Dear Reader,

Instantly, you may be shouting, “Yes, I am!” Or you may be recoiling because you don’t like to feel anger. Yet, anger plays a role in each of our lives. Obviously, excessive and unmanaged anger is a problem. However, repressed anger, not as easily seen or acknowledged, is also problematic.

Just a disclaimer here: I am not a psychologist (nor do I play one on TV) and am no expert on anger. In fact, quite the opposite. First, I don’t enjoy confrontation, let alone anger. And second, for most of my life I repressed anger, and when I did show it, I sadly let it spill out onto the least deserving ones, the ones I loved the most.

Fifteen years ago, I learned to confront anger. It came late in life when repressed anger had taken its toll in the form of health issues, excess weight, depression, broken relationships, and more. I had grown up in a fairly angry household with parents who raged. In my formative years as an only child, I tried to provide ballast. This meant I became heavy with the anger I absorbed from my environment and the anger I suppressed. The process used to acknowledge my anger came through mindful awareness, active forgiveness, and a solid amount of physical bashing and yelling (toward inanimate objects only).

Mindfulness helps us greet our anger with awareness. Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron says, “Rather than resist anger, we need to stop and look at it.” While this is rarely comfortable, it is the first step to freeing us from the grips of anger. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "When you understand the roots of your anger, you can release it." Ultimately, that’s the goal. Catch and release.

Why? Unchecked anger sloshes over onto others causing a mess and pain, or it is stuffed down inside us causing, you guessed it, a mess and pain. In the film Anger Management, Jack Nicholson’s character, Dr. Rydell, who runs an anger management group, enlightens Adam Sandler’s character with the movie's greatest line, “Let me explain something, Dave. There are two kinds of angry people–explosive and implosive. Explosive is the kind of individual that you see screaming at the cashier for not taking their coupons. Implosive is the cashier who remains quiet day after day and finally shoots everyone in the store. You’re the cashier.” Of course, our goal is to be neither.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a more conventional coach than Dr. Rydell, teaches us how mindfulness can help us transform emotions like anger. He believes that understanding the deeper causes of anger—such as unmet needs, suffering, or fear—can help us let go of the emotion more peacefully and skillfully. Though the scene depicting Jack Nicholson forcing Adam Sandler to stop amidst honking traffic on the Queensboro bridge to confront his anger by singing Bernstein’s I Feel Pretty, is a solid comedic method. Just try it the next time you feel angry; start sining, I feel pretty, oh so pretty...

Mindfully Working with Anger

Avoid:

First, when possible, avoid the trigger of anger – the people and situations that ignite the flame. For example, I no longer visit certain Facebook pages.

Bring Full Awareness:

• Notice the signs of anger arising? Where do you feel it in your body?
• Start by listing all the things that make you angry. Sometimes we are not even aware. When making your list, feel free to dip into all timelines – past, present, and future. Don’t hold back. This is your chance to transmute some anger.

Express:

• Now, that you have identified the sources of your anger, dialogue with the people and situations that “burn you up.” What are all the things you don’t say, that you repress with the aim of being kind or compassionate?
• Can you own the feelings and actually talk to someone saying, “I feel … when…” Scary, but liberating. Further, the more we brave direct expression, the easier it gets.
• Art and Music can be therapeutic when we use them as forms of expression or to sooth our emotions.
• Get physical and move the emotions through your body–pounding, bashing, and screaming. Grab a pillow and/ or a child's plastic bat (when no one is home) or go into the woods (when no one is around). Pound and bash with all your might and with vocalizations. What are all the different noises you can make associated with anger or to release anger? While you bash, say aloud the things you cannot say, name factors making you angry. Stand and stomp your feet and continue to vocalize the things that make you angry and talk back to them. Yes, this looks like a tantrum and it will feel like one too.

Feeling and releasing anger is not easy, to say the least. Push through the body’s desire to shut down and stop; keep going as long as you can. Would you rather take anger out on another or store this emotion in your body? I think not.

Other Mindfulness Approaches:

• Breathe: There are breath work practices like breath of fire to help you release anger.
• Meditate: try a body scan or a loving kindness meditation to take the physical and emotional edges off, respectively.
• Forgive: Anger often holds us hostage. Mindfulness can help us practice forgiveness—not just for the other person, but for our own well-being. Releasing resentment and letting go of grudges can be freeing and reduce the emotional burden of anger. (An additional blog post needs to be written about this.)
• Accept: Here we can remember the serenity prayer– and ask for the serenity to “accept what we cannot change, the courage to change what we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
• Be Kind and Compassionate: Take it easy on yourself. Anger is a normal human emotion, and sometimes it can be a response to feeling hurt or disrespected. It can help us take the right action, so try not to judge yourself.

Working with our anger is not for sissies, as Betty Davis once said. (She said that about a lot of things, like growing old and getting along with Joan Crawford.) This work is about healing you. It is for your long term health and well-being. When we meet ourselves lovingly where we are at, and can embrace ourselves for who we are, all that we experience, that is the full embodiment of mindfulness and self-compassion. This is how we can be a force of healing not only for ourselves, but for those around us.

I'd love to see you at a sound journey or mini-mindfulness retreat this spring. Together, let's feel the feelings, take some breaths, and reset the nervous system together.

With love and light on your path,

Jess

​​

​

​