A few days ago I posted, "you may have had your anger stolen from you as a child.
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A few days ago I posted, "you may have had your anger stolen from you as a child. If so, you should find it & get it back."
I'm entirely serious about that. A lot of us were trained as kids that the people in charge of us could be angry, but we needed to be quiet & submissive in the face of "authority".
No. Your anger is yours. Your anger is powerful. Find it. Harness it. Direct it.
It was taken from you because it gives you power.
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A few days ago I posted, "you may have had your anger stolen from you as a child. If so, you should find it & get it back."
I'm entirely serious about that. A lot of us were trained as kids that the people in charge of us could be angry, but we needed to be quiet & submissive in the face of "authority".
No. Your anger is yours. Your anger is powerful. Find it. Harness it. Direct it.
It was taken from you because it gives you power.
I understand your point. As a parent, however, directing an 8 year old away from smashing a dish into the 5 year old's face has inherent value independent of any later effects on their political actions.
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Emotions themselves are neither good nor bad, but they *are* powerful. Especially anger. It has some uses we need right now.
Many of us were literally told there were things we were *not allowed* to be angry about. That is authoritarian control. People "above you" do NOT get to tell you what you may or may not be angry about.
I'm trying to get more comfortable with my anger. I manage other emotions by being observant & sitting with them. So why do I run away when the emotion is anger? Why am I scared of letting myself feel it?
It was forbidden. I was an "angry child" (actually AuDHD with an oversized sense of justice, a tendency towards meltdowns when overwhelmed, & rejection sensitive dysphoria). Not being able to "control my anger" was the most frequent reason I got spanked.
No wonder I'm uncomfortable with it.
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A few days ago I posted, "you may have had your anger stolen from you as a child. If so, you should find it & get it back."
I'm entirely serious about that. A lot of us were trained as kids that the people in charge of us could be angry, but we needed to be quiet & submissive in the face of "authority".
No. Your anger is yours. Your anger is powerful. Find it. Harness it. Direct it.
It was taken from you because it gives you power.
Emotions themselves are neither good nor bad, but they *are* powerful. Especially anger. It has some uses we need right now.
Many of us were literally told there were things we were *not allowed* to be angry about. That is authoritarian control. People "above you" do NOT get to tell you what you may or may not be angry about.
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I understand your point. As a parent, however, directing an 8 year old away from smashing a dish into the 5 year old's face has inherent value independent of any later effects on their political actions.
@dpfyhrie
It is tough while in the trenches of parenting to be sure, but teaching appropriate ways of managing big emotions like anger is not necessarily the same thing as banning it or trying to get someone to repress it. -
I'm trying to get more comfortable with my anger. I manage other emotions by being observant & sitting with them. So why do I run away when the emotion is anger? Why am I scared of letting myself feel it?
It was forbidden. I was an "angry child" (actually AuDHD with an oversized sense of justice, a tendency towards meltdowns when overwhelmed, & rejection sensitive dysphoria). Not being able to "control my anger" was the most frequent reason I got spanked.
No wonder I'm uncomfortable with it.
I think if my parents could go back & do it differently, they would not opt for the authoritarian parenting the cult taught them, & they would spend more time helping me with managing & understanding my emotions.
But my parents didn't have a model for that, & they were under a lot of pressure to use controlling methods of parenting that focused on getting desired behaviors by "breaking the will" of the child (frequently literally with those words: "breaking their will" or "their spirit")
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I think if my parents could go back & do it differently, they would not opt for the authoritarian parenting the cult taught them, & they would spend more time helping me with managing & understanding my emotions.
But my parents didn't have a model for that, & they were under a lot of pressure to use controlling methods of parenting that focused on getting desired behaviors by "breaking the will" of the child (frequently literally with those words: "breaking their will" or "their spirit")
So it's now my job as an adult to figure out what a healthy relationship to anger would actually look like.
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I'm trying to get more comfortable with my anger. I manage other emotions by being observant & sitting with them. So why do I run away when the emotion is anger? Why am I scared of letting myself feel it?
It was forbidden. I was an "angry child" (actually AuDHD with an oversized sense of justice, a tendency towards meltdowns when overwhelmed, & rejection sensitive dysphoria). Not being able to "control my anger" was the most frequent reason I got spanked.
No wonder I'm uncomfortable with it.
@artemis
Totally get it.
I've been experiencing more triggering in myself that concerns me. Introspection helps me see when I've been completely unreasonable. I'm needing to maintain more personal vigilance than I used to.
It's a shame our mass media is now designed to trigger us. -
A few days ago I posted, "you may have had your anger stolen from you as a child. If so, you should find it & get it back."
I'm entirely serious about that. A lot of us were trained as kids that the people in charge of us could be angry, but we needed to be quiet & submissive in the face of "authority".
No. Your anger is yours. Your anger is powerful. Find it. Harness it. Direct it.
It was taken from you because it gives you power.
@artemis
Yes. I've found that my anger is repressed and I've learned to suppress it, too. It tends to burst out in unhealthy ways which got me into therapy for a few years. It's much healthier to recognize my anger and engage with it so I can direct its output in positive ways rather than letting the pressure build until I lash out at someone who doesn't deserve it.It is OK to be angry, probably good, even, when it is called for.
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So it's now my job as an adult to figure out what a healthy relationship to anger would actually look like.
@artemis ...cheers?
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So it's now my job as an adult to figure out what a healthy relationship to anger would actually look like.
To be clear, one of the reasons my parents taught us we must repress our anger is that they were taught the same thing as children. They were taught that *their* anger wasn't valid & didn't matter, & that's what they passed on to us.
Spiritual & emotional healing is often a generational process, & sometimes it has to go backwards. My healing enables theirs because I take what I've learned & go "I think you could be happier & healthier."
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To be clear, one of the reasons my parents taught us we must repress our anger is that they were taught the same thing as children. They were taught that *their* anger wasn't valid & didn't matter, & that's what they passed on to us.
Spiritual & emotional healing is often a generational process, & sometimes it has to go backwards. My healing enables theirs because I take what I've learned & go "I think you could be happier & healthier."
I'm not saying you should let your kids scream at people & throw things, but there is a lot of daylight between "that's not an appropriate way to treat someone else" & "you are not supposed to ever be noticeably angry."
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A few days ago I posted, "you may have had your anger stolen from you as a child. If so, you should find it & get it back."
I'm entirely serious about that. A lot of us were trained as kids that the people in charge of us could be angry, but we needed to be quiet & submissive in the face of "authority".
No. Your anger is yours. Your anger is powerful. Find it. Harness it. Direct it.
It was taken from you because it gives you power.
"Usually, when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."
- Malcolm X"Nothing will change until our anger gets powerful enough. But once you accept the truth of loss, and the truth of who perpetrated and profited from that loss, the anger comes rushing in, as fierce as the Santa Ana winds."
- Peter Kalmus, NASA climate scientist -
So it's now my job as an adult to figure out what a healthy relationship to anger would actually look like.
My answer to a healthy relationship to anger is hyper-rationality, but not the Vulcan way, nor by suppressing the anger. But rather that by understanding events are caused by a long chain of cause and effects and beimg aware of this chain. This associated that the notion of "fault" is an illusion and does not exist.
It doesn't suppress or remove anger, but makes it way shorter and more controlled.
I can elaborate if you want, but it'll have to be later.
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@artemis
Yes. I've found that my anger is repressed and I've learned to suppress it, too. It tends to burst out in unhealthy ways which got me into therapy for a few years. It's much healthier to recognize my anger and engage with it so I can direct its output in positive ways rather than letting the pressure build until I lash out at someone who doesn't deserve it.It is OK to be angry, probably good, even, when it is called for.
@thezerobit
Yes, exactly this. Repressing anger doesn't keep it in forever, & when it does boil over, it feels like a raging wildfire you can't contain.I have a friend with DID who pretty much locked off all of her anger in an alter she used to refer to quite derogatorily, because she thought of it as the "mean" part of herself. Watching her learn to accept what is necessary & good about that part of herself helped me see how forbidden & scary it felt to me too.
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I understand your point. As a parent, however, directing an 8 year old away from smashing a dish into the 5 year old's face has inherent value independent of any later effects on their political actions.
@dpfyhrie @artemis
Yeah, but that is not anger though. I think it's worth understanding anger and decoupling it from actions and words, understand which is which and where they come from, so we can stop wrong words/actions and not anger. The conflating is a very good way to repress anger
(Absolutely not saying it's easy) -
My answer to a healthy relationship to anger is hyper-rationality, but not the Vulcan way, nor by suppressing the anger. But rather that by understanding events are caused by a long chain of cause and effects and beimg aware of this chain. This associated that the notion of "fault" is an illusion and does not exist.
It doesn't suppress or remove anger, but makes it way shorter and more controlled.
I can elaborate if you want, but it'll have to be later.
@Lily_and_frog
If you do wish to elaborate later, I would love to hear more!It sounds like your approach aligns with what I am trying to understand better in myself. I like to approach my emotions with curiosity & understanding. I find this doesn't make the emotion go away, but it means I don't feel as "out of control" or overwhelmed.
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I'm not saying you should let your kids scream at people & throw things, but there is a lot of daylight between "that's not an appropriate way to treat someone else" & "you are not supposed to ever be noticeably angry."
@artemis one of the best tools I have found for helping kids deal with big emotions is the Incredible 5 point scale. https://www.5pointscale.com/
I brainstorm with them while they are calm how they can climb down the ladder. Counting to 10, blowing up.a pretend balloon, stomping etc. So when explosions happen I just have to say 'Oh it looks like you're angry at a 5, how do we get to a 4, so we can start to fix it?'. It doesn't always work straight away but it certainly helps a lot.
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@thezerobit
Yes, exactly this. Repressing anger doesn't keep it in forever, & when it does boil over, it feels like a raging wildfire you can't contain.I have a friend with DID who pretty much locked off all of her anger in an alter she used to refer to quite derogatorily, because she thought of it as the "mean" part of herself. Watching her learn to accept what is necessary & good about that part of herself helped me see how forbidden & scary it felt to me too.
@artemis
My partner has gotten a lot out of IFS (internal family systems) as a way to engage with different parts of her psyche: https://ifs-institute.com/nobadparts . The title of the book, "No Bad Parts", is a pretty good summary of the approach. I haven't gotten too far investigating IFS, but so far it resonates with aspects of mindful meditation practice that have taught me to explore my thoughts and feelings with curiosity rather than judgment. -
@artemis one of the best tools I have found for helping kids deal with big emotions is the Incredible 5 point scale. https://www.5pointscale.com/
I brainstorm with them while they are calm how they can climb down the ladder. Counting to 10, blowing up.a pretend balloon, stomping etc. So when explosions happen I just have to say 'Oh it looks like you're angry at a 5, how do we get to a 4, so we can start to fix it?'. It doesn't always work straight away but it certainly helps a lot.
@urbanfoxe
I am such a huge fan of things that help kids recognize & understand their emotional experience. Learning that from a young age is transformational.
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