What You Thought You Knew About Anger Is Dead Wrong

When we get angry, it’s so easy to lash out. Our inner child steps up to the plate and takes over. But we as adults must learn to take control of this. Our inner child is just that, a child, with childish thinking, acting and feeling. If we don’t have methods of dealing with our anger as it’s happening, we run the risk of the child part of ourselves doing some serious damage. We could be forced to accept consequences that could affect everything from our relationships to our finances to our very living situations,and at it’s worst, could land us in jail.

When I am in a state of extreme anger, I have learned to:

1. Physically take myself out of the situation. 

2. Do boxed breathing. Breathe in 4 seconds, hold four seconds, breathe out for seconds, hold four seconds, repeat until the heart slows down.

3. Somatic exercises, a simple trick is to use the palms of your hands and run them down your neck, shoulders and thighs, all while focusing on your spiritual body returning to your physical body. Ever hear the term “he was gone”? Same thing. I do this constantly along with the boxed breathing.

4. Do physical exercise like walking or running, while focusing as much as I can on the physical activity that I am doing. As I walk, I feel how my feet move from heel to toe. I feel the soles of my feet as they touch the ground. I feel my arms swing. I feel the wind lifting my hair. I feel the temperature against my skin. Wherever I am, I try to focus on how my body feels in that environment. 

Usually, the thing that angers me keeps coming into my mind, but it is much easier to work out what really happened when I am moving physically. This gets the extra adrenaline out of my system in the way that nature meant for it to happen. Extreme anger is part of the fight, flight or freeze response. When we cannot fight when we feel like this, our physical bodies need to experience one of the other responses. Physical exercise satisfies the flight response in a healthy manner. This uses that adrenaline release that we experienced from the situation that upset us so much. The only way our brains are going to be able to process what happened and why we responded in that way, is if we expend that adrenaline first. Walking or running are ideal for this situation, even if you must pace in your house. The flight response is all about running so use that to your advantage. Walking quickly will do the same. The physical activity of punching a pillow, throwing things, or something else of that nature only kicks that fight response in more and multiplies the adrenaline release, making it worse. 

When I was a child, I would naturally do these things. When I was really angry, I would run as hard as I could, until I was spent and could run no further. As I got older, I would drop to the ground and do push-ups until I could no longer do push-ups. This was another healthy outlet. The action of doing push-ups is much like the action of punching, yet the effects of one are extremely different from the other.

Much later in the day, preferably before bed, free write. Allow yourself to not directly think of anything, just let your hand start writing. It might surprise you what comes fourth and then you just write about it. This will give you further clarity on what triggered you earlier in the day.

There is a way out. You do not have a life sentence to your reactions to your trauma responses. with education and diligent practice, your inner world becomes a far safer, calmer place.

-Janice M. Burke

Image by Kev (TheOtherKev)