It’s been a while since I’ve done any bike riding. But I remember one particular time when I came to what looked like a never-ending hill. At the time it seemed like San Francisco plus. I pedaled less than a third of the way up that hill and it exhausted me. After stopping to rest, I had to walk the bike the rest of the way. Even that was taxing.

A conversation I had this week with a client reminded me of that time. She was a manager at a fast food restaurant; the turnover was horrendous and she had, in her own words,  been making it worse. The employees she worked with complained “because she was harsh” and “yelled at them a lot.”

Controlling Her Anger

She said she tried many things in the past to control her anger. At times she was successful and she saw that she was able to work better with the people she supervised.

But people would still screw up. And she wanted to run a tight ship. And she would start to feel it.

She told me that when she felt herself getting angry she would just white knuckle it. She held it in until she felt like she would explode. She would try to talk herself out of being angry. She silently recited affirmations. She would deny her own feelings telling herself she wasn’t going to be angry.

And anger wasn’t acceptable to her.

Yet because when all was said and done, it wasn’t possible to keep denying and controlling. Because she was still angry, she felt like she was a failure. She was ready to give up.

Riding the Anger Bike Uphill

Anger is not a controllable emotion for the most part. Well, let me walk that back a bit. It is possible to control anger to some degree. For a while at least, you can do the same things my manager friend above was doing. And it’s possible to hold out for a while.

The troubling part is that it is a lot like my bike ride at the beginning of this article. It’s like riding a bicycle up a long steep hill. The anger becomes all-consuming. Controlling is ends up being the major chore in life.

It’s exhausting.

It drains willpower and eventually, when the right stressful situation comes up, the reaction to the anger is hostility.

It Doesn’t Have to be That Way

Over time, our friend began to realize that it wasn’t the feeling of anger that was the problem. Anger is a normal feeling. The more we treat it in extremes – act out on it or avoid it – the more control we are giving it.

Life just won’t always go the way we want it to go. When it doesn’t – I can speak for myself here – I know that I am going to feel angry about it.

But what do you think would happen if we just accepted the feeling as a normal part of an interactive life?

We don’t have to act out on it. As a matter of fact, when you think about it, is it ever a good idea to try to fix things when we are feeling angry?

We also don’t have to avoid it. We can accept it, live it out, breathe into it, be a little more mindful of what we are feeling and let it run its course.

Doing this might not get rid of all the hills, but my bet is it will smooth out the road a bit.

What would happen if we were able to harness the energy that accompanies the feeling of anger? Could there be some hidden benefits that might show up if we could harness the power for good?

Some recent studies say yes.

Harnessing the Energy of Anger

These studies link anger and creativity. At least in the beginning of the anger experience, ideas seem to flow more freely and tend to be more original.

Anger Gives You a Creative Boost: Scientific American.

As you have read here before, the feeling of anger isn’t a bad-boy emotion that always ends in disaster. As a matter of fact, feeling anger is simply a given in life. We all experience it. If, for a moment, you’ll let me divide the world up into two kinds of people, I will say this. There are only two kinds of people in the world. There are people who get angry and there are people who lie about it, either to themselves or others.

What would happen if, the next time you experience anger, you take a moment to actually explore what is happening. Step away from the blaming, comparative, judgmental thoughts – we all have them, don’t worry, it’s normal – and actually experience the experience of being angry.

Then take a pen and paper and concentrate on making a list of ideas for some project that has you stuck. I wonder if some of the ideas you come up with will be more original, more creative, or at least, something you haven’t thought of before.

Anger can focus the brain’s resources. Maybe all we have to do is change the target!

Jerry stalked into the room. If there is a way that a person can sit down angrily, he had it down pat. After stomping across the floor, he threw his bulk into a chair, wearing the consistent scowl he had practiced for all of our past visits. Where some would offer their anger silently, stubbornly refusing to share anything of value, Jerry was openly, loudly, sometimes eloquently hostile.

He was diligent in showing up. Unfortunately, so far he was the exception that proved Woody Allen’s eighty percent rule. He was rigidly planted in all his original positions on life.

He started the session with a volley of everything that upset him since our last meeting. When he talked, the rest of the group was quiet, cowed by Jerry’s loud, aggressive demeanor and talk. After his opening salvo, he was uncharacteristically quiet for much of the class.

And then he lodged his major complaint, “It’s all we do is talk in here. I don’t wanna talk about any of this shit. I just want a list of what to do. You know, like a checklist or a recipe or something.”

You can see his point. Don’t we all want some sort of recipe for life?

Recipe Books

It seems like there should be one, doesn’t it? It’s occurred to me at different times that it would be really nice to have a recipe book or an instruction manual so that I would know what to do in every situation that comes up. It would be one that if I followed the directions I could predict the outcomes of every situation.

But I’ve never found one. Have you?

The class tried to come up with a ‘how-to’ list for Jerry. All of the techniques were logical and seemed to be much of what we have all been taught about “anger management.”

• Stay calm
• Change your thinking
• Keep a positive attitude
• Walk away
• Tell people how you feel

Once the list was on the board (the class went into more detail than I have listed above), “No one can do that stuff all the time. It’s impossible,” spilled out of Jerry’s mouth.

Exactly. There is no list. There is no quick fix, meal in a minute recipe.

There have been times when I have done everything wrong, took every one of life’s wrong turns, found myself at dead ends, and still, somehow, everything turned out okay.

Other times, I’ve done everything right. Dotted every ‘i,’ crossed every ‘t,’ rubbed my rabbit’s foot, and followed all the rules. And still, somehow, disaster struck.

Sometimes I’ve done the right things or the wrong things and the consequences fit perfectly. Go figure.

Is There a Life Formula?

There might be a formula to follow that will help us live life better, more peacefully, and more effectively, but it isn’t going to be what Jerry sought. There are always going to be those that will tell us that if A happens, and you do B, the outcome will always be C.

I don’t see it as working that way. But don’t believe what I say, go to your own life experiences. Has it been true for you?

No ‘Meals in Minutes’ Answer for Anger

Probably not. It might work if you are the only one involved. To some degree, we can each control what we do as an individual. But if you have to include even one other person, who has his or her own mental model of how life is supposed to work, chances go from slim to none.

The chances of a couple of people’s mental models coinciding exactly are extremely unlikely. The truth is that we all live in separate realities. There is an old story from Japan. It’s called Rashoman. In this story, there is an event that happens that is the basis of the tale. What makes it interesting is that there are (I think) four people that witness what happens and when they each tell the story, it is as if they all witnessed something that is a different story altogether.

Add a couple of more people and the odds against all the gears meshing goes up exponentially.

So there is no ‘meals in minutes’ approach to life. When we buy the idea that there is, we are simply slaves to every evolving circumstance and if it is our emotional tendency, we react in anger.

The Slow Cooker Approach

There might be a way to create our own recipe that can help us to be more flexible in the way we react to life’s challenges. It is one of the key approaches to anger flexibility.

This is a direction based recipe. We add ingredients (usually behaviors) based on how we want to live our lives long term. Stephen Covey is famous for telling us to begin with the end in mind.

When we approach the stew of life that way, we are taking the long view. We step back and decide what we truly value in life. In a sense, we are taking a stand on the principles that are important in life. It’s not always easy to live life this way. It really can be more challenging than taking the path of least resistance.

It is also a way that we can use to slow things down, to give true, heartfelt consideration to how we want to respond to situations even when we are feeling angry. No one can promise you a life without anger, or for that matter, without other strong feelings that are at times comfortable.

But it just might be that if we live life with the long view, we might be able to look back on it and say we did it the right way, the way in which we are true to ourselves and our values.

It’s the slow cooker approach, but might life not be more tender is it is slow cooked?

Like Riding a Bike

For a long time there was a recurring theme related to riding a bike in my life. It started way back when I learned how to ride a bicycle when I was a kid.

I’d been trying to teach myself how to ride for a few days. Trying and failing. I guess I was kind of klutzy when I was a kid. So, this older kid said he had a way that would teach me how to ride almost immediately. So I bit.

Dead Man’s Alley

We went up a few blocks from my house right across from my grade school to a place everyone I knew called Dead Man’s Alley. I didn’t (still don’t, for certain) have any idea how it got that name. What was about to happen would give me my first hint.

Dead Man’s Alley was, in a way, just a big hole in the ground. It had a steep hill going down into this valley at both ends.

Here’s my new-found friend’s bright idea. We just go to the top of one end of the alley. I get on the bike and he gives me a shove and I go down the hill. Now, what could possibly go wrong with that?

I was about 8 years old and invincible so I was game to give it a try.

I got on the bike and he gave me a shove and off I went. He was right about one thing. I didn’t have any trouble balancing the bike. I went down into the alley at breakneck speed almost as straight as an arrow’s flight.

Trouble is I was terrified. The only thing I was able to do was to hold on for my life and go where the bike took me. I was too petrified to steer the bike. Unfortunately it was headed straight for a telephone pole at the bottom of the big dip.

And I hit it. I was okay. My bike didn’t fare as well. But obviously, that whole experience made a bigger impression on me than I did on that telephone pole.

I did that freezing thing for a long time after that when I got in a tough situation on the bike. I know now that it was just a flooding of adrenaline and cortisol. But that didn’t do me any good at the time.

So What?

So, what does that have to do with anger flexibility? A lot, it turns out.

One of the things I’ve learned about riding a bike is that when you do it, you are in a constant state of falling. At the same time you have to lean one way or the other to keep the bicycle upright. When you master this skill all you have to do is aim the bike toward where you want to go and, voilà, you are riding a bike.

That’s a pretty good description of anger flexibility.

In life, we are constantly in the process of falling into one feeling or another. We are going to experience them, no matter what we do. The goal then is to find ways not to fall under the spell of either feelings we like to have or feelings we dread.

What is it that guides us in making the right choices when it comes to anger? Like riding the bike, we have to decide what direction we want our lives to go.

If anyone has told you that life is supposed to be an easy ride, they were pulling your leg. Life will bring all kinds of twists and turns, all kinds of feelings. Life is like that. It’s a contact sport. There will be times when we will lean toward happiness and other feelings that we might enjoy. At other times, life will be stressful, depressing, and lean toward feeling like that – including of course anger.

If we lean too far toward either one side or the other, we are sure to tip over. Anger flexibility means to take whatever feeling we are having in stride and to keep on pedaling toward what is truly important.

Once you learn that feelings don’t have to be your master, that they are simply experiences that you are having at a given moment in time, you can make the choices bring you closer to your values and goals.

Once you get that, you never forget it. It’s just like riding a bike.

They seem big when they happen, those things that upset us. But when we look back at them, are they as big as they seem from close up?

Life’s Hiccups

Most things that come up in life, the things that set us up for angry outbursts are merely hiccups in the grand scheme of things. Doesn’t it make sense to save our wrath for the real monster moments in life?

What are The Monster Moments?

That’s the problem. We don’t know. At least we don’t know for a while.

Tell me, have you ever had something that seemed like a disaster when it happened and now you look back and it seems tame, maybe even funny in its own way?

So, even when things seem big when they happened, it’s important to let the dust settle before we react to them. Oh, we will probably get angry when these events show their seemingly ugly little faces, but do we have to act out because of them? I think that is not necessary.

Anger mastery isn’t an event. It’s a process. It means taking the time to respond and not react. It means developing response ability

Do One Thing Differently

Think it out. Using your wise mind, what is one thing that you could do to STOP the reactionary behavior the next time you get angry?

What can you do to get a handle on behavior until anger runs its course?

Time, as they say, heals all wounds. It can also keep us from wounding others with a snide comment, a push, or a shove.

How can you give yourself the gift of time when feeling cornered or challenged by emotion?

What’s one thing you could do today to slow yourself down in the face of adversity?

Lot of questions for you. Let me know what you come up with. There will always be these hiccups in life.

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Alexander Hamilton

Commitment to change means deciding what you stand for and then standing for it.

I know I harp a lot about values. They’re important in making choices against acting in anger.

When Alexander Hamilton said the above, I don’t think he meant the same thing I’m talking about here, at least not literally.

Values are the things in life that are important to you in the long run that we act on. The key to that statement is what I am talking about here. Commitment is having the drop of courage that allow us to stand up for the values we have chosen in life.

There are no half measures in this commitment. When we commit to a value, it doesn’t work to say that we’re committed to this value as long as x, y, or z doesn’t happen.

For example, it doesn’t work to live a value like having a loving relationship until it gets too stressful, or until thing don’t go our way.

On the other hand it also doesn’t work to buy the thought that we can be committed to a certain value as long as other people respect that value as well. Or that they have a certain value.

In that sense, flexibility helps in our living a valued life.

The willingness to commit to our values comes with a price tag. It’s difficult at times. We aren’t able to act the way our minds would like us to act in a given moment. We are forced by our own commitment to make choices that at times are uncomfortable. It’s easier to veer off our valued path for a moment to act in a way that quells our angry feelings. That may work for a while, but can also become a habit that leads to more suffering in our own angry worlds.

The choice to commit to a valued life is, in the long run, worth the price of admission.

photo credit: perpetualplum

We all have one. You know it. I know it. But what do we do about it?

Our Inner Jerk

Our inner jerk is the part of us that judges and criticizes self and others harshly. It’s the part of our mind that calls others jerks and assholes – and also other things.

It resides deep in our brain and is imbedded in our ability to use language. If we didn’t have language, when something happened that seemed to threaten us or that we just didn’t like, we would snarl and grunt angrily about it for a bit and then forget about it. Either that or we would run like hell.

Language sets us up to have memories and to foresee our ultimate future. It also gives us the ability to judge, compare, evaluate, and imagine the worst. Our brains evolved to protect us from the dangers of the wild.

I’m not going to get into the way we get stuck in language as that is beyond the scope of this post.

But we can talk a little about the brain. A hundred thousand years ago, before we had anything resembling the language we have today, our brains were producing neurotransmitters and hormones that kept us at the ready to deal with saber toothed tigers and velociraptors.

Our brain protects us yet today. The difference is that today we don’t have – at least most of us don’t – lions and tigers and bears confronting us. What we do have is people, events, and things that we do and don’t like. And a little danger occasionally.

In a certain way, our brains don’t know the difference. It evolved to protect us from grave danger and that danger for the most part just isn’t there. But if that danger does occur, our brains are ready to react. The trouble is that it also reacts when someone or something – and that includes ourselves – get in the way of something we want or want to accomplish. That’s when the inner jerk tends to come out. Our brain sees those events as the tiger of old.

Seth Godin, in a recent post, wrote about our internal heckler -

“The heckler keeps a running critique going, amplifying its tone and anger as it goes on endlessly about all the things we shouldn’t do, all the things we’re not doing enough, and most of all, at our lack of entitlement to do much of anything new or important.

The heckler cannot be eliminated. It’s been around since the beginning of our species, and we’re hard wired to have it.

What can be done, though, is alter how the rest of the brain reacts or responds to the heckling.”

Mr. Godin has the process right, but he doesn’t mention that that same heckler, disguised now as our inner jerk, heckles us about what we are supposed to do to other people who do what we decide they shouldn’t do, what they’ve already done that we don’t like, or that just don’t measure up. Even worse, people are judged more harshly if we perceive they have done us wrong.

So, back to my original question. What do we do about it?

Mr. Godin is also right that we can’t get rid of the inner jerk. He (or she) is along for the ride no matter how much we attempt to resist.. We can’t change the way our brain reacts, at least not directly. But we can change the way we react to our brains. We can change how we react to those feelings of anger .We have choices as to how we act. We can change our behavior.

We have some wiggle room when it comes to the language side of the problem.

Mental Models, Redux

WE give language a lot of power because over time we shape it into stories we tell ourselves about the situations we get into. These stories make up the mental models of how the world is “supposed to work.”

We have choices to make about whether we buy into our mental models. We can begin to realize that these models are often wrong and hopelessly outdated. As the world turns, our mental models (our belief systems or better yet, our schemas) stay fixed in time.

The key to taming our inner asshole is to realize that this model exists and not to buy into the story our minds are selling. When we have the idea that somebody else is a jerk or a danger to us and deserves the full force of our wrath, we have a choice as to whether we want to buy the story.

I’m not telling you to change the story, to modify the mental model. It doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, research shows that the more we try to change the model the more intransigent it gets. When we acknowledge that the story is there and decide not to act on it, over time it may change itself. That’s not a guarantee, but it is possible.

The reality is that we are going to be more successful using behavior to change the way we think than to expect thinking to change the way we behave.

Stuck in Our Own Train of Thought

When we get angry, often we get caught up in and buy into our train of thought. I have put together a mindfulness exercise that you can download for free. In it, I ask you to look at your thoughts as though they are on a train that is passing by.

Isn’t that more or less how they are anyway? They come, they linger for a moment in our minds and then they are gone – unless we buy into them, hang on to them, grasping. This is often when we want to attack whatever it is that we perceive as ‘making us angry’ or we get stuck and avoid life.

This is a simple exercise. I have no claim as to be a professional at this recording thing, but hopefully it will be helpful to you. Download it below.

Train Of Thought (74)

What is Internalized Anger?

I was so pissed off I could taste the bile coming up from my gut. My heart pounded and my head felt like a helmet with a headache.

And I felt powerless to do anything about whatever wrong (real or perceived, I’m no longer sure) was wrought upon me.

Today, I don’t even remember what it was that set me off like that. I remember the feeling like it was an hour ago. I was probably mad at some slight from someone I wouldn’t expect it from. It doesn’t really matter.

My point is about that feeling of powerlessness. I was frozen. I couldn’t respond and these automatic processes took over. It could have been that the person wasn’t present or that I was afraid either to act or that I would overreact.

So I did nothing.

So what happened then? I did two things that I hope I’ve wised up about over the years. I kept my mouth shut and I internalized the anger.

Both unhealthy.

This is a question that comes up often. What does it mean that I internalized the anger? It’s more like a chain of internal events, like a snowball rolling down a hill and gaining momentum, than anything else.

First, whatever it was that happened was something that either hurt or scared me in some way. Again, it may have been my perception, but nevertheless, it was real to me. It could have been a loss of some kind or something someone said that I took personally.

I don’t know if this is a guy thing but feeling fearful or hurt was unacceptable to me at the time. So, I covered it up with being pissed off. It felt a lot better being mad at someone or something (at least temporarily) than hurt or afraid. I hope to hell I’ve evolved a little since that time, but I equated feeling hurt (or afraid, or shamed, or other similar feelings) with weakness.

Then, as I mentioned above, I didn’t or wasn’t able to express my anger.

Notice – this is important – I didn’t say vent my anger. As you’ve read before, venting doesn’t help in the long run.

I value being autonomous, making good decisions about my feelings, and being genuine. Not saying anything didn’t fit with any of those values. I felt ashamed for not doing anything. So the chain so far is hurt –> anger –> shame.

These are all part of the process of internalized anger, but that’s not the end of the it. What do you think happens next?

It’s still like a snowball rolling down a hill. Feeling shame (another “weak” feeling) led to my being angry at myself for feeling it and then being angry about being angry. Do you see how the snowball rolls and gains momentum? Hurt –> anger –> shame –> anger at being ashamed –> anger at being angry. And on and on it goes.

This could have all been averted simply by accepting the original feeling of being hurt. Avoiding that feeling set the snowball in motion.

At this point, after we are already on a roll, at some point we have to accept the feelings that we are having whatever they are.

It’s also important to follow through with right action.

What is Right Action?

Well, do you remember the Shit Theory Of Ange?

Right action is to be assertive, both with yourself and with the original influencer of the hurt (if that is, indeed, a person). To be assertive definitely means to stand up for ourselves and to try and right the situation. But there is another part to that. Remember, this is not about venting. We have to remember that the offender has rights that are equal to ours and deserves the same respect that we are trying to reclaim for ourselves.

Not Get-Back, Not Venting

So, it isn’t a get-back at someone thing. It’s not venting. It’s leveling with others, being intellectually and emotionally honest with the “offender.” Sometimes that means taking time to ride out the wave of anger before we decide what to do.

So the key to eliminating internalized anger is resolution. And resolution is taking right action.

photo credit: sahlgoode

The Economy

Politics

Danger Around the Corner

That Guy That Sits and Clicks His Pencil at Work

That Quota You Have to Fill

It’s always somethin’, isn’t it?

It seems like there is bad news, news that affects us all, every day. Some of it’s public, some of it’s personal.

No wonder we feel like we are always under pressure. A lot of this stuff is real. Some of it’s our perception. And it all feels threatening.

No wonder we feel anger. Anger makes perfect sense.

Our brains deal with all of this stuff like it’s a saber-tooth tiger. It’s the way we’re built, the way we’ve evolved. In the day of that tiger, what we now call anger helped us escape with our lives.

How do we handle all of this stuff without an explosion? Sometimes we just have to STOP. Here’s how:

S = Slow Down

Step back; this is when you take one thing at a time. Often events in life look like they are bigger and closer than they are. It’s hard to tell how big or important they are when we are in full motion. When we slow down, we have time and space to get some perspective. Taking time out to back off is one of the better things we can do when we are feeling pressure and threat.

T = Take a Breath

Take a number of breaths. When we connect with our own breath, breathing through the diaphragm, we are able to get present. Counting our breaths, as we breathe slowly, is a basic skill of mindfulness. It helps us to realize that now, right this minute, we’re okay.

O = Observe

Observe your thoughts and feelings. Let them pass by as you are slowing down and breathing. Notice that you are having some angry thoughts and feelings. Try to let them pass by as you observe. That’s what thoughts and feelings do when we are angry. The show up, they grow, they crest, and then, if we let them, they subside.

We get in trouble when we act on them. Thoughts, feelings, moods, and emotions make up what you will hear me call the mind. When we feel stressed, under pressure, and then angry, our mind is not always our friend.

P = Put Values into Play

We we take a longer view of what we want in our life, we are usually considering what we really value. Looking at the big picture tends to relieve at least a little of the pressure. Things have been good before; things will go well again. How do you get to your values? Ask yourself some questions.

• What is truly important to you in the long-term?
• Is it your work, your relationships with other people, helping others? Your peace of mind?
• What is truly the big picture for you?

Whatever we are feeling or thinking, we are always able to pull our values out and put them into play. Pull the parts of life that are important and close to your heart closer and let them be the guide.

If you follow the STOP model, you may notice that your mind is able to play tricks. Remember that thoughts are just words, no more, no less. They change like the weather changes. Values, those things that are important in the long-term, stay important over time. Focus on them.

If this is helpful to you, be the first to share it by hitting the Twitter or Facebook buttons below. I’d appreciate it!