I firmly believe that holding on to anger hurts us far more than it hurts the target of our anger. However, I believe just as firmly that letting go of that anger can be a herculean task.
Telling ourselves to “forget about it,” or “get over it,” invalidates the emotion and makes us feel like we “shouldn’t” be angry. That invalidation actually tends to increase the intensity of the anger instead of helping us diminish it. We need to be able to validate why our anger makes sense before we can start to decrease it.
Many people think that to let go of anger they need to act on it, take it out on the target, or seek revenge. I can admit that can feel very tempting. It also feels good in the short run. Unfortunately, there are usually negative consequences. Moreover, while the anger decreases in the immediate, it actually sticks around longer in the end.
So, we don’t want to hold on to our anger, but how to we decrease it in an effective way? I talk about this with myself and clients frequently. This week, one teen client amazed me with her story of how she handled it.
My client, let’s call her Ann, recently started a relationship with a guy that is going great with one exception. The exception is his ex-girlfriend. She is understandably upset and has gone the route of dealing with it by being nasty. We all know there is no anger like that of a woman who feels scorned!
Her nastiness has been hurtful to Ann and left her feeling very angry. For most high school girls, this would likely lead to some ugly escalation. Yet Ann recognized that the anger she was carrying around was weighing her down. She wanted “the heaviness” to go away more than she wanted to get even. That sentiment alone impressed me.
Ann went on to explain that she decreased her anger by working to empathize with the other girl. While Ann didn’t deserve the treatment she was getting, she knew the other girl was doing it because she was hurt. Ann could understand that, and it helped her decrease her own anger. At the same time, Ann could validate that her own anger made sense given the way this other girl’s hurt was impacting her.
Ann noticed her urge to lash out but sat with it instead. She then chose to use a DBT skill referred to as opposite action. This skill recognizes that giving in to our emotion-based urges frequently maintains the emotion, while acting opposite to those urges typically decreases it. In this spirit, rather than lashing out, Ann reached out in a kind way.
She texted the girl recognizing that while they were not currently on great terms, she still wanted to congratulate her on here recent college commitment. I don’t know about you, but I think that took a lot of courage.
When I spoke with Ann, she had not heard back from the other girl. We don’t know whether it will be well-received, but we know two more important things. Ann felt less weighed down by anger and had replaced the weight with a lightness fostered by increased self-respect.
To be honest, our anger is likely to get the better of us at times. We can still strive towards opposite action.
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