The Web address of this
two-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/basics/anger_pol.htm
Expressing Anger and Frustration Constructively
Most
unaware people express (or repress) anger and frustration automatically. Have you
known anyone whose way of expressing anger and frustration earned your respect?
Your disrespect? How would people describe
your way of expressing these normal emotions? What criteria do you use to
award your dis/re-spect?
Premise - expressing hurt, anger,
needs, and
frustration constructively...
-
leaves all people involved feeling (a) safe, (b)
and (c) genuinely
and...
-
promotes each person involved filling their
current
needs
well enough,
and...
-
nourishes, rather than stresses, the
self-respect and relationships among all people involved.
Would you edit these criteria in some way? Do they
fit the people whose anger-styles you admire?
Examples
Compare these sample expressions of
anger to what you usually say. Option - imagine how you would feel
and
react if someone said things like this to you - calmly, with comfortable eye
contact:
"When you (do or don't do ____________), I feel
and (really) angry (and/or) frustrated!"
"I feel really
by you now. That
hurts,
and I feel resentful and angry!"
"When you put your needs and feelings ahead of
mine, I feel hurt, disrespected, resentful, and angry!"
"When you keep interrupting me, I feel
disrespected, hurt, angry, and frustrated!"
"When you don't keep your commitments to me, I
feel disrespected, hurt, and angry!"
"When you neglect yourself, I feel worried,
ignored, and frustrated!"
"When you won't help me (fill some current
need), I feel (really) disappointed and frustrated!"
"When you need to avoid taking responsibility
for your actions and you deny that, I feel frustrated, and I lose respect for
you."
I feel frustrated because you won't join me
in evolving a constructive anger policy for our family."
"It really makes me feel used, disrespected,
hurt, and angry that my boss
ignores my needs and expects me to work so much overtime without extra
pay or time off."
"It hurts and frustrates me when you pay
more attention to your child than to our daughter."
"I feel REALLY frustrated, hurt, and angry
that you ignore my requests (disrespect me), and keep making major
purchases without consulting me!"
"I'm pretty frustrated. I need you to
___________."
"You seem really frustrated. Can you say
what you need, and what prevents filling it?"
Options - scan these common communication
tips and blocks,
and then go back over each example above and imagine what a destructive
expression would sound like. Note what is not part of these
exam-ples -
-
name-calling, swearing, and labeling ("you are so insensitive..."),
-
generalizing ("you always / never..."),
-
hinting ("I'm a little bothered that
you...");
-
blaming ("You make me throw things!")
and threats,
-
bringing up multiple problems, and...
-
focusing on the past or the future.
What
you've just read is abstract and theoretical.
How can you put these ideas to work
for you and the people you care about?
A
Sample Family Policy about
Anger and Frustration
Policies exist is to provide people with
guidelines for personal and social conduct,
and to promote so-cial order and harmony. The members of any group - like your family - always form unconscious individual and collective policies on
important relationship dynamics. Do you agree?
These policies are often semi-conscious and unspoken, and shape personal and family behavioral rules and rituals. The best case
occurs when group leaders intentionally define key group policies and discuss them thoroly with group members for understanding.
in
families often don't do this, and/or have
inconsistent and/or disrespectful, dictatorial policies that cause confusion, anxiety,
resent-ment, and conflicts in and among other members.
Every family has unique values, priorities, and goals, so their policies
will be unique also. Use the
fol-lowing example as an illustration for negotiating your own
personal and family policies on feeling and ex-pressing hurt, anger,
needs, and
frustration constructively. Imagine having a policy like this on paper,
dis-cussed in family meetings, and referred to in resolving major problems.
Note - a family
is a valuable related resource.
Does your family have one yet?
Sample Family Anger Policy
We are a unique, valuable, growing family dedicated to
helping each other and other people fill key needs well in a changing
world. One way we do this is to live by these guidelines on handling
anger and frustration in healthy, useful ways.
We
believe that all emotions are normal, healthy reactions to changes in our
bodies and our environment. Emotions indicate unfilled
and are useful, rather than good or bad.
We will help each
other distinguish between feeling our emotions and expressing
them. Feeling is usually spontaneous and beyond our control. It
is healthier than numbing, repressing, deny-ing, and projecting our
feelings on someone else.
We will help each
other remember that healthy emotions in infants, kids, and adults
include neediness, frustration, hurt, and anger, which range
dynamically from minor to major.
We
believe that frustration occurs when a person can't find a way to
fill one or more current needs - i.e. they cannot reduce current discomforts.
Because physical, emotional, and spiritual
discomforts are inevitable, so is frustration - so
there is nothing bad
or wrong with feeling frus-trated.
We
believe that
various degrees of anger usually follow feeling hurt
or scared
by
someone's perceived attitudes and/or behaviors. Hurt usually comes from
feeling ignored, disrespected, betrayed, and/or injured by someone else.
We want to help each other remember
that the keys to expressing and using anger and frustra-tion to
get our needs met are (a) keeping our
of our
and
(b) learning to use seven effective-communication
These keys include learning to...
-
be clear on - and respect - every child
and adult's personal
rights, as dignified, worthy people;
-
that's causing our anger and frustration;
-
respectfully
our needs to the
appropriate people;
-
learn what they need, without
judgment; and value their needs equally with our own except in
emergencies; and we're learning to...
-
use win-win
as teammates to get our respective needs met well enough, and to...
-
give each other respectful
feedback when any of us strays
from these guidelines.
We
will encourage each other to react to others' anger and frustration
by...
-
keeping our true Self in charge of our
response;
-
validating the other person's right to
feel what they feel;
-
use
to invite the other person's
to fall "below their ears";
-
if appropriate, ask the other person
whether they're angry or frustrated, or both. If they're angry, ask
if something has hurt them. If they're frustrated, ask what need/s
they can't fill now;
-
respectfully
confront the other person if
the way they're expressing their feelings is of-fensive and/or
harmful; and to...
-
and
our current needs, feelings, and boundaries respectfully, as
appro-priate.
Pause, breathe, and notice what you're thinking and feeling. How does this
sample policy compare with your family's current attitudes and beliefs about
feeling and expressing anger and frustration? Have your fami-ly members ever
discussed your policy and how it affects everyone?
Would they agree that
your policy is healthy and constructive? Have your family leaders evolved
this policy themselves, or accepted it from someone else like their parents
and ancestors, or a Holy book?
Action Options
This article invites you to raise your awareness about the internal rules that govern
how you and others feel and express the helpful emotions
of hurt, anger, neediness, and frustration. Based on the ideas and sam-ple above, consider doing one or
more of these options to use these emotions to improve your life and
rela-tionships, and help others do the same...
The
most impactful choice you can make to evolve a healthy anger and
frustration policy is to...
-
be alert for this [wounds + ignorance]
stressing your family
members, and intentionally reduce its effects a needed - i.e.
any wounds, and increase your
-
adopt a multi-decade outlook, and...
-
work
patiently toward harmonizing your
under the talented leadership of your
and your true Self
Then...
-
encourage other adults and kids you care about
do the same!
On a scale of 1 (totally uninterested) to 10 (highly
interested), how motivated are you to work at these vital options now? Do
your recent actions match your words? Is your
answering this, or
"someone else"?
Make
learning and using effective communication basics and skills
a high family
One of many major benefits is learning when
and how to (a) identify and express current emotions and needs, and (b) resolve
need-conflicts effectively. These help to avoid major internal and social hurts,
anger, and
frustrations!
Intentionally discuss the difference between
anger and frustration (and/or this article) with your family members, and help each other learn to
identify which is which ("Are you hurt and angry now, or feeling unable to fill a key
need?")
Summarize the key verbal and nonverbal
rules about feeling and expressing anger in each adult who
raised you, and in any hero/ines or mentors that shaped your
early life. Remind yourself that you can affirm, edit, or
replace each of those rules to fit your personality and beliefs without
guilt, shame, or anxiety. These people and their ancestors probably
never read anything like this article - with or without an open mind.
Choose
to see anger-energy and frustration-energy as potentially useful for
filling current needs. The traditional alternative is to see
anger as "bad" and something to be avoided, criticized, and ashamed of.
Wrong!
More action-options about using anger and frustration constructively...
Explain and discuss the concept of anger
and frustration policies with others in your family. Then ask them - including any
kids - to help each other evolve common definitions of how to use anger and frustration
constructively in your relationships and homes. Option -
enjoy affirming each other when any of you are able to do that! ("I
admire the way you expressed your needs and frustration just now. Way
to go!")
Offer each other constructive feedback on...
-
how each of you now
expresses hurt, anger,
needs, and frustration,
and how that affects your family; and...
-
whether someone needs to change something about their way of
expressing any of these.
Include feedback about anyone not
expressing - i.e. "stuffing," muting, minimizing, or repressing these
valu-able
emotions. These often indicate significant false-self
and a
low nurturance environment.
Without blame, explore whether each
family member feels safe to honestly express current
hurt, anger, needs, and
frustration in your homes and relationships. If not, help each other decide what
would have to change to make it safer - without blame.
Common causes of "unsafety" are disrespect, criticism, boredom
(disinterest), anxiety, misunderstan-ding (not listening, and/or reality
distortion), lecturing, and/or moralizing.
Each of these is usually caused by false-self wounds +
+ ignorance.
Help
each other learn to keep centered in the face of someone else's anger
and/or frustration - specially wounded kids. Four things that can
help you do this are...
-
learning to
keep your Self (capital "S")
then...
-
choosing genuine attitudes of respect and
compassion, vs. blame, indifference, and/or scorn;
-
helping each other evolve and live by an authentic
Bill of Personal Rights, and...
-
learning to use effective communication
-
specially awareness, clear thinking, empathic lis-tening, and assertion.
Raise your self-awareness by discovering the policy on anger and
frustration that's been governing relations among your dedicated personality
subselves. Are these policies
healthy?
Consider using options like these to
enhance your family policy on
feeling and expressing sadness
(can you say it out loud now?) Sadness and anger are vital phases in
the emotional level of
Can
you describe your family's current
Is it wholistically healthy or toxic? Would other family members agree? And
you may...
Consider using these ideas about
healthy anger
and frustration policies to
help others avoid major stress!
A
final action-option:
Take no action at this time. If you choose this, either your personal
and family policies are healthy enough (in your opinion), or a false self is
successfully persuading you to defer or ignore (avoid) needed changes.
Pause, breathe, and reflect - which of these options are you drawn to now,
and who is choosing it - your true Self or "someone else."?
Why
do some people endure unhealthy policies about feeling or expressing
hurt, anger, needs, or frus-tration?
Four Challenges
Three things are correctable by any motivated adult:
-
of (a) yourself and others, and (b) ignorance (lack of knowledge) of key
-
Living with significant psychological
(being often controlled by a
and...
-
Choosing to live in a
low-nurturance environment - i.e. among
other unaware, wounded people.
These factors are self-perpetuating down the
generations. This will continue until a fourth challenge is overcome: an
informed, concerned society intentionally adopting policies and laws that
will break the widespread [wounds +
unawareness]
in our culture.
Raising global awareness of
the cycle and its toxic effects is the reason this Web site and related
guidebooks exist.
Recap
Anger is the primal
human response to feeling threatened and/or physically or psychologically hurt.
Frustration is the
automatic response to feeling unable to fill a current need
- i.e. feeling powerless to reduce a current discomfort.
Anger and
frustration are normal, not good or bad. The
people
express them (or
don't) can be "bad" - i.e. can cause stress and injury.
From
early training and life experiences, all adults and kids unconsciously evolve
"policies" (mental atti-tudes and rules) on if, how, and when to feel and
express each of these (and other) primal emotions in vari-ous settings. The
effects of these policies range between personally and socially healthy
and constructive to
unhealthy and destructive.
This article offers perspective on, and
suggestions for expressing and using anger and frustration con-structively. It suggests criteria for judging the health of someone's
(e.g. your) anger and frustration policies, and illustrates what expressing healthy anger and
frustration sounds like.
The article closes with a sample family policy about
anger and frustration, and a range of action-options which
can help you make these abstract ideas work for you and those you care
about. It also proposes four correctible factors that inhibit forming healthy anger and
frustration policies.
Pause and
think of any adults or kids in your life who you feel are (or were)
significantly angry and/or frustrated - starting with you. Have the ideas
in this article affected how you think of them? How likely is it that
they have ever been taught ideas you just read? How likely is it that they are
wounded
of low-nurturance childhoods, thru no fault of their
ancestors?
For
more perspective, read this companion article about
using anger constructively.
+ + +
Breathe
well, and reflect -
why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If so - what do you want
to do with your knowledge now? If not - what
now? Who's
these ques-tions - your
wise, resident
or
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