Show anger in real or in your mind

Hi to all
When someone or something drives me crazy and i get very angry, is it better to show my anger right at that moment to that person, or is it the same id i leave that place, go to somewhere else and scream to that person in my head. Or maybe punch some pillows imagining its him and scream?
So does it matter if i show my anger to the person who makes me angry, or if i get angry to him in my imagination?
Thank you
Emre

 

Hi Emre. This is a difficult one for me too. All I know is that I was always angry till I got married. It was perhaps my way of coping. I would have outbursts, flare up directly at the person, yell, shout cry & then back to normal (for me at least) And I was never sick. Then I got married at the age of 36 & I stopped being angry becoz first my husband is a cool, laidback, easy going kinda guy & my getting angry sometimes for no reason at all was damaging our relationship. My mother had a few issues with our marriage & that's when my pain started.

I'd be interested to hear what some of the more 'seasoned' members have to say about this.

Mala

 

Hi Mala

This strikes a chord with me. I left an emotionally abusive marriage, which was very damaging. I never held my emotions back and I was very healthy. I don't know if all the shouting and crying helped or whether I was in "survival mode", and my body thought it was not a good time for illness. I developed TMS almost immediately after I left.

When I met my current husband, who is also a very calm, together non-TMS type person, I swore I couldn't stand to have another argument as long as I lived, so I would try to live in peace. With hindsight I had decided to repress my emotions! (horror of horrors).

Now I just think that I can't and won't supress my feelings. With family I try not to go crazy over things, but state my feelings as calmly as I can, then get all the rage out when I'm alone and when I'm journaling. I don't ever consider any thought as a "bad" thought, I allow myself to be as mean and nasty as I want in my head.

With work and other situations I have found myself to be more tolerant now. Since discovering TMS I look at other people with more compassion and imagine myself in their shoes. We don't know what other peoples private struggles are.

Accept yourself and live in truth, be you just the way you are. I know families can be challenging, but your mother's issues belong to your mother, they are not yours.

Women are supposed to get angry for no reason, it's our hormones !

 

If something or a person really makes me frustrated or angry, I yell or scream and then after a minute or two, I laugh.
The yell or scream blows off the steam and then the laugh relaxes me and puts things into proper perspective.

It also helps to solve the problem as soon as possible, if possible. Otherwise just accept it and tell your subconscious
you know it's just more repressed emotion. Many men have strong feminine sides and so I guess they can get angry too
because it's in their hormones.

 

After you scream do you laugh ? Did you practice this-i mean is it something that you started to use as a technique to calm down your ans? How can you accomplish it? I mean while you are angry how do you turn that negative emotion into a very positive emotion i'd like to learn from you??

 

With family I try not to go crazy over things, but state my feelings as calmly as I can, then get all the rage out when I'm alone and when I'm journaling.

With family I try not to go crazy over things, but state my feelings as calmly as I can, then get all the rage out when I'm alone and when I'm journaling.

Is it really the same ? Getting angry towards that person and gettin all the rage out when you are totally alone? I mean i tried it too, but it was never the same thing for me! I couldnt feel relieved/satisfied/calmed down when i screamed and punched pillows to get the rage out, as much as i did when i showed my anger to te person i was angry with(

 

I yell or scream if I'm really angry or upset. But it's only for a second or two.
Then I do some deep breathing and then I laugh. I don't even need to think of something funny.
I just laugh, and in just a few moments I forget what caused me to blow off steam.

Sometimes I also just tell myself not to let something upset me because it's all just a pile of s--t.

This morning I got real frustrated and angry because a project on the computer was not going well.
I yelled and screamed at my computer and the project. Then I decided I really could do something about it.
I solved the problem for $100. It was worth ten times that much. Sometimes we can solve the problem
without spending any money, just in how we re-think something stressful. Or else just tell yourself
it's just a pile of...

 

I think its about striking a good balance. The first and foremost important thing is, like Forrest said, to admit this anger. In this way being angry at those close to us, our coworkers and the like can be more damaging than anger at a total stranger. It's easy to accept that you are angry at the guy who cuts you off in traffic. When you suppress your anger at those you have to deal with every day, PARTICULARLY your loved ones, that's when you run into TMS. However, its also perfectly appropriate for you to express your anger in a calm and rational way . But the most important thing to resolving pain is admitting the anger and then letting it go.

 

I made a post similar to this earlier today.

I'm starting to recognise my anger, stress, frustrations but I have no idea what to do with them!

I know I use to repress it alot as a kid, in my teenage years I started to fly off the handle very easily and to be honest, those were the times I suffered the least with symptoms.

Now I'm a "grown up" I'm to be back to holding it all in again and whatayouknow, symptoms are back with a vengeance. I guess everyone is different and we all need to find the best way to vent.

 

Yes holding it in is not definetaly the best way for me either. And the symptoms started when i started holding it in. But i couldnt find the appropriate way of releasing it as a grown up yet( journaling my anger doesnt work for me expressing my anger in my mind doesnt work for me either

 

If we have so many things to get angry about, perhaps it's time for a total rethink of our lives. Living with someone who made me angry and hurt my feelings all the time was a living hell, and I'm still paying the price, thankfully I had the courage to change that. My current husband, although not perfect is a lot easier to live with. My problem is overreaction due to conditioning from living in an atmosphere of fear. There's no one answer to this we all have to work out what's best for us as individuals.

 

Good discussion, folks.

I'd like to add that I think it's important to explore our feelings of anger (journalling is a great way to do this) before expressing it to someone else. In my experience most anger (though not all, of course) is usually not really about what someone else said or did, but that their actions triggered an old wound that brings up feelings of low self-esteem, shame, hurt, rejection, etc. And then if we dig even deeper in looking at these feelings, we ultimately get to fear. Fear of separation, isolation, disconnection. Thus, if we are going to communicate our feelings to another person, it should be done from a place of truth. And it can take a little while to get to that truth.

The other aspect of this is that if I look at my anger at someone honestly enough, I often find that what I don't like in them is a reflection of what I don't like about myself. We are all one, and what I reject in another, I reject in myself. Recognition of this along with compassion and forgiveness is where healing can be found.

 

I know this is question for Walt but with practice you can learn to change your emotional responses. If you have some time today i can call you and tell you another great technique I know that will be very beneficial to you. Walt will be along with some great advice im sure. His style of laughing at problems has become a tool I use often . Bless You

 

Actually, I have a whole different approach to this problem because I really believe this is my core problem of TMS. I could never, in the last analysis, safely discharge my anger. The answer, for me, lies in understanding the spiritual truth of anger. First, what anger really is is FEAR. The angry person is really fearful because he/she is under the mind illusion that he/she has been threatened by something outside of oneself. So anger can be defined as fear with a large dollop of self-righteousness heaped on top. This is illusory because negative emotions are never really caused by something outside of ourselves. Negative emotions are born inside of the sufferer because the sufferer has mistaken his own mind's negative projection as something separate from him/her coming back at him/her from the environment. So when you look at someone who you think has made you angry, what you really see is a mind illusion of that person making you angry. What you see is a mirror of your own mind's negativity. And the true cause of your anger is that you have bumped up against the limit of your current understanding, which you are resisting. It is this resistance to what is happening in the present moment that is causing the negative reaction in your mind that we call fear and anger. If, in the moment you get angry, you would see what is really happening and realize that, if only you would say to yourself "I am tempted to get angry, so I have reached the limit of my current understanding and if I choose the option of broadening my understanding, thus lifting my current limitations, I would have no need of being angry". Then, in that moment, I would be able to see that I have in fact been presented wit 2 options, not one. I can get angry or I can exercise my other spiritual option of seeing in the moment that I am being offered the chance to choose, through increased understanding, the healthier, better option of being willing to step out of my current limitation that tempts me to become angry. I can accomplish this by cultivating greater compassion and patience with myself and my fellow human beings. Angry people never see this other option.

I have no doubt that once one gets angry, one does damage to oneself. It does not matter what you do with the anger that you have created. You can repress it or express it. If you repress it, you will probably get sick. If you express it, you will become a lunatic for all to see. One is just as bad as the other. No one will like it. But if we can see that we only experience anger or fear because, in the moment, we don't understand the nature of it, along with the nature of our own understanding, we will never chose to do damage to ourselves and others (which are not separate anyway) by embracing and being taken over by the concept of anger.

Anger must bee seen for what it is and simply dropped. Truly healthy people in body and mind do not experience much anger, only the fleeting moment of being tempted, in the moment, to chose the wrong option. They have mastered the ability to replace the temptation to become angry with increased patience, compassion and understanding.

Believe me, I am really struggling with this, but it is the only true path.

 

Superb post Ellen, just what I was trying to say, but you've put into more elegantly

 

Overreaction due to conditioning ... this is a key-phrase. Even a whisper of the trigger can provoke a fear-response and sharp defensiveness.

Rain. At age 6 we moved to Washington State. I left when I was 19, broken and in a permanent crisis mode. Rain became the association. When the rain fell, so did my hope. Rain became my personal barometer. Over-reaction due to conditioning. Now I associate rain with safety. Living in our motorhome for 18 months, the rain was cozy and soothing. The sound lulled me into anxiety-free dreams. Since our move to Oregon, my conditioning has been changed. This is how we work on TMS/MBS. Re-conditioning. Re-examining that which makes us hurt. Rain isn't the culprit. The emotional memories associated with the rain ... that was where the real issues resided.

Mermaid, your courage is inspirational.

We are all One.

Yes. The compassion and forgiveness does not mean condoning poor or hurtful behavior. It means recognizing the source, and in doing so, recognizing ourselves. The forgiveness and compassion is for the person we fear ourselves to be.

Beautifully said, Ellen ....

with grace and gratitude,
^_^

 

I love this post. All of you guys are so in touch. I know we all can still climb to a higher level of truth by accepting where your at now and doing the lessons you know now is so important to know. You ladies -- Mermaid, Ellen, chickenbone and Lily Rose have made this thread one of my favorites. I want others to come along and give more advice here. This is the cream of the crop in healing. Awesome

Thanks Guys.

I'm defiantly going to write more later today.

 

I guess with anger and rage it's back to the basics of TMS.
It all comes from our repressed emotions.
We think we've recognized them all, and sure hope we have,
but there must be more we are still repressing.

I still find relief in laughing, whether I yell or scream first or not.
We can't yell or scream with anyone around, so that mean's we wind up repressing our anger or rage.
It seems like a dog chasing its tail.

 

Ellen, excellent post. You said what I was trying to say with my long one. I have come to learn that my anger is always destructive. I must allow the higher power to help me to transform the negative emotions to neutral or positive ones. I recognize now that this has always been a problem, within me, of understanding. You are so right that, when we see that which we dislike in another, we are really seeing what is hidden in ourselves, from ourselves. Resistance and getting angry is a form of running away from seeing what we need to see in ourselves to make us whole. None of us are really separate beings.