The rage within

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

Life has a way of knocking us  flat at times - but for some, that's not just metaphor. 

Recently my friend Michele told me a story about just that: being knocked flat in a violent encounter during a broom ball match. As she was scrambling after the ball, a member of the opposing team crashed into her hockey style, tripping her  and knocking her flat on the ice. She was  left with  with painful bruises on her side. She experienced a wave of intense anger flow through her. She "saw red",  and  noticed an impulse to strike back at her aggressor, whom she was sure made the hit intentionally. Her natural  impulse  to fight or flee was fully online, "completely out of the ordinary", as she says. 

But what really made her story memorable was what she did - and didn't do- next. After the hit,  she paused and said out loud, "I am experiencing rage right now!" She watched her rage- and thoughts of hitting back,  ebb and flow... but she didn't  retaliate. 

When she told this story, I was struck with  the way she worded her experience: "I am experiencing rage right now." 

Experts say it makes a huge difference how we frame and relate to our emotions.  Normally, when we experience a strong emotion, we identify with it, we are fully "within it." We say I am angry, or I am afraid. We become "fused" with it, to use a term from ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). But without some distance from our emotions, the danger becomes  that we can be pushed around by them, or act on them.  And sometimes we can regret those actions.  There are over 2 million people incarcerated in U.S.  prisons. How many of those are there because they acted on an overwhelming emotion? 

I once heard  a Buddhist teacher talk about his visit with prisoners. He  remarked that in essence,  they were not all that different from us. They just acted on an impulse that led  to devastating consequences. 

By developing the stance of an observer,  we get some distance from an emotion, and hence a degree of choice and control. Or as one therapist put it, it's like the difference between being in a fire, and being outside of it. We can feel the heat, but we don't get burned. Experts in psychology call this process, decentering.

The economist Adam Smith talked about our "impartial spectator." Meditation advocates refer to the "silent witness". Educators talk of meta-cognition, or self -awareness.  

Mindfulness practice is one way to cultivate this inner observer.  We learn to observe impartially- accepting whatever comes into our field of awareness. This can become a new habit as strong emotions arise. As meditation teacher Jeff Warren puts it, "The more we practice observing our emotional habits, the less potent they become." 

We can also, like Michele did, state our experience in more impersonal tones. For example, instead of saying I am afraid, we can say, Fear is present, or  I'm noticing  fear right now. How we frame things  matters. 

Another way to frame a difficult emotion is to simply label it as it arises. For example, if you feel a surge of anger, just note it, "anger, anger". Or,  use the word, "feeling", or "emotion." The goal is to  note the arising of an emotion, but not adding anything else to it. With this technique, we're not suppressing an emotion, but we're not exaggerating it or fueling it either. It can then pass on its own. 

Teachers are particularly vulnerable in the realm of emotions, as they deal with conflict and frustration all day long. Many times I have stood in front of a class or a group of students and observed intense frustration  rise and fall within me. Regretfully, I have at times unleashed my anger. Other times, I have paused while my awareness takes care of these strong emotions. 

Our expectations also play a part in our experience of anger. I remember early in my career when I realized that I was in for some regular frustration as a middle level teacher. I came across the journals of Marcus Aurelius, the famous Stoic philosopher, and photocopied a passage from his Meditations- and taped it to my wall. In book 2 he says, 

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.

In other words, expect rudeness  and misbehavior. That's the business we're in.  (And kids' brains aren't fully developed anyway till their mid- twenties.) 

For my journey, I need constant practice and reminders, as do many  of my students.  And there are many ways to cope with -and prevent - anger, that complement mindful approaches. 

As Michele learned, the shocks of  life can be sudden and painful. But presence of mind  can help us keep a bad situation from becoming worse. It also helps to remember that no emotion defines who we are- they are temporary. We all get angry at times, but as Michele told me, "It's just a moment." 

A firm intention to remain calm also helps. The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote a famous treatise called, "On Anger" (De Ira) , published in the year 45 A.D.

 On the final page he writes: 

This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practice humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to anyone. Let us keep our tempers in spite of losses, wrongs, abuse or sarcasm, and let us endure with magnanimity our short lived troubles: while we are considering what is due to ourselves, as the saying is, and worrying ourselves, death will be upon us.