Responses to Stress and Anger
by Mary Cook, MA
Stress and anger are natural, normal human responses to internal and external elements in life. Expressing these feelings in ways that do not harm us or others, and ultimately focussing on what will help us recover, and find solutions, improvements or insight, is healthy and mature. It is when anger and stress become chronic or intense enough to exacerbate or create problems, that a re-evaluation of our responses is in order.
Our bodies react to stress and anger by becoming tense, rigid, constricted or destructively expansive. With stress, we tend to have scattered, fragmented, or low energy. Anger generally results in narrowly focussed high energy with adrenalin surges. People can become addicted to the excessive adrenalin associated with anger. Its’ feeling of exciting high intensity aliveness can hide feelings of depression, lethargy, a sense of inferiority, fear and emptiness. The stress hormone cortisol is present in high amounts with anger or stress. When we allow ourselves to experience underlying feelings of sadness, pain and loss, our tears lower the level of cortisol. Breathing during periods of stress and anger tends to be shallow, erratic, withholding, hard, rough or hyperventilating, which increases stress and anger.
Our bodies maintain the energies of unhealed anger and stress in tissues, muscles and organs. They become weak areas of the body, vulnerable to aches, pain, injury, disease, lowered mobility, strength or functioning. Destructive behavior increases the amount of negative energy held in the body, thereby lowering immune system support. Chronic anger or stress hijacks our internal guidance system, giving us physical sensations that promote greater strife, rather than healthy self-care. When we lack healthy personal caretaking, we are more dependent upon others for gratification. This inevitably leads to more disappointment and anger.
If we were physically or sexually abused, especially in childhood, our brain may have protected us from painful body awareness. Whether we disassociated, denied or repressed painful sensations, we learned to disconnect from signals of danger that in later life can prompt us to set boundaries, disengage or cry for help. Sometimes in the absence of healthy bonding, harmful interactions are defined as positive, because they are the only sign of attention. In this case we may have learned to idealize abuse. We may think that our tolerance for abuse indicates strength, adaptability, lack of neediness and vulnerability. This can also precipitate self-harm.
Willfulness and excessive need for control is typically a reaction to earlier trauma over which we had no control. Significant self-centeredness likewise, is a common response to an absence of sufficient attention, interest, value and feelings of love in childhood. When our childhood experiences with vulnerable feelings were not met with acceptance, understanding and helpfulness, we may deny them. This then sabotages our ability to identify the roots of problems and resolve them. This denial also prevents us from developing a firm identity and a supportive, nurturing, positively empowering relationship with ourselves. Our relationships with others then lack acceptance and tolerance or have excessive fear associated with them.
Other consequences of past maltreatment include maintaining tension in the body, having startle responses, being hypervigilant and hypersensitive to any cues of danger, and needing to control our environment and people around us. If we keep our body braced, tensed and alert, we think we’ll be prepared for any necessary defensive or offensive actions to protect ourselves. Conversely we believe that if we allow ourselves to relax and be vulnerable, then when we are hurt, it will hurt more. The truth is contrary to this notion. Maintaining the tension or intention of harm, attracts harmful people and situations to us, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. And we are not learning resiliency, recovery, or healing, nor are we cultivating positive emotions in our bodies. This stance also places us in an adversary role with life and keeps us in a child dependent reactive state.
Hopefully at some point, we realize that our relationship with stress and anger has compounded our problems. We can find healthy, safe support in which to heal earlier pain, and explore, understand and release vulnerable feelings and physical tension. We can choose which thoughts to empower and which to disempower. We are not meant to be puppets to dominant habit thoughts, nor to our childhood experiences. We can learn calm, deep, relaxed breathing, and practice feeling peace inside of us. We can develop greater tenderness and empathy for ourselves and others. We can accept the constancy of change and know that it is enough to choose responses to life, that further our psychological and spiritual growth.
We can appreciate being an adult and accept responsibility for our own well being, rather than over-depend on others through blame, intimidation or submission and passivity. We can meet stress and anger with compassionate inquiry that leads to support, insight, healing and solutions. We can develop greater faith in a Higher Power by accepting periods of emptiness, confusion, and loss of what is familiar, in order to become more enlightened. We can understand that what allows us to move forward is what we leave behind. And we can use daily prayer and meditation to remind ourselves that the greatest power does not come from stress and anger, but from spiritual love.
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WWW.MARYCOOKMA.COM Mary Cook has a Master’s degree in psychology and is a registered addiction specialist, with 33 years of clinical practice and 29 years of University teaching experience. She is a writer, a national speaker, and has a private practice in San Pedro, CA. Mary is available for telephone and office counseling, consulting, guided meditation, speaking engagements and in-service training. Her book “Grace Lost and Found” will be published early spring 2010. Mary is currently writing another book, which is a parable for enlightenment. Please see her website for further information. Contact her at 310-517-0825.
