by: Colleen Parsons
“I’m so angry I don’t know what to do with myself. I hate this feeling.”
“What’s it feel like?”
“Like I’m out of control!”
“You don’t look out of control.”
“Well, like I’m losing control. I hate what’s happening. And I hate myself for letting myself get into this position. This place.”
“I need a bit more. What are you trying to control?”
Kate sat down and put her hands on her face. I could tell that she was crying, but more than that, I could tell that she didn’t have the words to express how she was feeling. There were no words. I resisted the desire to soothe her and sat quietly holding space, for a long while.
Eventually her breath slowed, the hot redness left her face, and she reached for a tissue. Then another. She blew her nose, glanced at me, then back to her tissues.
“What? What did you ask me?”
I repeated my question and Kate turned to look out of the window.
Kate and I had met for several previous coaching sessions, but this was new. She explained this situation involved a breach of confidentiality by a coworker that could affect her career. Then added, “Everything feels so out of control. I don’t know what to do. My husband’s trying to help with the kids and my mom, but all I do is snap at him. He doesn’t deserve that.” She paused, sighed, looked directly at me and asked, “What do you think?”
That sigh was a biophysical and emotional “reset”. Good, I knew she was ready and could hear what I was about to say.
“I think you’re doing a great job of controlling what you can. You’re controlling your anger, your reactions, your desire for retaliation. You touched on your kids, your partner, your mother, so I hear that you’re looking at what else is behind your feelings of anger and loss of control besides this one work situation.”
“But I should have known what was going on at work.”
I asked, “How?”
Kate listed how the coworker had been behaving differently, more aloof, not responsive to texts or calls, and seemed sneaky.
I said, “Yes, that’s your brain telling you that it’s taking in clues recognized only in hindsight and storing the information for future situations. It will try to protect you the next time. But that has little to do with this time, except to make you feel like you failed. The facts are that you had no reason to suspect this was happening, but more importantly, you had no reason to believe it would. Are you following me?”
She nodded.
“This is pretty serious, and you are going to have to carefully decide how you respond. How you respond is the only thing you can control. What’s your plan?”
Kate straightened in her chair, “Well, first I need to investigate and find out more.” I nodded. Then she spent the next several minutes developing alternative plans based on what she might discover.
Our time was almost up. “Kate, you really worked hard today. You have a lot to be proud of. Before you scoot out of here, what’s your takeaway from this time together?”
Kate thought a second and answered, “I have a few workable plans to deal with this situation.”
I replied, “Good. Though I also want you to realize how hard you worked to get to that place. The anger you brought in here didn’t begin here. This anger has been building for days or maybe weeks. You’ve been under considerable stress lately, those teenagers of yours, your mom’s cancer, the loss of your dad, and your day-to-day job tasks.
“Then you find out that you’ve been violated at work with this breach of confidentiality. I imagine that you felt threatened--hijacked. I’m sure that when you discovered the breach all kinds of alarms went off in your brain and you couldn’t reason your way out. It’s as if the thinking part of your brain got locked in a closet. I’m guessing that you were functioning automatically, maybe even just going through the motions for days before now. And that’s the anger you brought in here.”
I paused. Kate nodded in agreement. Then I continued. “That’s a lot to be proud of right there. You didn’t cancel your appointment. You came in and you allowed yourself to feel safe and to be vulnerable and share your pain. You didn’t just tell me about your pain, you shared it with yourself.
“And when you were about to really feel it, you took a deep breath and let your thinking brain out of that locked closet. Do you see?”
Kate nodded again, with tears brimming her eyes. “I do see.”
I smiled and continued, “The release of your anger gave you a healthy shot of dopamine, which also helped you feel calmer. Like the air feels clear after a thunderstorm.
“It took a minute, but then you squared yourself up in your chair, do you remember that? What did that feel like to you?”
Kate said, “Like I was back in control. I could think. I could make a plan. It felt like I was me again.”
“That’s right,” I said, “You began to solve your own dilemma. It was powerful to witness. You did a very good job. And now, I’m going to ask you again, what’s your takeaway?”
Kate smiled, “I need to call a family meeting and tell my kids some of what’s been going on at work. I need to ask for their help at home. I also need to let my mother in on what’s happening so that she doesn’t feel that this has anything to do with her. And honestly, I need to sleep. I haven’t slept in days.”
Then she said, “My takeaway is that I’m not in this all alone.”
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This is a picture of what anger feels like. Here is what is actually happening. No teacher directly taught me how to work with anger; my patients and clients did. I've helped hundreds move through that energy. Kate was lucky enough to move through her feelings in one session. For some it takes much longer because their anger may have been building for years, and those people are very afraid that their anger might kill them.
Anger creates a cascade of hormone reactions that we’ve all experienced. It affects every aspect of our body and mind. The goal is to recognize the buildup of energy, experience the surge, feel the shift, and then, as the energy wanes, use it all as a tool.
Have you ever seen a dog or horse shake off energy? It sort of looks like they are shaking off water, but they aren't wet. People don't usually shake off energy in that way, but they do shift. They sit up in their chairs, or they stop and stare into space. They are able to think again. Why? Because their cortisol decreases, because the adrenaline stops surging, because the person let the anger run its course.
Intention makes the difference. Kate found a safe place to let her anger go. Adrenaline begs the body to fight. We’ve all felt this happen. Adrenaline makes us feel that we have to fight or die. Survival feels urgent. If no one fights back or tries to make us better but instead holds space for us, we can move through the anger as it completes its cycle. Then, with someone to help us process the feelings we experienced without inflicting shame or guilt, we can move back into thinking mode, and forward into production.
I wasn’t sitting passively with Kate; I was refusing to be the fight her body was looking for.
Let’s not meet the fight with a fight. The Prayer of St. Francis says this best: "Where there is hatred, let me sow love".
by: Colleen Parsons
