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.
About the Author
Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook:
How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your
Life. Visit http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE
report on creating AMAZING Relationships.