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December 18, 2014
Habitual Anger
Unblocking the Ally
by Madisyn Taylor
Anger can easily become our go-to emotion; to remedy, start noticing when and why you get angry.
Sometimes when we feel anger, it is coming from a deep place that demands acknowledgment and expression. At these times, it is important that we find healthy ways to honor our anger, remembering how dangerous it is to repress it. However, anger can also become a habit, our go-to emotion whenever things go wrong. Often this is because, for whatever reason, we feel more comfortable expressing anger than we do other emotions, like sadness. It can also be that getting angry gives us the impression that we’ve done something about our problem. In these cases, our habitual anger is inhibiting both our ability to express our other emotions and to take action in our lives.
If it’s true that anger is functioning this way in your life, the first thing you might want to try is to notice when you get angry. You might begin to see a pattern of some kind. For example, you could notice that it is always your first response or that it comes up a lot in one particular situation. If the pattern doesn’t become clear right away, you could try keeping a journal about when you get angry and see if you can find any underlying meaning. The good thing about keeping a journal is that you can explore your anger more deeply in it—from examining who in your family of origin expressed a lot of anger to how you feel when you encounter anger in others. This kind of awareness can be a formidable agent of transformation.
Anger can be a powerful ally, since it is filled with energy that we can harness and use to create change in the world. It is one of the most cathartic emotions, and it can also be a very effective cleanser of the emotional system. However, when it becomes a habit, it actually loses its power to transform and becomes an obstacle to growth. Identifying the role anger plays in your life and restoring it to its proper function can bring new energy and expansiveness to your emotional life.
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For an alcoholic/addict, anger justified or not, it isn't healthy, especially if held onto, yet as it is express here, it shows us how to channel it. We need to deal with it and express it in healthy ways. It is an emotion like all others, and a normal one, and one that I internalized, while others acted out on, which generally ended up in jails, institutions and death.
I needed to find healthy ways to let it go. By walking, sharing it with others, journaling, at the suggestion of a counsellor,
taking a plastic bat and hitting a pillow, talking to my sponsor, counselor, mentor, and taking it to my God and asking for healing.
Under my anger was a lot of resentment, rejection, abandonment, and unnamed emotions that I hadn't allowed myself to feel because of my continued substance abuse. Not just alcohol and drugs, but work, food, relationships, and in recovery, getting involved in service and not taking the time to work and look at myself and my own issues. Mine didn't seem important, forgetting my stuff was traumatic to me, and not allowing myself time to heal. I pooh hood it all away, because everyone seemed to be worse off or I just didn't want to look at it. As they say, we are only as sick as our secrets. I stayed sick. I stayed angry. When I quit smoking at seven years sober, it was like I was a newcomer.
Each day I have to work on my emotional sobriety.