Your Relationship With Anger

Over the years my relationship with anger has drastically changed. As a young child, I had to deny or hide any signs of anger. Only our father was allowed to display anger openly. By watching my mother, I learned how to express anger in a passive aggressive way, which was safer, if no one caught on. As a teenager, I would often dissociate from my anger and then it would erupt as rage. In my twenties, I started to own and act on it. I found ways to direct it and release it. I was still confused and frightened by anger, but at least I was not denying it. Throughout my 30s it was something that could still feel foreign, scary and uncomfortable. At that time, I believed that I needed to grow past it, and no longer experience angry feelings.

Finally in my 40s and 50s I have become comfortable with accepting that when I become angry I need to listen and respect this valuable part of me, which is trying to communicate something to me that shouldn’t be ignored. It could be that someone is violating my boundaries, being rude or aggressive to me or that I am witnessing something that is unjust. The problem is not in feeling anger rather it is learning how to work with it. Anger can be a powerful ally and guide to knowing when things are not right in our inner and outer world. How do we hold the tension of feeling overwhelming anger and not do anything with it that we will regret? The key is to hold it and not act on it. We have to build the capacity to be with it, stand beside it and know that while it is pulsing through our veins this is not the time to act on it. Action comes later with reflection. I am not talking about life threatening events when we need to defend ourselves to survive, the feelings there are often not anger alone. I am talking about times when anger sneaks up on us or grips us by the throat when we are interacting with others, reading something in the news or whatever situation you find it in.

I think that as we age and grow our relationship with all of our feelings shift and evolve. I experience joy, happiness, sadness and many other emotions and feelings differently now than I did when I was younger. It can be an interesting life review to isolate one feeling or emotion and take an overview.

Moshe Feldenkrais said, “It is our resilience, the shock that we can withstand and still recover our stability that determines our health”.

Art Therapy Exercise to Explore Our Relationship With Anger

Take some time to gather some art supplies, crayons, coloured pencils, paints and get comfortable. Take a few deep breaths to bring yourself into presence.

Now start with your childhood and review in your mind what your relationship was with anger. How did your mother and father handle it? What about your siblings? What were the early messages that you received?

Now take some time to write and or paint or draw your response.

Return to sitting and breathing. Take three or more deep breaths to bring yourself to presence. Now get a snapshot of how you lived with anger as a teenager. How did you express it or did you? What were your views about anger at that age? What situations triggered your feelings of anger?

Now take some time to write and or paint or draw your response.

Return to sitting and breathing. Take three or more deep breaths to bring yourself to presence. Fast forward to your 20s. What memory stands out here that emulates your relationship with anger? Was it something foreign, forbidden, destructive, always lurking or delightful?

Now take some time to write and or paint or draw your response.

Return to sitting and breathing. Take three or more deep breaths to bring yourself to presence.

Next turn to your 30s. Take some time to really note in what ways your relationship changed. Look to see if there was a deeper understanding or respect for what your anger was communicating. Did you have more skill in knowing how to live with anger? Could you anticipate the triggers? Did or do you feel more in control of this feeling?

Now take some time to write and or paint or draw your response.

Return to sitting and breathing. Take three or more deep breaths to bring yourself to presence.

Now review the relationship you have to anger in your 40s. Were there any events that really stand out for you that shifted your relationship and understanding of the role that anger plays or played in your life? What do you see?

Now take some time to write and or paint or draw your response.

Return to sitting and breathing. Take three or more deep breaths to bring yourself to presence.

Next move to your 50s. What defines or defined your relationship in these years? Has your anger mellowed, intensified, changed course or do you express it differently? Does it fuel your art, your sense of justice or ability to stand up for yourself or others?

Now take some time to write and or paint or draw your response.

Return to sitting and breathing. Take three or more deep breaths to bring yourself to presence.

Continue this exercise until you reach the age that you are now. After, if you wish, it is helpful to repeat this with looking at happiness, sadness, and any other feeling or emotion with which you have a deep long relationship.