Letting Go.

“It’s ok. You just forgot who you are. Welcome back.” -Anonymous

The holiday season is here and it can certainly be a stressful and trying time in our lives. Being bombarded by deadlines both professional and personal and stressing out on how to meet those deadlines can take its toll on our mental health.

Speaking from personal experience, if there is no outlet to this stress it can build to anger and eventually we will erupt. Probably not in a very productive manner either.

Anger has such a negative stigma because most actions taken out of anger are either harmful to self, another person (or both), or to an object.

It is defined as "an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong" (Anger, APA).

Recently I resented the fact that workload was not distributed evenly among my peers and there was a sense of injustice. When clients came in to request help from certain individuals, they were nowhere to be found and when they eventually were present ignored their own clients. This created increased workload on the others and showed a lack of caring towards the clients. This created a feeling of anger within and became visible through facial expressions, short and terse communications, and an overall sense of not wanting to be at work any longer.

Not very productive.

But what if instead, Anger was viewed as a teaching moment, as a means to understand ourselves better? What would we discover about ourselves if we took a step back, analyzed what truly was bothering us?

Secondary Emotion.

Anger is a secondary emotion. "Typically, one of the primary emotions, like fear or sadness, can be found underneath the anger"(Healthy Psych), and is often a means to regain control of a situation and make it more comfortable. In my case, If I'm being completely honest with myself, I was sad and frustrated with my own self for not calling out the people that should have been helping the clients. I also didn't reinforce my personal/professional boundaries and instead let it fester into anger towards those individuals.

Taking a step back has helped reveal what the true cause of anger was in this situation: it's lack of boundary setting and enforcement. Knowing this now, a plan can be put into place to help with this personal "sadness".

Going Further.

Natalia Amari, LCSW, recommends the following steps to help overcome and understand the emotion of anger.

From her blog, "REBEL IN BLOOM", she states:

1. Color your feelings. Use whatever tools you have on hand: map pencils, crayons, pastels, and let your body guide the color choice and strokes. If you get stuck, use your non-dominant hand. Oftentimes, this allows us to access our feelings more readily.

2. Rage Dance. Make a playlist of all the songs that speak to your anger (or borrow mine). Crank up the music and let your body move. This is very synonymous with the full-body shake that animals do in the wild to release sympathetic activation and music also has the added bonus of helping us not feel alone in our feelings. WIN-WIN!

3. Push the Wall. Our arms tend to get online when we are in fight mode and they may want to push the invader away. A great way to release this is to literally push the wall. Make sure your feet are in a position that allows you to stand firmly while pushing the wall as hard as you can. As you do, notice the POWER in your arms. Keep pushing until your arms let you know they are finished. You may have the urge to shake them out afterward – follow that urge.

4. Take a Martial Arts, Kick-boxing, or Self-defense Class. Sometimes we really need to do a series of kicks and punches (without hurting someone else – obvi). No matter what kind of class you choose, the most important thing is to NOTICE YOUR POWER. Notice your strength, how capable you are, how you can defend yourself if you need to. What’s also wonderful about classes like these is that they often also teach us how to discern when we need physical prowess and when we don’t.

5. R-O-A-R! Admittedly, you could do this while rage dancing…but you could also do this on its own. Some people find it helpful to crank up music, go to a remote mountain top, or drive down the highway with the windows down to allow themselves to really belt it out. What’s good about this is that it can help clear out that feeling of “swallowing our anger.” If you notice your jaw tightening up – I highly recommend this one. (REBEL IN BLOOM)

Personally writing and expressing emotions in a journal is very therapeutic and helpful. It allows for thoughts to be revisited and analyzed if needed and can also help dive deeper into the issues being explored.

Its understandable to be irritable during the holidays with all the pressures bombarding us relentlessly, and can lead to expressions of anger. The trick is to not look at this as a character flaw but as a learning opportunity. We can find out so much about ourselves and what makes us tick.

I've been able to use these methods to learn a lot personally and hope these tips help you in your growth journey as well.

Wishing you and your family & friends a very Merry Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, and any other seasonal celebration you might be enjoying this time of year!

Heres to a great new year that's filled with a greater understanding of who and why we are!

Here's to the continuation of our journeys and I'll see you in the New Year!

Cheers!

-JP