Being mindfully angry

Words RUSSELL STURGESS

In the late 80s, I studied Attitudinal Healing in the USA with Dr Gerry Jampolsky (Tiburon Ca.) and Dr Susan Trout (Washington DC). Attitudinal Healing was cheekily referred to as A Course in Miracles for Dummies. It profoundly changed my life. One of the key differences was its ability to temper my anger, once I really understood what it was all about. It’s being reported that domestic violence has exponentially increased during COVID-19.

For all of us, ‘shutdown’ has meant that there have been less avenues for distraction, which means that our demons have come home to roost, so as to speak. Anger is one of those demons.

I learnt four important things about anger when studying Attitudinal Healing. Let me share those insights.

1. If someone is not extending love, then it’s a call for help.

That’s the bottom line. Anger is in fact a call for help. Often times, when we are in the position of not feeling good about ourselves, our only way to survive is to project guilt onto someone else, and then get angry at them. That’s the only way we can manage to have any sense that we are ok. Of course, none of this is a conscious strategy. Additionally, this strategy for getting relief from our pain and suffering isn’t sustainable and by repeating it regularly, it eventually becomes a habit.

2. We are never angry for the reason we think we are.

There is an expanded rationale to the projection approach to anger. A client of mine came to me after having been severely bashed by another guy off the back of my client’s angry outburst. My client was angry with life. Family, work colleagues and neighbours were often exposed to his anger. It turns out that his reason for being angry stemmed from his childhood narrative. He had been sexually abused as a child and lived his life with the expectation that life was unfair (to put it mildly) and that’s how it has turned up his whole life. Given that is his constant perceived reality, it was no wonder that he was angry. He would say that he has been ‘F’d by people his whole life. I was only the third person he had spoken to about his childhood trauma.

3. You can’t change what you can’t see.

Research has revealed that for the majority of us, we function through life habitually, 95% of the time. In other words we live on automatic pilot almost all of the time. As the adage says, “if you always do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got.” So for change to happen, you first have to become aware of your current reality, and with guidance appreciate why you might be in that position. Awareness includes two other aspects. What would your life look like if you felt really good about yourself, if you were no longer defined by your childhood narrative? And then finally, what feeling would I need to identify with and what changes in my behaviour would make it possible for me to replace my anger with kindness both for myself and for others?

4. You can choose kindness instead of this.

This is about being mindful. The beauty about the last aspect, becoming more aware, is that it gives you choices. Living habitually means you are without choices. Mindfulness means living in such a way that you can stop at any moment and remember that there is a choice to be kinder to yourself, to others and to the planet. This however, does not place an expectation on you to act kindly. Other than to stop and recall that you have a choice, you are encouraged to then follow the path of least resistance.

So here is how this works. You are presented with a situation that habitually sees the anger building in you. In that moment, instead of becoming angry you STOP, and remind yourself you have a choice to be kinder. You could take a moment to recall why you are angry and if you chose kindness how this moment could be different. You might even consider the strategy that you worked out that might make kindness a possibility. Then, if you are still inclined to be angry, be angry. Chances are you will do it with more awareness. If you repeat this sufficiently, there is a tipping point where instead of choosing to be angry, you choose to be kind, to yourself and others.

By doing this you are programming a new, kinder habit. It won’t happen overnight, but with persistence, it will happen. My angry client is now my mindful client. He now naturally chooses kindness as his approach to life. His angry habit has been sustainably replaced with a kindness habit.

www.russellsturgess.com.au