Still Hurt and Angry After the Election?
How are you managing your anger following the most negative and divided election of our time? I’ve done numerous media interviews (CNN, FOX, USA today) to share ways to process the hurt and pain. As I spoke with journalists and radio hosts, it was obvious people are feeling personally traumatized and angry.
As I describe in the new book Goodbye Hurt & Pain, anger is a normal emotion and actually helps us stay emotionally safe–when we use it as feedback and not truth. Like all emotion, it’s spontaneous and transient. In other words, we can’t intellectually stop emotions from happening. They have a life of their own that originates in your body. When you name your feelings, they are transmitted to your mind for interpretation into words.
How you process your anger impacts your health. for example, a review of the literature by Sigma and Smith in 2013 found that repressed anger is associated with autoimmune diseases and aggressive, explosive expression of anger is associated with coronary heart disease. Thus, the sweet spot between the two extremes is the safe expression of anger. Remember anger is a body experience, so first you must release the tension from your body through speaking, writing or moving.
4 Tips to Find Your Anger Sweet Spot
- Verbally share with like-minded friends. Sharing with those with opposing beliefs is not a safe way to process your anger and is likely to produce greater agitation. Later, after you’ve diffused the physical tension, you can engage in a non-angry dialogue.
- Passionately write your feelings on paper–let it rip in an uncensored way because the paper doesn’t talk back.
- Rigorously express anger through safe movement e.g. heavy workout, throwing eggs at a tree, pounding your pillow.
- When you have safely defused the physical tension, you can investigate the feedback in your anger. Is there an inner or outer situation that presents danger to you? Evaluate what actions/strategies are indicated to you you emotionally/physically safe? e.g. establish a politics-free zone during social gatherings; investigate your legal rights; negotiate a win/win relationship.
This month’s meditation will guide you to locate and defuse what anger may be hiding in your body.
Join me by clicking the link below…
