If You Struggle with Anger, My New Webinar Will Help
Photo by Anna Popovic/Unsplash
Virtually every client I have worked with has had a problem with anger. Either they struggle to express it, swallowing furious words and feelings, so the anger stays trapped inside their body, feeling like a hot, acidic stew of energy inside. This is known as having an implosive anger style. Some people have the opposite problem, struggling to contain their frustration and annoyance, so it all comes bursting out in barbed words and aggressive actions. This is called an explosive anger style and we see it in every kind of ‘rage’ incident: road rage, air rage, trolley rage... At the extreme end of explosive anger lies domestic violence and the violent crimes committed by many of the people filling our jails, so this anger style can clearly be dangerous and a big problem for society.
Why do so many of us struggle with anger? Usually because there was a dysfunctional relationship with anger in our family. We may have been traumatised as children by an angry, aggressive parent who could not control their temper, screaming at us over the smallest mistake. We might have witnessed domestic violence in our family, which is sadly very common. At the other extreme, anger may not have been a permitted emotion by our parents, labelled ‘bad’ or ‘naughty’ and punished with judgement and shaming so we learned never to express it.
Whatever your experience of anger as a child, it’s likely that you struggle with this powerful but often misunderstood emotion as an adult. Why misunderstood? Because anger is neither good nor bad, like every other emotion we feel it for a reason, in this case signalling a ‘fight’ response to some form of threat. In fact, the anger we see enacted on TV and in the movies is often distorted and damaging, usually the explosive kind.
Your protective parts
From an internal family systems (IFS) perspective, we see your anger being expressed by a protective part, called the Angry Protector. This part of you fires up whenever another – younger and more vulnerable – part feels threatened or attacked in some way. For example, if your partner criticises you harshly, your little self might feel hurt or shamed, which is deeply uncomfortable, so the Angry Protector steps in to make sure that part doesn’t get hurt (usually in the same way you got hurt as a child). This protective part goes into fight mode, which may look like yelling at your partner, making a sarcastic or passive-aggressive joke that’s not really a joke, criticising them for something that annoys you, or any one of a myriad ways of using offence as the best form of defence.
When I’m working with clients who struggle to express anger healthily, I teach them about another way of feeling and expressing this tricky emotion. And that’s being assertive, which is a clean, healthy, non-attacking way of communicating your frustration. Assertiveness is not easy to learn, but using IFS techniques we can both heal the hurt young part who feels threatened and help reassure and disarm the Angry Protector, which then allows you to express anger from your Self – the wise, mature, adult resource in you that can feel and express emotions more healthily. Only this version of you can be assertive, because parts-based anger is always distorted in some way.
If you struggle with anger, or you love someone who does, you will find my new webinar helpful: Managing Your Anger with Internal Family Systems provides over 60 minutes of teaching, powerful experiential exercises and techniques to help you develop a more positive, rewarding relationship with your anger. You can purchase lifetime access for just £10 from my non-profit store, by clicking the button below.
I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful in learning to live more skilfully with this powerful but protective emotion.
Love,
Dan ❤️
Love,
Dan ❤️
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