***CHOICES IN ANGER: Emotions, Mind and Spirit, Part 2

Anger expression management
Letting it out in acceptable manners is one way to deal with anger.

Sports activities provide helpful physical outlets for pent up tensions. When I was under emotional stress in the Air Force during the Viet Nam war, I played racquetball or squash six or seven days a week, even in the heat of Texas summers that often reached over 100 degrees. I consciously pictured to myself that I was venting my angers at various individuals and situations that challenged my belief and ethical systems, making it impossible for me to offer medical or psychiatric care as I felt they ought to be practiced.

Giving my boss a piece of my mind, in no uncertain terms, at the top of my voice, can be a great release – in the safety and privacy of my car, with the windows rolled up, on my way home.

Letting it out directly towards the other person can be helpful, when this is done with respect. The risks of provoking anger in return can be considerably reduced by diplomatic phrasing. What has helped me is to picture a fence between myself and the person with whom I’m angry. If I stay on my side of the fence, stating that I am angry and why I am angry, I am less likely to provoke anger in response. In other words, I use “I” statements, stating what has angered me and explaining why.

I might say to my boss, “I am really frustrated and upset over being bawled out by you for being late. I understand that you’re angry you couldn’t get very far with the meeting until I got here, but I feel it’s unfair of you to call me on the carpet in front of customers without giving me a chance to explain. I was held up in a traffic jam on the expressway, my cell phone didn’t connect, and the elevator wasn’t working when I arrived. I left home early, but not early enough to accommodate all of these delays. I’m particularly upset because this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced responses like this from you.”

I avoid reaching over the fence in any way, refraining from using blaming or attacking “YOU” statements. I don’t say, “You have some nerve, blaming me for being late without bothering to ask what happened to make me late! I left home early and it wasn’t my fault that there was a jam-up on the expressway and that my cell phone and the elevator weren’t working. I’m really fed up because you always jump on me without asking what the problems were.”

When I’ve stated my feelings, from my side of the fence, even if I’ve done so with considerable emotion and emphatic expressions, I’m inviting the other party to listen to my side. They are more likely to begin to see matters in a new light. In contrast, if I direct my comments at the person on the other side of the fence, the other party is likely to feel attacked and to respond defensively – often with further anger.

At other times, particularly under situations of bullying, firmness and even an angry response in return may be appropriate. Bullies enjoy being one-up over those they feel they can cower. Showing them that they can’t get away with it will usually discourage them from continuing with their harassments. This still works better for me from my side of the fence.

On energetic levels, anger sets up negative vibrations, within and around those who are experiencing and expressing the anger. You may have had the experience of entering a room where people have been upset or angry, picking up negative vibrations without anyone having said an angry word in your presence.

Many bioenergy practitioners surround themselves with protective bioenergy shields. Such shields block negative energies and diminish or totally prevent the unpleasant and harmful effects of the negativity. (1More on this below.)

All of the above may sound rather idealistic. The more common response, by far, is to hit back if we are struck.

The easiest, and unfortunately the most common response, is to strike back if we feel we have been attacked, and/or to pass along the unpleasantness.

In The Inspector General, a film starring one of my favorite actors, Danny Kaye, a scene of anger unfolds in a police station. The Chief of Police is bawled out roundly by his wife, who storms out of his office, slamming the door. With smoke coming out of his ears, he blusters over to the Desk Sergeant and excoriates him for no obvious reason. The Sergeant reams out the Corporal of the guard, who is just passing by on his way out the door. Stomping down the steps of the police station, the Corporal brushes against a beggar who is passing by (Danny Kaye). He furiously shoves the beggar into the gutter, shouting at him for getting in his way. The beggar, having no idea why he is the object of this abuse, turns around and kicks at a passing dog.

Holding in angers is another common response. As children, we are usually told in school to not respond to aggression with our own aggression. The better alternative, we are told, is to tell the teacher or other person in authority.

Without learning to explore and deal with feelings, we are often left with these buckets full of resentments and angers sloshing around inside, waiting for an opportunity to be unloaded.

Cost/Benefit Analysis
Advantages in releasing angers: Venting angers may be beneficial in a variety of ways. Holding in anger is unhealthy, leading to accumulation of angers that can spill out with excessive responses when we are again provoked to anger. Angers held over long periods of time may contribute to ill health. Letting out anger, particularly in unprovocative ways, can provide a safe release that does not escalate into further angers.

Disadvantages of releasing angers: There are several dangers in expressing anger as a way of dealing with loss of control. In the heat of anger, it may be difficult to stay on my side of the fence. I may provoke more anger and may end up the worse off for it. When we deal with anger from strangers, there is no background of mutual experiences of problem-solving, and there may be no good will to overlook slights or seek common grounds or mutual understanding. Staying on my side of the fence may not have the desired effect of having my situation heard and understood. My best efforts may still be perceived as attacks, and may provoke further anger.

Venting angers at convenient targets provides immediate release for angers. However, like a stone cast into a pond that spreads circles of waves, sooner or later waves come bouncing back towards the point of anger that is splashed around.

The shadow and projections of blame
We also carry around buckets of unacceptable feelings that we experience but have been told are improper, bad, or against the teachings of our family, society or religion. Because we feel embarrassed, ashamed or guilty for having such feelings, we do our best to deny, ignore and bury them.

If we see behaviors in others that evoke these feelings, we may dump some of the self-critical load from our (mostly unconscious) guilt and shame buckets on those whom we catch in unacceptable behaviors. Our unconscious mind then feels better, because we have punished others for that which is buried inside, unacceptable to ourselves.

Group angers
When groups of people are stimulated to anger there can be a collective response of venting feelings of all sorts.

It is easy to blame “others” for problems that are without immediate solution. This has been an accepted way of dealing with frustrations for thousands of years. In Biblical times, on the annual day of atonement, a goat was ritually sent into the desert to die in expiation of the sins of the community during the previous year – giving us the term, scapegoat.

While such ceremonies facilitate ritualized community catharsis, particularly when combined with prayers for forgiveness for our own sins of commission and omission, they also suggest that blame can and should be placed on others as a way of dealing with our own misdeeds. And too often blame is cast without the accompaniment of self-examination.

It has ever been easier to project blame onto others than to look into our own contributions to problems. This is by far the more common response in the collective experience of social groups, where bad things may occur and we have no clear explanation for why we happen to be the targets of others’ venting of negativity or why we have the bad luck to be victims of blind, random misfortune. Where we lack control over circumstances, blaming and attacking others also provides the temporary illusion that there is something we can do about our situation.

There is, in effect, a group frustrations and anger bucket. Individuals contribute to this bucket, and find validation – in the similar behaviors of others – for their projections of frustrations and angers into it. When this bucket gets full to overflowing, collective angers may be vented on convenient scapegoats.

Clearly, there are other choices we can make when faced by misfortune, though this may require considerable spiritual fortitude, as witnessed in the writings of Victor Fankl, Laurens van der Post and others who have transcended indescribable pain and suffering. Harold Kushner presents a discussion of handling misfortunes in less drastic circumstances.

This tendency to project and spill anger has been exploited liberally by politicians over many centuries. It serves politicians well as a distraction from local problems, as well as providing a sense that the source of problems has been identified and is being dealt with.

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war
in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind...

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood
boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no
need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry,
infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of
their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know?
For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar.
Author unknown

President Bush was a master at doing this. He completely distracted the American public from examining and discussing and dealing with the national debt he created, the gross mismanagement of corporations (with whom he and Vice President Chaney have had questionable dealings), not to mention the questions surrounding the election that brought him into office and the questions about advance notice that the US government had of impending terrorist activities prior to 9-11. It is clear from his orchestration of public opinion that going to war was his intention, and that he created falsified, fictional justifications for this when actual reasons were not present. His reasoning repeatedly shifted, starting with an Iraq-Al Qaeda link and weapons of mass destruction (for which evidence could not be found) to urgent need for action on non-compliance with UN resolutions. The pretense of a need to deal with non-compliance with international agreements is particularly ludicrous, when the US has been violating and refusing to participate in treaties on nuclear arms, on the biological weapons convention and on limitations of greenhouse gasses, and when the US engages in a policy of detention without charges or trials of US citizens suspected of terrorist connections, and refuses to be party to proposals for limiting torture and punishing war criminals.