On Anger
I'm SO thrilled to have my first EVER guest writer on this blog. (I know, it's about time, right?) Amy recently graduated from one of my support groups - but more than that, she's a friend I've known since 6th grade. I kept thinking about her and what she shared on one of our calls regarding anger. So much so that I asked her to write about it...
"We can not selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions." - Brene' Brown
Anger.
Ugh...I don't know about you but expressing anger has never been easy for me. Most of my life I would either just shove my anger deep or explode on someone that usually was not the culprit of my being angry in the first place.
Sorry, Mom.
My therapist says that anger is merely the visible tip of a huge iceberg of many other emotions. The other emotions that actually fuel the anger can be found just below the surface; namely hurt, sadness, betrayal and rejection.
Throughout my 14 year marriage, I definitely did more shoving down than I did exploding. But we had our moments of that, too.
When I discovered my husband's sex addiction 15 months ago, my relationship with anger started to change. It was no longer an option to shove my anger down. It had to come out. And so did all the underlying emotions with it.
When my husband and I separated for five months, I dove into my own recovery. I joined Shelley's support group for women and began to see a therapist that specialized in trauma treatment associated with sex addiction. A great deal of that work centered around expressing the emotions behind the anger toward my husband (and the trauma associated with his addiction) as well as very old trauma from my childhood.
I began to notice a pattern emerge each and every time something was very difficult for me to work through. Whenever I was asked to examine my pain or to trust God in a new way, a resistance would rise up in me that caused me to fight what I knew in my heart needed to be done.
I always find when I push past that resistance, forcing myself to lean into the painful parts of the healing process, I not only gain a greater understanding of my needs but it also allows me to reach a new level of spiritual growth I would have never had access to before. The greater the resistance, the greater the potential for growth.
When Shelley asked our group to write an anger letter the resistance in me surfaced immediately. I remember actually telling myself, "this doesn't really apply to me...I already got out my anger. Many, MANY times, in fact."
Oh how I can fool myself when I have to do hard things.
Several days pass. No anger letter.
Shelley asks about my progress and I assure her I'm "working on an outline." If I'm honest, it looked a whole lot like this:
Anger Letter
A) I Don't
1. Want To
a. What's on TV?
When I finally give up the struggle and sit down to write, the words flow so freely. There are definitely parts of my anger that have been voiced but what I don't discover until I start writing is how much is actually still there. I write not only about the obvious sexual betrayals but also the YEARS of emotional distance between us and the lack of involvement in raising our two boys that hurts just as much.
I write for over an hour. My hand hurts and I'm too exhausted to actually feel the weight of what those pages held. I put the letter away.
The next day, I read my anger letter to my therapist. This time, I let myself feel every word. Every betrayal, every manipulation and lies too numerous to count. As I describe the pain out loud, it's as if a cork is slowly being removed from a full glass bottle of bitterness. My anger finally gives a voice to my hurt and the years of rejection and resentment. The bottle has tipped and the pain can finally pour out, making way for joy and peace to be poured back in. I begin to feel a freedom I hadn't felt my whole life.
Now I am learning how to express the emotions behind the anger rather than just the anger itself. It's a slow process, but it's a huge leap from where I used to be. But isn't that what this recovery process is all about?
Pushing forward.
Finding purpose in our pain.
Now it's your turn...what is it you find yourself resisting? It could just be your biggest leap yet!
Amy Garcia loves writing, anywhere there's a sandy beach and could survive off only chips, guacamole and Vanilla Bean Talenti gelato. She hopes to grow up someday and actually use her degree in journalism. Amy is Texas born and bred but now calls Chandler, AZ home where she is a wife, a mom to 2 very baseball obsessed boys and a 15 year old fully deaf and partially blind Chihuahua. (Don't you for one second feel sorry for him, he's livin' the good life.)