Many of us have some very definite ideas about anger. We see anger as
destructive and hurtful. We consider it to be an inappropriate response. We equate
anger with violence. In short, we feel that anger is simply wrong, and that when we
experience anger, there's something wrong with us. Anger isn't nice. Anger isn't
polite. And anger certainly isn't our friend.
Anger can be all of these things. But anger is also useful, necessary and even
healing. We need our anger. We simply need to learn how to express our anger in
appropriate, conscious, supportive ways. On its own, anger is neither good nor bad.
It can be used to hurt, or it can be used to heal. It may not be a particularly pleasant
emotion, but it's an important one. And anger-or rather the skillful use and
understanding of anger-is essential to creating healthy relationships.
Guy Williams, a friend of mine who also happens to be a minister of Religious
Science offers a tremendously insightful approach for understanding anger. Guy
says that anger arises from a communication not delivered or an expectation not
met. Anger is actually a tertiary response: our initial responses are grief and fear.
First, we grieve the death of the expectation that was not met. Next, we fear that
things will never change. Finally, we experience anger.
So few of us recognize that anger can be a positive, healing response. When we
allow ourselves to experience anger, it focuses our minds, and strengthens our
resolve. We discover reserves of strength and power. Our anger is what gives us the
courage and the power to confront our fear that things will never change, by
creating change.
So many of us equate anger with aggression. We believe that when we experience
anger, someone will be hurt. In order to create a more spiritual and skillful
relationship with anger, it's helpful to recognize that we can defend
ourselves without attacking.
Consider that we each carry a sword. When someone crosses a boundary, we
experience anger (because our expectation that our boundaries will be respected
was not met). At this point, we have a choice. We can choose to use our sword to
attack, lashing out at the person who crossed the boundary. This will inevitably
violate our partner's boundaries, and make our partner feel unsafe and angry. They
will, in turn, pull out their sword and begin to attack us in earnest. The
result is a classic "lose-lose" scenario, where both participants are wounded and
feel less safe than they did at the start.
We do have another choice, however. We can choose to use our sword to
defend our boundary by simply removing it from its sheath and displaying
it. Brandishing our metaphorical weapon is usually more than sufficient to hold the
attention of the person who crossed the boundary. Once we have our partner's
attention, we can calmly make them aware that they have crossed a boundary, and
ask that they take a step back and respect that boundary in the future.
Because we are merely defending ourselves and not attacking our partner,
we are far less likely to make our partner feel unsafe, which in turn means our
partner is far more likely to apologize for having unintentionally crossed a
boundary. It's a "win-win" situation because we feel safe once again in the
expectation that our boundaries will, indeed, be respected, and our partner feels
safe because they are now more aware of the boundaries in the relationship, and no
longer need to fear that they will accidentally violate them.
If we choose not to take things personally, and always assume that the boundary
violation was unintentional, we not only avoid stepping into the role of victim, but
we also avoid the need to forgive our partner, because we never blamed them in the
first place.
Avoiding blame, by the way, is another way that we defend ourselves without
attacking. When we blame someone for their actions, we are, in fact, attacking them.
We cut them off from the flow of our love. This makes them feel less safe, and
frequently is interpreted as an attack. More importantly, when we blame someone,
we reinforce the lie that we are separate from All That Is, and cut ourselves off from
the universal flow.
So how is anger essential to healthy relationships? Anger is our call to
awareness.
Remember that relationships are all about meeting our fundamental needs. In every
relationship, we need to feel safe and we need to feel validated. As
long as those needs are met, our relationships are truly amazing.
When we feel angry, we know something is not right. We become acutely
aware that some of our needs are not being met. Anger is most often
associated with safety violations. If we feel angry because our
validation needs are not being met, it's usually an indication that we have
an attachment to meeting our validation needs-a sign that one of the main
ways that we feel safe is to feel validated.
When we feel angry in our relationships, we usually respond in one of two ways. The
first response is to express our anger, most often by lashing out in some way. We've
already seen how this is always a lose-lose proposition.
The second response is to repress our anger in order to avoid a full-out
confrontation. (Notice how this response also assumes that the only other way to
deal with anger is to express it by attacking!) When we repress our anger, we
attempt to restore the balance in our safety accounts by isolating ourselves and
disengaging from the relationship. Eventually, we will no longer be able to repress
our anger, and it will manifest in a confrontation of unexpected and inappropriate
intensity.
Neither response meets our relationship needs, of course.
When we cultivate a more skillful relationship with anger, however, we have a third
option. When we feel angry in a relationship, we can become aware that
we're feeling unsafe, that some expectation has not been met, and that our needs
are not being met. We can own this experience, recognizing that it's about
us, not about our partner. And we can choose to take appropriate action.
Instead of attacking or withdrawing, we can choose to engage in the relationship
more fully.
Before we engage in the relationship, however, we must first recognize that we're
feeling unsafe, and remedy this. We may be able to shift our awareness and restore
the balance in our safety account in an instant. We may need to disengage (briefly)
so that we can cool down before we reengage in the relationship. Whatever the
method, it is essential that we feel completely safe before we proceed. If we don't
feel safe, we won't behave in a reasonable or rational manner.
Once we feel safe, we can explore why we felt angry. Remember, anger arises
because an expectation was not met, or a communication was not delivered. What
was the expectation? What boundary was crossed? What was not communicated?
What was not understood?
Now that we've identified the reason for the anger response, we can consider it
objectively. The most important question is whether our expectations were
reasonable. Remember that we are responsible for meeting our minimum daily
requirements of safety and validation on our own. When our unreasonable
expectations aren't met, we do experience anger, but that anger is a call to make us
aware that it's time to adjust our expectations, and this does not involve our partner
in any way.
If we discover that our expectations are, in fact, reasonable, and that our partner is
responsible, then it's time to defend our boundaries and hold our partner
accountable.
Holding our partner accountable, however, is not the same thing as blaming our
partner, yelling at our partner, insulting our partner, "tearing our partner a new
one," or in any way making our partner wrong.
It's important to recognize that much of the time, all that we need is an
acknowledgement that our partner has not met an expectation, and an apology. All
we need in order to feel safe again is to be able to believe that our expectations will
actually be met in the future.
This may seem hard to accept-how could a simple apology ever be sufficient? It's
something each of us has to experience for ourselves. The desire for punishment or
revenge exists because we have disengaged from our relationships, and we believe
that our partners are responsible for meeting our safety needs. When we take
responsibility for restoring our sense of safety and choose to engage in our
relationships, all we need is an apology-an acknowledgement of the boundary
violation-and then forgiveness comes naturally.
Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook: How to
Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life. Visit http://
http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE report on creating AMAZING Relationships.