Positive Connections #5: When Anger Knocks

​

Imagine hearing a knock on your door at your house or apartment. You open the door and a 12-year-old pushes their way through the door and starts running around menacingly knocking over pictures, throwing pillows off the couch, and making a mess. You start running around yelling at the kid and it just makes them crazier. The kid goes for the fridge. Jam falls to the floor, breaks, and spreads out. They’re doing more destruction. Making a bigger mess.

Then you stop moving. You close your mouth. You close your eyes. You take a deep breath. When you open your eyes, the kid is just walking around now, being less destructive. You try it again. Eyes close. Breathe deep. It looks like the kid is slowly heading for the door. You do it one more time. Big, deep, slow outbreath. The kid walks out the door. You’re grateful. You look around. There’s a mess to clean, but at least the kid is gone.

You might have guessed it. The kid’s name is anger. And this is how it can feel. We've all experienced the mess that anger can make. If we really look at it, anger often looks like a less mature version of ourselves making a mess in a particular situation. Whether it's escalating a situation so that we are offending people, or maybe finding a passive-aggressive way to get back at someone, neither is productive. Both are messy and undermine productivity and peace in our work and in our lives.

As we practice self-awareness, we start to understand more about what calls anger to us. The body gives us clues in the form of physical sensations to help us understand what we’re feeling. In an earlier newsletter, I wrote about how being interrupted used to be a trigger for me. I could feel in my stomach the rumblings of anger. The kid would enter and start making a mess of my thoughts. If I opened my mouth, then the mess would extend into the room and create issues with whoever was there to receive the tainted words that came out of my mouth. I’d often have to clean up the mess by checking in with the person and apologizing later.

Then I started to realize that if I could notice when anger was coming in, a really helpful strategy was to simply close my mouth until the anger was totally gone. It’s a game-changer. Now I work to identify the triggers I have that lead to anger. I notice the feelings in my body and try to sit there (often uncomfortably) as the kid makes a slight mess of my thoughts. If I keep my mouth closed and breathe, the kid (A.K.A. anger) slows down and walks out the door and I can get my thoughts in order without a big mess to clean up. It happens quicker and quicker these days. Once the kid is out the door, I can say what needs to be said in a way that is firm and thoughtful - in a way that won't escalate the situation.

Many times, now, I don’t even let anger in the door. I work to recognize the patterns of thoughts that lead anger to me (more on recognizing patterns in an upcoming course). I still have a long way to go in this regard, but I feel some progress, and it’s helping my relationships both at work and at home.

Steps to dealing with anger:

1) Remember, everyone deals with anger. If you get angry and lose it, don’t beat yourself up about it. Simply make a commitment to yourself to do a little better next time and then go apologize to whoever you might have offended. It’s uncomfortable sometimes to apologize, but it always feels good in the end. Spending negative energy on wishing you had done something different just feeds the negativity. Learn from it and move on.

2) Understand that feeling something is a good thing. Feelings put us in touch with our heart. Suppressing feelings of any sort just compounds issues that always come out later - usually in negative ways. Let the feelings move through you and examine what’s causing them. Let them leave in their own way. (Taking a walk, getting exercise or talking to a trusted friend are also tried and true ways to help the feelings pass a little quicker). Letting feelings move through you is different than stuffing them down. See below for a mindfulness practice that also helps.

3) Take a stance of inquiry. Ask yourself: What just made me feel this way? What need isn’t being met here? When I calm down, how can I communicate my needs to the person in a constructive way (for more on communicating needs, I know of no better source then Marshall Rosenberg and his nonviolent communication practices).

4) Close your mouth. The brain research on anger shows that when we are angry, we are actually cut off from accessing our consequential thinking mechanisms in our frontal lobe. Anger activates a flight or fight response mechanism in the amygdala that’s helpful when we’re in the wild and we need to act from instinct to survive in a sudden precarious situation. However, this is rarely necessary in our day-to-day life. More than ever, the world needs people who are carefully considering their words. We need leaders and examples of people who respond thoughtfully rather than react aggressively (or passive-aggressively if that’s your thing). When a person’s angry, quite literally the only way to respond thoughtfully is by taking the time needed to let the anger pass before carefully crafting a response.

5) Breathe. Yep, here it is again. Take deep conscious breaths. Make your out-breath a little longer than your in-breath for a series of at least three deep breaths. This can calm your amygdala and allow you to access your rational brain. It sends the menacing kid out the door.

Once the anger has moved through you, find the right time to have the constructive and difficult conversations you need to have to clear the air with whoever caused the anger (see my previous newsletter on empathy as leadership). Staying clear and current with people is important and necessary for maintaining a culture of high-level collaboration.

Note: There are those who profess (often in the social activist world) that anger can be good because it’s motivating. As someone who has studied and taught Social Justice and Service Leadership, I only partially disagree. I see that anger can help us move out of complacency and find the want to act. However, when people then go to act or speak with that anger still inside of them, I have yet to see a positive result. The effective and powerful leaders that I have studied and followed in my life have found ways to inspire and to unite people through a vision of a more positive future.

Mindfulness Practice/Journaling:

Find a quiet place to center yourself.

Picture a moment when you recently got angry. Gently bring the moment into your mind's eye. See if you can relive the moment from just before you got angry to the moment of your anger rising.

• Notice how you feel in your body. Where can you feel the emotion?
• What was said or done that led to this feeling?
• What need is being unmet? See if you can name it.

Now breathe deeply into the part of the body where you feel the discomfort or tightness. Let it loosen and wash away with each out-breathtension. Focus your attention on the positive and calming source that is your breath entering your body. Notice your mind begin to calm. See if you can release any tention you might be holding. Connect to the feeling of Peace in your center. Let it grow with each breath.

You got this.

To share this newsletter and others from Zach, copy and send this link: https://positiveconnections.ck.page​

​​​​

​

“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” - William James

​