By Andrea hunsaker
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned”
I imagine it was surprising for my mom to open the front door and see a police officer. I imagine it was even more surprising for her to learn that the criminal he was looking for was my seven-year-old sister, who was (allegedly) involved in an incident on the walk home from school and (allegedly) punched her little boyfriend. The serious-faced officer sat my angel-faced sister down and gave her a good talking to, explaining that hitting someone was not an appropriate way to express anger.
That was it. My parents rallied, and I found myself gathered with my seven squirming siblings in our living room to address the problem in the household, which simply could not be ignored any longer. They pulled out the Bible and had us memorize:
“Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry; for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”
-Ecclesiastes 7:9
We repeated the verse over and over together, giggling at ‘bosom’, and making teasing eye contact with each other while emphasizing ‘FOOLS’. I can’t say we fought less after the intervention or that quoting the scripture to a sibling (or parent) who was in the throes of anger was an effective strategy. Even so, that verse has stayed with me, along with the message that it is foolish to hold anger in your bosom (hehe), but how does one let it go?
First, it’s helpful to know where anger comes from. Emotions (Latin meaning: move) are prewired response systems originating from an earlier age. Anger helped our ancestors take needed action when (1) their safety and survival, or that of a loved one, was threatened or (2) when their goals were blocked. Anger was crucial for self-preservation, providing the needed energy to fight to stay alive. Nowadays, threats are less often a life-or-death situation, but the anger response is still alive and well.
Gary Chapman (2015) explains that we have two choices should someone light our house on fire. We can either chase down the person responsible and get retribution while our house goes up in flames, or we can first attend to our house and then approach the offending arsonist (Chapman, 2015). Yes, the second would be the logical choice. Yet, in those hot, fiery moments, forget logic! We’d happily burn ourselves to the ground as long as our target came down with us. And that’s the tricky part of working with anger: the powerful emotion temporarily renders logic inaccessible. Here’s a plug for meditating. Research shows those who meditate have less of a reaction in their amygdala’s when shown pictures meant to stimulate strong emotions (Kral et al. 2018).
In those moments, what we need is time. Psychologist John Gottman (1999) indicates that in couples arguments, when one or both of the partners are flooded (when the threat defense system is activated and the heart rate lifts above 100 bpm), it is virtually impossible for those conversations to end well. Gottman suggests agreeing to take a 20-30 minute break to self-soothe before coming back together to resolve the conflict constructively (Gottman & Silver, 1999). Slowing down will give logic a chance to come back online and give you a wider range of options to choose from.
Anger is a secondary emotion, meaning there is usually something hiding underneath it—something vulnerable like hurt or fear. Often, we go to anger because it feels better and more powerful. Yesterday I was driving down the road with no other cars in sight, and a rock hit my windshield and cracked it. Oh, come on! I was irritated, even when I couldn’t find a target for it. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and neither had anyone else. As I became curious and searched underneath the anger, I found that I had too many tasks on my list, and this was now one more: fear of how much this would cost in precious resources of time and money, and feeling loss that my pristine windshield was now cracked. When I attended to those softer emotions with compassion, the anger dissipated.
You may ask yourself: Is acting on anger in this way going to get me what I want? This summer, I bought a second-hand nightstand with the intention of reselling it for a profit. Well, it sat in our garage for months as I slowly lowered the price and procrastinated dealing with it. One day, I noticed it was gone and learned my dear husband had donated it. My house was on fire. For about 20 minutes, I seriously thought of all the things I could donate of my husband’s: his favorite jacket, his Jeep, his dog. I wanted him to hurt like me, or did I? When I slowed down and became curious, I saw underneath the anger there was hurt that I was perceiving he didn’t care about me. What I really wanted was to be reassured that I was important to him. I actually didn’t want to donate the dog (I like the dog more than my husband does). What I really wanted was more closeness in the relationship, not more distance. So I went to him and told him how I felt and what I really wanted, and he explained that he thought I had given up on selling it and that he was doing me a favor and never intended to hurt me. All better.
Richard Swartz, developer of Internal Family Systems Therapy and author of No Bad Parts, has a different approach to anger. Swartz (2021) recognized that all our parts have good intentions. This approach uses mindfulness and self-compassion to get to know and heal our parts. From this perspective, at our core, highest self, we are calm, compassionate, balanced, courageous, and wise; however, there are parts of us that have developed extreme protective roles because they couldn’t trust our highest self to get the job done (Schwartz, 2021). These parts sometimes take over. Try looking at anger as a part of you separate from your true self that has needed to take on this job because it is trying to protect you. It is working so hard to keep you safe. It’s desperately trying to be your hero. Try talking to it from your highest self, without judgment, and getting to know it. You might ask:
What are you trying to do for me? (Let the anger know you appreciate all that it is trying to do for you)
What are you afraid would happen if you didn’t do your job? (Assure the anger that you are not trying to get rid of it)
How do you feel toward me, your highest self? (Ask it to look you in the eyes and get to know you so it can learn to trust your highest self)
What are you trying to protect me from feeling? (This may be fear or pain, or a younger vulnerable part)
Would you be willing to step aside and let me talk to the part you are protecting? (Let the anger know that by allowing you to attend to this vulnerable part, it will make it so the anger doesn’t have to work so hard. If the anger gives permission, connect with the vulnerable part and attend to the pain or fear, giving it the nourishment it needs to be healed from your highest self)
Do you think you could trust me to step aside now and let me lead in this situation? (You might assure the anger that you care about what it cares about, remind it how old you are now, and that you are capable of handling the situation)
What would you want to do for me if you didn’t have to take on this extreme role? (It may want to be there for you in actual life-or-death and abusive situations, give you courage when needed, be an advisor for fairness and justice)
Let the anger know you are thankful for it; you see how hard it works for you and how afraid it is for you to be treated unfairly.
I spoke to my sister, now an adult, about that day. She remembered being painfully rejected by an older girl whom she admired, and she was running home to find comfort. Her little boyfriend had playfully stood in her way, and when he persisted, the angry part took things into its own hands. It was just trying to protect her, like all our angry parts do. Thank you, anger. You are our hero. And you have a place in our bosom because we’re humans and we need you sometimes, but you don’t need to rest there anymore because we’ll lead by our best selves and do the hard work of attending to what you are protecting.
“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind”
References
Chapman, G. (2015). Anger; Taming a Powerful Emotion. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work. New York, NY: Random House.
Kral, T. R. A., Schuyler, B., Mumford, J. A., Rosenkranz, M. A., Lutz, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2018). Impact of short- and long-term mindfulness meditation training on amygdala reactivity to emotional stimuli. NeuroImage, 181, 301–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.07.013
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma & restoring wholeness with the internal family systems model. Sounds True.