because you feel guilty when you get mad. Perhaps you have been taught by your family, teachers, or religious community that it is wrong to get angry, or that it should be a brief phase passed through as quickly as possible on your way to forgiveness. Well, I say that anger is a normal, human emotion. And when managed correctly, it plays an important role in the maintenance of a healthy psyche, body, and spirit.
I agree that forgiveness is an important part of the journey to emotional and spiritual wholeness. However, quick forgiveness is often false forgiveness, and false forgiveness can be detrimental to the health (both mental and physical) of the one who practices it. In that sense, false forgiveness can be worse than no forgiveness.
When someone has hurt you deeply, been unfaithful to you, belittled, raped, terrorized or abandoned you, you are left with all sorts of emotional baggage to sort through. It is not healthy to simply say “that’s okay” or act as if nothing ever happened. It is not okay. You have a right to be mad. Something did happen, and you’ve got to deal with it.
You can rush yourself into professing forgiveness only to discover later that anger is still sweltering inside of you. Then you may feel guilty for having this anger (because you supposedly already forgave that person) and engage in all sorts of behavior to try to make it go away. (See the following section on Things People Do Instead of Getting Angry. )
One of my clients, Bob, reported to me that he was not angry about anything in his life. He had come to me because he just did not want to feel depressed anymore. After a few sessions with Bob I met with his wife, Karen. I learned that Bob loved to tease Karen. She had had an affair two years earlier and Bob had immediately forgiven her. But shortly thereafter, his teasing of Karen increased and he got depressed.
I encouraged Bob not to tease his wife and instead to do Anger Work about the affair. Although he did not feel angry at first, the anger soon came out for it had been lying just under the surface the whole time. It was this unresolved anger that had been motivating his jabs to Karen. He felt good about doing his Anger Work because it made it easier for him to stop teasing Karen. He did not want to shame or hurt his wife anymore. Bob’s depression gradually went away, and their marriage grew closer because he finally got rid of the resentment he had been harboring for so long.
We tend to deal with things the way we were taught to deal with them. Sometimes this teaching comes in the form of overt statements from our role models such as “don’t be mad,” “you have no right to get angry at me,” or “let bygones be bygones.” “Forgive and forget” is another classic favorite. But often the most powerful message is a simple attitude which is learned by example from parents who never express anger themselves. Now that you are grown up, and responsible for your own life, it is time to reevaluate the teachings that your family may have passed on to you and make a conscious choice about how you want to handle things.
In Bob’s case, his family had always been big teasers while he was growing up. His mom would tease his dad about drinking too much beer, and his dad would tease his mom about getting fat. No one ever talked openly about what was bothering them. Bob fell into the same pattern without even realizing it. Once he became aware of how destructive his behavior was (eroding Karen’s self-esteem while adding to his own depression) he chose to stop teasing and vent his anger in the form of Anger Work instead.
There is nothing wrong with feeling angry, even for a long time, when someone hurts you deeply. Anger is a natural, healthy response to abuse. Still, it is not a good enough reason to become abusive yourself. Your anger is there for a reason. Learn to make it your friend. It can help you retrace your steps through the valley of the shadow of death (for isn’t that what life’s most painful and frightening experiences are?) You will come out on the other side liberated from the grip of the past. Anger work can serve as a path on your journey to wholeness, and forgiveness of yourself and others are part of what you may find along the way.
Maybe you don’t feel guilty at the idea of getting angry, the whole thing simply frightens you. As far as you’re concerned anger is scary stuff. Maybe you decided never to get angry because you lived with someone who constantly ranted and raged, inflicting their anger on all who were near. As a result you have become just as extreme in refraining from anger as the rager was in expressing it. I often hear people talking as though if you really got into expressing your anger it would send you “over the deep end” and you’d lose control. This has never been my experience in working with people, as long as they follow the two rules which are the Essential Keys to Successful Anger Work described later in this book.
Years ago I worked with a older gentleman who had been in the Korean War and had repressed his anger about his war experiences for many years. He was convinced that if he ever let his anger out, something terrible would happen. I assured him that expressing his anger would be very beneficial for him, and arranged for him to get a soft bat and a bed mattress so that he could do Anger Work. We went to a pre-arranged room where he was free to let out his anger while I held up the mattress.
I must admit that I was a little nervous because he had talked in such detail about how his anger could destroy the whole hospital, let alone the mattress that I would be holding! I was glad to learn that his anger did not live up to his expectations. He did hit the bed hard, but he could only hit repeatedly for less than a minute. Instead of his anger destroying everything in sight, he found that the room, and even the bat, were virtually unaffected by his display of wrath. However, he did discover that he felt much less agitated after our session.
It has always been my experience that as long as anger is directed at objects and not people, no one will be harmed. Of course, don’t go out and destroy a person’s car or house, or item of sentimental value. This will hurt them indirectly. You do not want to hurt anyone with your anger, directly or indirectly.
You may have identified some specific experiences in your life as traumatic (such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, a bad marriage, loss of a loved one, or loss of physical capability due to injury, etc.) Yet still you have never fully processed those experiences or been angry about the pain you went through. Holding on to one’s anger is what begins the progression toward more and more serious problems like those mentioned in the section “Consequences of Not Doing Anger Work.”
It’s time to start cleaning those wounds so you can heal properly. If you follow the guidelines in this book you will be able to process your pain and work your way out of the victim role without raging uncontrollably, frightening yourself and others. Anger work is especially effective for those trying to grow out of living life as a victim. Allowing yourself to feel angry over the abuse you have sustained in the past is a very empowering experience. You will find yourself less and less willing to be victimized again. Instead you will respond with appropriate anger when people attempt to take advantage of you. However, if you choose not to address your unresolved issues, you will find yourself stuck with the people described in the section “Things People Do Instead of Feeling Angry.”
Those Who Have No Past Issues, But Want to Live to the Fullest
Perhaps you do not have recollection of any particularly disturbing events from your past. You may have had a very happy childhood, and not yet been in a relationship or situation that left you reeling. If you do not have any of the problems listed under the following section “Things people Do Instead of Feeling Angry” then it is possible that you are one of those rare and fortunate individuals that honestly has no big issues from your past to deal with.
Nevertheless you are still faced with the challenge of how to deal with the difficult people and aggravating situations of current everyday life. We all encounter people at various times in our lives that would like to control us, hinder our progress in some area, or who simply act like jerks. We all have to deal with interpersonal conflict and face failure in various endeavors.
Anger
