"Anger Management"

Following a series of enquiries relating to the handling of body generated e-motion of anger we would like to talk about this subject here in this month's newsletter.

Anger is the family of e-motion that ranges from small annoyance to being furious. We have all experienced situations in life that have generated an anger response within our body. Unfortunately there are lots of things that we misunderstand about this e-motion and how our body likes it to be handled. This leads it to be one of the most common triggers and maintainer of symptoms of illness.

Although we do not review or analyse the past in Mickel Therapy, it is worth understanding the things that lead to a person learning to mishandle anger as an e-motion. From a very early age we observe how adult role models handle the e-motion of anger. Rarely is this constructive. Rather, what we observe is that anger is either suppressed in a tight-lip fashion or blown out like a volcanic eruption. This starts to mould our own handling of anger when it arises in our life from that point forward. Our body does not like either of these behavioural choices and will soon create symptoms of 'dis-ease' in response to them.

Before looking at what Mickel Therapy has learned is the effective and constructive handling of this e-motion we should remind you of some very important facts about e-motions generally. Here we refer to the primary e-motions. These arise spontaneously before thoughts and so cannot be altered by changing thinking patterns. In other words if the body says "I am angry about that' then there are no arguments. It is an absolute truth whether we like it or not.

The good news is that we have learned through many years of working with clients that anger does not need to be acted out angrily. But it does require action in the situation at hand. This is often a challenge to us all because the e-motion of anger arising now pulls up stored anger from our past and so can make it appear larger than it actually is.

Many of our clients, understandably, have an inherent fear that responding to anger leads to confrontation and more hassle. Thankfully this does not have to be the case because actions most definitely speak louder than words. Those of you undergoing Mickel Therapy will be aware that one of our Keys to Health is specifically designed to teach you the art of Loving Disallowance which is pivotal to the constructive handling of the e-motion of anger. This does take practice as some of you will have learned but it reaps great benefits in terms of symptom reduction.

The most important thing we would like you take home from this article is that anger does not need you to become angry. A very simple example may help explain this: If I am sitting on a train and somebody is shouting vociferously into their cell phone then my body will very likely produce anger and irritation whether I like it or not. This is turn leads to an escalation in my symptoms (muscle pain and headache principally). On top of this I get a surge of secondary e-motion of frustration and dread because I feel ill.

There is no point in me addressing secondary e-motions because they are effects and not cause. So I have many choices to hand: I can confront the person but I don't like that idea for obvious reasons. Instead I can respond to anger without any words or angry behaviour. I get up and go to another carriage - problem solved and my symptoms reduce in the relative quiet of the new seat...

We hope that this helps dispel some of the misunderstanding surrounding the body primary e-motion of anger. All Mickel Therapy practitioners are trained to help you with such challenges in the course of your treatment.