Today we are going to focus on anger, guilt and depression and explore ways to understand and work through these emotions instead of getting stuck in them.
Anger is an emotion that has a broad range of expression. It covers the spectrum from extreme rage through annoyance to minor frustration. How many times have you said, “I’m not angry, I’m just annoyed or frustrated or impatient?” All of these are actually expressions of anger.
Take a minute to make a list of all the different words you use that might actually fit into this anger spectrum. What do you find when you do this? Does any of this surprise you?
Think of 5 things that you experienced this past week that you would now be able to reclassify as anger. Why do you think doing this might be important?
Identifying and naming a specific emotional response better enables us to get a handle on ways to resolve both the feeling and the situation.
As with any other emotional state, anger is a natural reaction to a given situation. What we are looking for is the healthy, balanced reaction, not a distortion.
- How did you learn your own take on anger?
- What did you “download” throughout your early years?
- Who were your models for expressions of anger?
- Did you approve of their style?
- If your answer is no, an interesting question to ask yourself is why you copied a behavior that might have caused you harm?
- Do you get the results you want using this mode of expressing anger?
- What do you think the effect of your anger is on others?
An interesting paradigm to use in understanding common modes of expressing anger is: Bully-Victim-Rebel. All of these are learned behaviors, and can all be destructive and self-defeating modes of expression. We often have all three of these “voices” in our repertoire, but sometimes find ourselves with one of these as our primary “default” mode of anger.
The “Bully” mode of expressing anger is pretty self explanatory. It’s the loud, explosive, recriminating voice that we have all heard and sometimes even used. This anger style is replete with “shoulds.” The “Bully” rants, vents, dumps and scolds. The “Bully” is sure it is right in it’s assessment of any situation. There is no reasoning or compromising with “Bullies.”
Can you think of a recent time when you played the “Bully” or when someone else did this to you?
The next ineffective voice that we learn as a mode of expressing anger is the “Victim.” “Victims” can often be seen in the slipstream of “Bullies.” They whine. They cajole. They moan and lament their fate. They often perceive themselves as useless and ineffective. Are they really? Think about your last interaction with a “Victim.” “Victims” often win. Of course the cost to themselves is high. They have to suffer, but they also manage to wear others down and get what they want by default. While the “Bully” punishes in your face, the “Victim” gets you through attrition!
Can you think of a recent time when you played the “Victim” or when someone else did this to you?
The final voice in this trilogy is the “Rebel”. Seriously reactionary, the “Rebel” is famous for words like x%#z!!. Because “Rebels” are re-active, they are rarely acting from choice. Rebellious anger tends to be a lot of “sound and fury signifying nothing”. Most of us find it easy to shrug off the content of anger presented in this fashion.
Can you think of a recent time when you played the “Rebel” or when someone else did this to you?
So if these often used ways of showing anger aren’t productive, what is?
Our goal to deal with anger healthily is two-fold:
- to release the emotional tension and
- to be effective in taking care of ourselves.
It is important not to scold yourself by saying “don’t be angry,” but rather to give yourself permission to have the feeling and discover a useful way to work with it.
Here are some ways to release the tension that anger carries with it:
1) Listing resentments. You can write these down or say the resentments out loud or “out loud in your head".
2) Physical exercise, especially if you consciously focus on using it to release anger.
3) Pummel something – a pillow, a speed bag, a mattress. Remember the scene in the movie Analyze This when shrink Billy Crystal instructs bad guy patient DeNiro how to release his anger?)
4) Imaginary dialogues that allow you to say anything you want with no repercussions.
5) Fantasy acts of creative destruction. You could shred paper or an old sheet, or make a drawing of the “enemy” and stab it. The sky’s the limit when it comes to our imagination.
Again, as we noted before with the last “Talk,” some of the ways to know that you have released emotional tension are laughter, yawning, taking a deep sigh and feeling muscle tightness relax.
Once you use one of these strategies to lower the emotional head of steam - use your head - go cognitive with your anger. Now your goal is to get heard and get results. Remember you might need to make changes in the external situation or maybe in your perception and reaction to the situation. Think about what you want and who you are dealing with. Two questions you might want to ask yourself at this point are: What do you need to feel better? What do you get by staying in a situation that makes you angry?
Now, let’s look at guilt and depression. One very useful way to understand these feelings is in relation to anger. We have said that anger is a very strong emotion that needs a means of expression.
What do you think happens to anger if you “sit on it” and tell yourself that it is wrong to feel? Can you think of a time that you felt angry and tried to push it away? What happened?
We can look at guilt and depression as “faulty” expressions of anger. Healthy anger calls for a target. Something has made me angry and I need a focus for that anger, a way to release it. If I don’t find an appropriate way to externalize this strong emotion it still needs someplace to go and the easiest target is ME. When I turn anger back on myself I experience it as guilt.
Here’s an experiment to try: Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one side make a list of three things that you feel guilty about. On the other side, take those same three things and try changing them into “I resent” statements. What happens?
How does depression come into this mix? Remember we said that anger is a very strong emotion. Think about the many times in your life that you’ve been told, directly or indirectly, that it’s wrong to be angry.
Try another experiment. Take your hands and put your palms together, with your right hand on the bottom and your left hand on the top. Push your hands against each other, exerting equal pressure. Keep at it for several minutes. What do you experience?
When we use our energy to hold down or fight off our natural feelings, we feel tired and eventually defeated. Emotionally we experience this as a flattening of affect or depression.
Think about some time that you might have felt depressed. Looking back on it from this perspective, what feelings might you have been holding down?
So how does understanding this connection between anger, guilt and depression help? Once you identify and find anger as the primary emotion, go back to the earlier steps that we used in dealing with anger. You can now take proactive measures to release the emotion and help yourself resolve the situation.
