how attached we were to that person. The more attached the two of you were, and the more your lives were intertwined, the greater the feelings of  loss you will experience.

Allow yourself to feel the loss, including the shock, the sadness, the anger, the regrets, the bargaining in your own mind about if things had only been different. All of these feelings are normal. Grief is always easier and less complicated if you deal with it at the time of the loss. Look through old pictures if you feel the need. Listen to songs that remind you of that person if you want to. Let yourself cry if you can; tears are healing.

Avoid alcohol or drugs as you are grieving your loss. It will bury your grief, and delay you dealing with the painful feelings until sometime later, when it will be more difficult to deal with. Grief therapists notice that losses that don't get dealt with at the time can show up later in that person's life, when some subsequent loss occurs and it hits doubly hard.

Activate your support system. Let your close friends and family know what has happened, and that you need them to be available to support you. It's okay to spend some time alone, but spend some time with your friends and family and allow them to lift your spirits. Work and school can be healthy distractions, too.

Reflect about the insights and lessons you may have learned from this relationship. What will you do the same in a future relationship? Will you be more attentive, more open, or choose someone with different traits? Perhaps you have learned some lessons about what is important to you in close relationships.

Take extremely good care of yourself. Eat nutritiously. Grief is heavy emotional work, so be sure to get your sleep. After a break-up is an excellent time to step up your exercise. It will help you relax, sleep better, work out anger, and get a healthy dose of endorphins. You may want to change a few things---perhaps a different hairstyle, a new outfit, or something else that boosts your self-esteem a bit.

Take your time healing. It isn't a race to get back out there and begin dating again. It's healthy to take your time developing yourself again after a break-up. Focus on your friends, your career, your family, and your interests. It's important to learn how to not be in a relationship, and be by yourself.

Loss is a part of life. Time passing helps, as well as feeling your feelings. This is the only healthy way through the journey of grief. You can work through the grief process and even grow from it.

If you are stuck, feel you are slipping into depression, or can't figure out how to move through the pain to the rest of your life, meeting even a time or two with a therapist who is trained in grief work can be very valuable in moving you forward.

Break-ups happen. Some of the challenge is finding your way through it, feeling and processing your grief, and learning from the journey along the way. The human heart is an amazing and resilient thing.

Giving up the Blame Game

Blaming others for your circumstances never works. It makes you more of a victim. It puts you into a passive, helpless mind frame. It's not a mentally healthy neighborhood to hang out in. It's negative, and it keeps you stuck and powerless to improve things.

You can hear people blaming all around you. Like these statements:

"I'm all stressed out because of my boss."

"My teenagers drive me crazy."

"My marriage is bad because my (wife, husband) does (x, y, z)."

"I've always had bad self-esteem because of my childhood."

"I can't control my anger because people upset me."

"My health is bad because of my genetics."

"I can't save any money because of my kids."

The truth is that there are givens for all of us----your partner, your genetics, your personality, your earning power, but there is another huge untapped influence for most of us also. That powerful influence is our thoughts and our behavior choices.

Diabetes might run in your family, but you can get great information on how to lower your risk with diet and exercise and work on that plan every day.

You might get hot-headed with anger, and come from a family of bad anger role-models, but you personally get to choose learning some better skills, and using them. To do less than this is to choose the easy way out and stay in your comfort zone of unskilled behavior.

Mentally healthy people take some authority over their own thoughts. They realize that negative thoughts breed more negative thoughts and behaviors. What we think about truly expands to fill the space available inside us. Weeding out your own negative, maladaptive thoughts is each person's responsibility. A good therapist can teach you how to scale back those distorted negative thoughts in a couple sessions. Everyone needs to "take out their own trash," meaning manage their own thoughts.

How do I know that this is possible? I have had the privilege of working in counseling with individuals who have overcome incredible odds, including abusive parents, poverty, multiple significant losses, and the betrayal of others, and yet adjust their thinking to have their experiences make them softer, gentler, and more full of loving kindness for themselves and others. They go onto full and emotionally rich lives after amazing hardship, and it deepens their appreciation for the goodness and light in life.

To move past blaming others puts you in a better position to take back your own power over your own life, both your present and your future. When we abdicate responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, we are stuck in a bad neighborhood called helplessness.

When we take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and our part in making any situation or relationship better, that's when better things can happen in our present and future. Owning our own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors is a hallmark of emotional maturity.
When stressed, the mature person exercises more and sorts out their negative thoughts and feelings that keep them churned up. The mature person realizes that part of not being stressed out is showing humor and flexibility, and doing good self-care. Dealing with your own stress, rather than taking it out on others, is essentially a choice.

You can choose to make blame unnecessary in your life, because as you take responsibility for where you are now in your life, and where you want to go, blame becomes irrelevant. What really matters as time passes is enjoying moments with those you love and doing things you are passionate about. Both of those things are so much more fun than blaming.

Letting Go and Moving On

Holding onto perceived hurts, grudges, and resentment is bad for us. It can ruin your sleep; make you anxious or depressed. It can cause physical health problems-- elevate your blood pressure and heart rate, cause you digestive problems, or give you headaches. It can keep you from being present for the loving relationships in your life, and the beauty of things around you. Holding onto the bad stuff keeps us from experiencing the goodness available to each of us.

Sometimes you don't have a choice in an emotional cut-off of a relationship, where a family member or friend abruptly stops all communication with you. Emotional cut-offs actually take a great deal of emotional energy to maintain. You may have to stay angry to feel justified in your position. Both loving and hating someone else take far more psychic energy than being in a neutral position towards another person.When someone does an emotional cut-off with you, it may be important to release them with love. Send them off with evisioning white, healing light around them. Try to forgive yourself, and forgive them as well.

Not all the relationships in your life can go the distance with you across the rest of your life. If a relationship has become toxic, where the other person is critical, judgmental of you and others, destructive to themselves and others, abusing alcohol and/or drugs, blaming, and attacking, you may NEED to let go. There is no way you can safely stand by. You may want to be emotioanlly brave and explain briefly and honestly why you are letting go.

One of my favorite writers/speakers is Gerald Jampolsky, MD, who wrote the classics Love Is Letting Go of Fear and Goodbye to Guilt: Releasing Fear Through Forgiveness. Jampolsky is a psychiatrist, and also a deeply spiritual man. He writes in a beautifully simple style. He teaches us that people come from one of only two places: love and fear. If you are not coming from love in your relationships with other people, then you are coming from a place of fear.

People who are coming from a loving place don't need to compete with others. They don't need to feel bad when something good happens for someone else they know. They don't need to sit in judgement of others, or criticize and speak poorly of others behind their backs. In contrast, when you are coming from love as your emotional point of reference, you can be supportive of others and not feel threatened or diminished by it. You can forgive others and yourself for NOT being perfect. You can see the best in others. You build others up through authentic encouragement of other people's strengths, progress, and good efforts. You see yourself as you are, imperfect, and in this journey of life to learn things, and to change and grow.

Letting go of things? It's not only good for our closets and homes, it's also good for our personal growth to let some things go and move along our path.

Beware Emotional Flooding

All couples fight or have to work through conflict at times.It's normal. I am always concerned if a couple tells me they never disagree. Either someone is brain dead or afraid to speak up. What matters most to me about couples and conflict as a structural family therapist is HOW the couple moves through the conflict. Can they disagree while staying respectful of each other and their relationship? It's been said that all couples have a few perpetual unresolveable issues. What marks a successful relationship is being able to discuss those differences without threats,nastiness,or a need to win every time. Afterall, do you want to win, or do you want to be happy? Being a couple is like being a part of a team, and you've got to have your partner's back,rather than go gunning for them.

One of the most important concepts I learned from doing some training with University of Washington psychologist and couples researcher John Gottman is that of emotional flooding.Gottman ran a "Love Lab" at the university,where couples' interactions were studied as they interact with each other and live there for a brief time.Each partners' heart rate and other physiological responses are monitored throughout their stay.

Gottman and his team identified a pattern that was dangerous to couples' relationship survival.If the male partner frequently experienced "emotional flooding" during the couples interactions it negatively skews the chances of the couple making it long-term. Emotional flooding is a state of overwhelm where the individual may get flushed,stressed,physiologically agitated,and have a desire to do fight or flight.Note to all partners: when you are working through a conflict with your beloved,pay attention to your partners' non-verbal cues.Don't overwhelm them.Offer to take a break so you can both calm down. Research on stress and anger tells us that the human body usually needs 20 to 30 minutes of cool down time to release a high level of tension. You and your partner could adjourn and meet up later when you are both calmer and can be more constructive.

Conflict is completely normal and healthy,because two individual people will have competing core needs at times.Losing control,screaming threats,or making below-the-belt comments is not healthy. Unbridled anger can emotionally flood your partner and put the relationship at risk. Be smart.Watch for flooding,and when you see it, know to stop and cool down.You don't wanted your beloved to associate you with high levels of emotional distress and negative biological sensation.

Anger is Just the Frosting

Is there somebody close to you who gets easily angered? Or is it you who takes out your frustrations and disappointments on others? Some people develop the unhealthy emotional pattern of projecting their internal discontent on their loved ones. Dumping anger and rage into your close relationships is like pouring acid rain on them. It is hard for those close to a hot reactor to feel safe enough to relax, be themselves, and feel connected. Living with a rageaholic makes you feel like you always have to walk on egg shells, or there will be an explosion, often for ridiculous reasons.

In sessions over the years, I have had patients confide the kind of things that set them off. Sometimes the reasons for a sense of justified anger are really petty. Imagine feeling entitled to rage at your partner because they don't wipe down the shower or share every interest you have. What about being furious at your spouse for not reading your mind and intuiting your desires without you having to communicate anything to them? At times, I need to stop patients and examine their (unrealistic) expectations. It can be helpful to remember that your partner probably also tolerates behavior from you that annoys them, but hopefully they love you anyway, and see the big picture. In a grown-up relationship you have to ask for what you want, incorporate your partner's unique needs, and learn to appreciate the good things the relationship brings you.

Some people bully others in the family with their anger. This is not ok. If you live with a bully, you need to set your own limits, and take care of yourself. You might tell the bully you love them, and you understand they are upset, but you will talk it through with them later, when things are calmer. A dictator needs a doormat to operate. Don't be a doormat. You can go to a movie, go to the gym, or go for a self-care walk outside and give them time to get back in control of themselves.

If you are the angry one, you should know that researchers tell us it takes about 20-30 minutes to calm our physiology down after being very upset. Your body goes into fight-or-flight mode and blood rushes to your extremities. Evolution prepared your body to run from a wooly mammoth. Digestion stops, and blood flow to the brain slows. Noone thinks well when enraged, so don't try to talk a conflict through then.
Take time to calm yourself down, go running or for a brisk walk, or listen to your "feel good" playlist on your ipod and dance. It will be more constructive if you talk through the conflict later, when you are quieted and have soothed your savage internal beast. Remember, it is called NORMAL for other people, including your partner, to sometimes approach things differently than you do. You are the only person who sees things exactly the way you do.

If you are noticing yourself struggling with anger in increasing frequency, step up your exercise. Brain research shows us exercise increases seratonin levels. Low seratonin levels are associated with aggression, and contribute to mood disorders.
I normally ask all my patients with depression or anxiety, whether adults or children, to increase their amount of exercise for this reason. It helps.

If you are experiencing a lot of anger, it will also be helpful to reflect by yourself or with a good therapist WHAT YOU ARE HURT ABOUT. Often the powerful sensation of intense anger is just the frosting. Underneath the anger or rage is often long held hurt, perhaps dating back to childhood. Perhaps current situations trigger old wounds that make you react in disproportionate ways. The hurt is like the cake beneath the frosting, and helped create the story you tell yourself about your life. What if your angry rages keep the pain going and rob you of closeness?

Why is important to clear the hurts beneath your anger? Pretty much everyone has some unmet core needs or wounds from childhood. Sorting them out can help you be in the present, and not destroy the chance for getting your needs for closeness and intimacy met now with your current partner and family. If you don't get a handle on your unchecked anger, you will recreate your personal story (i.e. " nooone ever loves me enough")again and again. This saddens me when I can see it happening. Life is short. Why would anyone choose to create the same sad scenario over?

When you examine the hurt beneath your anger, you can begin to experience the joys of real intimacy and the real person you love, rather than your old projections. Anger, when examined and understood, can be channeled and redirected into healthier patterns. Letting rage run your life and ruin your relationships is a huge mistake.