Two Kinds of Anger

I've been purposely avoiding putting much theory on my blog, because I tend to theorize a lot in my head, and theory does not create intimacy. Yet sometimes it can be invaluable, and this one is an important understanding for me, that might be useful to others.

I've always had issues with anger - other people's and my own. I tend to be terrified of it, and avoid it at all costs. I've suppressed much of my own anger, and have wound up often feeling like a victim and carrying resentment.

From my work with Shalom and other places, I've come to see two different emotions that I have both been calling anger:

- Passion - I may feel strongly about something, such as the war, and express my thoughts with energy. Or someone may be violating or about to violate a boundary of mine, and I say "No!" strongly, with power, with energy. I have often suppressed this energy from being expressed in my life.

- Resentment - I may dislike something that has happened to me, or some situation that I cannot change, and develop an attitude of feeling like a victim, powerless and abused. It may include the desire for vengence, or withdrawal, or the belief that I don't deserve to be happy. I have often indulged in this attitude, and suffered a lot from it.

The psychological technique of emotional release, where one brings an emotion to the surface and expresses it strongly and bodily with the purpose of releasing it, has been controversial in the field of psychology. It is done in co-counseling, primal therapy, in Shalom work, in Pathwork, in the Mankind Project, and many other systems of healing and growth with great effectiveness, yet many professionals remain against it. I've puzzled over that a lot, because it has been very effective for me. This distinction above holds the key for me.

Emotions that are habitual attitudes are strengthened the more they are practiced. Emotions that have been suppressed and are brought into our awareness give us a new option that we were resisting before. Those of us who habitually feel rage, or resentment, or sadness, or powerlessness, are not people who need to practice those emotions - we need to practice new options, new ways of looking at life, new ways of reacting to situations. Those of us who have denied the existence of certain emotions, or suppressed the expression of them, need to understand why we are cutting off part of who we are, and one method of understanding is to get us to experience it and see what we have been resisting.

What I have resisted is personal power - the kind of anger that rises up when my boundaries are being crossed, and say "No!" What I have taken on as a habitual attitude is the kind of anger that is a smouldering resentment, a feeling that I've been had, an inability to let go of the past or see life from a new angle.

This frees me to change. When I discover resentment within me, I can try on a different attitude without fearing I am "suppressing my anger" - a big no-no in psychology. Likewise, when I feel strongly about something that is not as I think it should be, I can express strength and passion without being cruel or vendictive, and that is an attitude I need to practice, since I am resistant to it.

The point in looking inside is to free ourselves, not create more rules. The point is freedom - to have more options, not fewer.

Your thoughts are welcome - I'd appreciate hearing what others think.

Comment posted by Heidi
at 6/5/2006 10:02:00 AM
Wow!

You've covered a heck of a lot of ground in a few short statements - my head is spinning!

I feel like I want to expound on each sentence and point out that there's a lot more to it! But I think you are making a point only on how we process our anger regardless of the source of any particular situation.

If I am personally resentful about a relationship or work or community issue, I've been developing a new way of dealing and it is working! You talked about changing our mental processes to get rid of old anger patterns. My counselor said this is a fairly new concept in the psychological world. The old world required us to dig into childhood issues to heal the root cause but it also believe that many of our habits were hard-wired. The new thinking has discovered that our minds can create new neural-paths to our thinking processes when we practice and eventually by-passing the old thinking habits will become natural thru practice. I find this very encouraging.

I look inside myself to find what my desired longer-term goal is and then I try to overlook the small annoyances in favor of grooming my thoughts for my larger goals. I've spent a lot of year getting to this newer place of thinking and it is working for me - like you said. Rethinking old ways of being angry so that we can better serve our deeper goals which are usually a desire for being understood and for connecting somehow.

You also pointed out that a lot of our feelings are not conscious and we tend to go on automatic in our rages and "pet peeves". Are you saying that a sign to watch for is a routine in our angry thinking? That is, if it feels routine, it is probably an old record and most probably no longer valid?

My fear in all this heady stuff is that in practicing positive thought patterns, I might be going into denial or suppressing feelings that will come back later in my head - with a vengeance. I am not entirely confident that I am doing it correctly, so I have this underlying fear that I'm missing the point.