S2 EP238 – Healing Anger: A Journey to Relationship Intimacy

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Most of us want to feel a sense of inner peace, yet often anger and blame get in the way of our peace. It is possible to heal anger, and this is what I want to speak to today.

Did you grow up with anger in your household? Did one or both of your parents use anger as a way to keep you in line and have control over you?

How did you respond?

• Did you comply, trying to be the good little girl or boy and do what your parents wanted, hoping they wouldn’t get angry so often
  
• Did you resist and rebel to not be controlled
  
• Did you fight back, learning to use anger in the same way they did – to control
  
• Did you use a combination of these forms of control, perhaps overtly complying but covertly resisting in various ways, and maybe getting angry with younger siblings or friends as your way of dealing with your feelings
  
• Did you numb out by staying in your head and turning to various addictions to avoid your feelings
  
• Did you turn your anger inward, becoming judgmental toward yourself?

Now, as an adult, what part does anger play in your life? Do you use anger to control, trying to get others to do what you want? Do you use compliance to control others, trying to make sure they don’t get angry with you? Do you shut down, withdraw and resist when others are angry, to punish them and not be controlled by them?

Anger, blame, criticism, judgment – these are all ways of trying to control others. Compliance and niceness can be covert ways of controlling how others feel about you and treat you. Resistance and withdrawal are covert ways of controlling others and having control over not being controlled. All these behaviors create controlling systems that don’t work in any relationships. Rather than creating peace, harmony, and intimacy, controlling behaviors make these loving experiences impossible.

Each person who is involved in this system needs to deal with his or her own end of the system if the system is going to heal. If you are the angry one, you need to deal with the feelings your anger is covering up, such as fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, aloneness, emptiness, loneliness, heartbreak, grief or helplessness over others and events. Very often, anger at others is a way to cover up the very painful feeling of helplessness over another person.

Trying to control others with your anger is generally a projection of your own inner child’s anger at you for abandoning yourself in various ways. How are you not taking responsibility for yourself? What are you making others responsible for, and then getting angry when they don’t do it right?

As long as you believe that dumping your anger on another person is okay, you will likely continue to do it. You may stop when you understand that the psychic darts of anger may be just as hurtful to another as actual physical darts. As long as you allow your wounded self to take over when your painful feelings come up, you may act out in anger. Fortunately, when you have practiced Inner Bonding long enough to have a loving adult present when pain comes up, then you will have a choice over your reactions.

If you are the compliant, resistant or withdrawn one, you need to see that you are not taking loving care of yourself either. Instead of being reactive by giving in, resisting, withdrawing, or getting angry in return, you need to address the fact that it is not okay for others to dump anger onto you. You need to speak up and let the angry person know that you are not available to discuss any issue when he or she is using anger as a way of dealing with conflict.

If the angry person is not available for taking responsibility for his or her anger, then you need to lovingly disengage – leaving the conflict without anger or blame and taking loving care of your own feelings – until the other person is willing to drop the anger and explore the conflict with you. When each of you opens to learning about your own end of the system, and you each explore what is loving to yourselves and each other, then you begin to heal the dysfunctional anger/compliance/resistance/withdrawal system. 

The person on the receiving end of anger is often very reactive to it and goes into automatic compliance, resistance, withdrawal, or anger. If this is you, you need to practice being a loving adult to yourself in the face of another’s anger. A loving adult is not reactive. A loving adult stays open to learning while stating appropriate limits regarding the anger and taking action based on those limits, such as saying, “I won’t discuss this as long as you are angry,” and then lovingly disengaging from the interaction. This is far easier to do if you are able to catch it at the first sign of the other’s anger, or of your own reactivity, and move into your loving adult self by shifting your intention from controlling and not being controlled, to loving yourself.

Dealing with your own or another’s controlling behavior in a relationship can be a rewarding challenge for all concerned as long as each person is willing to open to learning rather than continuing to indulge in controlling behaviors. Each person has much to gain when learning has a higher priority than controlling.

Are you or your partner addicted to anger?

My client Michael was raised in a home where anger was used to control. His parents used their anger to attempt to control each other as well as their children. Sometimes the anger erupted into violence and Michael and his siblings would get physically hurt. Michael never knew when one of his parents would suddenly become enraged, so the threat was always there.

Michael was the oldest of four children and was often put in charge of taking care of his siblings. He often took out on his siblings his fear and rage at being abused by his parents. While some part of Michael didn’t want to be like his parents, this was all he knew.

As an adult, Michael struggles with his frequent anger at his wife and children. His wife threatened to leave him if he didn’t get some help, which is what led him to consult with me.

“Michael,” I said to him, “anger is often used to cover up other, more painful feelings. What do you think you are covering up with your anger?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I just get so frustrated and then out comes the anger.”

“What did you feel as a child, besides scared, when your parents were angry and violent with you?”

“I guess I felt pretty much alone,” he answered.

“You must have felt very alone and scared and uncared for, and also helpless over what was happening,” I suggested.

“Yes, I felt so helpless!” he exclaimed. “I hated feeling so alone and helpless. It was so scary. I couldn’t wait to get bigger so I wouldn’t feel so helpless.”

“What triggers that helpless feeling now?” I asked.

“Humm…I guess it’s when my wife and kids don’t do what I want them to do or what I think they should do,” he said thoughtfully.

“So rather than feel and accept your helplessness over them, which is the reality but is a difficult feeling to feel, you avoid feeling that old helplessness by trying to control them with your anger, just as your parents did. Is that right?” I asked.

“I guess so,” he answered. “I think I do try to control them rather than feel helpless. But why should I feel helpless? It’s an awful feeling.”

“Michael, when you were a child, you were helpless over your parents’ brutality, and you were also helpless over yourself in many ways. You couldn’t just leave and go live with someone else. You couldn’t walk away without further punishment. However, today, while you are still helpless over others, you are not helpless over yourself. You can walk away from a situation that doesn’t feel good, or you can speak up for yourself. You can also explore difficulties with your family. You didn’t have any of these options as a child. But unless you accept your helplessness over others, you will continue to try to control them, and anger is the way you’ve learned to control. Anger is your automatic controlling, addictive response to protect against feeling that old helplessness. You will continue to be angry until you accept your helplessness over others – over what they choose to do and who they choose to be.” 

For Michael, and for many people, accepting the reality of their helplessness over others is very challenging.

For many people, it feels like a life or death feeling, because as infants we were completely helpless and if no one came we would die. Some of us cried and cried and no one came, and we felt helpless over living or dying. While today helplessness over others is not usually a life or death experience, the feeling can trigger our infant terror. Most people will do anything to avoid the feeling of helplessness, even though we are no longer helpless over ourselves. Yet until you accept your helplessness over others, you might try to control them, and anger is a major way many people have learned to attempt to control.

It took Michael time to learn how to take care of himself – how to embrace and accept his helpless feelings rather than ignore them or cover them up with anger. As he practiced Inner Bonding, learning to take loving care of himself and his own feelings and needs, he became more accepting of other’s feelings and needs. As a result of accepting himself and others, and of learning to feel and manage his painful feelings, his need to control others gradually diminished.

In the course of working with me, Michael learned to access a personal source of spiritual guidance to help him not feel so alone and to know how to take loving care of himself. Michael found that when he was connected with his spiritual guidance, he was much less likely to act out in anger. He found he could manage his difficult feelings of aloneness and helplessness far more easily when he felt the love and support of spirit.

Some people who grew up in angry or violent families do the opposite of what Michael did – they never get angry because they are very afraid of expressing anger. They are afraid that if they get angry, they will get violent like one or both of their parents and end up hurting someone.

There is much to learn from anger, yet many people are afraid of this feeling because they don’t know how to express anger in ways that are helpful rather than harmful. 

I’ve spoken numerous times about The Inner Bonding Anger Process as a great way to release anger and learn about what you may be doing that is causing your inner child to be angry at you.  This powerful process is not only for releasing pent-up anger in harmless ways, but for discovering what your responsibility is in any conflict with another person.

Often, when I describe the anger process in a workshop, some people get anxious and want to leave. They are afraid of hearing others’ anger and of expressing theirs. These people are so afraid of being like their mother or father that they repress their anger, taking it out on themselves instead of others.

Neither dumping anger on others nor repressing it and taking it out on yourself is healthy. Anger expressed in these ways is about controlling rather than learning. Venting anger on another is about controlling through intimidation and blame. Anger dumped on yourself is about controlling feelings that may feel harder to feel than anger, such as fear, anxiety, loneliness, or, as I’ve said, helplessness over others.

Anger is an important emotion. It is here to tell you something, to teach you how you are thinking or behaving that is not in your highest good. You may have been taught that other peoples’ behavior causes your anger, yet this is generally not true. Others may behave in ways that you don’t like, but your anger at them is frequently a projection of how you are not taking care of yourself – a way to control them rather than take loving care of yourself.

It’s important to differentiate between blaming anger and justified anger, which I call outrage. Outrage is the anger that comes from a loving adult who is outraged at injustice. It’s the feeling we have when seeing someone abusing a child, an animal, the environment, and so on. Outrage moves us to take appropriate, loving action on our own or others’ behalf. This kind of anger is very important. It focuses us and mobilizes us into taking necessary action. This is not the anger of a victim. Rather, it is the anger that comes from a place of personal power.

Blaming anger comes from feeling like a victim and gets us off the hook from having to take personal responsibility for ourselves. This anger does not lead to learning or to healthy action. Blaming anger comes from the wounded part of us. Many people, like Michael, become addicted to anger as a way of avoiding more painful feelings. 

Anger, then, is often a cover-up feeling – a feeling that is covering an even more difficult feeling. Anger becomes addictive when it works to control others and cover over our existential feelings of loneliness, grief, heartbreak, and helplessness.

The intent of blaming anger expressed toward others is to intimidate them into doing what you want them to do or believing what you want them to believe. When we are operating from our ego wounded self, we often just want what we want and may not think about the effects our behavior has on others. When you believe you are right about something, you may believe that you have the right to impose your view on others and intimidate them into behaving the way you want them to behave.

Blaming anger is often a reaction to fear and comes from feeling like a victim. When your fears of being hurt, rejected, abandoned, smothered, and controlled are triggered, you may protect against these fears by getting angry at whomever is activating them. Your hope is that the other person will stop doing the threatening thing.

Since helplessness is such a difficult feeling to feel, feeling helpless over another often activates the desire to be in control. Yet, the reality is that you are helpless over what others choose to do and how they feel about you. When you don’t accept the truth of your helplessness over others, then you may continue to attempt to control them with your anger.

Sometimes you might get angry in the hopes that the other person will see how hurt you are by his or her behavior and change, or at least apologize and feel compassion for you. The problem is that often the other person feels hurt or threatened by your anger and instead of caring about you, goes into his or her own reactive behavior – anger, withdrawal or resistance. Your blaming anger can set into motion a negative circle of behavior that ends with both of you feeling awful.

People who use blaming anger as a form of control often feel justified in getting angry. “Don’t I have a right to get angry if someone hurts me or disrespects me?” they might ask. The problem is that the anger itself is hurtful and disrespectful, like fighting fire with fire which may backfire! The question is not whether or not you have a right to be angry. The question is, is getting angry serving you well? Is it really getting you what you want? Is anger at someone else really the very best way of taking care of yourself? Your wounded self may say “Yes! I feel much better when I get my anger out.” That may be true for the moment – addictions always feel good in the moment, which is why they become addictions. But does your angry behavior enhance your self-esteem, your feelings of self-worth, your inner sense of safety and security? Often the opposite is true: angry behavior may increase feelings of shame and insecurity. When we behave in unloving ways towards others, we cannot help but end up feeling unlovable.

Whenever you get angry at another because he or she hurt you, you are making that person responsible for your feelings. You are being a victim, blaming the other for your hurt and anger. There is no loving adult taking responsibility for your own feelings and behavior – there is just a wounded child acting out.

The Inner Bonding Anger Process is a way of expressing anger that leads to learning and growth. When people in my workshop want to leave rather than do the process, I explain to them that it is very important for them to reassure the frightened child within that this anger is not like their father’s or mother’s anger – it is not being expressed with the intent to control. It is being expressed with the intent to learn.

I’ve spoken about the 3-Step Anger Process numerous times so I will just go over it now very briefly:

Step 1 is fully expressing your anger toward a person you are presently angry with, but of course not in their presence. 

Step 2 is about expressing your anger at who this reminds you of in the past.

And Step 3, which is the most important part, is allowing the angry inner child to express his or her anger at you, when you are being your wounded self, for any ways you are not taking care of yourself in this conflict, or any ways you are treating yourself badly.

Step Three is the most important part because it brings the issue home to personal responsibility. If you just do the first two parts, you are left feeling like an angry victim. The anger that comes from being a victim is a bottomless pit and will never lead to learning, healing, and resolution.

Once you understand that you can express your anger with an intention to learn, your fear of your own anger will go away. You don’t have to repress your anger in order to not be like your parents. You can express it harmlessly in The Anger Process and learn about what your anger is trying to tell you.

Have you ever had an argument with someone – a partner, spouse, close friend, child, parent or other relative, or a business associate – that started small and spiraled into an intense conflict? Have you ever then wondered how it got so out of control?

Let’s take a look at what feeds the flames of anger and what diffuses it. 

My clients Emma and Jake have been married for 14 years. They love each other, but they frequently have arguments that escalate into intense fights where both of them end up feeling awful.

They’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter what the conflict is about. Just about anything can touch off their anger, defensiveness, and blame. Then the laundry list from the past comes up and they are at it, often ending with threats of divorce, which neither of them wants.

The problem is that they feed the flames with ANY response once one of them is angry.

Once a person is angry, he or she is no longer open to hearing another view of things. When a person is angry and yelling at or blaming another person, they are trying to bully that person into doing what they want. They don’t want to hear the other’s feelings, explanations, lectures, or logic. When they are angry, they may have no feelings of caring about the other person – they just want to control the person or the situation. There is no intent to learn.

Therefore, anything you say to an angry person feeds the flames of anger and escalates the conflict. The angry person may use whatever you say against you. Then your own anger escalates as you defend against the attack and attempt to gain control over the other person’s behavior, feelings, or views.

Now you are both pointlessly trying to control each other, bringing out the heavy artillery as you defend your position. 

Many people, when yelled at, attacked, accused, or blamed, get triggered into defending and explaining – hoping to change the angry person’s mind and behavior. It is as if the angry person has thrown out a hook and you bite. If it is someone who knows you well, like your partner, he or she knows exactly what to say to you that hooks you into engaging in the conflict.

Yet engaging is exactly what feeds the flames. To diffuse the anger, you need to disengage. Disengaging means that you COMPLETELY unhook yourself from the conflict.

Disengaging does NOT mean that you walk away in anger, muttering under your breath about how bad and wrong the other person is and how he or she can’t treat you this way. It does NOT mean that you shut down, closing your heart and withdrawing your love or caring. Your silent anger and withdrawal of caring are just other ways of trying to control the angry person. Energetically, you are still engaged, and the other person knows this. They know they have gotten to you, which fuels their hopes of winning.

Disengaging does NOT mean that you go off and ruminate about the other person, about how wrong they are and how you are going to teach them a lesson. It does NOT mean that you rehearse over and over what you are going to say to them next time you talk.

When you disengage, you are walking away from the conflict to take loving care of yourself, not to punish the other person. This means that you fully accept that you have no control over the other person’s anger. You are getting yourself out of range of attack without shutting down your compassion for yourself or for the other person. You are doing your own Inner Bonding process to make sure you are not taking the other person’s behavior personally, telling yourself that this is not about you – it is about whatever is going on with the other person. You are occupying your mind with helpful and pleasant thoughts – prayers for the other person, a happy song that you sing to yourself, or about what you would love to do with your time right now.
 
Completely letting go is very loving toward yourself and the other person. Because the other person energetically gets that their anger is not working, they are more likely to calm down. When the other person is friendly again, you are ready and willing to re-engage with no hard feelings and nothing to rehash, because you have kept your heart open and taken loving care of yourself.

The more you practice Inner Bonding, the less need you will have to control the other person and the easier it will be for you to disengage and take responsibility for yourself. By disengaging rather than entering the fray, you give the angry person the space to dealing with his or her feelings – if that is what they want to do.

And I want to emphasize that you and others can heal anger if that is what you want to do, and that is what they want to do. But if you are in a relationship with a rager who has no intention of doing his or her healing work, they you need to accept reality, which is that either you learn to not take their rage personally and not get hurt by it or end the relationship. People can heal anger only if they see it as a problem, but if they persist in blaming you or others for their anger, they will never heal it. They will continue to stay locked in their wounded self, using their rage to control.

I don’t think you would be listening to this podcast if you were not open to healing your anger and open to accepting your lack of control over another’s anger. So do your own Inner Bonding work and then you will be able to know what is loving to you regarding an angry partner, parent, child, friend, or colleague. 

I invite you to join me for my bi-monthly masterclass and receive my live help, which you can learn about at https://innerbondinghub.com/membership. 

And I invite you to heal your relationships with my 30-Day online video relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my new book, “Lonely No More: The Astonishing Power of Inner Bonding” and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.