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I'm looking for guidance here. I was told by someone to just feel a feelign...try not to react right away. OK got that...so what happens when if you feel the feeling it gets bigger until you realize WHAT the feeling is (in my case i am REALLY angry) over things that happened YEARS ago that i had completely blanked out. Now EVERYTHING is coming back and I am PISSED.
I am an ACOA...so...have learned to not express ANGER bc in my house that would result in something very bad. so I stuff. and I stuff. and I stuff. Then I become depressed...suicidal, self damaging. all that.
But I want to do this differently. I dont want to hurt myself for these other people anymore.
I have family obligations today. Do i go...even though I feel like just being quiet? (letting the alcoholic woin over this beautiful day...which doesnt feel so beautioful so she already won?) or do i stay alone and ruminate?
And...where do i put all that anger...so it doesnt go outwards or inwards?
Anything you can share would be appreciated. What do you do with your anger?
Well ... my way is pretty simple in words and tough to practice sometimes but it does work. I examine the reason for my anger, try to find my part in it and whether or not I have responsibility I ask my HP to remove my anger. I've also dealt with anger by exercising it away, yelling it away (alone and in a sealed house LOL), crying it away and of course by expressing it to the other person in some graceful and some not so graceful ways. In the few years since I have not lived with my xah I have taken the little incidents that could still make me angry and one by one turned them over to my HP, I have to say it is working very well. There are only a few memories that I have still not released my anger over, complete forgiveness on each of these triggers is slow too but will hopefully happen in time.
Hope you had a nice day no matter what you decided to do
Thats a great profound question. As you know anger can detroy us, make us ill, and sometimes our life make us feel justified that anger should be the response.
First we have to find a philosophy that works for us, to retrain ourselves and how we react to our envioronment. We have to make a conscious effort, which it sounds like your ready to do, because you recognize what you have been doing is not working.
Alanon is a wonderful program that works if you work it. I think change is the hardest thing for us humans to accomplish. We have to be the change we want. Its all about us and we get to decide how were going to handle our life and solutions to our problems.
I dont know if you have been to a face to face Alanon meeting, but feel this would help you immensely to reach the serenity I think your looking for. Keep coming back to the boards. We will hopefully be able to help you with our experiences.
Aloha rainbojo...good question and trust!! What I learned to do with anger was taught by some great sponsors...Have one? One of mine taught me with the question "do you like the feeling and how you handle it? "No I hate feeling anger and I use it to wreck every day I hold on to it". "Then feel the opposite and it will give you the opposite consequence." I wanna feel peace and happiness!! The opposite of anger is Acceptance. Not the kind that verifies the pain and hurt and makes a moral judgement of stuff but the acceptance of the fact of the situation...It happened; I can let it go (or I can hold on to it and let it trash me some more). I accepted that "it" happened and I learned to let it go ...but how do I learn to let it go?...
The opposite behavior of resentments (old...OLD...hurts, pains and angers) is forgiveness. I cannot feel resentment and forgiveness at the same time because they are polar opposites. I know what I get and how I feel by holding on to resentments and so do those around me who want to leave quickly. When I'm in forgiveness there is no residual fighting or struggle. I arrive at peace. I've let go of the weight and the pain and hurt that has been stuck to me like velcro for such a long time. "I'm free at last....!!
This is what I do with my anger. Keep coming back with an open mind cause you're going to get much more help. (((((hugs)))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Saturday 7th of August 2010 05:31:43 PM
In order to make a rainbow you need sun. The sun always comes out. Jerry's reply hit the nail on the head. I can add nothing to that. WOW. Much love and blessings to you and your family.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
Usually when I feel anger, it is because of some fear I harbor. When I pinpoint the fear and face it, my anger subsides.
I used to be angry over my exAH's behaviors. When I really explored my anger, it often was due to my fear of losing something that he currently was providing for me or he was on the verge of destroying our dreams.
Overtime, I faced the fears. I'm now providing my own needs/wants and I have new dreams.
Did I want to get a divorce? Hell no. But I faced the facts, along with my fears, and took control of my life.
Not sure this helps you. This is how I got over my anger. Now, I only feel a great deal of sadness for my ex.
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You have to go through the darkness to truly know the light. Lama Surya Das
Resentment is like taking poison & waiting for the other person to die. Malachy McCourt
This has really helped me too. Last night I tried to talk to my A, he has been in and out of recovery for a long time and has recently lapsed again. He was sober last night and I thought we could have a heart to heart, of course it didn't work that way. A thinking is the same really drunk or sober, heck I should know that by now - but I just felt so low and unloved!
Of course I am now wicked and evil and its all my fault and he hates me, and of course keeps trying to pick a fight - that worked eh?
I did react briefly with a flash of anger, but my HP told me to stop - just stop now it was powerful and calming, I hurt a lot today but how can I be angry - it is up to me to provide for my needs and to heal and recover, I really get the programme but it has hit me- of course - I had a relapse too, and I must forgive myself for that.
Fear and loneliness make me needy for things my A cannot provide, it makes me rage sometimes at the unfairness of it all, but I have to deal with that rage - it is mine and today I have asked my HP to take it away, slowly that is working
I can't believe how useful and how it should al make sense...all of your words are so USEFUL...like I cna see youve been there. You understand the intricacies of how we feel inside, that to anyone else would really sound incomprehm ensible.
Jerry...you're very in my head pragmatic. I get it. Acceptance not of IT'S OK that this stuff happened,,,but only THAT IT HAPPENED. Which is the opposite of denial. OK.
The other thing you suggested was doing the opposite. feel the opposite...to have an opposite reation.
I UNDERSTAND it...but I am afraid if I IGNORE this anger...it will come out some other way. I wait, it builds...and I blow. Depression anger suicide...all crap. Maybe I have used this as an excuse for melt-downs when I havent known what to do with bad feelings when they come up. This FEAR that they someonw gain strength and lurk aroud the corner, ready to throw me into some huge depression or something else against my will. I want to be happy... But I am discovering that I have developed a methofd of manipulation as a survival technique, and I really really want to be honest. I dont think manipulation is honest, but I am so new to this...it's like looking through murky water.
Maybe I am so used to my imagined misery..that if I loose it (my misery) I will feel somehow that I'm missing something. I actually think I ahve become attached to misery. SO...maybe I can SAY I want to be happy...but I'm afraid to really be happy. Cause we all know it doesn;t last. Someone will do something to crush it...right??.
I think this kind of learned behaviour (all new awarenesses for me) is pretty scary. but the fact that i have been living my life and allowing these behaviours to conduct my life (like sitting in the back seat of a speeding car...with no driver) is like waking up out of a nightmare.
I also have to be careful not to drive alone. I need HP co-pilot. I have way to many opinions about everyone else's state of affairs. I always need to make sure everyone is happy, my house is non-conflict zone. (You know...I actually think what destroyed my first marriage in part was because I didnt know how to fight...we NEVER fought. Too scary. wow...i feel like such a wimp.
Then someone else mentioned fear. That's the whole thing isn;t it. I am afraid to be like them. really afraid. Also afraid that what they say and do can somehow CHANGE something inside of me, permanently. In my family, there were so so so many secrets, that when someone would say one of them (I found out at 13 for example, when my adopted mother was drunk, that one of my sisters was my birth mother). SURPRISE.
Today it is still like that...and I don't want to knowm anything.
Just being aware of that ineffective unproductive belief system...will make a difference, i suppose. I still feel after the week with my A sister that I am coming back form a war zone. I dont know how you guys who are in the thick of it now do it. really...amazing.
My husband says there is something about me that is different. Not sure if that is good or bad yet...but he looks happy. I feel detached from any emotion. LIke a brick wall. Hope I'll come back to feeling something.
I just wrote a song, and my favourite line that came out was "walk the path that your feet are on"...perfect.
I lately am trying to remind myself that I'm trying to change, trying to be a better man. And the Man I want to be does not yell and scream and curse and have tantrums when I'm upset. That right there usually helps me to let go of some anger. After that I try to talk with someone about it or post here, pray, exercise..things like that to help me release. Often when I examine my anger, I conclude that there was really nothing to be angry about. IE. I hit a traffic jam and am late for let's say a movie....ok....I met get angry at first but I realize i have no control, it's no one's fault and I just have to do the best I can....this works most of the time...the other times....i just destroy thing. (just kidding)....
When I was able to take responsility for my part in the mess alot of my anger towards my husb went away , Iwas able to admit that my husb did nothing to me that I did't allow over and over again , he was a practicing alcoholic who was only doing what worked for him , what was my problem ??? I didnt get there over nite it takes time and alot of meetings , focusing on my own problems and being willing to get honest with myself and others .. my sponsor was the one who listened to me again and again but always asked , what could u have done differently which usually cleared things up then she would ask the zinnger , * why didnt you ?* damn i hated that . Early in recovery I heard a speaker say take your problem to a sponsor or a meeting and come home with a solution when i remember that it always works . good luck keep working on yourself it will soon become perfectly clear . Louise
Wow I am right where you are I grew up in a severly addictive/abusive home.... but of course we were at chruch every sunday getting our sins washed away. Funny thing was I could never figure out what my sin was and why it was so bad that i was given this life to lead. As an adult I remade myself so to speak... I didn't take any crap off anyone Now as an "older" adult all these memories are flooding back and I just don't know what to do with them. All my abusers are dead now, most of my A's from my past have found recovery and I have no idea where to put these feelings. So I pray a lot.... crazy at it may sound I talk to these dead people in my head, have not forgiven them yet by any means but i know that has to be the next step. But when i am angry I simply pray for peace in my heart and HP usually comes thru for me. Sometime it takes only minutes sometimes it takes hours but I keep at it until peace fills my heart. I wish you peace and serenity Blessings
I take my anger to church daily. I do my best to give it to my HP and believe he accepts as much as I will give away. While I am there I look for something good to replace it. That helps me to not have it move back in.
