Healing and Dissolving Chronic Anger
No doubt you have seen someone carry anger about a particular event for ten, twenty years, and even a lifetime. The costs of carrying anger are too many to name here. It could be seen as a very tragic strategy for trying to protect certain needs and distance oneself from grief, pain, and fear. Universal needs underneath anger might include: safety, healing, to be seen and heard, to be understood, recognition, acceptance, and love.
When you can remain present for an emotion and allow it to flow, it tends to last a little over a minute and then dissolves, making room for the next layer of experience. So, in order to stay angry at someone over any period of time, your mind has to work pretty hard. First your mind might gather together selected negative qualities of the person in question and create a caricature of them in your head. Next you have to continuously review the negative events that confirm the validity of the caricature, either internally or out loud. Then you might rehearse arguments in which you prove how right you are and how wrong the other person is. Throughout this process you might also unconsciously adjust the facts of the triggering event(s), reshaping your memory to justify your “righteous anger.”
Chronic anger is perhaps most common among family members. Through the hurt and pain in relationships with parents, siblings, grandparents, etc., a rigid caricature is created over time. When you see particular family members infrequently, you can continue to maintain your idea of who they are and thus feed anger.
As mentioned above, rehearsing anger is a coping strategy that might be attempting to protect you from certain feelings and care for certain needs. As such, it is often an important part of a larger healing process. Anger is a signal that you are valuing and recognizing unmet needs, and that you want to fight for them. It can provide the initial momentum for you to set boundaries and make requests. Of course, the more these actions are influenced by anger, the less skillful they will be.
While it can seem that anger is protecting you, it's actually your ability to name your needs, honor your whole range of feelings, and take actions based on your needs that keeps you healthy and safe. Becoming aware of your anger and exploring what's underneath it with compassionate support and skill, opens a door to a world of new life-serving strategies to meet your needs.
Dissolving chronic anger usually starts with being able to offer yourself empathy or with receiving empathy from another about the pain you experienced and the needs unmet. For self-empathy, begin by observing where anger lives in your body, notice the exact sensations. Notice the shape, color, texture, and temperature of anger. Notice it without resistance. You might say to yourself, “I feel anger and that’s okay.” Connecting with your body is key in a natural process of dissolving anger. Identifying, feeling the underlying feelings of, mourning,* and reclaiming the unmet needs are the next steps. This is usually a long process. Eventually, with a new connection to these needs, you will start exploring creative ways to care for them.
When you have cultivated more self-connection and confidence, you will find that you have space to feel compassion for the person with whom you have been angry for so long. You might start by taking a broader view of the person. You might recall some basic facts of their life such as where they grew up, how they were treated as a child by family and peers, what they did well or delighted in as a child, what challenges they faced, and what you respect or admire about them. You can continue asking these kinds of questions as you look at each stage of their life until you sense a softening towards them.
You might also take a broader view of the original triggering situation. Did the situation bring any unexpected gifts for you despite all the unmet needs? Perhaps it allowed you to learn something about yourself. Perhaps it moved you to ask for support or connect with someone who has since contributed to your life in a significant way. Or, perhaps it shifted your career or personal path in a way you feel gratitude for.
Dissolving chronic anger is incredibly healing on emotional, spiritual and physical levels. With this healing, you will feel release and relief and connect more easily with joy in life.
Practice
Take a moment now and notice if there is someone for whom you still feel anger.
Ask yourself whether that anger wants to be heard. If so, set up a place and time for self-empathy or being heard by an empathic other.
*See strategies for mourning here
