act on life not on anger: the new acceptance and commitment therapy guide to problem anger

“Any one who sees their anger as a strug gle, as some thing to con front,

sup press, con trol—or, worst of all, ignore—will find this book to be a

gift of life and hope. The authors offer prac ti cal ways of under stand ing

the prob lem and debunk ing the myths of anger, all with gen u ine accep -

tance and com pas sion. This feel ing is trans lated into prac ti cal exer cises

which are easy to use, and most impor tantly, they really work! I have

been for tu nate to wit ness this in my own prac tice, even with cli ents

with severe trauma his to ries and self-destruc tive ness. Use these tech -

niques on your own, use them in ther apy, but by all means use them

and find a gen tle path toward heal ing in the pres ence of anger.”

—Francis R. Abueg, Ph.D., founder and owner of TraumaResource

and former associate director for research for the National Center

for PTSD at the VA in Palo Alto/Menlo Park, CA

“Empowering and com pas sion ate, this book was writ ten for peo ple who

strug gle with anger and who find it hard to con trol their feel ings of

rage. The book describes a counterintuitive and extraor di narily insight -

ful approach to liv ing effec tively with anger. In a lively and acces si ble

voice, the authors describe sci en tif i cally based behav ior ther apy skills

for let ting go of our futile strug gle to con trol anger and offer strat e gies

to pro mote ‘response-abil ity’ for the one thing we can truly con trol:

our actions. Through real-world exam ples, cre ative met a phors, and

pow er ful expe ri en tial exer cises, the reader learns to prac tice accep -

tance at even the most try ing times. This book essen tially is about love

and free dom from unnec es sary suf fer ing—it teaches us to open up fully

and to live com pas sion ately with what is.”

—Laurie A. Greco, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department

of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical School and

John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development

“It is pos si ble to find a place from which you can patiently and com -

passionately ride a wave of anger as it rises and falls inside you and

simul ta neously choose to live a val ued life with your hands, feet, and

mouth. This book will show you how to do that with patience and

compassion for your self and oth ers. If you reg u larly prac tice what it

teaches, you will find your self hav ing more LIFE in your life.”

––Hank Robb, Ph.D., ABPP, past president of the American Board

of Counseling Psychology

“Look ing for another way to help your cli ents with their anger? ACT

on Life Not on Anger is the book for you. This book adds sig nif i cantly to

the ther a pist’s options for help ing cli ents cease bat tling their anger and

the other vul ner a ble feel ings it cov ers and instead come to terms with

them as part of them selves and their lives with out judgment, eval u a -

tion, and self-con dem na tion. This book helps peo ple under stand and

accept the func tion of their own anger, the vital dif fer ence between

feel ings and actions, and the respon si bil ity we all share to live our lives

to the full est, with respect and dig nity even when we don’t “feel” like

it. I have already begun using this work in my own prac tice!”

––L. Kevin Hamberger, Ph.D., professor of family and community

medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin

“As an edu ca tor com mit ted to the value of nur tur ing emo tional intel -

ligence in the school envi ron ment, I rec om mend this book par tic u larly

to stu dents as a trust wor thy life raft for nav i gat ing the end less ado -

lescent seas of pain ful thoughts and con fus ing feel ings, includ ing one of

the most bur den some and prev a lent expe ri ences of ado les cence:

persistent anger. As read ers progress through the book, they learn—

and expe ri ence—that anger need not be a prov o ca tion to destruc tive

actions with neg a tive con se quences that are some some times irre -

versible. ACT on Life Not on Anger’ is an excel lent and life-affirm ing

resource with clear, acces si ble prose, engag ing illus tra tions, and care -

fully explained prac ti cal exer cises. This highly read able book deserves a

place in every national cur ric u lum pro gram.”

––Gary Powell, MA, head of German and 6th Form tutor at

Trinity School in Croydon, England

Acton lifenot on anger

the New

*Acceptance & commitment therapyGuide to Problem Anger

*

GeorG H. eifert, PhDMAttHew McKAy, PhDJoHN P. forsytH, PhD

foreword by steveN c. HAyes, PHD

New HArbiNGer PublicAtioNs, iNc.

Pub lisher’s Note

This pub li ca tion is designed to pro vide accu rate and author i ta tive infor ma tion in regard to

the sub ject mat ter covered. It is sold with the under stand ing that the pub lisher is not engaged

in ren der ing psy cho log i cal, finan cial, legal, or other pro fes sional ser vices. If expert assis tance

or coun sel ing is needed, the ser vices of a com pe tent professional should be sought.

Dis trib uted in Can ada by Raincoast Books

Copy right © 2006 by Georg H. Eifert, Mat thew McKay, and John P. Forsyth

New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Ave nue

Oak land, CA 94609

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Cath ar ine Sutker;

Edited by Barbara Quick; Text design by Tracy Marie Carlson

All Rights Reserved; PDF ISBN: 9781608828319

Library of Con gress Cat a log ing-in-Pub li ca tion Data

Eifert, Georg H., 1952-

ACT on life not on anger : the new accep tance and com mit ment ther apy guide to

prob lem anger / Georg H. Eifert, Mat thew McKay, and John P. Forsyth.

p. cm.

Includes bib lio graph i cal ref er ences.

1. Anger—Treat ment—Pop u lar works. 2. Cog ni tive ther apy—Pop u lar works. 3.

Behav ior ther apy—Pop u lar works. 4. Self-accep tance. 5. Com mit ment (Psy chol ogy)

I. McKay, Mat thew. II. Forsyth, John P. III. Title.

RC569.5.A53E36 2005

616.89’142—dc22

2005035658

Robert

Typewritten Text

ISBN-13: 9781608828319

(GHE)

To Diana, my lov ing wife.

She con tin ues to teach me about anger and

its pow er ful anti dote of patience with lov ing kind ness.

(MM)

In mem ory of Peter D. Rog ers.

Bon voy age, my sweet friend. Thank you for every thing,

espe cially for teach ing me to savor life.

(JPF)

Each day my wife, Celine, and my three chil dren give me

oppor tu ni ties to nur ture the values of patience, com pas sion,

and love as vital alter na tives to hurt and anger. This book is

a tes ti mony to the les sons I have learned through them.

Contents

Foreword vii

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

In tro duc tion

A New Way of Approaching Anger 1

Chap ter 1

Debunking the Myths of Anger 13

Chap ter 2

Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 25

Chap ter 3

The Heart of the Struggle 37

Chap ter 4

Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 53

Chap ter 5

How Your Mind Creates Anger 73

Chap ter 6

Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 87

Chap ter 7

Practicing Mindful Acceptance 105

Chap ter 8

Taking Control of Your Life 119

Chap ter 9

Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It

135

Chap ter 10

Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 155

Further Readings, References, and Other Resources

175

vi ACT on Life Not on Anger

Foreword

ANGER, ACCEPTANCE, AND ACTION

What human beings call anger is a com plex mix of thoughts, feel ings,

and urges toward actions pulled together into a thing called anger.

Most of us have expe ri enced the dan gers of anger when it is allowed to

exist entirely in that com bined form. We may have hurt oth ers in the

name of anger, and in so doing we have some times hurt our selves. We

may have been on the receiv ing end of anger and have learned to fear

its explo sive power. We may have been obsessed by past wrongs and

have allowed anger to color too many of our moments, los ing con tact

with the oppor tu ni ties for liv ing that are here and now.

But anger is not one thing. It is many things, loosely orga nized by

lan guage into a whole. It is worth remem ber ing that it’s not the feel ing

of anger per se that has caused harm. Rather, the cold soup of enacted

or con tem plated self-righ teous ness or the hot energy of attack ing oth -

ers can eas ily lead to actions with neg a tive con se quences. But these

need not be the core fea tures of anger. Remem ber, anger is not one

thing. It is many. And there are many things to do with the var i ous

“its” that reside inside anger in all of its aspects.

This book is the first effort to apply the Accep tance and Com mit -

ment Ther apy (ACT, said as a word, not ini tials) model to anger (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wil son 1999). The authors care fully pull anger apart at the seams, show ing how it is more use fully con sid ered to be a mix ture of sit u a tional cues, thoughts, feel ings, impulses to act, and overt behav ior. Once anger is in this dis em bod ied form, the ACT model can be readily applied to its ele ments.

In this book you will be guided to do counterintuitive and power ful new things with the feel ing of anger, the thoughts that set the

occa sion for it, and the thoughts that trig ger it. You will be able to see for your self whether you have fused the var i ous aspects of anger

need lessly and whether new approaches are pos si ble with each aspect of anger con sid ered indi vid u ally.

Why a self-help book? It is known that many peo ple with anger prob lems will avoid tra di tional cog ni tive behav ioral treat ments (Siddle,

Jones, and Awena 2003). They may fear being on the short end of the stick; they may fear their own anger responses. This book can reach through that resis tance and fear and try to touch the hearts and heads of those with anger prob lems.

Anger is not a clin i cal syn drome, and per haps for this rea son there are rel a tively few empir i cally sup ported approaches to it. Those that do exist show fairly lim ited ben e fits. The sur pris ingly ubiq ui tous anger-man age ment pro grams are also sur pris ingly under-eval u ated empir i cally. Clearly, something more is needed.

Step ping into that empir i cal void is a bit fright en ing, but the present approach is not a ran dom walk through the issues raised by anger. This book is care fully linked to pro cesses and ideas that are increas ingly well sup ported empir i cally in more gen eral terms.

The value of accept ing emo tions and defus ing from thoughts has been shown in prob lem area after prob lem area. A recent review of the ACT evi dence (Hayes et al., in press), showed that these pro cesses were help ful in the areas of depres sion, anx i ety, stress, burn out, prej u -

dice, hal lu ci na tions, delu sions, smok ing, sub stance abuse, man ag ing dia be tes, chronic pain, and epi lepsy, among oth ers. The spe cific emo -

tions and thoughts trig gered by these kinds of prob lems run the range of pos si ble emo tions and thoughts. Given that anger over laps with other neg a tive emo tions that have suc cess fully been tar geted, it seems to be a fairly safe bet that the same meth ods will be help ful in this related area. As this research pro gram expands, we will know for sure.

viii ACT on Life Not on Anger

There is also tan ta liz ing research emerg ing from labs around the world sug gest ing that anger is in part a method of expe ri en tial avoid -

ance, and that mind ful ness and accep tance can be help ful. Such intu -

itions and early find ings have turned into robust approaches in many other areas of human suf fer ing and strug gle. The work on anger seems poised for that same pat tern of devel op ment.

We are not yet at the point of con trolled research on ACT for anger, but this book is help ing to make that research pos si ble. Given the state of the evi dence, how ever, read ers need to be espe cially atten -

tive to their own expe ri ence. If you are stuck in anger, this book should

help give you very dif fer ent things to try with this dif fi cult col lec tion of

reac tions. But no one approach will work for all. The best advice seems

to be to engage in the work reflected in this book fully and hon estly and to peri od i cally exam ine your prog ress to see if you are happy with the results.

The authors are nation ally vis i ble experts in both anger and in ACT. Their knowl edge able hands will guide you through a counter-

intuitive but and inno va tive approach, skill fully and humanely. If you embark on this work seri ously, your view of anger, its role in your life, and what you need to do with it will change, per haps even fun da men tally.

You are about to begin an inter est ing, excit ing, and some what sur pris ing jour ney. The des ti na tion is a val ued and vital life that includes anger when you have anger, but which is not dic tated, con -

trolled, or harmed by anger feel ings. Enjoy the ride, and keep your eyes

wide open for the emo tional and cog ni tive wild life this new approach may reveal. If you stay open, you will learn a lot about how to ACT on Life Not on Anger.

—Ste ven C. Hayes

Reno, Nevada

Novem ber 2005

Foreword ix

Preface andAcknowledgments

There is not a human being on this earth who will go through life

without emo tional pain or anger. There is sim ply no way to get around

this fact. Human beings suf fer. You’ve suf fered. We’ve suf fered. This is

the human con di tion. Yet we’ve learned that pain and anger need not

destroy our lives. These emotions can be har nessed and used to enrich

lives—your life!—and the human con di tion. ACT on Life Not on Anger

was con ceived in this spirit. Your life is what mat ters. The trick is to

learn how to live with your hurt and anger and with out dam aging or

restricting your rela tion ships or pos si bil i ties. This book will show you

how to do that—to reclaim the prize that is your life before it’s too

late.

In the pro cess of writ ing this book, we suf fered the tragic loss of a

dear friend and col league, Dr. Peter D. Rog ers. He had every inten tion

of con trib ut ing his wis dom to this book. Yet he did not get the chance.

For a time, it looked like this trag edy might keep us from com plet ing

the book and ful fill ing our inten tion to help peo ple like you.

One les son we learned from Peter’s untimely death is that we all

have so lit tle time on this earth. We need to make every moment

count, even when we are hurt ing inside. Peter learned that pain and

anger could be a friend in his life, not a bar rier to the life he wanted to

lead. You can do this, too. Anger need not turn into suf fer ing. You can

have anger and hurt and live out your life with dig nity, mean ing, and

pur pose. Hurt and anger need not destroy what you want your life to

stand for.

Mov ing with the pain of Peter’s loss allowed us to refo cus our

ener gies on the task of writ ing this book. Our inten tion in this book is

sim ple—to help peo ple who have dam aged their lives and the lives of

oth ers because of their hurt and anger. Our goal is to get peo ple like

you back into their lives and out of their anger trap. This life is where

your leg acy is—so make it count!

The ideas we express here are not just ours. We owe a debt of

grat i tude to the many indi vid u als whose ideas and insights have made

their way into this book. We are par tic u larly grate ful to Ste ven Hayes

and Pema Chödrön.

Dr. Ste ven Hayes gen er ously made his work and ideas avail able

to us. In 1999, Dr. Hayes, along with his col leagues Kirk Strosahl and

Kelly Wil son, pub lished the first full-length book on Acceptance and

Com mit ment Ther apy (ACT). Several of the exer cises we adapted for

use with prob lem anger first appeared in their book.

Pema Chödrön, an Amer i can Bud dhist nun, has writ ten widely

about the wis dom of meet ing the strong energy of emo tions such as

fear and anger with patience, com pas sion, accep tance, and for give ness.

Her words are sim ple and clear, echo ing the cen tral mes sage of this

book. Her teach ings about how to approach anger with mind ful accep -

tance and com pas sion, and prac tic ing patience when the anger flames

are hot, embody the ACT approach to anger that we are shar ing with

you here. We hope that your life will be changed in pro found ways by

putt ing this approach into action in your every day life. We have

learned much from Pema Chödrön’s astute knowl edge and prac ti cal

sug ges tions, and we thank her, as well as her pub lish ers, for allow ing us

to draw upon her wis dom in this book.

We also thank the fol low ing pro fes sion als and the orga ni za tions

that kindly gave us per mis sion to repro duce their work: Joseph

Ciarrochi and David Mer cer for their artwork in chap ters 4 and 10,

and Joanne Dahl and the Asso ci a tion for Advance ment of Behav ior

Ther apy (AABT) for the life compass in chap ter 8.

xii ACT on Life Not on Anger

New Har bin ger is becom ing a major out let for the dis sem i na tion

of newer third-gen er a tion behav ior ther a pies such as Accep tance and

Com mit ment Ther apy. The other two authors are grate ful to Mat thew

McKay and all the New Har bin ger staff for see ing the value of this

work and its poten tial to alle vi ate a wider range of human suf fer ing.

We owe a debt of grat i tude and heart felt appre ci a tion to Cath ar ine

Sutker of New Har bin ger for her tire less energy, encour age ment, and

kind sup port as we moved ahead with this pro ject, and like wise to

Barbara Quick and Heather Mitchener for their mas ter ful and dil i gent

edit ing.

We sin cerely hope you will ben e fit from read ing this book as

much as we have bene fited from writ ing it. We par tic u larly hope it will

be use ful to you in your every day strug gle with anger and other dif fi cult

emo tions. Our work on this book has pro foundly changed how we view

the emo tional pain and suf fer ing of the peo ple we encoun ter (our

clients, col leagues, fam ily, and friends). We now approach pain and

suf fer ing in ways that keep us all mov ing in direc tions we value.

Finally, we would like to thank our wives and chil dren for giv ing

us extra time, space, and sup port to com plete this book. They saw the

value in the work and showed a will ing ness to make per sonal sac ri fices

so that it could come to fru ition. We truly hope they feel it was worth

it—and we are com mit ted to repay ing them for their effort and faith in

us!

Preface and Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction

A New Way ofApproaching Anger

This book offers you a way into your life and out of the anger trap

based on a rev o lu tion ary new approach called Accep tance and Com -

mit ment Ther apy (ACT). You will learn how to reduce the suf fer ing

that anger has caused you and oth ers by focus ing your ener gies on the

peo ple and expe ri ences that mat ter most to you. This book will teach

you how to bring accep tance and com pas sion to your anger, your hurts,

your pains, and your thoughts—and how to extend accep tance and

com pas sion to oth ers in your life. Doing so will defuse the sting of

anger, soften its punch, and weaken its power to get you off track from

the life you want to live. You can learn to have com pas sion for your self

and oth ers, and you can find out and focus on what matters most to

you; you can learn to live your val ues.

It is pos si ble to change your response to the trig gers that make

you feel angry, and to the feel ings them selves. Chang ing those

responses will change the way you behave when you’re angry. Trust us

that this is a brand-new approach; we’re pretty sure you’ve never tried

any thing like this before.

We are going to take you down a path with your anger that will

chal lenge you in many ways. If you read the book and do the exer cises,

you’ll reduc e your anger-related suf fer ing. You’ll increas e your vital ity

and enhance your abil ity to cre ate the kind of life you want to live, a

life free of the pain of con stant anger.

Learn ing to approach anger with accep tance and com pas sion will

make all kinds of rad i cal changes pos si ble. As odd as it may sound,

there are ways for you to have pain and find ful fil ment in what you do

with your life, all at the same time. Act ing on and out of anger is no

way to live. This is why this book is titled ACT on Life Not on Anger.

FREEDOM FROM ANGER MANAGEMENT

We sus pect that you have already tried to deal with your anger.

Perhaps you’ve talked to a friend about it or per haps you have turned

to one or another self-help book. Most anger self-help books try to

teach peo ple better ways to cope with their anger. They describe

people’s unsuc cess ful strug gles with anger-related thoughts and emo -

tions. If you’re like most peo ple with prob lem anger, you’ve prob a bly

tried some of these strat e gies:

+ Keep ing the anger down when it arises

+ Sup press ing your anger

+ Try ing to calm your mind

+ Chang ing your thoughts

+ Dis tract ing your self

+ Hit ting pil lows instead of peo ple

How have such anger man age ment tech niques worked for you?

We sus pect they have n’t worked well at all. Every per son who strug gles

with anger knows that it is not an emo tion readily con trolled or coped

with. Intense and action-ori ented emo tions such as anger are

extremely dif fi cult to change or con trol. The truth is that you may not

2 ACT on Life Not on Anger

be able to reduce, let alone elim i nate, your anger- related thoughts and

feel ings.

That may sound like very bad news to you. Take heart—we are

not going to take you down that same old path of more cop ing and

anger man age ment as a way out of your anger.

CHOOSE A NEW APPROACH—ACT

Here’s the good news: You can con trol and change how you respond to

your anger feel ings:

+ You can stop try ing to cope with anger feel ings (if cop ing

and other man age ment strat e gies have not worked).

+ You can learn to leave anger alone and sim ply expe ri -

ence it as a thought or feel ing.

+ You don’t have to act on your anger, and it does n’t need

to drive what you do. As much as you feel like yell ing at

your kids or the store clerk, you can learn to act dif fer -

ently. You can learn to watch your anger feel ings and

resent ful thoughts and not do what they tell you to do.

The solu tion to prob lem anger is not to try to keep the anger

down when it arises or try to get rid of it. The solu tion is chang ing your

rela tion ship with, and response to, anger thoughts and feel ings. To get

there, you’ll need to learn how to acknowl edge angry thoughts with out

becom ing them, and with out act ing on them.

As we guide you in learn ing these skills, you will develop com pas -

sion for your self and oth ers. You’ll also redis cover what truly mat ters to

you; you’ll focus on what you want your life to stand for and then act

in ways that move you for ward in your life, even if that means bring ing

anger or other unwanted thoughts and feel ings along for the ride. This

is the real prize—reclaim ing your life! Looking at your life and what

mat ters most to you is what will really help end your strug gle with

anger and pain.

This is not the first book on anger that attempts to help peo ple

like you develop greater com pas sion for your self and oth ers. But it is

the first book that teaches you how to approach anger with


news:You

com pas sion, so that you can live your life with mean ing and pur pose.

Our goal is to help you spend your pre cious time on this earth doing

what you care about deeply. Engag ing in anger behav ior is likely not at

the top of your list. After you drop the rope in your tug-of-war with

anger, you’ll notice that your hands, feet, mind, and mouth are free to

be put to use for the things in your life you truly care about. In the pro -

cess, your life will evolve in ways that may have seemed impos si ble

before. This book will refo cus your atten tion and pas sion from your

anger to the life you want to live.

WHAT IS ACT ABOUT?

ACT is all about allow ing your self to feel what hurts while doing what

works and is impor tant to you. In a nut shell, it is about accep tance and

change at the same time. If you are 100 percent will ing to give this a

shot, then you’ll learn to accept and live with your uncon trol la ble

anger- related thoughts and feel ings and take charge of what you can

con trol: your behav ior.

It is only with your actions—what you do—that you move your

life in the direc tions you want to go. When you act in ways con trary to

your aspi ra tions, you become emo tion ally and psy chi cally stuck. This is

a guar an tee. ACT teaches you how to get unstuck and mov e for ward

by devel op ing com fort in your own skin. You will explore new ways of

liv ing with the unpleas ant thoughts and feel ings that your body and

mind dishes out from time to time, rather than strug gling against them.

Our goal is to help you under stand and approach anger-related suf fer -

ing in a mind ful, com pas sion ate way while pur suing what really matters

to you.

The basic phi los o phy of ACT is sim i lar to the well-known seren -

ity creed: “Accept with seren ity what you can not change, have the cour age

to change what you can, and develop the wis dom to know the dif fer ence.” It

is much eas ier to agree with the seren ity creed than to do what it says.

The rea son is that many peo ple sim ply do not know what they can or

can not change, nor how to accept and live with thoughts and feel ings

that hurt. As a result, they do not know how to apply this pro found

state ment to their daily lives. Instead, they become frus trated with it.

When you read this book and do the exer cises, you’ll learn how to

make the impor tant dis tinc tion between what you can and can not


change. This will start you on the path toward putt ing the seren ity

creed into action.

How ACT Helps Problem Anger

Because anger can come and go very quickly, it’s not nec es sar ily

harm ful. Anger is only harm ful and prob lem atic if we react to feel ing

anger with anger behav ior. ACT will help you dis man tle this con nec -

tion and see it for what it is—a source of need less suf fer ing.

The ACT approach helps you expe ri ence anger with out act ing on

it. So instead of try ing to replace angry, neg a tive thoughts with less

angry, pos i tive thoughts, we’ll teach you how to watch your thoughts,

all of them—gently, with dis pas sion ate inter est, and with out get ting

caught up in them.

Learn ing to be a dis pas sion ate, kind, and gen tle observer of your

anger thoughts and feel ings may sound a bit odd. Trust us that as you

learn this, you will be able to dis en tan gle your self from your anger

thoughts and feel ings. This will help you real ize that you are not your

anger. Your iden tity remains while your anger comes and goes like

waves in the ocean. Know ing this will free you from the feel ing that

anger con trols your life. You will be ready to refo cus your time and

energy on liv ing the life you choose and care about.

Three Core Steps of ACT

ACT is not just short for Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy.

The ACT acro nym also cap tures nicely the three core steps or themes

of this approach—Accept thoughts and feel ings, Choose direc tions,

and Take action.

Step 1: Accept thoughts and feelings

You can accept and embrace your thoughts and feel ings, par tic u -

larly the unwanted ones (pain, guilt, inad e quacy). Even though this

may sound impos si ble to do, the basic idea is very sim ple:

+ You accept and acknowl edge what you already expe ri -

ence any way.

+ You there fore end your strug gle against unwanted

thoughts and feel ings.


There’s no need for you to attempt to elim i nate or change your

anger thoughts and feel ings. But instead of act ing upon them, you observe

them with a gen tle curi os ity until you can ulti mately let them go.

Why should you accept—and even embrace—unwanted thoughts

and feel ings? Mainly because old solu tions in your strug gle with anger

have not worked and will not work. Learn ing to rec og nize what trig gers

your anger, and learn ing to observe and accept anger feel ings and

thoughts with out act ing on them, is cat e gor i cally dif fer ent from blow -

ing up, get ting even, or stuffing your anger only to act on it later by

get ting back at those you per ceive as hav ing wronged you. Accept ing

your anger thoughts and feel ings is also different from the ten dency to

be passive when anger shows up.

Accept ing anger is not about giv ing up, being pas sive, or play ing

the patsy. On the contrary, fol low ing this pro gram requires a great deal

of per sonal resolve and cour age.

Once again, there is a dif fer ence between you as a per son and the

thoughts and feel ings you have, whether about your self or the per son

or event that trig gered your anger. The bio log i cal func tion of anger is

to reg u late stress and pain. It’s so impor tant to rec og nize that stress

and pain are caused by cog ni tive, emo tional, and phys i cal trig gers.

Each of these can pull you into anger and rage. That’s why it’s so

essential for you to learn to develop a com pas sion ate response to them.

This step ech oes the accep tance part of the seren ity prayer.

Step 2: Choose directions

The second step is about choos ing a direc tion for your life. You

can learn to focus your atten tion and energy on what really mat ters:

your val ues, your goals, who you want to be in the world—the whole

pack age. We’re includ ing several expe ri en tial exer cises to help you

iden tify what you most value in life, what you want your life to stand

for. We’ll hazard a guess that being an angry per son 24/7 is not on your

list. So this step is about help ing you dis cover what is truly impor tant

to you and then mak ing a choice. It is at the heart of this book:

choosing to act on life, not on anger.

When you feel anger, it may seem as if your actions are auto -

matic. But how you respond to anger feel ings with your words, hands,

and feet is actu ally based on a choice. When you feel anger, you can

make a choice to respond with anger behavior. Or you can feel anger

and respond in ways that are com pas sion ate, car ing, gen u ine, open,


hon est, and respect ful—ways that will help move you in direc tions you

want your life to go.

Step 3: Take action

Com mit ted action involves tak ing steps toward real iz ing your

most highly val ued life goals. This step is about tak ing charge of what

you can con trol and chang ing what you can change. It involves learn -

ing to behave in ways that move you for ward in the direc tion of your

cho sen val ues.

Tak ing action does not mean act ing on anger or because of anger.

Rather, based on your choices in step 2, you act in ways that move you

in direc tions you want to go. You do this while accept ing anger feel ings

that may accom pany you along the way.

This is dif fi cult, because it requires that you take a hard look at

where anger is tak ing you and where you want to go instead. Tak ing

action is ulti mately about respon si bil ity—or being “responseable”—

using your hands, feet, and mouth for the pur poses of liv ing the life you

want to live. We’ll show you how to do that.

It’s nat u ral to feel skep ti cal, scared, or intim i dated by the

prospect of mak ing such fun da men tal changes in the way you behave.

You may be hav ing self-defeat ing thoughts right now, like, “This is too

big.” Don’t worry about these. You can not and need not con trol your

thoughts or feel ings. What you can con trol is what you do with your

eye mus cles and your hand mus cles. Keep the book in your hands, use

your eye mus cles to keep on read ing, and let the thoughts be what they

are and do what they do. As with all thoughts and feel ings, it is okay if

they come, it is okay if they stay, and it is okay if they go.

APPROACHING ANGER WITHACCEPTANCE

When you accept a gift, you take what is offered. This is what accep tance

is. Accept ing anger involves rec og niz ing and stay ing with your angry

thoughts and feelings— making space for them—with out act ing on

them. Accep tance does n’t mean that you believe those thoughts and

feel ings; it isn’t about agree ing or dis agree ing with them. Nor does it

mean giv ing in to anger or being pas sive. You sim ply take note of any

feel ings of guilt, shame, or inad e quacy—you don’t argue with them or


try to replace them. With accep tance there’s noth ing to defend. With -

out accep tance, you have every thing to lose when anger and emo tional

pain show up!

Your crit i cal, evaluative mind is the part of you that judges your

thoughts and feelings. We’ve included sev eral sim ple mind ful ness, or

aware ness, exer cises to help you learn to neu tral ize these judg ments

and the dis com fort they bring.

These exer cises will teach you to take a com pas sion ate observer

per spec tive so that you come to expe ri ence your thoughts as thoughts

with out react ing to them or let ting them dic tate your actions. We also

include imag ery exer cises to help you notice and accept the feel ings

that fuel anger, such as shame, hurt, fear, fail ure, loss, rejec tion, weak -

ness, and so on. You will see that the pur pose of most anger behav ior is

to make those thoughts and feel ings go away. Learn ing to rec og nize

and stay with unwanted feel ings when you have them is an impor tant

first step toward learn ing not to respond with anger behav ior because

of anger feel ings.

APPROACHING ANGER WITHCOMPASSION

Anger needs an enemy to exist and grow. Meet ing anger with com pas -

sion leaves anger with no room to grow. This is why com pas sion is so

impor tant. Compassion means that you value the hap pi ness and wel -

fare of oth ers just as intensely as your own desire to be happy and lead

a meaningful life.

You may ask, “Why should I have com pas sion? I was hurt so

badly that the other guy deserves to rot in hell.” Com pas sion does not

mean con don ing or tol er at ing behav iors that dam age you or keep you

in an abu sive sit u a tion. You can still pro tect your self and oth ers from

harm and dan ger. You can still be heard. But it is better for you if you

do so with out har bor ing ill will toward those peo ple. Hold ing on to

your anger keeps it alive, even when you don’t act on it. This will not

only keep you feel ing tense and unhappy, but it will also give anger

room to spill over and affect just about every part of your life that you

care about: work, fam ily, friends, health, and rec re ation. Is this what

you want?


Respon si bil ity for your anger behav ior is just the same as

responsibility for the other ways in which you choose to live your life:

the choice begins with you and is ulti mately about you. We can not

guar an tee that other peo ple will meet your com pas sion with com pas -

sion. But act ing on anger only fos ters more neg a tive energy; anger

behav ior rarely if ever yields com pas sion. Here’s the one guar an tee we

can give you if you put this pro gram into action: you will act in ways

that will nur ture your sense of value and dig nity. If this mat ters to you,

then stick with the pro gram!

APPROACHING ANGER WITH GENTLEAWARENESS

Through the mind ful ness exer cises in chap ter 7, you will learn to

develop aware ness of what you are expe ri enc ing in the pres ent

moment. The exer cises will help you expe ri ence that you are not your

thoughts or feel ings; you are not your anger. They all are part of you,

but they are not you. Your expe ri ence is not some thing you need to

con trol or run away from, or act on at all.

If you’ve strug gled with anger, you prob a bly already know that

with anger comes a ten dency to judge your self and oth ers. Judg ing only

feeds anger and gets us nowhere. This is why we sug gest a dif fer ent

approach, using exer cises to build up your capac ity for com pas sion by

acknowl edg ing and accept ing your anger, along with the pain, fear, and

judg ments about your self and oth ers that drive it. The pur pose of these

exer cises is to set the stage for grad u ally replac ing old, habit ual, auto -

matic ways of behav ing (such as blow ing up) with new, flex i ble, and

inten tional ways of behaving—ways that you con sciously choose.

You will learn to notice and observe the tem po rary feel ings that

arise in your mind and body with com pas sion, with gen tle kind ness,

and with out act ing on them or because of them.

Anger and judg ment are fleet ing parts of you that, although

recur rent, come and go like clouds in the sky, the chang ing sea sons,

and so on. For exam ple, Mike’s wife prom ised to pick up the kids but

she did n’t do it. Enraged, Mike had the thought, “She only cares about

her sched ule and does n’t give a damn about my time. I’m really going

to tell her off when she gets home.” Mike could n’t do any thing about

the rage aris ing in his body or the venge ful thoughts pop ping into his


mind at the time. Yet, he had lots of options when it came to how he

responded to them and what he decided to do about them. Mike even -

tu ally learned to sim ply watch these feel ings and thoughts, rec og nize

them as feel ings and thoughts, and abso lutely not fol low through on

them. This opened up a range of choices for Mike to act dif fer ently.

You can also learn to make life-affirm ing choices rather than

letting your anger feel ings coerce you into destruc tive choices. And

guess who’s in charge then: you!

DON’T BELIEVE US OR YOURMIND—TRUST YOUR EXPERIENCE!

We’ll do our best to explain what we know about anger. Yet words are

only words unless you expe ri ence their mean ing. Sim ply learn ing about

anger with your head, with out tak ing steps to put your learn ing into

action, is a dead end. You know as much from your own per sonal expe -

ri ence. Stud ies have shown over and over that learn ing is most effec -

tive when peo ple expe ri ence what they learn about. So the chal lenge is

to apply what you learn from this book in your daily life. This will take

hard work and com mit ment.

Here’s an impor tant consideration: You don’t need to believe

what we say or under stand every point we make. Some of what you

read in this book is going to sound quite strange at first, per haps even

silly and bizarre. We guar an tee that your mind will throw many argu -

ments at you why this or that sounds impos si ble, is too dif fi cult, or

does n’t make any sense. When such thoughts occur, thank your mind

for each of them and then move on. You need not argue with your

mind or try to con vince your self of any thing. The only things we ask

are that you try to stay open to a new way of relat ing to anger and new

expe ri ences; that you do the exer cises; and that you check out

whether, over time, they start work ing for you. Then trust that expe ri -

ence, and let your mind do its thing.

This is why each chap ter includes a num ber of exer cises. The

exer cises are the most impor tant parts of this book. They help you

expe ri ence what works and what does n’t. Exer cises bring to life in a

per sonal way what you have learned. Some of them help you feel what

hurts, what under lies your anger, and how you can expe ri ence anger

with out act ing on it. Under stand ing this log i cally is help ful, but only


expe ri enc ing it will make a dif fer ence in your life. This book will help

you and work for you—but only if you work with it.

How can you do that? Make read ing a pri or ity in your sched ule.

Com mit to a rea son able amount of time you can set aside to read this

book and prac tice the exer cises. We rec om mend that you not read

several chap ters of this book all at once. Doing so will make it dif fi cult

for you to put the con cepts into action. You need to think about the

con cepts pre sented here—let them per co late. You need to allow

yourself time to put the con cepts into prac tice. This will take time.

Put tak ing care of your self on your to-do list every day. Pace your

read ing so that you read and prac tice the con cepts in one chap ter

every week. We’ve struc tured the chap ters to be read this way for the

sim ple rea son that change and learn ing any new skill take time. Read -

ing one chap ter of this book every week is a great way to take care of

your self, as is doing the exer cises every day. Don’t move on until

you’ve spent suf fi cient time with the mate rial in each chap ter to allow

you to put the con cepts into action.

Com mit ment is a cen tral com po nent of any effort to change

one’s life. Are you ready for that com mit ment when it comes to your

anger? Are you will ing to learn another way to approach your anger

thoughts and feel ings? If you are, you can take con trol over your

actions and com mit to move in life direc tions you truly value. With -

out com mit ment to action—if you don’t com plete the exer cises—

noth ing much is going to change in your life. As Ste ven Hayes and

his col leagues wrote, “If you always do what you always did, you will

always get what you always got!” (1999, p. 235). Just read ing this

book with out doing any thing new is a sure fire way to con tinue to get

what you’ve always got.

BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY

In the end, you con trol the direc tion you want your life to take—that

is your choice. Read ing this book—and inter nal iz ing what you learn—

is part of this pro cess. But there’s no book on the planet, nor any

person, who can make you live your life in a cer tain way. It will be up

to you to put what you learn into action and make the changes you

need to make. This book is designed to help you get some thing dif fer -

ent by doing some thing dif fer ent! As you commit to putting your


values into action, the qual ity of your life, and the qual ity of life of

those around you, will begin to improve.

There is a Bud dhist say ing that the jour ney of a thou sand miles

begins with one step. By select ing and read ing this book, you have

taken that first step on your jour ney out of your anger trap and into a

new life. Con grat u la tions! Now keep mov ing for ward. Liv ing accord ing

to your val ues is a life long pur suit. On your jour ney, you will con -

tinuously learn, prog ress, and see life in a way that you may never have

expe ri enced before. This book is a kind of travel guide. Use the

information here to help you decide where you want to go.


Chapter 1

Debunking theMyths of Anger

At the moment you become angry, you tend to believe

that your misery has been created by another person.

You blame him or her for all of your suffering. By

looking deeply, you may realize that the seed of anger

in you is the main cause of your suffering.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

Have you some times felt that the feeling of anger is inev i ta ble and that

you’d better find a way to let off steam before you burst into aggres -

sion? Have you been to a ther a pist who advised you to stop holding

your anger in? Have you ever got ten angry and had a friend reas sure

you that it’s good to get it all out? Have you ever found your self in

situations think ing such thoughts as “If I had n’t got ten angry and

fought back, this guy would have con tin ued to walk all over me” or “If

they had treated me with respect, I would n’t have yelled at them”?

These are all com mon beliefs and mis con cep tions about anger—even

some men tal health pro fes sion als accept them. Yet, none of them are

true. Each is based on a myth. They are harm ful because they keep you

and oth ers like you stuck in self-destruc tive pat terns. Let us intro duce

you to the five basic myths of anger:

Myth 1: Anger and aggres sion are instinc tual to humans.

Myth 2: Frus tra tion inev i ta bly leads to aggres sion.

Myth 3: Vent ing your anger is healthy.

Myth 4: Anger is always help ful.

Myth 5: A per son’s anger is caused by oth ers.

All myths of anger jus tify the expres sion of anger and aggres sive

behav ior. Each myth sug gests that anger is an inev i ta ble part of being

human. This inev i ta bil ity makes anger seem ines cap able—and per haps

even gives it value as a human attribute. Pop psy chol ogy arti cles and

talk shows play into this misperception by encour ag ing and even prais -

ing the expres sion of anger, affirm ing its inev i ta bil ity, and stress ing the

value of man ag ing it. Anger, we are told, is part of our nature. All of us

have heard, in one form or another, that express ing anger—letting it

all out—is the royal road to physical and mental health.

You may already sense from your own expe ri ence that there is

some thing wrong with this set of assumptions. Has let ting anger out

really worked for you? Has it helped you live the life you want, or has it

brought ruin to impor tant areas of your life? Let ting anger out does not

work for most of us, and it prob a bly has caused you—and oth ers in

your life—a lot of pain.

Through our work and the research of oth ers, we’ve come to

believe that the expres sion of anger isn’t unavoid able or nec es sary, and

it cer tainly isn’t help ful. Let’s briefly exam ine each of the five myths

one by one.


MYTH 1: ANGER AND AGGRESSION AREINSTINCTUAL TO HUMANS

The idea that humans are endowed with a basic instinct for anger and

aggres sion has been used to explain just about every thing from mar i tal

quar rels to global warfare. The think ing here is that innate bio log i cal

pres sures can push peo ple past some built-in anger thresh old. Even the

Amer i can Psy cho log i cal Asso ci a tion (APA) con trib utes to keeping this

view alive:

The instinc tive, nat u ral way to express anger is to respond

aggres sively. Anger is a nat u ral, adap tive response to threats;

it inspires pow er ful, often aggres sive, feel ings and behav iors,

which allow us to fight and defend our selves when we are

attacked. A cer tain amount of anger, there fore, is nec es sary

to our sur vival. (APA 2005)

We Thrive on Cooperation and Nurturing

Though these ideas make some intu itive sense—seem ingly

account ing for the often explo sive and sense less nature of rage and

aggres sion—they are fun da men tally flawed for one main rea son:

Successful evo lu tion is based on coop er a tion, not destruc tive con flict

and aggres sion. Even pri mates fight in a rit u al ized way. They do so to

pre serve the spe cies, not to kill their adver sar ies. More com monly, acts

of vio lence across spe cies tend to occur in defense of the group, typ i -

cally for pur poses of pro tect ing ter ri tory or resources.

When people feel threat ened, it is nat u ral for them to feel anger.

But this feel ing does not jus tify anger behav ior. In fact, in the con text

of coop er a tion and pro mo tion of the greater good, acts of violence,

aggres sion, hate, and envy are non sen si cal. As human beings, we have

always lived in small bands of closely related mem bers who have nur -

tured and helped rather than destroyed each other. Such actions pro -

mote growth and sur vival. Vio lence directed toward one’s own group

or kin under mines the sur vival and over all wel fare of the group and

those who belong to it.

Look at the fun da men tal pat tern of our exis tence from birth to

old age: we con stantly seek nur ture, and thrive when we’re nur tured.

Humans and other pri mates deprived of basic nur tur ing fail to thrive.


Maybe the fun da men tal nature of human beings is gen tle ness and

kind ness—although we admit that watch ing the nightly news can

make you won der!

Anger Is Not in Our Genes

After con sid er ing all the avail able evi dence at a con fer ence in

1986, a group of twenty dis tin guished behav ioral sci en tists con cluded

that there is no sci en tific evi dence to sup port the belief that humans

are innately aggres sive. Wag ing war and other vio lent behav ior is not

genet i cally pro grammed into our human nature. Except for rare pathol -

o gies, genes do not pro duce indi vid u als pre dis posed to vio lence. There

is noth ing in our brain setup that com pels us to act vio lently. In fact,

our evo lu tion ary his tory has favored our abil ity to coop er ate.

Violence Doesn’t Always Stem from Anger

We know that lots of aggres sion occurs with out any feel ings of

anger. Vio lence (even kill ing) can occur for a num ber of rea sons that

have noth ing to do with feel ing angry. A hunter kill ing an ani mal for

food typ i cally kills with out feel ing anger. A prize fighter aims to hit

another fighter with out feel ing angry, because such feel ings are likely

to mar his abil ity to score punches. Sol diers in the mil i tary train to kill

other human beings, but they may expe ri ence guilt and sor row more

often than anger. You can feel angry with out act ing that anger out in

vio lent ways. In fact, anger feel ings seem to be fol lowed by aggres sive

behav ior only about 10 per cent of the time (DeAngelis 2003).

Aggres sive behav ior is one among many choices you can make

when you experience anger. You can learn to make other choices.

MYTH 2: FRUSTRATION INEVITABLY LEADS TO AGGRESSION

The view that frus tra tion leads to aggres sion was pop u lar ized by

Sigmund Freud, who believed that indi vid u als are born with an innate


aggres sive instinct. He also thought that block ing or frus trat ing the

instinct for aggres sion only leads to it being redi rected some where else.

So, when you per ceive what ever makes you angry as being too risky to

attack (for example, your boss), you redi rect or dis place your anger on

some one or some thing that’s less risky or threat en ing. Thus, you may

dis place aggres sion toward your boss by pick ing a fight with one of your

sub or di nates, yell ing at your chil dren, smash ing some thing, or even

kick ing your dog.

The idea that frus tra tion leads to aggres sion received quite a bit

of research sup port early on in the 1950s and 1960s. We now know,

how ever, that aggres sion is not the only behav ior that can fol low

frustration and hurt. In fact, there are many instances in other

cultures, includ ing those that are West ern ized, where frus tra tion does

not invari ably lead to aggres sive behav ior. For instance, many Tibetan

peo ple were abruptly dis placed from their home land after the Chi nese

invaded Tibet in 1952. Most of these indi vid u als now live in exile. Yet,

despite the hard ship they endured, the Tibet ans have largely refrained

from aggres sive action toward the Chi nese. In fact, their lead ers shun

vio lence and con sis tently encour age their peo ple to prac tice non vi o -

lence and com pas sion ate under stand ing. The same pos ture is true of

the people of Bali. Even in West ern ized cul tures, you will find that

peo ple respond in a vari ety of ways to frus tra tion. Some peo ple will

curse, hit, or kick some thing after los ing money in a vend ing machine.

Oth ers will write down the name and address of the vend ing com pany

and request a refund by mail. Many more peo ple will sim ply shrug their

shoul ders and walk away.

Still, the per sis tence of the frus tra tion-leads-to-aggres sion myth

is sur pris ing. An unfor tu nate con se quences of this lin ger ing misper cep -

tion is that peo ple use it to explain and excuse the anger they express

when they don’t get what they want. Frustration is far too often seen as

a direct route to pro vok ing anger and aggres sion, and anger is ratio nal -

ized as an auto matic and nat u ral response. Many peo ple assume that

anger is the only pos si ble way to respond when things go wrong and

they feel frus trated. This myth leads peo ple to buy into the idea that

they have no choice about how they respond.

The real ity, though, is that there are always choices; anger is only

one of sev eral pos si ble responses to frus tra tion. In this book we offer

you a whole new range of choices and ways to respond when you feel

anger and expe ri ence frus tra tion.


MYTH 3: VENTING YOUR ANGER IS HEALTHY

The idea that vent ing anger to let off steam is nec es sary and help ful

has become part of pop u lar cul ture. It orig i nates from what we see as

mis un der stood state ments by Sigmund Freud and his fol low ers.

The myth is that frus tra tion can build up over time; that it

must be released one way or the other. Bot tled-up, unex pressed

anger supposedly fes ters in your mind and body, cre at ing both

physical and emo tional dis ease and poi son ing rela tion ships at work,

school, and play, in love, in all areas of life itself (Bry 1976). The

basic cure, then, is to express your anger—let ting it all out—to

cleanse and purify your body and mind. This cleans ing is some times

referred to as “cathar sis,” which lit er ally means “purg ing.” It is

supposed to clear the air, result ing in health ier and hap pier com mu -

ni ca tion with the peo ple around you, giving you a good, clean

feeling, and increas ing your self-esteem.

It took many years of research to finally put the vent ing idea to

rest. Blow ing off steam is not ben e fi cial. One of the most renowned

anger research ers, Carol Tavris (1989), rightly observed that the peo -

ple who are most prone to vent their rage sim ply get more rather than

less angry when they do so. And those at the receiv ing end of anger

out bursts get angry too. You may have noticed this your self in your

inter ac tions with col leagues, with friends, or per haps with your part ner

or chil dren at home. It all starts with some pre cip i tat ing event, which

is fol lowed by an angry out burst, shout ing, scream ing, or cry ing; a

crescendo (per haps even includ ing phys i cal vio lence); exhaus tion and

finally with drawal and/or even tu ally an apol ogy. Have you noticed how

this cycle can be replayed over and over with no cathar sis or decrease

in your over all level of anger?

When anger is let out, it is typ i cally met with anger right back.

This is what vent ing anger does. Neg a tive energy breeds more neg a tive

energy. Behav ior such as yell ing or even talk ing out an emo tion does n’t

reduce anger feel ings. What actu ally hap pens is that you are rehears ing

more of the same. Punch ing a pil low while think ing of some one you

dis like is rehears ing punch ing the per son. Numer ous stud ies have

shown as much: vent ing anger typ i cally serves to “freeze” a hos tile atti -

tude or opin ion (Tavris 1989). You prob a bly know from your own


expe ri ence that vent ing does not make hos tile feel ings go away.

Instead, they tend to stick around lon ger and haunt you.

The bot tom line is that the pop u lar rem edy for anger, vent ing it

by let ting it all out, is really worse than use less. Express ing anger does

not reduce anger. Instead, it func tions to make you even angrier. Vent -

ing also solid i fies an angry atti tude and state of mind, esca lates anger

and aggres sion, and does noth ing to help you (or the recip i ent of your

anger) resolve the sit u a tion. Buy ing into the idea that let ting it all out

some how puri fies you is also dan ger ous because peo ple can use it as a

license to hurt oth ers. You may have even done this your self.

Some times peo ple do feel relieved after they vent their anger.

You may have expe ri enced this, too. Yet numer ous research stud ies

have found that such relief is not a nat u ral con se quence of anger, but

rather a learned reac tion (for exam ple, Hokanson 1970). Some peo ple

have learned to feel relief fol low ing expres sion of anger, just as other

peo ple learn to feel shame or increased com pas sion after vent ing. This

learn ing involves mak ing an erro ne ous con nec tion between act ing out

anger and the calm most peo ple return to after anger has passed. This

con nec tion is erro ne ous because peo ple would have felt calmer and

better any way after a while, even with out act ing out their anger. The

good news is that you can learn new responses and change how you

respond to your anger feel ings. Viewed this way, your response to anger

feel ings with anger actions becomes a choice rather than an inev i ta bil -

ity. Act ing on anger is not inev i ta ble, instinc tual, or some thing you

need to keep doing.

MYTH 4: ANGER IS ALWAYS HELPFUL

Because it trig gers a surge of adren a line, anger can mobi lize you to

defend your self or escape when you are phys i cally threat ened or

attacked. This is called the fight-or-flight response. Anger can help you

set appro pri ate lim its and over come any fear you may have about

assert ing your needs. Anger is also a com mon inter me di ate step in the

heal ing pro cess fol low ing sex ual or phys i cal abuse. Yet even in those

dif fi cult sit u a tions, anger ceases to be ben e fi cial when the abused

person is unable to let go of it. Con sum ing anger can actu ally leave you

stuck and unable to move beyond your pain.


Anger is ben e fi cial when it serves as a warn ing sig nal that some -

thing is wrong. It can increase your sense of con trol and cer tainty,

and—most impor tantly—pre pare you for action (Lerner and Keltner

2001). The type of anger and pain we are talk ing about here involves

situations in which peo ple have clearly been hurt or are at risk of being

harmed. Their pain is both an impe tus and a cat a lyst for pos i tive action

to pro tect them selves or oth ers from fur ther harm.

Anger in such cir cum stances isn’t fueled by a stance of gen eral

hos til ity. Instead, it is an appro pri ate reac tion to a real threat or dan -

ger. Fear is like wise an appro pri ate emo tion upon see ing an approach -

ing gang of thugs while walk ing alone on a city street at night. When

the dan ger passes, so does the fear. Con struc tive anger can func tion in

much the same way. But when anger spills over into other life sit u -

ations where it is uncalled for, it can become a prob lem for you. Take a

moment to think about how often your anger occurs in response to

situations that have lit tle or no chance of caus ing you phys i cal injury

or risk of death. This prob a bly hap pens fre quently, right?

Anger fueled by hos til ity (as dis tinct from anger that serves as a

warn ing) is anger in its most harm ful form. Hos til ity or cyn i cal anger is

a state of mind of ill will fueled by strong judg ments about your self and

other peo ple. This type of cyn i cal or hos tile anger, let alone hatred, is

never use ful or help ful. It can eas ily lead to aggres sive behav ior, ver bal

or oth er wise. It is toxic in that it ulti mately dam ages your mind and

body.

Research ers found evi dence seem ingly show ing that all anger is

bad for your health, par tic u larly for your heart (see Fried man 1992).

Now, half a cen tury and many stud ies later, con vinc ing med i cal and

psy cho log i cal research shows that hos tile anger is the only type of

anger that is truly harm ful to you, both phys i cally and psy cho log i cally.

A recent study was able to dem on strate exactly how hos til ity increases

your risk of devel op ing car dio vas cu lar dis ease by weak en ing the

immune sys tem. The crit i cal toxic ele ment is an atti tude of ill will

toward oth ers and the ten dency to cause phys i cal harm and express

aggres sion toward oth ers (Suarez, Lewis, and Kuhn 2003).

Hos tile anger dam ages areas of your life you care about, harm ing

other peo ple in your orbit at the same time that it harms you. A study

by Smith and Gallo (1999), for instance, showed that hos tile angry

peo ple are not only at greater risk of devel op ing car dio vas cu lar dis ease,

but their nonangry spouses are put at greater risk as well!


MYTH 5: A PERSON’S ANGER IS CAUSED BY OTHERS

In our clin i cal prac tice, we con sis tently notice that angry cli ents

come into ther apy with one or more rea sons to explain and jus tify

why they are so angry. Though the sto ries dif fer, the mes sage is the

same: “My anger is caused by some one else or some thing else. I’m not

to blame.

When you’re in pain, it’s log i cal to ask your self, “Who did this

to me; who’s respon si ble?” As soon as you decide that some one else is

respon si ble for your hurt or phys i cal ten sion, the focus shifts from you

to them. You can then feel jus ti fied in dis charg ing your pain and hurt

with anger directed toward those you believe to be respon si ble for it.

Anger is trig gered by peo ple and events out side your con trol.

How you react to your anger thoughts and feel ings is up to you,

though. By shift ing the blame to others, you rob your self of the oppor -

tu nity to make changes in your behavior—and you keep your self stuck

in a cycle of anger behav ior trig gered by anger feel ings.

WHY ARE THESE MYTHS SO PERSISTENT?

The belief that anger is caused by exter nal fac tors, and that anger-

inspired aggres sion is unavoid able, is psy cho log i cally attrac tive for

many peo ple. It allows them to excuse and jus tify acts of aggres sion

by sug gest ing that they had lit tle choice in the mat ter. Buy ing into

any of the anger myths cements the rela tion between anger feel ings

and anger behav ior. It makes anger behav ior seem nat u ral and even

healthy.

Yet the rela tion is nei ther nat u ral nor healthy. All of the myths

serve to keep you think ing that there is noth ing you can do, that you’re

doomed, with no space to move and make other choices. In this book,

we will help you expe ri ence the pos si bil ity of sep a rat ing anger feel ing s

from anger behav iors. What you do in response to anger feelings is

deter mined far more by choice than by your nature.


TAKING CHARGE: ASSERTING PERSONALRESPONSE-ABILITY IN YOUR LIFE

So the ques tion is, Who really is respon si ble when anger and hurt show

up? The per cep tion that some one has caused your pain turns you into

a vic tim. You see your self as threat ened, under siege by another

person’s wrongdoings. When some one else is respon si ble, you can turn

your focus away from your pain. You can con cen trate on list ing the sins

per pe trated against you and the injus tices that you have suf fered—and

for a while you may even feel better.

But let’s pause for a moment here and ask: Has this relief ever

lasted? Or has it instead led to more anger, ten sion, and suf fer ing? How

has blam ing worked for you? Has blam ing and blow ing up moved you

closer to lead ing the life you want to live? Could it be that anger

behav ior is more about the per son hav ing it (you) than about the

person who seems to trig ger it?

You may be won der ing whether we are about to turn on you and

tell you some thing like “It’s not other peo ple or other things that make

you angry. It’s you—only you are respon si ble for how you feel.” Relax!

We’re not about to do that, sim ply because blam ing and beat ing up on

your self is no more help ful than blam ing and beat ing up on oth ers.

Blam ing is neg a tive energy that puts you and oth ers down. It feeds

anger, tends to inflict need less harm, and keeps the anger cycle going.

There are alter na tives to this cycle, and two of them stand out: under -

stand ing and com pas sion.

Is it pos si ble that the whole pro cess of assign ing blame does n’t

work—that the answer to your ques tion about who’s respon si ble can’t

be found by find ing some one to blame? Per haps it might help to put

the ques tion in a slightly dif fer ent way: Who is response-able? Who is

truly able to respond when anger shows up? Who can choose to

respond dif fer ently? Who has the power to change things in your life?

Like it says in the Cole Por ter song, “You, you, you!”

Think about what you can really con trol in your life. What is

really impor tant to you, and what do you want to live for? Hon est

answers to such ques tions are likely to point you in new direc tions.

Ulti mately, the idea of response-abil ity is a very pos i tive and lib er -

at ing one. It begins by rec og niz ing that it is dif fi cult, if not impos si ble,

to con trol your anger thoughts and feel ings—as much as you may want

to. The next part involves acknowl edg ing what you can con trol—


namely, what you do with your hands, feet, and mouth when anger

shows up. This issue of con trol is an impor tant one, and we’ll dis cus it

thoroughly in chap ter 4.

Respon si bil ity for anger behavior begins with you. It is time to

face up to that real ity. This is good news, because your behav ior is

some thing you can con trol—even though it may feel hard to con trol

what you do when anger thoughts and feel ings seem to pos sess you. For

the moment, ask your self these questions:

+ Where has anger behav ior got ten me, and what have I

gained from it?

+ How much energy have I been tying up in man ag ing my

anger feel ings?

+ Do I have the cour age to take a stand and respond

differently to anger feel ings?

THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE

Anger has cost you dearly in many domains of your life. The myths

sug gest ing that anger is bio log i cally inev i ta ble and help ful, and that

anger vent ing is use ful, are all wrong. Buy ing into these myths works

against you. The prin ci ple of response-abil ity sug gests a new and dif fer -

ent pos ture with respect to your anger and your life. This pos ture has

the power to pull the rug out from under neath your anger, because it

focuses on what is impor tant to you and what you can do and change.

It weak ens the ten dency to point the fin ger at oth ers. It also weak ens

your insis tence that oth ers should change what they do first. The ACT

approach puts you in charge.



WEEK 1

Anger is nei ther instinc tual nor caused by oth ers

Point to ponder: By tak ing response-abil ity for my anger, I can

take charge of my life.

Ques tions to con sider: What myths of anger have I bought

into to jus tify my behavior? Have I let anger con trol my life?

Am I will ing to take response-abil ity for what I do about my

anger and with my life?

Chapter 2

Struggling with AngerIs Not a Solution

Clinical experience has shown that, ironically, it is often the

patient’s very attempts to solve the problem that, in fact,

maintain it. The attempted solution becomes the true problem.

—Giorgio Nardone and Paul Watzlawick

You want to change your anger. Per haps your wish to change fol lows

some event where you lost con trol. Or per haps you’ve strug gled a long

time, look ing des per ately for a way to stop the dam age anger does to

your rela tion ships and your life. You’ve reached this moment—read ing

this book—because you no lon ger want be trapped in your old anger

responses.

ASSESSING THE COSTS OF ANGER

The strug gle with anger has cost you—in the coin of energy, of deep

and pain ful regret, of dam age to your clos est bonds. You sense that

your efforts at anger con trol—and all the ways those efforts have

failed—have left a deep mark on you.

You prob a bly already have a pretty good idea how much respond -

ing with anger has cost you in the var i ous areas of your life. Have you

expe ri enced bro ken and strained rela tion ships? Sick ness and poor

health? Exces sive stress? Dif fi cul ties at school or work? Prob lems with

alco hol or other sub stances? There may also be other costs that are less

obvi ous, or that you choose not to think about.

The fol low ing exer cise on assess ing the costs of anger can help

you exam ine exactly what anger has cost you in your life. This will also

give you a better idea of what you have missed out on by respond ing to

anger feel ings with anger behav ior.

You may already have an idea that some thing is wrong. This is a

good start ing point. The dif fi cult work is fac ing exactly what is wrong

and com ing to terms with what anger has cost you. You will see that

we are ask ing you to look at your per sonal expe ri ence with anger.

Nobody is more of an expert about your expe ri ence than you. Are you

will ing to get started? If so, then get a pen and a sep a rate piece of

paper. Let’s begin.

ASSESSING THE COST OF YOUR ANGER

1. Interpersonal Costs

Sum ma rize the effects of anger on your rela tion ships. Have

friend ships changed or been lost? Have fam ily mem bers been alien ated?

Do they avoid you, or do you avoid them? Have you lost a mar riage or

roman tic rela tion ship due to anger?

2. Career Costs

Sum ma rize the effects of anger on your career. Have you ever

quit or been fired from a job because of anger? This includes overt

anger as well as pas sive aggres sion—slack ing off, being late, being less


pro duc tive, bad-mouth ing peo ple, gos sip, and so on. Have cowork ers

ever been alien ated by your anger? Has your anger affected your school

career (rela tion ships with teach ers, admin is tra tors)?

3. Health Costs

Describe the effects of anger on your health. There is a lot of

research show ing that anger stresses your body. Do you have any phys i -

cal prob lems that could be stress related? Do you tend to get sick

often? Do you expe ri ence phys i cal symp toms dur ing or after anger

episodes (such as chest pain, mus cle ten sion, upset stom ach, head -

ache)? Do you some times rumi nate and stew over anger to the point of

feel ing sick or keyed up or hav ing insom nia?

4. Energy Costs

Out line how anger has affected your energy. Does your anger

some times exhaust you? Have you put time and energy into dis ap point -

ing efforts at con trol? Have your attempts to man age anger left you

feel ing dis cour aged, fatigued, or worn out?

5. Emotional Costs

What has anger cost you emo tion ally? How much guilt do you

carry for dam age done by your anger? How do regrets about your anger

epi sodes affect you emo tion ally? Are you affected by rela tion ship losses

due to anger? Do you suf fer depres sion or hope less ness in the wake of

your anger?

EXAMPLE ASSESSMENT

Here’s how Rachel, an insur ance claims adjuster, com pleted her assess -

ment of the costs of her anger:

1. Interpersonal Costs

Mom and I fight, and then we don’t talk for months. Two rela tion ships

with boy friends got screwed up because of fight ing. Rod and Jeanine—both

friend ships blew up in a fight. Quit the Uni tar ian sin gles group because of a


has sle with Bill (the leader). Tend to get angry when I’m just start ing to date

some one and they don’t do things like I expect.

2. Career Costs

Lost three jobs because of has sles with a boss. Blew a pro mo tion

because I told Carl (old boss) he was a cheap shit. Has sles with Annie made

life shit at the job I had before that.

3. Health Costs

Upset stom ach when I stayed pissed for a while. Get ting sick a lot.

(Does anger lower resis tance?) I worry about my heart some times, because it

beats hard the whole time I’m angry.

4. Energy Costs

I’m always try ing to watch myself, try ing not to get into it with peo ple

who piss me off. I guess that’s tir ing. The anger kind of ener gizes me and

then I crash later. It’s like I’m on some thing, but it wears off and I go down.

I get bummed after I get into it with some one— much later I kick myself for

los ing con trol.

5. Emotional Costs

Lone li ness—there’d be more peo ple in my life if I did n’t get angry.

Maybe I’d have a boy friend if lit tle stuff did n’t get me so pissed off. Depres -

sion, dis ap point ment, things not turn ing out and all that shit. Think ing about

Lou—screw ing up a good thing. I think about him a lot.

Com plet ing your assess ment of the costs of your anger is a cru cial

first step in hon estly fac ing how anger has dam aged you and con tin ues

to do so. But it has a fur ther pur pose. It’s impor tant that you rec og nize

and feel the effects of your anger despite all your efforts, prom ises, and

res o lu tions to change it. So let’s start there.


YOUR ANGER MANAGEMENT HISTORY

In the pre vi ous exer cise, you expe ri enced the costs asso ci ated with

your anger. Many of these costs prob a bly led you to do this or that to

avoid them in the future. For instance, you may have blamed your self

or others for your hurt. You may have insisted on your being right and

oth ers being wrong. You may have blown up and yelled at peo ple.

Have these strat e gies made you less angry and hap pier with your life?

Have they moved you in direc tions you want your life to take? Here,

we want you to expe ri ence with what you have done about your anger

and how well that’s worked for you. You need to feel this in your heart

and not just under stand it in your mind. Why might this be?

The sim ple and hon est answer is that we don’t want you to go on

doing more of the same, espe cially when old anger man age ment strat e -

gies haven’t worked for you. Suc cess ful anger trans for ma tion begins

with fac ing—openly and hon estly—each attempt at anger man age -

ment, each past strat egy, and seeing how it has worked. This isn’t easy,

which is why we’ve designed an exer cise to help you iden tify clearly

what hasn’t worked for you.

TAKING STOCK OF YOUR ANGER

MANAGEMENT HISTORY

Right now, we’d like you to look back at your past attempts to man age

and con trol anger. This exer cise will help you orga nize your mem o ries

across dif fer ent sit u a tions and rela tion ships. The exer cise is a bit long,

so we’ll do it in two parts. The left-hand col umn of the grid lists cat e -

go ries of peo ple who might trig ger anger. If you’ve expe ri enced anger in

rela tion to one or another such per son in your life, fill in the cor re -

spond ing boxes in col umns 2 and 3 (or use a sep a rate piece of paper for

your answers). You can skip the peo ple trig gers that don’t apply to you.

In col umn 2 you should describe how you cope to man age and

con trol your anger when it’s ignited. What do you do with the feel -

ing? Do you try to keep it from erupt ing? Do you push it down? Do

you talk about it? Do you tell your self not to react? Do you try to

relax? Do you reach for a drink? Do you beat your self up for past

episodes with lots of neg a tive self-talk? Do you prom ise peo ple you’re

going to change?


In col umn 3, go ahead and describe the out come of your anger

man age ment efforts. Have you suc ceeded in reduc ing your anger

feelings? Have you suc ceeded in con trol ling your aggres sive behav ior?

Have you been able to pro tect your rela tion ships? Have you dealt with

trig ger ing feel ings (shame, guilt, stress, frus tra tion) in ways that don’t

ignite anger? Think about both the short term and the long term as

you respond to these ques tions. Most impor tantly, what have you

traded in or lost because of anger man age ment and con trol efforts?

Exam ples could be lost time or energy, frus tra tion, missed oppor tu ni -

ties, or dimin ished rela tion ships or activ i ties that you might enjoy or

care about. Some of these losses may be sim i lar to the costs you out -

lined in the pre vi ous exer cise.

People triggers Coping strategy

(my behaviors)

Outcome

Parents

Other family members

Supervisors

Coworkers/subordinates

Friends

Partner/spouse

Other drivers


When doing an exer cise like this, it can some times be help ful to

read how another per son filled it out. Take a look at the notes that

Andy, a body shop fore man, made on his anger man age ment his tory

exer cise.

People triggers Coping strategies (my behaviors)

Outcome

My father criticized me. I act tough, withdraw, and stay away fromhim.

No relationship. Talkat Xmas on thephone.

My sister puts medown.

I tell her nothingabout myself, giveher no ammo.

No relationship. Feelalone.

Boss criticizes mywork.

Get cold, distant, tellhim he doesn’t knowwhat he’s talkingabout.

Used to be friends.Now he doesn’t invite me to do thingsanymore.

Coworkers give mesloppy work.

Only give themwritten feedback toavoid blowing up.

People resent mynotes, make jokesabout me.

Friends don’t keeppromises or aren’t ontime.

I don’t say anythingand pretend I’m okay about it.

I withdraw and stopcalling them. Feeldisgusted. Thinkabout it for long time.

Girlfriend disses orpressures me.

I get sarcastic, orwithdraw and stuff it.

Feel resentful andmore distant; losesexual interest.

Other drivers cuttingme off.

I seethe. Shout atthem in my car; layon the horn.

Get the finger a lotfrom other drivers.Two speeding ticketsin the past year.

In the first part of this exer cise we looked at peo ple who might

trig ger your anger. In the sec ond part, you’ll iden tify feel ings that might

trig ger your anger. Exam ples of such feel ings are listed in the left-hand

col umn. If you’ve expe ri enced anger in response to any of the feel ings


listed, fill in the cor re spond ing boxes in col umns 2 and 3. Again, you

can skip the trig gers that don’t apply to you.

Emo tional trig gers are often less obvi ous than peo ple trig gers, so

you may find it harder to iden tify them. Pay spe cial atten tion to feelings

you don’t like or that have an unpleas ant qual ity to them. As before, in

col umn 2 you should describe what attempts you make to man age and

con trol anger when it’s ignited. In col umn 3, describe the out come of

your anger man age ment efforts. Again, focus on what you’ve traded in

or lost because of anger man age ment and con trol efforts. Some of these

may be sim i lar to the costs you described pre vi ously.

You can use a separate piece of paper for your answers if they

won’t fit eas ily on the chart.

Emotional triggers Coping strategies

(my behaviors)

Outcome

Frustrated

Ashamed/guilty

Stressed

Afraid

Controlled

Disappointed

Threatened


Here’s how Andy filled in this part of the exer cise. Notice that he

cus tom ized the feel ings cat e go ries to more closely reflect his per sonal

sit u a tion.

Emotional triggers Coping strategies

(my behaviors)

Outcome

Frustrated I try to keepfrustration to myselfor come up with areason for why things have gone wrong.

Sometimes I hitsomething (like thewall) to release myfrustration.

Ashamed/guiltyafter screwing up

Try to say nothingand just fight forcontrol of how I feel.

End up feeling worse for it; push peopleaway and they resent me.

Feeling stressedwhen rushing or late

Try to stay controlled and keep my voicecalm.

Eventually lose it;blow up if slightestthing goes wrong.

Feeling controlled by my girlfriend

I get sarcastic andwithdraw.

Feel resentful, distant, “not there.” We fightabout this.

When Andy reviewed this exer cise, it was clear that his usual

cop ing strat e gies (being cold, dis tant, con trolled, with drawn, sar -

castic, or silent) were n’t work ing. That’s because the out come was

usually to get so dis tant from oth ers that rela tion ships were dam aged

or lost.

After com plet ing the anger man age ment his tory exer cise, we’d

like you to take stock of what you’ve learned. Have your efforts to

con trol anger worked? Have you kept rela tion ships safe from the

corrosive effects of your anger? Have all your efforts to man age rage

still ended in epi sodes of lash ing out? Have your efforts to keep anger

feel ings down actu ally kept them down? Or has anger con tin ued to

eat at you?


If you’re like a lot of peo ple, noth ing you’ve done to con trol anger

has really worked. You keep doing things you regret. You keep dam ag -

ing the ones you need and love. And you keep trad ing in more and

more of your life flex i bil ity in an effort to get a han dle on your anger.

What does your heart, your gut, tell you about your his tory with

anger? In your heart, do you feel sick about it? Help less? Hope less?

What does your expe ri ence tell you about your response to anger?

Take a moment to take stock.

Anger is a pow er ful feel ing that can sweep away your stron gest

resolve. Despite your efforts to man age and con trol anger, you still pay

for it. You keep feel ing bad about your self and those who trig ger your

anger. You want to change, but no amount of remorse or effort seems

to stem the force of your ignited rage. This is not a time to apply more

will power, either. You’ve already been down that road. We can tell you

this much: more willpower is not the solu tion. You only need to be

will ing to adopt a dif fer ent strategy—take a dif fer ent path.

I’M STUCK AND AT MY WITS’ END; NOW WHAT?

Feel ing stuck and at your wits’ end is an impor tant moment, because

there is a les son here that can change your life. Know ing in your mind

and heart—with abso lute certainty—that the things you’ve done

because of anger and to manage anger don’t work is the first step on a

new road. Admit ting and accept ing that your anger feel ings are stron -

ger than your efforts to stop them cre ates a par a dox i cal new free dom.

You can do some thing new— because all your old, tried-and-true ways

to cope aren’t work ing and will not work.

This is a water shed. It starts with acknowl edg ing that your expe ri -

ence is your best guide. What does that expe ri ence with anger tell you?

Go ahead and look back at your responses to the ear lier exer cises. The

sit u a tion prob a bly looks hope less. Yet there is hope, because there is

another way. Hope starts with giv ing up on and stop ping all your old

anger man age ment and con trol efforts. They have n’t worked and will

not work in the future. They’ve kept you trapped with a false belief

that con trol is pos si ble, that anger man age ment is pos si ble, and,

perhaps, if you work harder at it or trade in a lit tle more of your life,


things will get better. Your expe ri ence tells you this isn’t so: so as long

as you keep try ing, you keep fail ing.

Every thing you will learn here rests on this under stand ing: All

the old strat e gies for man ag ing anger lead to a dead end. They hurt you.

This is why you need to stop them. Your expe ri ence tells you as much.

It is time to let go of old, unwork able strat e gies.


There is a way out of the anger trap. You can lib er ate your self from the

strug gle. But the answer lies in a place you’ve never looked before. It

will be dif fi cult, it will feel back wards, it will mean head ing toward what

you instinc tively rush away from. All that said, we prom ise that you

can do it. What you learn in this book will work as long as you’re

willing to accept what you expe ri ence rather than fight it. And this

new path will give you relief from the strug gle, the losses, the fail ures.

All you need to do now is keep read ing . . . and do the work.


WEEK 2

Assess ing the costs of my anger

Point to pon der: Anger has cost me dearly. Lib er at ing myself

from the strug gle with anger is a way out of the anger trap.

Ques tions to con sider: Have I (and oth ers) suf fered enough

from the effects of my anger behav ior? Am I will ing to give up

try ing to man age my anger feel ings and go down a dif fer ent

path?

Chapter 3

The Heart of the Struggle

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame:

how else could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

—Friedrich Nietz sche

ENDING THE TUG-OF-WAR WITH ANGER

The answer to your strug gle with anger may lie in the heart of the

strug gle itself. There’s a real pos si bil ity that your strug gle with anger

has some thing to teach you, some thing it can reveal to you. Feel ing

anger is not your enemy. It’s a mes sage that some thing needs attend ing

to. We will help you find out what that is and how to attend to it.

You’ve already taken the first step toward under stand ing the

strug gle. You’ve exam ined the costs of your anger. You’ve faced all

your past attempts to man age and con trol anger thoughts, feel ings, and

actions. And, if you’re still read ing, then you’ve faced the dif fi cult

truth that noth ing has really worked. No mat ter how hard you tried,

no strat egy to man age anger has ever helped long term. The costs are

still there.

The health i est response is to give up the strug gle with anger, to

sur ren der. By sur ren der ing you will expe ri ence—per haps for the first

time—what your strug gle with anger has really been about.

It seems like you’ve been fight ing a tug-of-war with the anger

mon ster pull ing at one end of the rope and you pull ing at the other

end. Yet no mat ter how hard you’ve pulled to defeat the anger mon -

ster, it has always come back stron ger, pull ing harder at the other end.

While you were engaged in this end less and exhaust ing fight, with both

your hands firmly clench ing the rope, it prob a bly never occurred to you

that you don’t need to win this fight. What would hap pen if you

decided to stop fight ing? You could sim ply sur ren der and end the fight

by drop ping the rope. The anger mon ster would still be around, throw -

ing the rope at you, try ing to get you back into the fight. But it’s your

choice whether to pick up the rope again and con tinue the bat tle, or to

keep your hands free so that you can start doing the things you really

care about.

Drop ping the rope and end ing the strug gle cre ates a door way. If

you aren’t con sumed with the effort to con trol anger, there may be an

open ing to see and expe ri ence some thing deeper, some thing that the

strug gle has masked.

DISCOVERING THE HEART OF THE STRUGGLE

You may won der how you can actu ally drop the rope. The first thing

you would do is give up being a man ager of anger. You can stop fight -

ing against the feel ing, the waves of upset. And when you give up

being a man ager of anger, you can start becom ing an observer of the

anger pro cess. You can watch your thoughts, feel ings, and impulses. In

a moment, we’ll give you some tools to help you learn to keenly


observe your expe ri ence—both in the moment and ret ro spec tively. But

first, what should you watch for?

Anger—In Five Easy Pieces

There are five com po nents to the anger pro cess. Each one can

offer vital infor ma tion about what lies at the heart of the strug gle.

Pre-Anger Feel ings

The first com po nent is your pre-anger feel ings. These are emo -

tions, as well as the phys i o log i cal sen sa tions, that pre cede the anger

upset. Most typ i cally, pre-anger emo tions are pain ful, some thing you

want to avoid. Shame and guilt are exam ples—both feel ings attack

your basic sense of self-worth. They cre ate a feeling that you are bad or

wrong at the core. Anger is a clas sic way to avoid these feel ings.

Instead of you being wrong, anger turns the tables and makes it the

other per son’s fault.

Another pre-anger emo tion is hope less ness. A lot of male depres -

sion, which has hope less ness at its root, shows up in rela tion ships as

anger. The expe ri ence of hope less ness is muted by the high-energy

emo tion of anger or dis gust.

Other pre-anger feel ings include hurt and anx i ety. Both cre ate

alarm reac tions. With hurt, you feel the sud den risk of aban don ment;

with anx i ety, an immi nent dan ger. Anger con verts alarm into a drive

for action and the fear goes away—at least for a while.

Bodily sen sa tions can also play a role in your pre-anger expe ri -

ence. Ten sion in your abdo men, shoul ders, or jaw can be a har bin ger of

upset. Feel ings of heat or heavi ness, agi ta tion, head ache, shak i ness,

and the like are fre quently mentioned pre cur sors to out bursts of anger.

Anger behav ior can sub merge or mask all of these unpleas ant

sen sa tions.

Trig ger Thoughts

The sec ond com po nent of the anger pro cess is trig ger thoughts.

These include pain ful mem o ries and images elic ited by the pro vok ing

inci dent. Rec ol lec tions of past hurts, fail ures, losses, and so on can

become unpleas ant to the point where you just des per ately want to

avoid them. Trig ger thoughts also tend to be good/bad, right/wrong

judg ments about your self or other peo ple and their behav ior. In fact,


anger is vir tu ally impos si ble unless your mind comes up with some type

of judg ment. Trig ger thoughts usu ally paint you as a vic tim and blame

some one else for your pain. They often con tain broad labels such as

stu pid, incom pe tent, self ish, crazy, lazy, wrong, jerk, and so on.

Anger Feel ing

The third com po nent is the anger feel ing itself. It can show up as

either a grad ual or sud den surge of arousal. This arousal typ i cally con -

sists of auto nomic ner vous sys tem responses, such as a pound ing, rapid

heart beat, fast breath ing (hyper ven ti la tion), trem bling hands or legs,

clenched jaw, mus cle ten sion, and feel ing hot or flushed.

Impulse to Act

The arrival of the anger feel ing usu ally gen er ates a fourth com po -

nent of the expe ri ence—an impulse to act. This impulse often feels

indis tin guish able from the trig ger thoughts and anger feel ing; but if you

watch care fully, you can see them as dis tinct stages of the pro cess. The

high energy gen er ated by esca lat ing anger gets more unpleas ant as it

grows, and there’s a nat u ral pres sure to dis charge this anger phys i cally.

You want to do some thing—now—and so you begin to file through a

short list of responses learned dur ing past upsets.

Anger Behav ior

Up until this moment, you have n’t actu ally done any thing. To be

sure, you have expe ri enced quite a few changes on the inside, but

noth ing much has hap pened on the out side. Yet the pres sure is mount -

ing. Now it seems that this pres sure will lead nat u rally to the last and

most destruc tive com po nent of the pro cess, which is often some form

of aggres sive behav ior. At the dra matic end, this includes shout ing,

finger point ing, flounc ing away, hit ting, break ing things, and the like.

Some times anger behav ior is more sub tle—rolled eyes, a look of dis -

gust, cross ing your arms and look ing away, a deep con temp tu ous sigh,

cut ting com ments, sar casm, gos sip, emo tional and phys i cal with drawal,

and so on.

You can cycle through these five anger stages again and again

dur ing a sin gle anger epi sode, and likely see this play ing out mul ti ple

times over the course of a day.


Arthur’s Story

Take Arthur, for exam ple—he and his girl friend got into it fol -

low ing a com plaint she made that Arthur isn’t very affec tion -

ate. Arthur’s pre-anger feel ing was hurt with accom pa ny ing

tight ness in his stom ach. Trig ger thoughts included mem o ries

of other com plaints, as well as the fol low ing self- talk: “What a

hyp o crite! She never hugs, never touches me, unless I start it.”

Then the anger feel ing ignited—build ing fast—and included

the sud den impulse to do some thing. In this case, it was

Arthur say ing some thing sar cas tic: “That’s funny, com ing from

some one with all the warmth of an ice tray.”

The argu ment did n’t stop there. Arthur’s girl friend

came back at him: “Remem ber when I hugged you at your

birth day party, and you would n’t even hug me back because

you did n’t like the music I had on? Your arms just hung

there.” Now Arthur had a new pre-anger emo tion—shame. It

felt awful—like some thing was really wrong with him. He

did n’t want to feel that, so he started rev ving up for a real

rage. His trig ger thoughts included an image of his girl friend

turn ing away when he tried to kiss her later at the party, and

the judg ment—“I’m sick of her shit. She’s totally self ish and

ungiving.” Now came a flush; his heart started beat ing like a

trip-ham mer. Big anger feel ings equal a big need to do some -

thing. Arthur roughly pushed his girl friend out of the way

and stormed out of their apart ment.

Five min utes later, his cell phone rang. “I don’t need

this,” she said. “I won’t be here when you get back.” Sud -

denly Arthur was afraid—he felt the icy wind of aban don -

ment. This feel ing was too hard to stay with. He could n’t

stand it. So the words came to him: “What a bitch!” He

suddenly needed to say it out loud, and so he did. “You’re a

bitch,” he told her, and then hung up the phone.

BECOMING AN IMPARTIAL OBSERVER

If you want to really watch some thing, you have to plant your self firmly

in the pres ent moment. The past and the future, where our thoughts so


often dwell, must be aban doned in favor of the here and now. This is

the place you are any way, and where your life is lived out.

You do this, first of all, by decid ing to do it. You decide you want

to under stand the heart of the strug gle, to fully expe ri ence every thing

that hap pens when you get angry. You can make this choice any

time—even right now—and com mit to it.

The sec ond way to stay in the pres ent is by lis ten ing to your body.

This is achieved by notic ing your breath ing, your beat ing heart, your

pos ture, and your areas of ten sion. You observe any sig nif i cant sen sa -

tions in your body: areas that hurt or feel hot, heavy, or shaky. This is

not an easy skill to learn, which is why we have exer cises for you to

prac tice every day, so that you can apply these skills when anger arises.

If you want to apply these skills in the heat of the moment, it’s best to

prac tice them at other times first.

The third way to stay in the pres ent is to notice and keep track of

your con scious mind—your thoughts, emo tions, and drives. Through -

out an anger epi sode, you need to keep ask ing your self these questions:

+ What am I feel ing besides anger?

+ What judg ments am I making—what good/bad, right/

wrong thoughts are going through my mind?

+ What am I driven to do right now?

The final strat egy for stay ing in the pres ent is to use a sim ple

man tra to remind your self of your role as observer: “Lis ten and watch;

do not judge.” For the observer, there is no right or wrong—there is

just see ing and learn ing. And if you find your self judg ing, then sim ply

observe that—with out judg ing the judg ing. In the end, a judg ment is

just another thought.

The Advantage of Being an Observer

As an observer you can sim ply observe what is going on (your

expe ri ence) with out hav ing to take sides or decide what is good or bad,

right or wrong. Being an observer allows you to end the strug gle; it’s

one way of drop ping the rope in your tug-of-war with anger.

This is eas ier said than done. Anger thoughts and feel ings are so

strong and pow er ful that they can seem to rule you. In the moment you

expe ri ence them, anger thoughts and feel ings are dif fi cult to dis tin guish


from your own sep a rate iden tity. It becomes dif fi cult to see that, while

thoughts, wor ries, and feel ings are part of you, they aren’t you. They

come and go. You don’t own them. You can’t make them go away if you

dis like them. You can’t hold on to them, even if you like them.

A “good” thought (“I am con fi dent”) is not more like you than a

“bad” thought (“I’d like to hit this guy”). They are both part of you,

and they come and go all by them selves.

Think of your self as being like a house. Just as a house pro vides

the space for peo ple to live in along with all their fur ni ture and other

belong ings, we pro vide the space in which our expe ri ences can occur.

The struc ture of the house remains the same, regard less of who lives in

it, how it’s fur nished, or how it’s dec o rated. The house does n’t care

about who lives in it, how peo ple fur nish it, or what they think or feel.

The house sim ply pro vides the space in which all that liv ing can occur.

What Chess Can Teach You About Your Anger

Another way of learn ing to be an observer is to think about a

game of chess. You have two play ers, a black team and a white team,

with pieces that move in spec i fied ways. Each team wants to cap ture

the other’s king. When one player makes a move, the other player can

coun ter with a move that is offen sive or defen sive, stra te gic or reac tive.

Now imag ine for a moment that you’re part of this game. The

pieces of one team are your anger trig gers (your “but tons”) and the

pieces of the other team are your responses. For exam ple, when the

black knight attacks (“This idiot is so lazy!”), you move your bishop to

a square where he threat ens the knight that attacked you (“I’ll show

him!”).

Look ing at your expe ri ence, ask your self if this has ever worked

with your anger. Even when you’ve man aged to knock out one of your

anger trig gers, has n’t another one emerged to pro voke you into action?

There’s a tricky prob lem in this chess game because, unlike a real

chess game, it is not a game with dif fer ent play ers. In this sym bolic

game, the two oppos ing teams are really one team: you. The thoughts,

feel ings, and actions on both sides of the board are your thoughts, feel -

ings, and actions. They all belong to you. No mat ter which side wins,

one part of you will always be the loser.

How can you win a com pe ti tion where your own thoughts and

feel ings com pete against each other? It’s like wag ing a war against

your self. This is a war you just can’t win. So the bat tle goes on, every


day, for years. You feel hope less and sense that you can’t win; and yet

you can’t stop fight ing.

Let’s step back for a moment and look at this sit u a tion from a

different angle. What if we said that those chess pieces aren’t you,

anyway? Can you see what else you might be? How about the board?

Let’s sup pose you are the board in this game. This is an impor tant role,

because with out the board, there is no game. The role of the board is

to pro vide a plat form where it can all hap pen, and to pro vide the grid

on which the play ers move.

As the board, you can see all the pieces, and you can sim ply

watch all the action with out tak ing sides. If you’re a player, the out -

come of the game is very impor tant: you’ve got to beat that anger as if

your life depends on it. But the board does n’t care which team seems

to be win ning or los ing. The game just hap pens; who wins does n’t

make any dif fer ence to the board. Being the board is a great relief,

because you don’t have to take sides. You’re sim ply the place where

the game is played out.

When observ ing your anger thoughts and feel ings, you notice

that some of them are pain ful and scary. You may not like what you

think or feel and wish you felt dif fer ently. As the board, you can

choose to be an impar tial observer who watches the game as it pro -

gresses. You need not be a player, with a stake in the out come of each

game. Remember, your thoughts and feel ings—all of them—are part of

you. But they are not you.

The chess anal ogy may help you when you’re hav ing trou ble

separating your self from your anger thoughts and feel ings. You can tell

your self, “I am not on one team or the other. I am the board.”

MENTAL DVD

Some times it’s impos si ble to track every thing that’s hap pen ing dur ing

an anger epi sode. Things move too fast and furi ously. You get swept

into the upset and stop notic ing key thoughts and feel ings. But you still

want to under stand what hap pened—to look beneath the sur face of

that anger and see what’s hid den there. Men tal DVD is a great

technique for recov er ing for got ten details of a recent expe ri ence.

Start by clos ing your eyes and tak ing a deep breath. As you

release it, try to let some of the ten sion drain out of your body. Now


imag ine a white hoop of light just above your head—like an over sized

halo. The hoop of light starts to descend, sur round ing first the top of

your head, then mov ing down to your face, neck, and shoul ders.

Try to relax each area of your body as the hoop passes. Take

another deep breath and visu al ize the hoop descend ing to your upper

arms and chest; then to your fore arms and abdo men. Take another

breath and watch the hoop descend to your hips, thighs, and calves,

then dis ap pear beneath your feet.

With your body more relaxed, take one last deep breath, and

focus your atten tion on the anger epi sode you want to under stand.

Start in the mid dle—where you’re fully angry—and imag ine you’re

watch ing every thing on a DVD. Observe the scene for a min ute.

You’re really steamed. On this disk, there’s a voice-over of your

thoughts—lis ten to what’s going on in your mind.

Now hit the but ton that takes you back to the begin ning of the

epi sode, before the anger started. Press Play. Watch the action; lis ten

to what’s being said. What are you feel ing in that moment before the

anger? Are you hurt, ashamed, scared, hope less, guilty, feel ing wrong or

unwor thy? Pay atten tion to your pos ture and your voice. Try to make

con tact with what’s hap pen ing inside you just before the anger surges.

Now notice any mem o ries or images that have been trig gered.

What are your thoughts? Do you have trig ger thoughts that paint the

other per son or the sit u a tion as bad or wrong? Keep lis ten ing until you

hear the words of this inner mono logue.

Now the anger is com ing. Watch as it grows. Notice what it feels

like, what it makes you want to do. Be aware of any impulses to speak

or act on your anger. Don’t do any thing about your feel ings. Just be the

house or the chessboard (as in the sec tions above), and let your

feelings be. Just observe them.

MAPPING YOUR ANGER PROCESS

Now that you have some tools to help you observe your anger, it’s time

to map how your anger really works—the pro cess of your anger. For

the next week, closely watch each anger epi sode. Use the tech niques

we’ve sug gested to remain a here-and-now observer of your expe ri ence.


Adopt the house or chessboard per spec tive, and watch what’s going

on. Or use the men tal DVD to recap ture an anger event that was too

over whelm ing to track as it unfolded. What have you learned? Record

as much detail as you can in the fol low ing anger map exer cise. Use a

sep a rate piece of paper for your answers if you need more room.

YOUR ANGER MAP

Pre-Anger Feelings

Describe the emo tions and phys i cal sen sa tions you noticed this

week pre ced ing your anger. Is there typ i cally one feel ing, or are there

sev eral that may show up at the begin ning of your anger pro cess? How

do these feel ings affect your sense of self-worth? Do you find your self

want ing to escape or sup press them? Are there phys i cal sen sa tions pre -

ced ing anger that are pain ful or uncom fort able? Does anger help to

push them out of your aware ness?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Trigger Thoughts

Write down as much as you can remem ber about any pain ful

images or mem o ries that come up in anger sit u a tions. What judg ments

do you typ i cally make about other peo ple? Which of your expec ta tions

or rules for liv ing do they fail to live up to? Note how your trig ger

thoughts may change your pre-anger feel ing or dis tract you from them.

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


Anger Feeling

Does your anger build slowly, or sud denly ignite full force? Does it

some times stick around and fes ter for long peri ods of time, like a low-

grade cold? Does it feel good, sweep ing away hurt or shame? Does it

feel scary or dis turb ing? Write every thing you’ve learned as an observer

of your anger, every detail about the feel ing and its effect on you. Note

par tic u larly what hap pened to your pre-anger feel ings and any changes

in your trig ger thoughts.

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Impulse to Act

What did you want to do this week when your anger surged?

What images or thoughts came to mind? Write down everything you

imag ined say ing or doing. You may have done only some or per haps

none of those things, but it’s impor tant to iden tify as many anger-

driven impulses as pos si ble. How did you decid e whether or not to act

on them?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Anger Behavior

Write down what you actu ally did, via ges tures, facial expres sions,

words, tone of voice, or overt behav ior (acts of aggres sion, vio lence) as

a response to your anger. How did the aggres sion feel at the moment?

How did it affect your anger (both the emo tion and phys i cal


sensations)? As time went on, how did your feel ings change, if at all,

regard ing your anger behav ior?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

EXAMPLE ANGER MAP

Here’s how Julia, a thirty-eight-year-old nurse in a con va les cent

hospital, com pleted the anger map exercise.

Pre-Anger Feelings

Embar rass ment when I’m crit i cized. Feel ing I’m not good enough, that

I’m a messed-up per son. It’s the same feel ing with my hus band, with the

head nurse, with my kid when he’s on my case for some thing. It’s a hor ri ble

feel ing—like I’m a piece of crap on some one’s shoe and I just want to stop it.

I notice that I want to throw some thing between me and the feel ing—so it

can’t stab at me. The phys i cal stuff is like this sick, sink ing feel ing and this

“all is lost” feel ing. It’s in my stom ach, and it goes along with feel ing I’ve

done some thing wrong.

Trigger Thoughts

Images of past embar rass ing mis takes. Then my first thought is, “No,

shut up, don’t say that.” And then I notice myself think ing, “They should n’t

be doing this to me; they don’t know what they’re talk ing about.” Some times

that turns into some thing wrong with them, some flaw or another that I can

pick on. And I just focus on that, and try to remem ber exam ples of it—sit u a -

tions where they’ve really screwed up. I expect peo ple to be kind and sup -

port ive, and when they’re not, I really hate that. Really judge it. The trig ger

thoughts seem to put space between me and the embar rass ment, the feel ing


I’ve done some thing wrong. It’s like I’m dis tracted by them; think ing those

thoughts instead of feel ing bad.

Anger Feeling

It comes over me in a few sec onds. I’m hot, my heart starts pound ing.

I’m totally zeroed in on the per son I’m pissed at. And sud denly that’s all

there is—the anger. It’s so big, I’m instantly over whelmed. I’m scared that

I’m going to explode (what ever that means). There’s an incred i bly tight

feeling in my gut. And it’s like I’m speed ing, in this big rush that’s over -

powering me. It’s kind of too much. But I don’t know how to stop it. All the

other feel ings are gone now, blasted out of exis tence by the anger. I have no

aware ness that I ever felt ashamed. It’s just, these . . . holes. Gotta get away

from these holes.

Impulse to Act

I want to shout, scare them, make them go away. I want to shout,

“My hus band is a hyp o crite.” And some times I have an image of slap ping

him. And I def i nitely want to slap my son and scream that he needs to be

more respect ful. A mil lion things flash through my mind with my head

nurse. I want to shout, “Why don’t you try my job instead of sit ting at

that desk all day? When’s the last time you did bed pans, when’s the last

time you got crap on your uni form?” And while I’m imag in ing all these

things I could say, I’m scared at the same time for what would hap pen,

how I’d screw up the rela tion ships. There’s a voice in my head say ing:

“You better not.”

Anger Behavior

I flounce away from my hus band and won’t talk to him. I go totally

cold. I do yell at my son. I called him “a punk, with no f—ing grat i tude”

yesterday. With my boss, I go, “Fine, fine, what ever you say,” in this really

cold voice. I notice now, what ever I do, it does n’t make my anger better. I

go on feel ing upset and hor ri ble. I think yell ing or get ting real icy will help

it, but my heart just keeps on pound ing and I have to just wait till it

sub sides.


THE BIG QUESTION: ARE YOU READY FOR A CHANGE?

The path out of your anger and into your life will take you to places

you’ve never been before. Some of these places may be scary and

difficult for you to expe ri ence, at least early on. Yet there is some thing

at the core of this strug gle that is soft and has extraor di nary value:

protecting a del i cate human being (you) who fears two things—that

peo ple will judge and reject you and that you will reject and hate

your self.

The fear is that you will finally be seen—by yourself or oth ers—as

unwor thy, bro ken, or bad. The only hope is to stay hid den. Safe. Pro -

tected from those pre-anger feel ings by trig ger thoughts and rage. That

vul ner a ble self you’ve been shield ing has always felt like it could be

bro ken or muti lated if the arrows of judg ment were ever allowed to hit

home. So you remain vig i lant, on guard, and angry.

Anger is a way of pro tect ing that del i cate human being. It masks

the feel ings of inad e quacy, hurt, shame, and guilt and keeps them out

of view. Think, for a moment, what it feels like to have your but tons

pushed. When oth ers, either by their words or by their actions, push

your but tons, you become angry, in part because those but tons rep re -

sent aspects of your self (includ ing your past) that are pain ful, hurt ful,

and embar rass ing to acknowl edge openly and directly. A lot of us feel

this way. When our but tons are pushed, the total ity of who we are is

right in our face, and not entirely by our own doing. Anger is a nat u ral

reac tion to this pro cess. We feel wronged and then we act on it to

defend that frag ile self that has been brought out in the open; this way

we can push those unwanted feel ings and old hurts and pains back out

of view.

Here’s a novel idea: What if all this pro tect ing and defend ing and

hid ing is the prob lem? What if there is no need to hide any thing?

What if let ting go of those pain ful feel ings, of those moments of hurt

and judg ment, of the fear of being seen and rejected is the begin ning of

an answer?

You’ve tried the old way—run ning away from the pain—long

enough. It has n’t worked. It only cre ates more prob lems; the strug gle

just keeps play ing out in your life. Are you ready for a change? What if

you were to stop strug gling and drop the rope? What if you started to

be an observer rather than a mem ber of one team or the other?


Sim ply notic ing what you feel means begin ning to accept what

you feel. It does not mean lik ing what you feel or agree ing with what

some body has done to you. It only means being aware of what you feel

and acknowl edg ing it for what it is (a thought, a feel ing, a sen sa tion, a

mem ory, an image), with out tak ing sides or doing any thing about it.

In the com ing chap ters, we’ll pro vide you with sev eral exer cises

that will help you become an expert observer.


Pro tect ing your vul ner a ble self from hurt and pain using anger and

blame is at the core of your futile strug gle with anger. This has not

worked; instead, it has caused numer ous prob lems in your life. As you

learn to acknowl edge anger thoughts and feel ings for what they really

are, it will become eas ier to give up your strug gle with anger. Learn ing

to become an observer is a skill that can bring remark able relief from

suf fer ing.


WEEK 3

Dis cov er ing the heart of my strug gle with anger

Points to ponder: I can learn to become an observer of, rather

than a par tic i pant in, my anger. I am not my thoughts and

feel ings.

Ques tions to con sider: Do I really need to hide and pro tect

myself from feel ing hurt, shame, fear, and inad e quacy? Am I

will ing to learn to be an observer of anger feel ings and

thoughts rather than par tic i pat ing in a strug gle with them?

Chapter 4

Controlling Anger andHurt Is the Problem

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of

throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

—Gautama Siddhãrta

If you’re read ing this book, chances are that a good deal of your life has

been col ored by anger, rage, unre solved hurt, and pain. This may be

hard for you to face squarely. You may still believe that man ag ing and

con trol ling anger is a way out. Yet you’ve been down that path, and it

has n’t solved your anger prob lem. Each so-called solu tion—each

attempt to stop or slow down the pain, to man age and con trol it—has

got ten you to this place. And you’re still angry.

We know that most seem ingly sen si ble solu tions to anger

problems are really about con trol. The voice in your head tells you to

con trol anger. This voice comes from the belief that anger is dan ger -

ous; that it’s impos si ble to feel anger and still live a good life.

The voice is lying to you. Con trol ling anger does n’t work in the

same way that con trol works in other areas of life. In this chap ter you’ll

learn why. You’ll also learn how to begin let ting go of the anger con trol

agenda and get on with your life.

TWO PLACES WHERE CONTROL DOESN’T WORK

Try ing to con trol areas of your life where you don’t have much con trol

is a surefire guar an tee of dis ap point ment and anger. There are some

sit u a tions where desir able choices seem non ex is tent—severe ill ness,

decep tion by a part ner, or get ting laid off from a job (to name a few).

Peo ple can usu ally see that such sit u a tions are out of their con trol, and

they don’t beat them selves up for not being able to make things turn

out dif fer ently.

Most angry peo ple feel they must strug gle might ily to get a grip

on their angry thoughts and feel ings. Strug gling with what you think

and feel may be how you have learned to cope with your anger. You

may even beat your self up for not being able to con trol your hurt, pain,

and dis ap point ment. You’re not alone; it’s nat u ral to think that you

should be able to con trol them.

But the prob lem with con trol strat e gies is this: they work just

enough to keep your pain ful feel ings at bay, but in the long run you’re

left feel ing angry and hurt. Once this cycle of strug gle and con trol is

set into motion, it can take over and become the dom i nant fea ture of

your life.

The good news is that there are still some con struc tive choices

avail able. But you have to learn to dis tin guish what you can con trol

from what you can’t. To reach this goal, you’ll need to face how your

strug gle for con trol has failed you with your anger. We’ll help you look

deeply into this strug gle so that you come to see it for what it is.

Every one’s anger stems from two main sources: their strug gle to

con trol other peo ple and their struggle to con trol pain ful emotions

such as anger and shame.


You Can’t Control Other People

Angry peo ple go to great lengths to exert con trol over other

people. You may achieve an illu sion of con trol with infants and very

young chil dren, but it’s impos si ble to even fool your self when it comes

to exert ing con trol over older chil dren and adults. The goal of con trol

will fail 99 percent of the time.

When you try to con trol oth ers, you’re oper at ing under the

mistaken assump tion that other peo ple in your life ought to behave,

think, and act like you think they should. The plain and sim ple truth is

that other peo ple don’t like feel ing con trolled, and nei ther do you.

Trying to con trol oth ers sends the mes sage that you do not accept

them for who they are. You are expres sing mis trust of their judgment—

in effect, putt ing them beneath you.

Here your mind machine is feed ing you two lies. First, it is tell ing

you that you have the right to con trol oth ers. The sec ond lie is that

you actu ally have the abil ity to con trol oth ers. Both are fun da men tally

false. You can’t force your way into the minds of other peo ple, just as

other peo ple can’t force their way into your head to dic tate how you

feel, think, or behave. If you think you can do this, then you’re only

kid ding your self. When you act to con trol oth ers, we can give you a

100 percent guar an tee that they will even tu ally find ways to resist and

run from you. We can also prom ise you that your efforts will leave you

feel ing frus trated and angry.

Con trol over Oth ers Is Illu sory: A Self-Inven tory

Below is a list of behav iors driven by efforts to con trol other

people. All these efforts even tu ally fuel anger, frus tra tion, con flict,

bitterness, and alien ation. Take stock of your behav ior as you go

through the list and check off each state ment that applies to you:

0 I rou tinely offer advice that is unwanted by plead ing,

per suad ing, or lec tur ing.

0 I repeat a point over and over in an effort to get oth ers

to align their thoughts and views with mine.

0 I com mu ni cate by tell ing rather than dis cuss ing.

0 I use “shoulds,” “musts,” “had bet ters,” and sim i lar

absolute state ments when com mu ni cat ing.


0 I use my anger to get my mes sage across or force com pli -

ance in oth ers.

0 I use dog matic state ments, stub born non com pli ance,

closed- mind ed ness, or chill ing silence to influ ence others.

0 I impose my choices, beliefs, and stan dards on oth ers

with unyield ing stub born ness of con vic tion.

0 I dis count the behav iors, val ues, thoughts, opin ions, and

choices of oth ers as wrong headed and in need of my

correction.

0 I pro cras ti nate or give a half hearted effort as a way to get

back or get even.

0 I tend to be impa tient with myself and other peo ple.

0 I feel uneasy about loose ends and strive for clo sure,

even if it hurts me or oth ers.

The fol low ing exer cise will help you see the prob lems that arise

when you try to con trol other peo ple. All you need to do here is imag -

ine that you are a pup pe teer. The show you are about to put on is

entitled Mag i cal Mind Con trol over Peo ple Who Make Me Feel Pissed Off.

THE HUMAN PUPPETEER IN

MAGICAL MIND CONTROL

Take a moment to think of the char ac ters involved in a recent anger

epi sode where you were try ing to get oth ers to do as you willed. Then,

go to your imag i nary pup pet box and pull out the mar i o nettes, one for

each char ac ter in the show. From your perch high above the stage, you

begin to play out the anger scene below you. Try to play it out as you

would have wanted it to go. As you do, notice how easy it is to get all

the char ac ters to do as you wish. You can make them bend over,

gesture, and do what ever you want them to do. If you think “That

person is mak ing a stu pid request,” you can sim ply replace what that

per son says with what ever you wish them to say in that moment. You

can get them to think and say what you’d like to hear, and to show

emo tions that you think are appro pri ate in the sit u a tion. You and only

you have con trol over the pup pets.


Now, let’s mix this up a bit. In the sequel, real peo ple dressed to

look like mar i o nettes are the char ac ters in this show. As before, you

are high above the stage in your perch. The actors are still con nected

to the strings. But as you try to replay the scene, you notice that the

char ac ters are not doing what you are try ing to will them to do. You

want them to go left, but they go right. You say “They should n’t be

doing that,” and you pull the strings, but now you feel them pull ing

back, resist ing you. You try to force them to think and say this or that

but hear them say ing some thing else. You become frustrated because

you really don’t know what they’re think ing and feel ing and you have

no way to get them to do what you wish. You feel anger build -

ing—the human pup pets are run ning this show, not you!

The real-life mar i o nettes in this sequel are play ing out the scene

just as they should, because they are human beings. Unlike the

puppets, they con trol their choices and actions, what they say and do

on this stage. You, mean while, are pow er less over them. But you are

not pow er less over how you respond to them. You have con trol over

what you do here. You can either fight the char ac ters and engage in a

strug gle, or you can let go of the strings and sim ply allow the char ac ters

to do as they would do, think as they would think, feel as they would

feel, with out try ing to change how they play out their roles. You can

sim ply watch, trust ing that the char ac ters know what is best for them,

that they may choose to do this or that, and that in the end, they—

not you—are hold ing their own strings. You hold your strings.

You Can’t Control Your Emotional Reactions

Rec og niz ing that you hold your own strings in life will put you

face-to-face with your own pain, hurt, and other emo tions, both

positive and neg a tive. You may think, “Well, if I can’t con trol other

peo ple, then maybe I can con trol the neg a tive energy and thoughts

that arise in my mind and body when I hurt and feel angry.” This

sensible- sounding solu tion is unfor tu nately another dead end. Con trol

over your emo tional reac tions is just as illu sory as your desire to con trol

other peo ple.


Anger Is Not a Real Hot Stove

Life has taught you how well con trol works to help you avoid

phys i cal sources of pain and harm in your life. When you were very

young, some one prob a bly told you not to touch the hot stove [or the

iron or the heater] because you could get hurt. Keep ing your hand

away from touch ing what ever was hot kept you safe and pre vented

injury. This very sen si ble and rea son able strat egy has repeated itself

over and over again in both obvi ous and sub tle ways in your life,

because it gen er ally works to keep you alive and unharmed.

But using this same strat egy to man age or run from pain ful

experiences that are hap pen ing inside you has n’t worked nearly as well.

When unpleas ant thoughts show up and you try to stuff them, guess

what you get? More unpleas ant thoughts. When emo tional hurt and

pain show up and you try to avoid them, guess what you get? Some

tem po rary relief, but at a cost of more pain and suf fer ing later on. The

prob lem here is that the same pro gram ming that helps you stay alive

and safe when real dan ger shows up does n’t work when you apply it to

unpleas ant thoughts and feel ings happening inside you.

Mar tha’s Story

Mar tha was a long time mas ter of sup press ing her anger and

hurt. On the out side, she was a calm and cool oper a tor, wife

and mother of three chil dren, and an active mem ber of her

church. She had stress ors: run ning the home and tak ing care of

most of the house work, car ing for her ail ing par ents who lived

nearby, shut tling the kids to and from a full sched ule of

after-school activ i ties, all the while try ing to main tain a via ble

home busi ness. Few could tell that these stress ors weighed

heavily on her. She had devel oped a rou tine of low fric tion.

There was lit tle con flict in her fam ily, and Mar tha always main -

tained a calm demeanor, greet ing every one with a big smile.

All of this came to a head when her hus band expressed

inter est in tak ing a weeklong fish ing trip with his friends. That’s

when Mar tha exploded in a rage of tears, “Go ahead—take a

trip! You always put your self first any way!” Her hus band

reacted defen sively, for he too had a very busy work sched ule

and had n’t got ten away by him self for many years. This was a


legit i mate need. Mar tha like wise had legit i mate needs: time

with her hus band, a break to recharge and unwind, and sup port

and help man ag ing the fam ily and her other obli ga tions. The

con fron ta tion quickly esca lated. Both aired old hurts and ugly

feel ings, and they flung accu sa tions back and forth about things

that hap pened long ago. Finally, Mar tha said, “I can’t take this

bullshit any more” and stormed out of the room. Then she took

the kids with her to stay with her par ents.

This ugly exchange was the result of years of sup pressed anger

and emo tional pain. Small issues were never addressed openly. Feel ings

were never dis cussed or acknowl edged. Emo tional and psy cho log i cal

bat ter ies were slowly and steadily depleted and never recharged. From

the out side, Mar tha, her hus band, and her fam ily seemed free from

anger and con flict—they fit the Ozzie and Har riet image. Yet, things

had been pil ing up over time and eat ing at every one lit tle by lit tle. So

one day a seem ingly small inci dent broke the pro ver bial camel’s back,

with disas trous con se quences. This is what hap pens when you try to

sup press anger.

Sup pres sion is about ignor ing legit i mate needs and fail ing to

accept what is going on inside you. It fol lows from an unwill ing ness to

address con cerns openly, for fear that open ness will be use less and

uncom fort able. Mind traps fuel it. You know the self-talk, the voice in

your head that tells you that liv ing the good life means that you must

shut out all hurt, pain, and unpleas ant emo tions and mem o ries. The

result is that you deny your human ity and may find your self hurt ing

and upset inside. Mean while the energy grows and, like a pow der keg,

the energy explodes in anger. This is what hap pens when you fight a

bat tle with your unpleas ant feelings and thoughts.

You’ve been down this road. You’ve prob a bly treated your anger

much like you would when faced with a red-hot stove. You try to pull

away because anger, like the hot stove, seems dan ger ous. So when

anger shows up, you must do some thing about it. Yet, pull ing away

from a hot stove or other poten tial sources of real pain and harm rarely

works in the same way when applied to your pain ful thoughts and

emo tions.

Why You Can’t Con trol Anger and Emo tional Pain

Numer ous stud ies (for exam ple, Purdon 1999 and Wegner 1994)

have shown that when peo ple act to get rid of emo tional and


psy cho log i cal pain, they end up instead with more emo tional and psy -

cho log i cal pain. All of what we know about deal ing with human

emotional pain boils down to this sim ple fact. You can’t keep your

unpleas ant thoughts and emo tions from burning you in the way you

can pull your hand away from a hot stove. There’s no on and off switch

you can use to high light or deep-six your thoughts and emo tions.

In fact, try ing to con trol unpleas ant emo tions, inter nal bodily

sensations, and even dis turb ing thoughts will mostly back fire. You’ll get

more of the very thing you don’t want to think and feel. This hap pens

because your body is a sys tem with a built-in sys tem of feed back

loops—your brain and ner vous sys tem. When you act against parts of

this system—sup press ing, avoid ing, stuff ing pain ful feel ings—it sends

out rever ber a tions to all other parts of the sys tem. This mind-body

con nec tion is like a sen si tive spiderweb in this respect. Every thing is

con nected.

Sup pres sion and con trol take enor mous effort. As in a spi derweb,

the effort required to keep one part of the sys tem in check sends small

vibra tions out to all other parts of the web. The vibra tions even tu ally

return to what ever it is you are try ing to keep at bay. Suppressing

unpleas ant expe ri ences—be they thoughts, mem o ries, anger, anx i ety,

hurt, or bodily sen sa tions—actu ally makes mat ters worse. Why?

Maybe we can draw a par al lel with try ing not to think about a

pink ele phant. Go ahead and try! This is pretty much impos si ble,

because the thought “Don’t think about the pink ele phant” is itself,

obvi ously, a thought about a pink ele phant. The more you try not to

have this thought, the more of this thought you’ll have. The same is

true of unpleas ant thoughts, feel ings, and some inter nal bodily sen -

sations. The take-home mes sage here is this: You can’t win a fight

against your self.

Such strug gles with your self are fueled largely by an unwill ing ness

to make space for every aspect of your expe ri ence and iden tity. Your

mind would like you to believe that to be happy and to live life fully,

you must get rid of your pain ful and unpleas ant thoughts, feel ings, or

mem o ries. To have the “good life” means that you must be pain free. So

you strug gle to man age, stuff, bury, deny, or med i cate the hurt and pain.

All this time spent con trol ling tends to get in the way of what most peo -

ple wish to spend their time doing—the expe ri ences and rela tion ships

that you’d prob a bly much rather be hav ing.

The sim ple les son here is this: Control works against you when

applied to unwanted and pain ful aspects of your pri vate world, just as it


works against you when you try to impose it on other peo ple. In both

cases, you are send ing a mes sage that dimin ishes your own and oth ers’

human ity and dig nity. This is no way to live.

To get out of this cycle, you’ll need to first come to terms with

the fact that delib er ate con trol is not a solu tion. It is the prob lem. Your

thoughts and feel ings—the good, the bad, and the ugly—always go

with you wher ever you go. These expe ri ences define what is uniquely

human about you. You can not escape or avoid them so long as you’re

alive. They are part of you. To act against them is to act against your

very being. To act against them means that you will remain stuck in

hurt and anger.

Sup pres sion and Con trol Are About Pain Avoid ance:

A Self-Inven tory

All efforts to sup press and con trol anger are fun da men tally about

pain avoid ance. The goal is to make the hurt go away. This goal is

unat tain able; it’s a dead end. Cov er ing up hurt with anger does not

make hurt go away. Instead it bot tles the energy. As in Mar tha’s case,

it stores it for release at a later time. The release later on might take

the form of unfet tered anger. Or it may show up as depres sion, anx i ety,

panic attacks, or phys i cal symp toms such as head aches, ulcers, back -

aches, and fatigue. We don’t have to con vince you that none of these

are good for you.

Let’s have a look at how you may be sup press ing your emo tional

pain and hurt. Below is a par tial list of behav iors that sug gest you’re in

the habit of sup press ing your anger. Read each state ment care fully, and

think about them as they apply to your life. Take stock of your behav -

ior as you go through the list, and put a check mark in front of each

state ment that applies to you.

0 I tend to hide my pain ful feel ings for fear that noth ing

good can come from emo tional trans par ency.

0 I act to push out of my mind upset ting thoughts or

memories.

0 I avoid feel ing unpleas ant emo tions and act to reduce

them quickly.

0 I habit u ally stuff my feel ings or use dis trac tion, alco hol,

or other drugs and strat e gies to feel better.


0 I resort to anger to mask other unpleas ant emo tions and

thoughts.

0 I see my emo tional hurt and pain as real bar ri ers to liv ing

the life I want and becom ing the per son I want to be.

0 I tend to with draw from prob lems, even if that means

they are left unre solved.

0 I refuse to air per sonal prob lems, needs, or con cerns.

0 I focus on main tain ing the appear ance of hav ing it all

together.

0 I avoid con tro ver sial or trou ble some top ics.

0 I sec ond-guess my own choices.

0 I play the role of peo ple pleaser by putt ing myself sec ond.

0 I let my hurt and frus tra tion pass with out dis cuss ing it.

0 I pre tend that I don’t have resent ment, or that all is rosy

in my life.

The fol low ing exer cise will help you more fully expe ri ence the

futil ity of try ing to con trol your anger and emo tional pain. It will also

show you why strug gling with unpleas ant feel ings and thoughts makes

them worse.

YOU’RE WIRED TO A PERFECT

POLYGRAPH, AND ZAP!

To begin, find a quiet place where you can sit and get com fort able.

Imag ine that you’re con nected to the best and most sen si tive poly graph

machine that’s ever been built. Because this poly graph is incred i bly

effec tive in detect ing anger, there is no way you can be aroused or

angry with out the machine detect ing it. Now here is your task (it

sounds quite sim ple): All you have to do is stay relaxed—just stay

calm—while think ing about a recent epi sode where you felt really

pissed off. If you get the least bit angry or aroused, how ever, this

machine will detect it.


We know how impor tant it is to you to be suc cess ful here, so

we’re going to give you a spe cial incen tive to suc ceed. If you can stay

com pletely relaxed while you imag ine the anger scene, then we’ll give

you $100,000! (Funny money here, but try to imag ine that you would

really get that cash pay out.) The catch is that the poly graph is designed

to give you a deadly shock if you show the slight est bit of anger or

arousal. So long as you stay relaxed, you won’t die. But if you get the

least bit angry or aroused—and remem ber, this per fect poly graph will

notice that imme di ately—the machine will deliver the shock and kill

you. So, just relax!

Take a moment to con sider how impos si ble it would be to sur vive in

this sit u a tion. You might react by say ing to your self, “Oh my God! I’m

get ting tense and angry! Here it comes—zap!” The tini est bit of anger or

arousal would be ter ri fy ing for you or for any other per son in this sit u a tion.

There is no way to stay calm when you are already con nected to

the per fect poly graph: your ner vous sys tem, which is better than any lie

detec tor at search ing out anger or arousal. If you’ve been strug gling to

squelch your anger feel ings, the very workability of your life may seem

to be at stake. When anger and emo tional pain show up, you strug gle

to keep them at bay. But you only get angrier and feel more pain. Your

ner vous sys tem kicks in and guess what you get? You get zapped!

CHOICES, ACTIONS, DESTINY: THREEAREAS WHERE YOU DO HAVE CONTROL

Con scious, delib er ate, pur pose ful con trol works well in the exter nal

world out side your skin wherever the fol low ing rule applies: “If you

don’t like what you are doing, fig ure out a way to change it or get rid of

it using your hands and feet. Then go ahead and do it.”

Unfor tu nately, this rule does not apply to inter nal events that

occur inside your skin, such as anger feel ings, pain ful thoughts, and

other emo tions. Rather than try ing to change these, you are far better

off refo cus ing your atten tion and expending your energy on the three

areas where you do have con trol: your choices, your actions, and your

des tiny.


Only You Have Control over the Choices You Make

You have full response-abil ity for the choices you make. Coming to

terms with this can feel both sober ing and lib er at ing. For instance, you

can not choose whether you feel hurt or angry. Yet you can decide what

you do with that hurt and anger. You can choose to rumi nate on your

hurt and anger, run from it, or bury and hide it. You also have the

option of doing noth ing about the feel ings and thoughts. You can decide

to let them be or actively meet them with com pas sion and patience.

As you learn to rec og nize that every moment of your life is about

choices, you free your self from being a slave to your impulses, your

resentments, and your anger. In essence, you’re free to choose how you

respond to trig gers for anger and what you do with your emo tional pain

and anger when you feel it. It’s your choice whether you behave in a

kind, for giv ing, or accept ing fash ion while rec og niz ing your pain ful

feel ings; or whether you give in to your impulse to either deny your

anger or act on it.

Tak ing Stock of Where You Have Response Choices

Let’s take a look at some spe cific places where you have the

power to choose:

+ Meet ing your hurt and anger with com pas sion and

forgiveness ver sus strug gling with it to stuff or deny it

+ Hear ing what oth ers have to say (even if you dis agree

with them) ver sus refus ing to lis ten and giv ing them

advice they don’t want

+ Speak ing words of accep tance and under stand ing ver sus

words of judg ment and blame

+ Let ting go of old hurts, resent ments, and pain ful mem o -

ries ver sus hold ing on to them

+ Prac tic ing patience with oth ers and your self ver sus

blow ing up in anger and frus tra tion

+ Act ing in ways that uphold your human ity and dig nity as

well as that of oth ers or act ing in ways that shame and

demean

+ Mov ing for ward in your life with anger or strug gling with

it and remain ing stuck


BRAINSTORMING ALTERNATIVES

TO ANGER BEHAVIOR

For this exer cise, you’ll need to recall an upset ting sit u a tion that

brought on feel ings of anger, blame, rage, and other unpleas ant

thoughts and feel ings. (We pro vide some exam ples below.) Once you

have the scene clearly in mind, go ahead and list the main trig gers

(whether peo ple, thoughts, or feel ings), bodily sen sa tions and emo tions

that you felt, and, lastly, how you coped or behaved in this sit u a tion.

Be as spe cific as you can. This exer cise has sim i lar i ties to the anger

man age ment his tory you com pleted in chap ter 2, but this exer cise will

take you further.

Here’s how Andy, an eigh teen-year-old gro cery clerk, com pleted

the first part:

Peo ple trig ger: My father crit i cized me.

Feel ing trig ger: Feel ing frus trated and hurt.

Emo tions and bodily sensations: Irri ta ble. Anx ious. Heart is rac ing and

pound ing in my chest. Surge of adren a line. Tense in neck and shoul ders.

Feel ing sad and humil i ated.

My anger behavior (how I coped): Acted tough. Told him to “shut the

fuck up.” Called him “a bit ter old man and a lazy son of a bitch.” I left and

drove to my friend’s house and vowed to keep away from my dad. Spent time

vent ing with friends about how much of a dick he is. Smoked a few

cigarettes. Tried to think about rea sons why my dad has to be such a jerk.

Now comes the more dif fi cult part: brain storm ing alter na tive

choices to anger behavior. Start with the trig gers and see how they

ulti mately led to self-destruc tive anger behav ior. Rewind the tape, and

for each trig ger, see if you can brain storm other choices, apart from

anger behav ior, you had avail able to you in that moment. For a hint,

take a look at your cop ing strat egy. You’ll want to come up with fun da -

men tally dif fer ent choices than the ones you listed under cop ing strat e -

gies and anger behav ior. As you do, be mind ful that there are no right

or wrong answers here. These are your choices—what you do and can

do for your self. Later on, we’ll guide you through this pro cess more

deeply. With prac tice, you’ll find that you do have a broad range of

choices when anger and hurt show up. Act ing on anger is one choice

among many other choices.


After Andy fleshed out this scene, he then went back and

brainstormed other choices he had avail able to him. Here’s how he

com pleted the brain storm ing part of the exer cise:

Peo ple trig gers: I had abso lutely no con trol over what my dad decided to

say. My dad’s choice of words and his actions are not my respon si bil ity. He

can say or do as he wishes. I can choose to sim ply lis ten. I’ve heard this stuff

before. I don’t have to let my trig gers be engaged. I can just let the words be

with out react ing to them.

Feel ing trig gers: The frus tra tion and hurt I feel are my own. I can sim ply

notice what my body is doing here. I can decide not to push the feel ing away,

but not to use it as fuel for anger. I can just let it be, and expe ri ence it for

what it is.

Emo tions and bodily sen sa tions: There is really noth ing I can do about

what my body is doing right now. What I’m feel ing is unpleas ant, but I don’t

need to run from it. I can choose to sit still with the energy and do noth ing to

make it go away. I can allow the energy go away on its own.

My anger behav ior (how I respond): I can see that I have lots of choices

here. I can choose to lis ten to my dad or leave. I can choose to respond to him

in a calm voice by let ting him know that I feel hurt and sad when he says

those things to me, even though I’m boil ing over inside; or I can con front him

with a loud voice, name-call ing, scream ing, and leav ing. I can extend com pas -

sion to my dad and let him know that I do love him, even though his words

drive me crazy. Or, I can act in ways that do not reflect my love for him as

another human being. I can decide not to run from my dad, because this

relationship is impor tant to me. I can choose to carry the hurt and pain with

me to my friend’s house, or let it go. I can choose to gossip and vent with my

friends about my dad, or I can choose not to do that. Vent ing really did

nothing to resolve the sit u a tion with my dad. I could have taken a walk instead

of reaching for a cig a rette. I also could have decided to do some thing less

damaging to my health, like lis ten ing to some music.

Above all, Andy began to appre ci ate that how he responded to

this sit u a tion was his own respon si bil ity. Only he could do things to

meet his needs and uphold his val ues. The same is true of you. The

choices you make can lead you to anger and mis ery or the life you want

to cre ate and nurture.


You Can Control Your Actions

Your actions, in this chap ter, are any thing you do with your

hands, feet, and mouth—how you respond to the thoughts, mem o ries,

physical sen sa tions, and feel ings dished out by your body and mind.

Let’s say you feel hurt. Then you act on it; per haps you lash out

with blame and accu sa tions, or you shut down by with draw ing. These

are both actions. Alter na tively, you might do noth ing about the hurt

and sim ply notice it for what it is (not for what your mind says it is).

You focus on doing things in your life that mat ter to you, even if that

means tak ing the hurt along for the ride. Either way, you’re doing

some thing. But your choice of actions, in a very real sense, helps define

who you are and what your life will be about.

Con trol works extremely well when you apply it to your actions.

For instance, if you want to clean up your yard, you can go and get a

rake and get started. If you want to per form an act of kind ness, you can

do some thing nice for some one. If you want to change the color of the

walls in a room in your home, you can paint them. You may decide to

recon nect with an old friend by pick ing up the phone and call ing or

send ing an e-mail. You can exer cise reg u larly and watch what you eat

and drink to pro mote your health and well-being. You can take an

aspi rin for a head ache, see a doc tor for an ill ness or injury, and take

time out to relax. The com mon ele ment in these life exam ples is this:

They all involve actions—what you do with your hands, feet, and, at

times, your mouth. Other peo ple can see what you do and hear what

you say. This is a crit i cal point in terms of your anger.

You know how dif fi cult it is to con trol the feel ing of anger. You

may also have dif fi cultly con trol ling anger behavior. Impulses to act are

strong, and it’s easy to feel over whelmed by them. But even an impulse

to act is still a feel ing. There is a split sec ond between the impulse and

the action when you can inter vene, deter min ing what you’re going to

do and how you’re going to respond. You can step back and ask your -

self, “Is it really nec es sary to act on this emo tion [or this thought]?”

You have con trol in this moment, no mat ter how pow er ful the anger

feel ings, hurt, and impulses to act.

Ask your self what has cost you more, your anger feel ings or your

anger behav ior. If you were born on this planet, your anger behav ior

has cost you far more than your anger feel ings. Nobody else knows

what you truly think and feel inside. Your anger only man i fests itself to

oth ers through what you do with your hands, feet, and mouth. You’ve


paid for your actions, not your thoughts or feel ings. Your actions are

what have got ten you into trou ble. This is where you need to take

charge and make changes.

You Can Control Your Destiny

Con trol ling your des tiny is the real prize. The cumu la tive effect of

your choices and your actions will deter mine what your life will

become—in other words, your des tiny. This does not mean that the out -

come of your choices and your actions will always be what you desire;

remem ber, you can’t con trol what oth ers do, think, and feel. And there

are many events in life, both good and bad, that occur outside your con -

trol. What most peo ple hope for is that the cumu la tive effect of their

choices and actions will yield a sense that their life was well lived. Every -

thing you do from here on out adds up to that. Choice is des tiny.


Fig ure 1. “Emo tional Avoid ance Detour” was con cep tu al ized and illus trated by Dr.

Joseph Ciarrochi and Dr. David Mer cer, Uni ver sity of Wollongong, New South

Wales, Aus tra lia. Reprinted with per mis sion of the authors.

CHOICES AND ACTIONS—

MY LIFE AND MY DESTINY

Imag ine you are driv ing through life on a long road toward a moun tain.

Let’s call this moun tain your “Value Moun tain.” It rep re sents every -

thing you care about in your life, and what you want to be about as a

per son. This is the place you want to go. You are driv ing hap pily along

the road toward your Value Moun tain, and sud denly anger jumps out

and blocks the road. You slow down and try to avoid hit ting anger.

You quickly turn right, and find your self on the “con trol and emo tional

avoid ance” detour. But this detour sim ply goes round and round in a

cir cle. You stay there because the anger, pain, hurt, and shame are still

block ing the road. So you go round and round, wait ing, hop ing, but

get ting nowhere. You feel bad about get ting nowhere. You feel mad at

the anger and shame for block ing the road. You watch as your life

seems to be tick ing by.

This is what hap pens when peo ple engage in a strug gle with their

unpleas ant thoughts and feel ings. They feel stuck, going round and

round in cir cles and get ting nowhere. Nobody wants their life to be

about driv ing on the con trol-and-avoid ance detour. And yet it’s so

easy to get caught in this detour when anger and pain show up.

But there’s an alter na tive. You can take the anger, pain, unpleas -

ant thoughts, and phys i cal sen sa tions with you on your ride through

life with out act ing on them. You can choose to drive for ward with

them—in part because choos ing the alter na tive costs you. The first

and most impor tant task here is to make a choice to do something

fundamentally dif fer ent about your hurt, pain, and anger. The sec ond

part requires that you be will ing to take what you’re think ing and

feeling with you as you engage in actions that move you for ward.

Unless you do, you’ll con tinue to feel stuck and trapped by your anger.


Recognizing the Struggle for Control and Letting It Go

Let ting go of the strug gle for con trol is not as hard as it may

seem. It begins with you mak ing a deci sion to do so. The hard est part is

putt ing your deci sion into action. One of the chief bar ri ers to action is

fail ing to rec og nize the dif fer ence between what you can con trol and

what you can not con trol. Fall ing back into the old con trol agenda

where con trol is not pos si ble is a sure fire way to stay stuck and to allow

anger to side track you from what you want your life to be about.

To get unstuck and stay that way, you’ll need to develop greater

ease in the early detec tion of sit u a tions where con trol is pos si ble in

your life; those are the places where you need to spend your time and

effort work ing. The exer cise below is designed to help you to do just

that. You can think of it as a sort of review and prep a ra tion for the

hard work to come.

DISCRIMINATING BETWEEN

WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT CONTROL

Read each state ment and then, with out much thought, cir cle the

number next to each sit u a tion you believe can be con trolled by you.

Don’t cir cle the num bers where you think the sit u a tion is out side your

con trol.

1. What some one else is think ing

2. The choices I make

3. Oth ers being on time

4. How I respond to other peo ple

5. What other peo ple value and care about

6. What I say in a sit u a tion

7. The thoughts I may have from time to time

8. The direc tion I want my life to take

9. How oth ers respond to me (my choices, actions, and

expressed thoughts and feel ings)


10. How I behave with respect to other peo ple

11. The choices oth ers make

12. How I speak with other peo ple

13. The behav ior of pets (mine and oth ers’)

14. How I respond to my thoughts and feel ings (pos i tive,

neg a tive, neu tral)

15. Whether other peo ple fol low rules or stan dards

16. Whether I am on time and fol low through with

com mit ments

17. What oth ers do

18. Whether I fol low cer tain rules or stan dards

19. Whether other peo ple like me

20. Whether I pre pare for tasks and do my best

21. What I feel at any point

22. What I do with my pre cious time on this earth

23. Expe ri ences in life that do not involve me directly

(weather, equip ment fail ures, polit i cal deci sions)

24. My val ues and what I care about

Now go back and look at the num bers you cir cled. All the

odd-num bered state ments rep re sent sit u a tions where you have abso -

lutely no con trol. You may imag ine oth er wise; but if you go back and

think care fully, you will see that you truly do not have con trol in any

of these sce nar ios.

Your mind may say you do or “should have” con trol of some of

these odd-num bered situations. This is part of the prob lem. Remem ber,

when you strug gle to con trol what you can not con trol, you will only

end up feel ing hurt, angry, and dis ap pointed. Anger needs this strug gle

to grow. When these sit u a tions show up, you need to rec og nize them

for what they are, stop, and then look for places where you can exert

con trol over your choices and actions with an eye on what you want

your life to be about.


The even-num bered situations rep re sent a sam pling of life

circumstances where you do have con trol. They share one thing in

com mon: they represent your actions, what you say or do.


The path out of anger is learn ing to rec og nize the dif fer ence between

what you can and can’t con trol. This entire book is about learn ing to

live out this impor tant dis tinc tion. You can not con trol your emo tional

reac tions or what other peo ple do. You can con trol your choices and

actions, what you say, and what you do, includ ing how you respond to

your anger, to your pain, and to other peo ple. You can con trol your

efforts and con tri bu tions toward life and the wel fare of oth ers, both at

home and at work. You can choose how you respond to your thoughts,

mem o ries, feel ings, phys i cal sen sa tions, and choices you’ve made. You

can con trol how you respond to other peo ple—with out try ing to con -

trol them. The chal lenge for you will be to drop the rope in your

tug-of-war with anger in sit u a tions where con trol won’t work, while

learn ing to focus on areas of your life where you do have con trol. All

the remain ing chap ters are about fos ter ing your ability to choose, take

action, and move for ward in your life. They are about max i miz ing

control where you have it.


WEEK 4

Try ing to con trol the uncon trol la ble

is the prob lem

Point to pon der: Con trol is often illu sory. The trick is to

recognize what you can con trol—your choices, your actions,

your des tiny.

Ques tions to con sider: Where do I need lessly try to apply

con trol in my life? What have my vain attempts at con trol cost

me? Am I will ing to give up try ing to con trol what I can not

con trol so I can move for ward with my life?

Chapter 5

How Your MindCreates Anger

Thinking that gets us into trouble: “Other people must

treat me considerately and kindly and in the way I want

them to treat me. If they don’t, they deserve to be

blamed, damned, and punished for their inconsideration.”

—Albert Ellis

We are hardwired to eval u ate every thing that hap pens to and around

us. Our minds must decide if an expe ri ence is dan ger ous or safe,

harmful or benign. We’ve sur vived as a spe cies by iden ti fy ing things

that threaten us and avoid ing them. So far, so good. These built-in

responses help keep us alive. They lead us away from pain and dan ger,

while push ing us toward nour ish ment and safety.

Another func tion of our minds is to assess whether some thing

falls in the cat e gory of plea sure or pain. We’re con stantly mon i tor ing

events to make this sim ple, black-or-white eval u a tion. The gen eral

idea is to max i mize our plea sure and to min i mize our pain. And there’s

the rub. Our minds orga nize our expe ri ences into what is good or bad

for us. Our minds also use this same strat egy to set up good/bad dichot -

o mies for eval u at ing other peo ple and their behav ior. When we listen

to that and fol low what our mind is tell ing us, we end up going down

the road to judg ment and anger.

HOW THE MIND MANUFACTURES ANGER

The prefrontal cor tex—that part of our brain that uses lan guage to

eval u ate expe ri ence—can lit er ally man u fac ture anger by using the fac -

ul ties of judg ment, attri bu tion, and assumed intent. Here’s how these

func tions work to gen er ate anger feel ings and behav ior.

Judgment

Judg ment is the nat u ral spillover of the mind’s ten dency to

categorize expe ri ence in black-or-white terms. With judg ment, your

mind is using the same strat e gies it has used to eval u ate expe ri ences as

plea sur able or pain ful, safe or dan ger ous. Now, though, it’s judg ing

other peo ple and their behav ior as right or wrong. This is a crit i cally

impor tant shift. With judg ment, your mind is declar ing some thing or

some one to be abso lutely and objec tively good or bad. When the mind

makes judg ments, expe ri ence is no lon ger about sub jec tive feel ings of

plea sure and pain; it is about the intrin sic moral worth of your expe ri -

ences and the peo ple around you. You com pare them to a stan dard of

what should be. And if they don’t mea sure up to your standard, you

may begin to get angry.

Bill and Emma’s Story

Bill and Emma are an exam ple of how sim ple plea sure/pain

eval u a tions can be trans formed into good/bad judg ments—

and a pile of anger. Emma was work ing a lot of over time on a

research and devel op ment pro ject at her lab o ra tory. Bill


missed her and felt lonely on the nights she worked late. It

was a lit tle pain ful rat tling around the house by him self. Plus,

Bill sensed that he and Emma were n’t as close as they used to

be; their rela tion ship was start ing to feel seri ously dis con -

nected.

At first, none of these eval u a tions made Bill angry.

They some times made him feel sad, anx ious, and fear ful of

los ing her. But then he started turn ing them into good/bad

judg ments, think ing it was wrong of Emma to self ishly put

her career above her rela tion ship with him; that she

shouldn’t have agreed to all the over time; that she was wrong

to let their relationship “die on the vine.” Bill’s pain ful lone li -

ness was trans formed through judg ment into moral out rage,

fault find ing, and blame. Even tu ally Bill had it out with Emma

for “destroy ing their lives,” and threat ened divorce.

Black-and-white judg ments force you into the psy cho log i cal

strait jacket of a good/bad uni verse—the right way, the only way. You

then can’t see beyond it, because judg ment masks your abil ity to con -

nect with other dimen sions of real ity. The mask of judg ment blocks

your abil ity to rec og nize the com plex needs, fears, and hopes that

motivate other people—needs, fears, and hopes that are not very

different from your own.

Toxic Label ing

A sec ond form of judg ment is called toxic label ing. Here your

mind trans forms the very nor mal pro cess of rec og niz ing and label ing

expe ri ence into a series of global judg ments: people are stu pid, incom -

pe tent, crazy, lazy, and so on. Toxic labels are, at the core, an indict -

ment of worth used to legit i mize anger and revenge. They are dif fi cult

to shake once applied.

George and Emilio’s Story

George and Emilio offer an exam ple of how our minds will

con vert some thing that’s merely pain ful into anger-crank ing

toxic labels. The two men repair under ground phone lines, but

Emilio has started com plain ing that George always seems to

assign him self the eas ier jobs. So Emilio told George, “We got


to be more fifty-fifty, man. You got to get down in the hole

more, get a lit tle dirty. I don’t wanna be the only one in the

hole, man.”

George felt hurt, and a lit tle ashamed. But his mind

turned the pain into a judg ment about another per son.

“Emilio’s a con trol ling asshole. He’s got a big mouth, always

run ning it about some thing. Screw him.” Once George turned

Emilio into a big mouth, he could get angry and dismiss him.

Attribution—The Blame Game

Our mind is struc tured to attrib ute under ly ing causes to events.

We seek to dis cover the why of things. This drive is the basis of

scientific thought and work. For exam ple, Ben Frank lin’s desire to

under stand elec tric ity led to his famous exper i ment with light ning, and

even tu ally the entire power grid.

The nat u ral ten dency to make cause-and-effect con nec tions can

go sour when we have a pain ful expe ri ence (effect); our minds work to

fig ure out why and then look for some one to blame (cause). Instead of

think ing “Some thing’s wrong, I’ll find the source and fix it,” we get

trapped in the blame game. “Some thing’s wrong (I’m in pain). I’ll find

who did this to me, then I’ll attack them till they fix it.”

Notice how blame keeps you help less, because you’re now

depend ing on the other per son to solve your prob lem. And you may

use anger flow ing from the blame game as a tool to coerce other

peo ple.

Blam ing is a major source of human mis ery. It does n’t undo the

past, nor does it fix the pain. What it does do is keep you stuck and

alien ated from the very peo ple who could help you live a better life. So

the prob lems—and your pain—con tinue. And your anger grows from

epi sodic to chronic.

Escap ing from the blame game requires that you take respon si bil -

ity for your self. When you’re in pain, you need to be the agent of

change. Look ing around to see who’s respon si ble won’t help here. You

and you alone are respon si ble for your expe ri ence. Blame keeps you

from see ing this sim ple fact. It leaves you wait ing to be helped, want -

ing, des per ate to be res cued and vin di cated. All of this fuels more

blame, because the source of help and respon si bil ity begins and ends

with you.


Assumed Intent—Becoming Mind Readers

Since we’re wired to orga nize expe ri ence into cause and effect, we

hate ambi gu ity. We are espe cially dis turbed when other peo ple do

things we don’t under stand. Our minds try to solve these mys ter ies

with some thing called “assumed intent.”

Assumed intent is our effort to explain ambig u ous behav ior in

oth ers by try ing to guess their inten tions, feel ings, and motives—essen -

tially mind-read ing. The trou ble is we’re often wrong. And since the

inten tions and motives we guess at are usu ally neg a tive, we get angry

for nothing.

Lenny and Shir ley’s Story

Lenny and Shir ley are an exam ple of where mind read ing can

lead us. Lenny was spend ing more and more time in his study

work ing on his com puter. He said he was work ing on a pro -

ject, but Shir ley sus pected he was play ing Karmageddon or

one of the other equally “stu pid” games he has loaded on his

hard drive. Three weeks into the “pro ject,” Shir ley con cluded

that Lenny was delib er ately with draw ing and pun ish ing her

because she bought a table he thought was too expen sive.

She even tu ally con fronted Lenny, say ing, “This is just a

bullshit manip u la tion, just because you did n’t get your way.

Why don’t you grow up?”

At that point, Lenny handed her a stack of prints. “I

loaded them on Photoshop,” he said. “Our trips for the last

five years. I’ve been learn ing to crop and enhance the shots;

now I’m arrang ing them in albums. It was going to be a

sur prise.”

The assump tion of intent can turn into a real night mare when we

get it wrong. And get ting it wrong is exactly what we often do.

How the Compulsion to Evaluate Affects Communication

Bar ri ers to healthy com mu ni ca tion are a direct out growth of the

mind’s ten den cies to judge, blame, and assume intent—col lec tively,


the com pul sion to evaluate. These ten den cies put up walls and turn

peo ple who are sim ply dif fer ent from us, or who dis agree with us, into

adver sar ies. The mind wants to label them as wrong and/or bad. The

mind tells you they are mis guided, stu pid, sinful. You may feel com -

pelled to show them their errors. Whether the issue is sex ual behav ior

or polit i cal con vic tions, or some thing as benign as wash ing the dishes,

the out come is the same: peo ple who are dif fer ent, who do things dif -

fer ently, or who dis agree arouse anger and must be van quished, beaten.

In a right-ver sus-wrong uni verse, there is lit tle room for much else,

includ ing the pos si bil ity that you (not they) may be mis taken or wrong.

The angry mind is a closed mind that leaves lit tle space for doubt,

second thoughts, and other possibilities.

The com pul sion to eval u ate is the source of all defen sive ness.

Instead of explor ing and seek ing truth, your words are like sol diers

trying to hold the per im e ter. You fight off the assault of new ideas. You

machine-gun the mer est hint that you’ve got it wrong. Con ver sa tions

are about win ners and los ers. Being right means being the win ner, and

so you use any kind of ver bal pyro tech nics to avoid defeat. Los ing in

this sys tem would mean you are mis taken, vul ner a ble, or worse—that

at the very core you are bad.

There are two addi tional impacts that fol low the com pul sion to

eval u ate. The first out come has to do with the fact that eval u a tion, by

def i ni tion, involves wear ing emo tional blind ers. These blind ers leave

you so con sumed with defend ing your ter ri tory that you likely miss

what’s really going on. You don’t see when oth ers are hurt or need ing

val i da tion or try ing des per ately to con nect with you. You ignore vital

infor ma tion, includ ing your own deeply felt pains and hurts, because it

has noth ing to do with win ning.

Take Stew art, for exam ple. He was so busy try ing to con vince

Monica that her friend Tammy was “trailer trash,” that he did n’t hear

this impor tant communication: “At least Tammy likes me. She thinks

I’m some thing. She thinks I’m cool.” Oops! Stew art was n’t lis ten ing to

Monica’s need for validation. She dumped him three weeks later.

A sec ond way eval u a tion hurts your rela tion ships is that it keeps

you from see ing life through another per son’s eyes. Your sense of per -

spec tive is greatly dimin ished or skewed. You’re unable to con nect with

what other peo ple know and under stand, includ ing what you may learn

from them via their life expe ri ences, pains, hurts, dis ap point ments, joys,

and per spec tive about the world. The blind ers keep all of this from view.

Why? Because the other per son is dif fer ent. So your mind sim ply makes


him or her wrong. This ulti mately hurts your abil ity to con nect with

peo ple, learn from them, and be sup ported and nur tured.

How the Compulsion to Evaluate Creates Resentment

Judg ing, blam ing, and assum ing are men tal hab its that are made

worse by rumi na tion. When you rumi nate, you get stuck in cog ni tive

loops, end lessly recycling the past through the same good/bad judg -

ments, the same toxic labels. Over and over, you play tapes in your

head of what some one did or said, blam ing them for hurt ing you. The

result is chronic resent ment and a grow ing need for revenge. You feel

righ teous, strong. You imag ine jus tice finally being done.

But what comes of this? Does the pain or hurt ever really get

better? Is the rela tion ship some how healed? In real ity, noth ing

changes. The rumi na tion pro vides a moment of relief—an asser tion of

one’s right ness, a shin ing fan tasy of revenge. But the long-term emo -

tional con se quence is to feel hope less and stuck. The resent ment deep -

ens; the pain just goes on and over flows into other areas of your life.

How the Compulsion to Evaluate TriggersDestructive Behavior

The more we rumi nate, and the more we believe and buy into our

evaluative rumi na tions, the stron ger the impulse gets to hurt oth ers. In

truth, eval u a tions are just men tal con structs. They are no more real

than Darth Vader; no truer than a fan tasy of win ning the lot tery.

Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goeb bels, said if you tell a big

enough lie often enough, peo ple will believe it. Judg ments and blame

work the same way. If you keep rumi nat ing, keep repeat ing the same

thing to your self, you can come to believe just about anything.

As you deepen your belief in a neg a tive eval u a tion, when you

really buy into it the judg ment, it then takes on a life of its own. It

starts to require action. Some thing must be said to set the offend ing

per son straight; some thing must be done to slap them awake so they’ll

finally see the error of their ways. A phe nom e non psy chol o gists call

emo tional rea son ing starts to take con trol.

Emo tional rea son ing goes like this: “If I feel pain, some one must

have done it to me. If some one did this to me, I have to hit them back


so hard that they never hurt me again.” This is school yard logic, the

same kind of think ing that gets a lot of kids beat up. It’s the same logic

that moti vates drive-by shoot ings and destroys friend ships and

marriages: “I’m hurt, you did it, you’re bad, and I’ll pay you back.”

When the mind decides that oth ers are bad and wrong, when the

mind obsesses about revenge, there’s often no end to it. You can end

up with sit u a tions like the street fights in Bei rut, the hatred and

violence between Prot es tants and Cath o lics in North ern Ire land or

between Hamas and Jews in the Mid dle East, and the war in Iraq. The

will to inflict dam age goes on and on, and it can quickly get out of

control. Inflict ing dam age becomes all that mat ters, all that moti vates.

The costs are high and the suf fer ing is huge.

WHAT TO DO

Your mind eval u ates and labels things to assign sig nif i cance to events

in your life. This is what minds do. It is a nat u ral, nor mal pro cess and

often quite help ful. The trick is to take your mind less seri ously, to

watch it work with out believ ing every thing it says. This is eas ier said

than done.

When your mind speaks with judg ment, it speaks loudly. And

when you try not to lis ten, it speaks even louder. It would be naive to

assume that sim ply tell ing you to stop believ ing what your mind says

would work to help you take your mind less seri ously. You may have

even tried this already.

One of the keys to becom ing less ruled by what your mind tells

you is to learn the skill of watch ing your mind. You can do it, but it

takes time and prac tice. Your mind did n’t start throw ing eval u a tions at

you overnight. It’s been going on for a long life time. The skill of watch -

ing your mind will take prac tice and com mit ment, but it’s a pow er ful

tool for chang ing your expe ri ence of anger.

To get you started, we rec om mend that you go through the four

exer cises described below: mind watch ing, sep a rat ing thoughts from

anger feel ings, rid ing the wave of anger, and com pas sion in the dark.

Each exer cise will help you detach from the com pul sion to eval u ate


and believe those eval u a tions. We sug gest you do them one at a time

to see which ones work best for you.

It’s impor tant to give your self enough time with each exer cise.

These exer cises are not magic bul lets. They require prac tice. A good

start ing point is to set aside at least ten to fif teen min utes each day to

prac tice an exer cise. Give each of them a few days of prac tice before

mov ing on to the next. A bit later on we’ll talk about applying some of

the skills learned from these exercises in your daily life.

MIND WATCHING

Mind watch ing requires you to be a true observer of your con scious -

ness. Here’s how you do it.

Start by tak ing a series of slow, deep breaths. Keep this up

through the entire exer cise. Imag ine that your mind is a medium-sized

white room with two doors. Thoughts come in through the front door

and leave out the back door. Pay close atten tion to each thought as it

enters. Now label the thought as either judg ing or nonjudg ing.

Watch the thought until it leaves. Don’t try to ana lyze or hold

onto it. Don’t believe or dis be lieve it. Just acknowl edge hav ing the

thought. It’s just a moment in your mind, a brief vis i tor to the white

room. If you find your self judg ing your self for hav ing the thought,

notice that. Do not argue with your mind’s judg ment. Just notice it

for what it is and label it “judg ing—there is judg ing.” The key to

this exercise is to notice the judg men tal thoughts rather than get -

ting caught up in them. You’ll know if you’re get ting caught up in

them by your emo tional reac tions and by how long you keep the

thoughts in the room.

Keep breath ing; keep watch ing; keep label ing. A thought is just a

thought. And you are much more than that thought. Each thought

does n’t require you to react; it does n’t make you do any thing; it

doesn’t mean you are less of a per son. As an observer of your thoughts

as they pass in and out of the white room, let them have their brief life.

They are fine the way they are, includ ing the judg ing thoughts. The

impor tant thing is to let them leave when they are ready to go and

then greet and label the next thought—and the next.


Con tinue this exer cise until you feel a real emo tional dis tance

from your thoughts. Wait until even the judg ments are just a moment

in the room—no lon ger impor tant, no lon ger requir ing action.

SEPARATING THOUGHTS

FROM ANGER FEELINGS

This exer cise will help you learn to detach your thoughts from angry

feel ings.

Start by recall ing a recent sit u a tion where you felt angry. Try to

visu al ize what hap pened, what was said. Take some time to care fully build

a pic ture of the event. Now remem ber some of the thoughts you had dur -

ing the epi sode. As you recall what you were think ing, notice if the actual

feel ing of anger is start ing to return. If it is, that’s good. Let it hap pen.

Keep focus ing on the judg men tal or blam ing thoughts con nected

to the inci dent. Really get into them. And if your anger feels a lit tle

sharper, a lit tle stron ger, that’s fine, too.

Now go back to the white room. Imag ine that your anger is

hurling those judg men tal and blam ing thoughts through the front door.

Take a deep breath. Inhale slowly, then let your whole body relax as

you release the breath. Keep this up while you start watch ing your

mind. Observe and label the thoughts. Watch each thought from a

distance—with out believ ing or get ting entan gled in it. Don’t make the

thought big ger or smaller, don’t agree or dis agree. Just watch and

breathe, notic ing that the thought even tu ally leaves and a new one

takes its place. Keep this up until you feel a grow ing dis tance from the

thoughts—and per haps from the anger itself.

Your anger and judg men tal thoughts each tend to trig ger the

other, esca lat ing in a ris ing spi ral. But you can inter rupt that pro cess by

sim ply observ ing and label ing your thoughts. They will, after a while,

feel very sep a rate from the anger, detached. And they will lose the

power to make rage burn hot ter. What you can learn by prac tic ing this

exer cise is that you can become an observer of your thoughts. This will

help you see just how auto mat i cally your mind reacts to all that you

expe ri ence. It might also help you not get tan gled up so much in your

thoughts.


Emotions Are Like Waves

Imag ine for a moment an ocean wave as it approaches shore. It’s

steep and tall, but has n’t yet crested into a breaker. Now imag ine the

wave near ing a lit tle group of gulls float ing on the water. The birds

don’t fly away. They sim ply ride up the fac ing slope, round the top, and

drift down the long back of the wave.

That’s what you can learn to do with anger. All emo tions are

wave like and time lim ited. They ebb and flow. They slowly build up,

and get big ger and more pow er ful. Even tu ally, the wave will reach its

peak and dissipate. Anger comes and goes in a sim i lar way. It does n’t

last for ever, even if it feels like it will.

We encour age you to ride the wave of your anger. You must

initially face the steep lead ing edge. At this point, the wave is tall and

scary. You may feel that it will go on for ever, that you may some how

drown. Finally the emo tion reaches its zenith; instead of get ting

stronger it starts to recede. You may feel your self slip ping down the

back of the wave, the anger quieting.

That’s how emo tions work if you don’t try to con trol or block

them, if you let the wave run its course. But if you try to fight the

wave, if you refuse to ride it out, some thing very dif fer ent hap pens.

You’ll never get over the top. You stay stuck on the wave’s lead ing

edge, and it keeps push ing you. Even tu ally—some times after hours or

days—the emo tional wave crests and crashes. Then you’re caught

churn ing help lessly beneath the sur face of the water, at the mercy of

the full force of the crush and undertow.

RIDING THE WAVE OF ANGER

Right now you have a chance to learn to ride the wave of your anger

rather than be tum bled about by it. Think of a recent sit u a tion where

you felt mis treated and upset. Visu al ize the scene; try to recall any

irritating things that were done or said. Notice your judg ing or blam ing

thoughts. Keep focus ing on the upset ting scene, as well as on the

judgments you made about it. Let your anger rise till it’s a four or five

on a scale of one to ten.

Good. Now go back to the white room. Observe your thoughts.

Label the judg ments. The thoughts aren’t right or wrong, true or false.

Acknowl edge their pres ence with out try ing to con trol or change them,


without try ing to push them away. Breathe deeply; keep watch ing your

mind.

At the same time, notice the emo tional wave in the room with

you. Be aware of the point where your anger stops climb ing. Feel it

leveling off and start ing to dimin ish. Expe ri ence the slow ride down the

back of the wave. Accept wher ever you are on the wave. Don’t has ten

to get past it. It moves at its own speed—all you can do is let go and let

it carry you.

Just watch your thoughts enter ing and leav ing the white room,

and notice the prog ress of the wave, nothing more. Keep watch ing

until the anger has com pletely passed.

FINDING COMPASSION IN THE DARK

Imag ine that it’s night. You are in a field with hun dreds of unseen

people. On one edge of the field is a cliff—it would be an extraor di nary

and ter rifying fall. The cliff is really every one’s worst fear—death,

shame, failure, alone ness, loss, help less ness. No one can see it. No one

knows where it is.

Now imag ine that you and all the other peo ple in the field will

live your lives there. You must find food, love, and com pan ion ship in

the dark ness. You must keep mov ing yet some how avoid the cliff.

You’re always a lit tle afraid, always uncer tain, because the darkness

never lifts. And you must find all that you need to live with out fall ing

into the abyss.

This is our human con di tion. Peo ple cope in dif fer ent ways. Some

race head long; some hes i tate to make the small est step. Some cling;

some push oth ers away for fear of being dragged past the edge. Some

give up; some seek to under stand, for ever try ing to pierce the dark ness.

Some demand help; some com fort them selves by try ing to help oth ers.

Close your eyes and be in the field. Feel how we all strug gle there.

Feel how we try to move, to take care of our selves, while always sens -

ing the pres ence of the cliff. Every one walks that dark field; every one is

scared; every one is doing the best they can.

Now think of some one you care for (such as your part ner, your

child, or your best friend). Keep observ ing your thoughts and feel ings

while imag in ing that per son walk ing around in the dark field. They are

hop ing not to fall, just like you. Be aware of their fear and strug gle. As

you do so, the wish may arise in you to help them, to be by their side,


and per haps to com fort them. That is all fine. Keep hold ing the image

while watch ing each thought and feel ing come and go.

Now think of some one who makes you angry; watch the

judgmental thoughts that start to form. Keep observ ing your thoughts

and feel ings while imag in ing that per son nav i gat ing the dark field.

They are hop ing not to fall, just like you and the per son you care for.

Be aware of their fear and strug gle. Is it dif fer ent from yours? Keep

hold ing the image of their fear and strug gle while watch ing each arriv -

ing thought and feel ing. This may be more dif fi cult to do, because you

don’t like that per son very much and you may keep get ting caught up

in judgmental thoughts. Still, keep hold ing the image of their fear and

strug gle while watch ing each arriv ing thought and feel ing.

Notice that your task in this exer cise is not to stop your anger or

your judg men tal thoughts. There’s no rea son to change what you expe -

ri ence. Your expe ri ence is what it is, and it does not harm you. But

what you are doing here is some thing extraor di nary that you may have

never done before: you are add ing com pas sion ate aware ness to your

expe ri ence, so that your anger is bal anced with full appre ci a tion of the

chal lenge of being human.


The most impor tant thing we hope you take from this chap ter is that

your mind—those good/bad judg ments and toxic labels—has a pow er -

ful impact on your emo tions. But if you observe instead of try ing to

con trol your mind, if you watch instead of try ing to con trol your feel -

ings, your anger will par a dox i cally stop con trol ling you. Judg ments are

a nec es sary and ines cap able part of liv ing. They’ll always be there. But

you no lon ger have to be attached to them or believe them. They’re

ulti mately just thoughts to notice and let go.



WEEK 5

Learn ing about how my mind cre ates anger

Points to ponder: Minds will always do what minds do. I can

bring com pas sion to what my evaluative mind comes up with

and learn to ride the wave of anger.

Ques tions to con sider: Do I really have to believe all the

judg ments that my mind dishes up for me all the time? Am I

will ing to learn to see judg ments as thoughts and not act on

what they say?

Chapter 6

Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance

Acceptance simply means willingness to see things as they

are, deeply, truthfully, and completely. This attitude sets

the stage for acting in the most potent and healthy way

in your life, no matter what is happening.

—Jeffrey Brantley

Many peo ple feel trapped by their anger, unable to retreat or with draw

once their anger feel ings are trig gered. It’s like being launched on auto -

pi lot into a tight space where there does n’t seem to be any room for

other choices or other ways of respond ing.

This chap ter is about mak ing room for other choices. The first

step to that end is for you to rec og nize the feel ings and fears that

under lie your anger.

ACCEPTANCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE

Although rec og ni tion is an impor tant start, it will not suf fice to get you

out of the anger trap. You will also need to learn a new way of respond -

ing to your anger: approach ing it—and the feel ings under ly ing it—with

accep tance and com pas sion. Tak ing the path of accep tance goes

against the grain; it’s counterintuitive when you’re feel ing angry. But it

can lib er ate you from remain ing stuck in the anger trap with all your

old behav ior pat terns that don’t work. Meet ing your pain with com pas -

sion cuts off anger at the root, leaving it unable to grow and spread.

Prac tic ing accep tance is an act of kind ness toward your self that allows

you to heal and move on with your life.

Passive Acceptance Is Resignation

There are two kinds of accep tance: pas sive and active. One is

about giv ing up and los ing, and the other is about action and doing.

Many peo ple asso ci ate accep tance with giv ing up, giv ing in, and los ing

out. This type of pas sive accep tance, or res ig na tion, is not what we want

you to do, because it keeps you stuck. Res ig na tion is when you let anger

(a feel ing you can not con trol) guide your actions (which you can con -

trol). Instead, we want you to mus ter the cour age to act and change.

Active Acceptance Is Compassion

Active accep tance is quite dif fer ent. We think of active accep tance

as com pas sion in action. It involves soft en ing your mind and heart to the

anger and hos til ity in you and con nect ing with them in the pres ent

moment. You do this by let ting go of the strug gle with your inner expe ri -

ence of anger, hos til ity, and hurt. You let go by bring ing kind ness and

gen tle atten tion to unwanted anger-related thoughts and feel ings, by

sim ply allow ing them to be there with out sup press ing, chang ing, or


act ing on them. Our col league Jeffrey Brantley (2003) describes this pro -

cess as becom ing a friend to your self and to your anger.

Doing so is chal leng ing and will take a com mit ment on your part.

There is no quick way to get there, no magic accep tance pill. But you

can learn com pas sion in action grad u ally, over time, by prac tic ing the

exer cises in this book and stay ing com mit ted to learn ing this use ful

skill, even when you expe ri ence the inevitable set backs in your

progress.

Acceptance Makes Room for Choices

We focus on accep tance for prac ti cal rea sons: strug gling with

anger does n’t work, and accep tance cre ates space for new begin nings,

new ways of respond ing. When you stop wast ing time and energy try ing

to change anger-related thoughts and feel ings, you’re free to take con -

trol of what you can con trol—what you do with your hands, feet, and

mouth in response to what you expe ri ence.

CHINESE FINGER TRAPS

To get a sense of what we mean by cre at ing space, imag ine play ing

with one of those Chi nese fin ger traps that you may have played with

as a child. A fin ger trap is a tube of woven straw about five inches long

and half an inch wide. Per haps you can find one in a nov elty store and

do the exer cise for real. If not, just imag ine doing it.

Dur ing this exer cise, you pick up the fin ger trap and slide one

index fin ger into each end of the tube. After you fully insert your

fingers, try to pull them out. You’ll notice that the tube catches and

tight ens. You expe ri ence some dis com fort as the tube squeezes your

fin gers and reduces cir cu la tion. You may feel a lit tle con fused, because

pull ing out of the tube seems the most obvi ous, nat u ral way to respond.

Yet it does n’t work. The harder you try to pull your self out of the trap,

the more stuck you are. That is exactly how the anger trap that we’ve

been talk ing about through out this book works. Try ing to reduce anger

feelings by respond ing with anger behav ior con strains your life and

limits your space for mak ing choices.


As with the fin ger trap, our instinc tive solu tions to anger feel ings

(for example, lash ing out at peo ple who hurt us) often turn out to be

no solu tions at all. In fact, these so-called solu tions cre ate even big ger

prob lems. Pull ing away from anger may seem like a nat u ral and log i cal

way to free your self from the anger trap. But your expe ri ence with

anger tells you that this strug gle has only brought you more dis com fort

and life problems.

The good news is that there is an alter na tive that does work and

is sup ported by our research (Eifert and Heffner 2003). To get there,

you have to do some thing that goes against your instincts. Instead of

pull ing out, you have to push your fin gers in. This move will def i nitely

give you more space to move around—more wig gle room.

In the con text of anger, acceptance is doing some thing seem ingly

counterintuitive to get your self unstuck from where you are with your

life right now. It is lean ing into your pain and anger rather than pull ing

away from them. You do this by acknowl edg ing your dis com fort and

anger feel ings and making room for that dis com fort, allow ing it to be,

with out doing any thing about it or get ting involved with it, and with -

out try ing to make it go away. If you do this, you’ll sud denly find that

you have more room to move around and live your life.

THE FOUR STEPS OF ACCEPTANCE

Using accep tance, you’re going to meet the fire that fuels anger with

active com pas sion and kind ness. To get there involves a com mit ment

to learn ing four inter re lated steps: acknowl edg ing your anger; accept -

ing the sit u a tion as it is; iden ti fy ing the hurt, fear, and judg ment; and

respond ing with for give ness and com pas sion.

Step 1: Acknowledge Your Anger

First you need to learn to acknowl edge that you are angry when

you’re feel ing angry. If you don’t rec og nize or acknowl edge anger, you’ll

never find out what is fuel ing it. And, if you don’t know what is fuel ing

your anger, you will have no way to learn new ways of relat ing to the

source of anger within you. So, you need to start here.


The next time you sense anger com ing—when you feel the emo -

tions surg ing and the evaluative mind in high gear—just acknowl -

edge, “There it is. There is anger. I’m angry and I need to take care of

it.” Tak ing care of your anger feel ing does not mean act ing on it.

We’ll show you exactly how you can attend to it in step 4. At this

point, it’s only impor tant to acknowl edge that you are indeed

angry—and that you stay with that feel ing. Don’t try to pull away

from it or make it go away.

Step 2: Accept the Situation as It Is

Learn to acknowl edge that the sit u a tion is what it is. Your mind

may not accept the real ity of what ever is hap pen ing; it may tell you

that things should n’t be the way they are. If you keep insist ing “But

things should be dif fer ent” or “But peo ple should treat me with more

respect,” you’ll get stuck wait ing for some one else to fix the prob lem.

You need to accept the sit u a tion as is and take full respon si bil ity to

make any changes you can.

To do so, you’ll have to rec og nize your mind machine at work.

You can rec og nize it more eas ily if you label what it’s doing: “There is

my mind, judg ing,” “There is my mind, blam ing,” “There is my mind,

schem ing to get even.” Remem ber, your mind is good at cre at ing anger.

It’s impor tant for you to learn not to believe or do what your mind is

tell ing you, or what your body appears to be tell ing you when you feel

like you’re about to explode.

You can learn to not to buy into your mind machine by rec og niz -

ing and acknowl edg ing your thoughts and feel ings for what they are.

For instance, when such thoughts pop up as “This jerk could have paid

more atten tion” or “She really should n’t have done that,” you can say

to your self, “I’m hav ing the thought that this jerk could have paid

more atten tion,” and “I’m hav ing the thought that she really should n’t

have done that.” In regard to feel ings you can say, “I’m hav ing the

feeling that I’m about to explode” or “I’m hav ing the feel ing that

[insert what ever you typ i cally feel].”

These admit tedly awk ward and cum ber some label ing and lan -

guage hab its will help you rec og nize thoughts as thoughts and feel ings

as feel ings. We will also use them in sev eral later exer cises. They help

you cre ate some space between your self and your anger thoughts and

feel ings so you can start becom ing response-able and changing what

you can change.


Step 3: Identify the Hurt, Fear, and Judgment

This step is about iden ti fy ing what is fuel ing the flames of

anger—the hurt and judg ment that under lie it—so that you can start

the pro cess of let ting go of them. It’s about dis cov er ing which of your

but tons has been pushed, what hurts you, or what’s scar ing you. It’s

par tic u larly impor tant to notice what evaluative state ments your mind

machine is com ing up with about you, the peo ple in your life, and the

cur rent sit u a tion.

Let’s look at the expe ri ence of David, a thirty-three-year-old

engi neer work ing for a con struc tion com pany. David made sev eral

impor tant dis cov er ies about his strug gle with anger.

David’s Story

I’ve always had anger, but lately I’ve come to see it as a prob -

lem. I get angry about every thing, and I fix ate on what ever

got me angry. I’m fum ing mad! It’s the lit tle things that tick

me off. It seems like not one day can go by with out me being

angry at some thing. I feel like I really hurt the peo ple around

me with my blowups. And doing that makes me feel bad

about myself. I’ve always dis liked angry peo ple, and it seems

like every thing I don’t like, I am. I don’t want peo ple to avoid

me or think of me as being mean because I can’t con trol my

anger. I’ve put so much effort into deal ing with my doubts

and inse cu ri ties about myself. For the last six years, life has

felt like a chore. I can’t get through a day with out feel ing sick

or scared. My life feels like a job because I’m always work ing

so hard at it. But I’m still alone and get paid only in

Pepto-Bismol. I’m angry because I don’t know where all these

bad feel ings come from. I’m angry because I don’t know how

to fix them. I’m also mad because I thought they would be

gone by now, given how much I’ve worked on them. Now I’m

scared that I’ll always have these feel ings about myself. When

will I be free?

This sad story may res o nate with the expe ri ences of many peo ple

who strug gle with prob lem anger. Yet David is ahead of the game in

one impor tant respect: he dis cov ered that being angry is very much

about him rather than other peo ple. Being angry has to do with his


neg a tive feel ings about him self (for exam ple, doubts about his abil i ties)

and his ten dency to beat him self up for hav ing those feel ings and not

being able to resolve his anger.

The fol low ing exer cise is about help ing you rec og niz e what fuels

your anger so you can learn to accept the sources of your anger and

start tak ing better care of them. Be mind ful that the qual ity of pain

and hurt can change from anger epi sode to anger epi sode, from sit u a -

tion to sit u a tion, and from per son to per son.

This exer cise will take a bit lon ger than the pre vi ous ones. Since

you can’t read and close your eyes at the same time, we rec om mend

that you read through the fol low ing script a few times first. Then close

your eyes and fol low the instruc tions. You can also record the script on

an audio cas sette and play it back to your self while you prac tice.

THE ANGER ARMOR

Go ahead and get in a com fort able posi tion in your chair. Sit upright

with your feet flat on the floor, your arms and legs uncrossed, and your

hands rest ing in your lap (palms up or down, which ever is more com -

fort able). Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Relax. Allow

your body to rest with out drift ing off to sleep.

To get started, we would like you to re-cre ate a real image of

your self being angry. Think of a recent exam ple when some one pushed

your but tons and you got angry—per haps you can refer back to the

anger map exer cise in chap ter 3. Think of the moment. Notice the

anger com ing and all the surg ing bodily changes. Notice the trig ger

thoughts your evaluative mind comes up with. Enter into the whole

image as best as you can. Watch as the feel ing grows and notice how

quickly it is there in full force. Also notice how quickly you want to do

some thing about the anger feel ing, and what it makes you want to do.

For instance, do you have any impulses to speak out or act on your

anger? Be aware of the evaluative thoughts you’re hav ing about the

event or your self. Hold those thoughts clearly in your mind, put them

into sen tences, and watch them as if you were watch ing them in a

mirror. Keep focus ing on what you’re feel ing. Notice how your body

and mind harden, con sumed by anger. It’s every where.


Now imag ine for a moment that all these harsh, judg men tal

thoughts, intense anger feel ings, and strong impulses are con nected.

They form one big piece of armor—the kind of heavy armor that

knights used to wear to pro tect their whole body. You’re in it. Feel how

heavy it is and how hard it is for you to move.

Anger is like wear ing heavy armor. The armor masks the pain and

vul ner a bil ity we all have by sim ple vir tue of being human. Behind the

pain, there may be some thing you’re attached to, some thing you’re

hold ing on to. What is it in your case? See whether you can iden tify

what you’re try ing to pro tect or defend with your anger armor. There

might be feel ings of guilt . . . shame . . . hurt . . . fear . . . loss . . .

helplessness . . . rejec tion . . . inad e quacy . . . unwor thi ness. Or per haps

it’s your rep u ta tion, image, the approval of others, rules, beliefs, past

mis takes, missed oppor tu ni ties, or deci sions that did not go right. It

could also be that you fear los ing a per son, or a pos ses sion, or place, or

money. See if you can iden tify what exactly fuels your anger.

Every time the pain and hurt touch the inside of the armor, they

cor rode it. Your armor begins to weaken, pit, and rust from the inside.

And as it rusts, you begin to feel vul ner a ble. To keep your self

protected and safe, you’ve been fix ing the rusty parts and holes that

start to show through by weld ing new patches of metal onto the old

ones, so the armor gets heavier and heavier. It weighs on you, dragging

you down phys i cally, emo tion ally, psy cho log i cally, and spir i tu ally. You

don’t seem to be able to do much except clank around in your armor.

The bur den is tre men dous. Move ment is dif fi cult.

Next, imag ine your self step ping out of the armor and putt ing it

right next to you. Imag ine your self stand ing there just look ing at your

anger armor. If it helps, try to visu al ize look ing at your self and the

armor in a mir ror. You and any one around you can finally see who you

are. You’re stand ing there with your naked emo tions and imper fec tions

for every one to see. You’re exposed and vul ner a ble. See whether you

can stay with this feel ing.

Notice how much lighter you feel now. With out the armor, you’re

no lon ger tied down by all that weight. You can move more eas ily and

more quickly than before. Your hands, arms, and feet are free. By step -

ping out of the armor and just observ ing it, you have gained flex i bil ity

and free dom of move ment.


The light ness that comes from accep tance won’t develop over -

night. It’s like learn ing to ride a bike—some times you will fall. You will

occa sion ally reach again for the armor and spend your time patch ing

and repair ing it, because it makes you feel safe when hurts show up. As

you learn accep tance, your need to hide from pain and hurt inside the

anger armor will grad u ally decrease. Accept ing your self and being

patient with all your flaws, weak nesses, strengths, and tal ents—the

whole pack age—involves tak ing many small steps in that gen eral direc -

tion. You’re on the right track as long as you keep prac tic ing and stay

com mit ted to that path.

Step 4: Respond with Forgiveness and Compassion

Accep tance is about open ing up to the pain inside you with kind -

ness, love, patience, and com pas sion. For this rea son, we need to

address the pains and hurts—what anger is help ing you pro tect. We’re

not going after your pain with cheap fixes or more patches. Instead,

we’re going to expose it for what it is and meet it with accep tance,

com pas sion, and patience.

Accept and For give Your self First

Accept ing your self is the most impor tant and often the most dif fi -

cult first step. It pulls the rug out from under neath your anger and

helps you focus your energy on what is impor tant to you and what you

can do and change. The prize here is a life—your life!

It’s use ful to acknowl edge hav ing feel ings of anger, worth less ness,

and fail ure, but putt ing your self down for them only leads to more

resent ment and self-hatred. That is never helpful.

Take the case of Jillian, a thirty-seven-year-old mother of two

daugh ters (seven and ten years old). Her father sex u ally and phys i -

cally abused her until her par ents sep a rated when she was twelve.

She went to col lege, majored in Eng lish, and started to work for a

regional news pa per where she met her hus band. They divorced two

years ago. Jillian came into ther apy after a social worker sug gested

she seek help with her anger prob lem if she did n’t want to lose

custody of her kids:


Jillian’s Story

I don’t under stand why I get so mad at my two daugh ters. I

love them and I don’t want to hurt them. I know what it’s

like to be beaten by a par ent, but I’ve hit my kids on sev eral

occa sions any way. And now I might lose them. So here I am

get ting mad at my daugh ters when I am the one who’s to

blame. I’m the one who should be beaten up. I could n’t give

my hus band what he was look ing for, and so he left me. And

to this day, I’m won der ing if I did some thing to make my dad

do what he did, because he never abused my youn ger sis ter.

Deep down, I have this fear that I am just no good; no good

as a daugh ter, wife, or mother.

You read what hap pened to David when he con tin ued to buy into

his evaluative mind. Now the same thing is play ing out with Jillian.

The story has changed, but the prob lem is the same. Jillian has come to

believe the harsh judg ments of her mind. Both David and Jillian con -

tinue to strug gle with what hap pened in their past. And they strug gle

with their pres ent thoughts and feel ings. It’s like an emo tional dou ble

whammy: First they strug gle with their fears and doubts about them -

selves. Then they get angry at them selves and beat them selves up over

the mere fact of hav ing all those unwanted feel ings, along with their

per ceived fail ure to con trol them.

Jeffrey Brantley (2003) wrote that we often don’t rec og nize what

our mind machines do to us. Our evaluative minds pro vide us a con -

stant sup ply of judg ments and self-crit i cal state ments. It may seem that

you’ve always had these thoughts. Most of the time you may not even

notice them, at least not until the feel ings or the com ments become

uncom fort ably harsh. Until you pay atten tion to them, you may not

know where they come from. But when you start believ ing those

comments and act ing on them, you become your own worst stressor.

If you want to break the vicious cycle of anger and aggres sion,

you must rec og nize that your mind machine is at work here (just like in

step 2). When you catch and observe the mind doing its judg ing,

you’ve taken the first step toward being kinder to your self and oth ers.

Rec og niz ing judg ments for what they are—thoughts and noth ing but

thoughts—will help you let go of judg ing and blam ing your self and

others. This is also the moment when you start accept ing your self as

you are, with your flaws and all that has hap pened to you. Remem ber,


you can not stop your mind dish ing up evaluative state ments. What you

can learn is to see them for what they are and relate to them in a

different way.

How to Take Care of Your Anger Baby

You probably have some old wounds—from losses, unfair treat -

ment by oth ers, per haps even real abuse. The hurt may be old and the

wound may have a scab on it. When some one hurts you and pushes

your but tons, they’re rip ping that scab right off to expose the open

wound. It does n’t mat ter whether your mind says this was inten tional

or not. The wound was there any way. You are in touch with an aspect

of yourself that you may pre fer not to know. This is a golden oppor tu -

nity to embrace it with com pas sion and accep tance.

Jillian, in the story above, was frus trated over the fact that she

was treat ing her chil dren the same way she was treated by her father.

Peo ple who have been hurt them selves often con tinue to inflict pain

on oth ers because they have not taken care of their wounds. They

have not allowed their wounds to heal. If you don’t take care of your

wounds, you may pass them on to your chil dren, spouse, friends,

colleagues at work, and other peo ple in your life. Hurt and anger can

be recy cled many times.

Take a moment to think about what you do when some thing is

phys i cally wrong with you—like a scraped knee, or a prob lem with your

stom ach, your back, or your teeth. We sus pect that you stop what ever

you’re doing and attend to your injury or ill ness. And that is the right

thing to do.

We sug gest you do the same with your open anger wound, and

attend to all those feel ings of shame, fear, and guilt, all that blam ing of

your self and oth ers. Fur ther beat ing is not a good way to treat an open

wound and help it heal. You’d never treat a bleed ing knee in such a

harsh way. So if you want to break the cycle of anger, you have to start

by tak ing better care of your anger—by being kind to your self. You can

do this by no lon ger buy ing into all the judg ing and blam ing your mind

machine comes up with. Anger is not the enemy. Other peo ple are not

the enemy. Just like your phys i cal body, your anger and emo tional pain

are part of you. When you’re angry, you can turn your attention back

to your self and take good care of your anger. That is what we mean by

embrac ing anger with com pas sion.


You can learn to take care of your self, your anger, and your wounds.

You don’t need to rely on other peo ple to change first. Thich Nhat Hanh

(2001) devel oped a pow er ful and yet sim ple exer cise to help you prac tice

com pas sion with your self. It shows you how to take care of your anger as if

it were your sick baby in need of your love and atten tion.

GIVING YOURSELF LOVING KINDNESS

Remem ber when you were a lit tle child and you had a fever?

You felt bad. So a par ent or care giver came and gave you

aspi rin or other med i cine. This may have helped, but it was

noth ing like having your mom there. You did n’t feel better

until your mother came and put her hand on your burn ing

fore head. That felt so good! To you, her hand was like the

hand of a god dess. When she touched you with her hand, a

lot of fresh ness, love and com pas sion pen e trated into your

body. The hand of your mother is your own hand. Her hand

is still alive in yours, if you know how to breathe in and out,

to be mind ful. Then, touch ing your fore head with your very

own hand, you will see that your mother’s hand is still there,

touch ing your fore head. You will have the same energy of

love and ten der ness for your self. (Hanh 2001, p. 33)

Like in the fin ger trap exer cise, this is the time to take an unusual

step and be open to what may hap pen. Here is what you can do: Close

your eyes, touch your fore head, and think of your mother’s hands

touch ing you when you were young and sick. The kind ness of her hand

is alive in yours. And you can give that kind ness to your self right now.

If you did n’t have a mother who was kind to you in this way,

imag ine another per son who was kind to you as a child. Imag ine how

his or her hand felt.

ACCEPTANCE AND PATIENCE

Accep tance and patience are very much related because both are

about allow ing what is to be there with out judg ing or respond ing to it.


If you expe ri ence anger and you accept it, you are patient with it.

Patience is the most effec tive anti dote to anger. You can look at it this

way: If anger is like poi son from a ven om ous snake, patience is the

antivenom that can heal you and keep you alive.

Let’s say that some one pushed your but tons and crit i cized you.

You feel the anger ris ing; your mind and body are quickly get ting ready

to defend, jus tify, blame, attack. What would being patient look like in

this sit u a tion? Pema Chödrön cap tures it well:

Patience has a qual ity of enor mous hon esty in it, but it also

has a qual ity of not esca lat ing things, allow ing a lot of space

for the other per son to say what they want to say while you

lis ten. You don’t react to what you’re feel ing, even though

inside you are react ing. You let the words go and just be

there. When you prac tice patience, you’re not repress ing

anger, you’re just sit ting there with it—going cold tur key

with the aggres sion. You will really get to know anger and

how it breeds vio lent words and actions. You will see the

whole thing with out act ing it out . . . and you will be cul ti vat -

ing enor mous cour age. (2005 p. 34)

You can see that being patient has noth ing to do with sup pres -

sion. Far from it. Patience means that you are hon est about the fact

that you are angry. At the same time, you’re doing noth ing to feed your

anger feel ings and thoughts. You don’t get involved with them or react

to them. You don’t argue with them. You also don’t blame or crit i cize

your self for hav ing them. You just let go of that whole inter nal

dialogue. Accep tance paired with patience forms an entry way into a

place where you can think about and react to your anger and other

unwanted expe ri ences in entirely new ways.

Acceptance Is a Difficult and Valuable Choice

Accep tance and patience do not come easy or nat u rally for most

of us. As we men tioned in chap ter 5, your mind, with its evaluative

lan guage, tends to color your world with ideas of what is right or

wrong. This is espe cially true when you’re prone to anger and tan gled

up in a web of self-doubt, what-ifs, shoulds, and pat terns of behav ior

designed to get you away from expe ri enc ing any of them.


You can, how ever, learn to be open to what is with out con -

taminating the expe ri ence with your eval u a tions, jus ti fi ca tions, and

rea sons for what ought to be. This will take time and prac tice, but it

will even tu ally move you in a new, pos i tive direc tion. So be patient

with your self while you’re learn ing about patience!

Accep tance and patience are ulti mately about choices you make

every day. We can guar an tee that an accep tance pos ture on one day

will not carry over to the next day. It’s a choice you need to make

again and again. After a while it may seem like almost every moment

of your life you’re mak ing a choice: to open or close, to harden or

soften, to hold on or let go (Chödrön 2005). If the old pat tern of

closing, hard en ing, and hold ing on to resent ment has not worked for

you, it’s time to open up, soften, and let go. There are exer cises in

chap ter 7 that will help you achieve this.

DEBUNKING SOME MYTHS ABOUTACCEPTANCE

Many peo ple at first mis un der stand what we mean by accep tance in

the con text of anger. Before mov ing on to more accep tance exer cises

in the next chap ter, we want to take a few moments to debunk some of

the most com mon myths about accep tance.

Myth 1: Acceptance Means Condoning Wrongdoing

This is prob a bly the lead ing mis con cep tion about accep tance.

Peo ple fear that when they accept, they give approval to what is hap -

pen ing or has hap pened to them. Accep tance is not about approv ing,

lik ing, or con don ing what is hap pening to you now or has happened to

you in the past. Accep tance is a mat ter of acknowl edg ing and expe ri -

enc ing what hap pened in the past and what is hap pen ing in the

present moment with out judg ing or get ting all tan gled up in that

expe ri ence.

Accep tance does not mean you sit still when some one harms you.

If any one harms you now, you have every right to pro tect your self from

fur ther harm and do what it takes to be safe. Yet, hold ing on to old

hurts about past sit u a tions will never resolve those sit u a tions. They are


in the past, and you are in the pres ent. You can not change the past.

You can only change how you respond to the past in the pres ent.

You may ask, “Why should I let go of my anger and for give those

who harmed me?” The answer is sim ple and prac ti cal: For giv ing your -

self and oth ers is the only path to heal ing. If you don’t let go and

forgive oth ers for the harm they did, they and their deeds will con tinue

to haunt you, harm you, and have a hold on you. Every day you hang

on to your resent ment, you harm your self one more time. So by not

for giv ing, you hurt no other per son more than your self. It’s a form of

self- torture; it con tin ues to make the armor around you thicker,

heavier, and more con strain ing. This is why we focus on for give ness

here and later on, in chap ter 9. Accep tance means acknowl edg ing

what hap pened and let ting go of blame and resent ment. This is the

way to reclaim your life where you live it—right here and now.

Myth 2: Acceptance Is Weakness

Accep tance takes cour age and strength. It is the harder path

when com pared with the ten dency to give in or blow up. Notic ing

anger and the full strength of the emo tion with out act ing it out is like

rid ing a tiger. You may notice your mind crit i ciz ing and blam ing both

oth ers and your self. You may also notice feel ing guilty about blam ing

when you “should” be accept ing. It can be ago niz ing, because you feel

bad about being so angry at the same time that you really are angry,

and you can’t drop it (Chödrön 2005).

Sit ting with this energy and edg i ness with out try ing to sup press it

or mak e it go away is the oppo site of weak ness. Stay ing with the anger

and pain with out act ing on it or because of it is one of the most

difficult things you will ever do. This decision is cou ra geous, hon est,

open, com pas sion ate, and empow er ing because it is lib er at ing. When

we ask cli ents who have made this choice to describe how accep tance

feels to them, they often say things like “A bur den has been lifted” or

“I feel free and ready to move on.”

Myth 3: Acceptance Means Liking My Experience

It feels uncom fort able to expe ri ence anger, fear, inse cu rity, and

hurt. In fact, it is really unpleas ant. Accep tance is not about lik ing

those feel ings. It is a mat ter of no lon ger fight ing with your expe ri ence


or deny ing its real ity. It just means see ing it for what it is rather than

strug gling against it. Again, it’s like drop ping the rope in a tug-of-war:

Once you’re no lon ger fight ing the anger team, you free up energy—as

well as your hands and feet—to cre ate the life you want to live.

Myth 4: Acceptance Is a Feeling

When you accept your expe ri ence, you respond dif fer ently to it.

This is not just a feel ing—it’s a stance that will com pletely change your

point of view. It’s step ping back from your expe ri ence to develop a new

way of relat ing with it that’s guided by the kind ness you have tucked

away inside of you.

For instance, when you prac tice mind ful ness exer cises, you

observe your anger and other feel ings with out judg ing, sup press ing, or

get ting rid of them. It’s like look ing at your expe ri ences as if they were

play ing out in a movie. You’re not the movie. You are the observer of

what is hap pen ing in the movie. Such skil lful obser va tion of life in the

pres ent moment, with out judg ment and with com passion, is an active

response—just not in the way we usu ally think of being active (as in

the run ning, fight ing, strug gling, and so forth that we described in

chap ter 4). Accep tance is a new pos ture toward your experiences—all

of them—where you allow them to sim ply be as they are.

Myth 5: Acceptance Means Diminished Responsibility

Accep tance is the high est form of response-abil ity you can take.

By acknowl edg ing and allow ing your unwanted thoughts and emo tions

to be there rather than let ting them dic tate what you do, you actu ally

increase your response-abil ity—your abil ity to take charge of your life!

Myth 6: Acceptance Is a Clever Way to Manage Discomfort

Accep tance can not pre vent the pain of los ing a loved one or

getting hurt by another per son. Feel ing this type of pain is nor mal. No

human being can escape such pain. It hap pens to all of us and is sim ply

a func tion of liv ing.


How ever, accep tance can pre vent pain from turn ing into suf fer -

ing. Pain turns into suf fer ing when you don’t accept the pain and hurt,

when you don’t acknowl edge your pain, or when you strug gle to get rid

of it by lash ing out at some one. Just as in the fin ger trap exer cise, the

dis com fort increases the more you try to pull away from it.

It is this unnec es sary suf fer ing that mind ful accep tance seeks to

end. By prac tic ing mind ful ness exer cises, you can grad u ally teach your -

self to be less reac tive to your evaluative mind and stay with emo tional

pain, rather than run ning away or try ing to fix it. When the pain of

anger shows up and you allow it in with out strug gle or reac tion, you

are free to act in ways that mat ter to you. The goal is to develop a

place of calm above the storm, to pro mote health and vital ity, and to

fos ter car ing kind ness toward your self first and then extend that to

oth ers.


By approach ing anger thoughts and feel ings with com pas sion ate accep -

tance, you deprive your anger of the fuel it needs to burn. This will

ulti mately lower and cool the flames of anger. The prize for being more

accept ing, com pas sion ate, and patient is that you become more flex i -

ble. You will be on anger auto pi lot less often. Accep tance increases

your response-abil ity. It adds options to your life that are dif fer ent from

the same old pro gram ming you have grown accus tomed to. It changes

you by allow ing you to be who you are as you are and by mak ing you

aware that you have con trol over what you do. Whether pain and hurt

come or not is out side your con trol. How you respond to pain and hurt

is one domain where you have choice. By stay ing with, and being

patient with, your anger and hurt when they come, rather than run -

ning away from or attempt ing to fix them, you become free to focus on

the life you want to live.



WEEK 6

Learn ing about accep tance

Points to pon der: Accep tance is a vital and cou ra geous activ -

ity. Patience paired with accep tance can lead me to a new

place.

Ques tions to consider: Am I will ing to accept myself with all

my flaws, weak ness, and vul ner a bil i ties? Am I will ing to for give

oth ers and myself so that I can move on and reclaim my life?

Chapter 7

Practicing MindfulAcceptance

On all the tragic scene they stare. . . . Their eyes mid many

wrinkles, their eyes, their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

—Wil liam But ler Yeats

In Yeats’s great poem “Lapis Laz uli,” three men on a high moun tain

watch all the pain and loss and vio lent con flict in the world. They

observe it and feel it. Yet in the face of all this strug gle, they see the

good. They know the gor geous par a dox of beauty and pain, loss and

love, reach ing and fail ing.

This is mind ful accep tance: watch ing the strug gle with out judg ing

it, feel ing the pain with out drown ing in it, hon or ing the hurt with out

becom ing it. Mind ful accep tance is not a feel ing or an atti tude. It

does n’t come from crys tals, or insight, or some emo tional apo the o sis.

Mind ful accep tance is a skill—some thing that takes work to learn.

The skill of mind ful ness, like any thing else you get good at, is

built on prac tice. It starts with easy steps and devel ops to include the

most dif fi cult sit u a tions in your life. Mind ful accep tance is best prac -

ticed at home as you begin, in a com fort able, safe envi ron ment. As you

get skilled at it, you can grad u ally expand to include more stress ful,

emo tion-trig ger ing sit u a tions, includ ing those that involve anger.

The prac tice of mind ful accep tance has three pur poses. First, you

learn to anchor your self in the pres ent moment, instead of in the hurts

and vio la tions of the past. As long as you live in the here and now,

there is very lit tle to be angry about. Sec ond, mind ful accep tance helps

you let go of old con trol and avoid ance strat e gies that only serve to

make your anger worse. Third, the dis ci pline of accep tance cre ates the

psy cho log i cal room to choose health ier responses to prov o ca tion.

Instead of the auto matic rage or blowup, you gain the flex i bil ity to look

for a response that does n’t dam age your life and rela tion ships.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR ANGER

It is impor tant to under stand that you are not your anger. Anger is

some thing you expe ri ence peri od i cally. It explodes into your aware ness

and, after a while, it recedes. You are not the anger. You—the per son

who expe ri ences and observes your life—are sep a rate from your feel -

ings of anger. Like every other thought or emo tion, your anger struts

for its moment on the stage, then slips into the wings. The only per ma -

nent, immu ta ble thing is you—the audi ence, the watcher of your life.

We encour age you not to take your anger so seri ously. It’s just a

moment in time, a wave on the sea of exis tence. You don’t have to

fight it—and you don’t have to join it, either. Your task, the work of

mind ful accep tance, is to dis en tan gle your self from your anger, not to

become your anger. Just let the wave of angry feel ing come and go.

Watch it from the safety of the shore—your strong, endur ing self.

Here’s another way to look at it: All your feel ings and thoughts

are pro jec tions. You are the movie screen on which they play. While

the screen never changes, the images change con stantly, and the movie

itself changes all the time, too. When an angry thought or feel ing

shows up on the screen, wait. It will morph soon. The screen does n’t


fight or resist the pro jec tions. It merely pro vides the space for the

movie to play out and waits for it to end.

We talked ear lier about the met a phor of the chess board. You are

the board upon which the pieces move and the game is played. Each

game has its own char ac ter and strat egy, but the board never changes.

One board might host a thou sand strug gles; one board might hold the

mov ing pieces (thoughts and feel ings) of a life time’s chal lenges. But let

us be clear: the board is not the game. You are not your thoughts or

your feel ings.

Let’s review a moment: your core self, the piece of you that

observes every moment of your life, stands apart from all your thoughts

and feel ings. The same is true for each of your actions. The observ ing

self watches every thing you do but is not your behav ior. In par tic u lar,

your observ ing self is not your anger-driven actions—it’s not the

yelling, the name-call ing, the hissed threats.

Fusion

So if the thoughts, feel ings, actions, and your observ ing self are all

quite sep a rate, how come they all seem fused in an angry explo sion?

The rea son is that emo tions can drive—very quickly—a pat terned set

of thoughts and habit ual behav iors. And for a few moments, we feel

taken over by them. It’s as if our observ ing self went off on hol i day,

leav ing our life in the hands of some angry wacko who goes rag ing

around and makes a mess of things.

This appar ent fusion of feel ings, thoughts, actions, and self is an

illu sion that our mind cre ates. It’s time now to pull each ele ment apart

so your observ ing self can watch—with mind ful accep tance—your

anger expe ri ence as it really is.

WISE MIND: SEPARATING THE

PIECES OF EXPERIENCE

To get a clearer idea of how to sep a rate the pieces of your expe ri ence,

let’s look at Lacy’s story. She’s the cos tume designer for a regional

theater and fre quently gets upset by actors’ demands that she change

their cos tumes at the last min ute.


When first asked to explain the anger, Lacy saw no sep a ra tion

between her self and any of her thoughts, feel ings, or actions. It was all

crushed together in one upset ting expe ri ence. Here’s how it looked in a

dia gram. Notice all the cir cles are over lap ping.

Lacy’s ther a pist asked her to do a wise mind exer cise. She was

encour aged to take slow, deep breaths while focus ing her atten tion on

her dia phragm. Then the ther a pist drew a cir cle and wrote “Observ ing

Self” inside. Below it he drew a row of three more cir cles. In the first

he wrote “Thoughts,” in the sec ond, “Feel ings,” and in the third,

“Actions.”

“Keep your atten tion just below your breath,” he told Lacy. “This

is the place we call wise mind. It’s where you can see your self, watch

what’s really going on. Now, with your wise, observ ing mind, fill in the

other cir cles.”

Here’s what the exer cise looked like when Lacy com pleted it. As

you can see, the four cir cles aren’t over lap ping any more. Thoughts,

feel ings, and actions are now sep a rate and yet con nected to and in

touch with the observer self.


Observ ing SelfThoughts: I can’t stand their super-size egos.

They only care about them selves.Feel ings: Pissed off, resent ful.Actions: Won’t return calls; tells them

angrily to sew it them selves.

Right now, we’d like you to do the wise mind exer cise with a

recent anger expe ri ence. Breathe deeply, focus ing on your dia phragm.

Wait until you feel cen tered. Then visu al ize the anger scene. From the

posi tion of wise mind, observe each ele ment of the expe ri ence. Sep a -

rate your thoughts, feel ings, and actions. Now, as Lacy did, write down

what you’ve observed in the dia gram below.


Observ ing Self(Wise Mind)

Feel ings:Pissed off, resent ful.

Thoughts:I can’t stand their super-size egos.They only care about them selves.

Actions:Won’t return calls; tells themangrily to sew it them selves.

Observ ing Self(Wise Mind)

Thoughts Feelings

Actions

There’s one more impor tant insight that can grow from the wise

mind exer cise: Your behav ior is sep a rate from your thoughts and feel -

ings. You can be awash with angry thoughts and emo tions and still

choose to act in ways that pro tect your rela tion ships. Your thoughts

and feel ings do not cre ate actions. You do!

The most impor tant thing to keep in mind is this sim ple

awareness: you truly can choose your actions. If you for get that your

behavior is a choice, you’re not likely to exer cise it. So here’s a man tra

to live by when you’re angry:

Learning Mindful Acceptance

Now comes the most impor tant part: dis cov er ing how to move

toward mind ful accep tance in your own life. We rec om mend five key

exer cises that can teach you how to do this. Mindful breathing will

start you focus ing on the pres ent moment. Leaves on a stream and

journaling the now will both teach you how to notice with out resis -

tance each part of your expe ri ence. The inner and outer shuttle will

help you see and accept expe ri ences inside and out side your body—

both pleas ant and unpleas ant. Finally, a softening to the pain exer cise

will help you to make peace with pre-anger feel ings you’ve tra di tion ally

tried to avoid.

MINDFUL BREATHING

The best way to start devel op ing mind ful accep tance is to learn mind -

ful breath ing. Start by tak ing deep, dia phrag matic breaths. Place one

hand on your chest and one on your abdo men, just above your waist.

Now begin breath ing so that only the hand on your abdo men moves up

and down. The hand on your chest should be nearly still. Keep direct -

ing your breath down ward to the very bot tom of your lungs. If it’s hard


I can’t choose how I feel.

I can and will choose what I do.

to get the hand on your abdo men to move, press in with that hand.

Cre ate pres sure on your abdo men, then try to breathe so you push that

hand out.

After you’ve prac ticed dia phrag matic breath ing for a while and

you feel like you’re get ting it, move on to step two: becoming mind ful

of your breath. Notice the feel ing of the cool air as it rushes through

your nose, then down the back of your throat. Feel your lungs expand -

ing, expe ri ence what it’s like as your dia phragm stretches. Make

yourself aware of every sen sa tion, every nuance of your breath ing.

Good. Now add one more thing: a thought. On the in breath say to

your self: “Live this moment.” On the out breath say, “Accept this

moment.” That’s it: breathe deeply, observe your breath, say your man tra.

Prac tice this exer cise twice a day for at least a week. Get good at

it. Notice what it teaches you.

LEAVES ON A STREAM

For this exer cise, you again begin with deep, dia phrag matic breath ing.

After a lit tle while start noticing and labeling each expe ri ence that

comes up—thoughts, feel ings, sen sa tions, and desires or impulses. Pay

atten tion to what’s hap pen ing in your mind and body, then sim ply

name what’s going on. A pain in your foot is a sen sa tion, a judg ment

about your friend’s too-expen sive car is a thought, a moment of irri ta -

tion at strug gling with the exer cise is a feel ing. A sud den yearn ing to

quit and watch some tele vi sion is an impulse.

Okay. You’re watch ing and label ing each expe ri ence as it comes

up. Now do one more thing: Imag ine sit ting next to a stream. As you

gaze at the stream you notice a num ber of large brown autumn leaves

on the sur face of the water, drift ing along in the cur rent.

Now when a thought, a feel ing, a sen sa tion, or an impulse comes

along into your mind, put it on a leaf. Observe the leaf as it comes

closer to you, and then watch as it slowly moves away from you, even -

tu ally drift ing out of sight. Place each thought, each feel ing, each

sensation or impulse on its own large leaf and let them just float away

down stream.

You can also allow your self to take the per spec tive of the stream,

just like in the chess board exer cise. Being the stream, you hold each of

the leaves and notice the thought or feel ing or urge that each leaf car ries


as it sails by. You need not inter fere with them—just let them float by

and do what they do until they are even tu ally car ried out of sight.

This exer cise helps you prac tice observ ing and accept ing each

expe ri ence, then let ting go of it. Do this exer cise once each day for a

week. Notice how you can learn to be an observer rather than a

participant or player with a stake in the game.

JOURNALING THE NOW

This exer cise is an exten sion of the pre vi ous leaves on a stream

exercise. This time, instead of label ing each expe ri ence and visu al iz ing

it drift ing away, we’d like you to jour nal the pro cess in a nar ra tive

fashion. Use the new lan guage hab its we intro duced in the pre vi ous

chap ter to help you dis en tan gle your self from the con tent of what you

expe ri ence. Instead of writ ing “I am sad about los ing my friend” write

“I’m hav ing the feel ing of sad ness about los ing my friend.” When you

write “I am sad,” you and sad ness are one and the same—you and

sadness are in over lap ping cir cles. The truth is that you and sad ness are

not the same. Being sad is just one part of your expe ri ence. So is being

angry. Here’s an exam ple of a nar ra tive:

Now I’m hav ing the feel ing of a slight head ache or pres sure behind

my eyes. Now I’m hav ing the thought that the back stairs need

paint ing. Now I’m hav ing an impulse to get up and stretch. Now

I’m hav ing a thought about how hor ri ble my hand writ ing is. Now

I’m hav ing the feel ing of dis ap point ment that the 49ers keep los ing.

Now I’m hav ing the thought that the owner is an idiot. Now I’m

hav ing the feeling of tight ness—maybe hun ger—in my stom ach.

Now I’m hav ing thoughts about din ner, start ing to want food.

Notice how the nar ra tive careens from impulse to thought to

feeling, and so on. That’s how the eter nal pres ent really is, if we pay

atten tion. It’s just one thing after another, some times jump ing sud -

denly with out rhyme or rea son. Writ ing it down helps you appre ci ate

and accept the things that occupy your mind.

Keep journaling the now for about three min utes. Don’t worry if

every thing’s hap pen ing too fast and you don’t have time to write an

expe ri ence down. Just skip it and jour nal the next thing that comes up.


INNER AND OUTER SHUTTLE

This mind ful ness exer cise will help you rec og nize and appre ci ate the

dif fer ence between inter nal bodily sen sa tions and exter nal sen sory

experience. What you do is shut tle your aware ness back and forth

between sen sa tions going on inside your body and sen sory expe ri ences

com ing from out side. Start your focus on one inter nal bodily sen sa tion

(how your stom ach, your shoul ders, or your ach ing feet feel). Then

imme di ately switch to an outer expe ri ence (the light com ing through

the win dow, kids scream ing in the next room, or the tex ture of your

arm chair uphol stery). Now, for three min utes, keep shut tling back and

forth—inner, outer, inner, outer.

There’s one more part to this exer cise. You may notice that some

of your inner or outer expe ri ences are uncom fort able. The room’s too

cold, there’s a noise that’s both er ing you, or some thing hurts in your

body. Good. Every time you notice some thing uncom fort able, take a

deep, dia phrag matic breath and acknowl edge the expe ri ence. Let the

sen sa tion be what it is. Don’t fight it. Rec og nize it for what it is—just a

sen sa tion—noth ing more, not hing less. Then, in a moment, let your

atten tion shift to the next par ti cle of aware ness.

We encour age you to do the shut tle exer cise once a day for a

week to max i mize your ben e fits from it.

SOFTENING TO THE PAIN

Now that you’ve been prac tic ing mind ful accep tance of uncom fort able

feel ings, it’s time for the final chal lenge. For this exer cise, you’ll visu al ize

a recent anger expe ri ence. Rather than just remem ber ing it, see if you

can get back to the pre-anger feel ings—the hurt, shame, fear, or guilt.

Visu al ize exactly what hap pened that trig gered those feel ings. In every

way you can, replay the events in your mind until the hurt or shame

feels real right now. Take your time. Lin ger over the details of the scene.

Here comes the most impor tant part: Stay with this pain ful

feeling and start your deep, dia phrag matic breath ing. Begin mind ful

breathing. Let your body soften around the pain ful feel ing. Keep

breath ing; keep focus ing on what it really feels like to breathe in and

out—and stay with the expe ri ence. See whether you can let go of the

anger by soft en ing to and stay ing with the pain in this moment. After

three min utes, shift your atten tion to some thing else and end the

exer cise.


Soft en ing to the pain is a cru cial skill, because it will teach you

how to stop resist ing feel ings—even very uncom fort able ones. We know

this is a hard skill to learn. So we will work on devel op ing it further in

chap ter 9. In the mean time, prac tice softening to the pain every time

you have an uncom fort able phys i cal or emo tional expe ri ence.

Your Daily Practice

The five exer cises you’ve just learned can be con densed into a

brief daily prac tice. We sug gest that you do it for ten min utes at a set

time each day. You could tie it to some thing you always do, such as

your morn ing shower, a meal, arriv ing home after work, and so on.

Here’s the pro cess: Begin by focus ing your atten tion on slow, dia -

phrag matic breaths. With each in breath, say to your self, “Live this

moment.” On the out breath, say, “Accept this moment.” Notice any

judg ment or fear thoughts. One by one, watch each thought arrive and

then drift away. Now notice your expe ri ence—what you see and hear,

what you feel inside your body. Next, notice your emo tions. Be aware of

any unpleas ant or pain ful emo tions—the ones you don’t like or want.

Soften to them by breath ing mind fully, and accept ing what ever you feel.

For ten min utes, keep breath ing deeply, keep watch ing your

thoughts, keep soft en ing to and breathing with any dis com fort, and

stay with the expe ri ence. That’s it. This daily prac tice grows more

powerful over time. It makes it pos si ble to watch your thoughts and

feel ings like horses on a merry-go-ground with out hav ing to ride them

in an end less anger cycle. Get in the habit of relax ing with your pain as

you allow it to be what it is, watch ing it from the dis tance and safety of

your observer self. This prac tice pre pares you to face life’s pain and

disappointments while find ing new ways to respond. When you no

longer fight the pain you don’t want, the pain loses its grip on you.

MINDFULNESS WHEN YOU’RE ANGRY:STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN

The pre vi ous exer cises are intended for prac tic ing before you get angry.

Below are two ways to use mind ful ness after you’ve got ten angry. They


are a bit like the say ing “Stop, look, and listen . . . or you won’t see

what you’re missin,’” which your par ents may have repeated to you

every time you were about to cross the street as a young child.

The first tool, watch ing the flags, is a pro cess for stop ping and

notic ing the red flags that show up as you’re start ing to get angry. The

goal is to acknowl edge these red flags and stay with them with out

inflam ing them or act ing on them with anger behav ior. The sec ond

tool, watch ing your mouth, is designed to make you stop, look, and lis -

ten in on your ver bal behav ior when you’re angry. Chap ters 9 and 10

con tain addi tional exer cises and sug ges tions about how you can prac -

tice mind ful accep tance after you’ve got ten angry.

Watching the Flags

As soon as some thing occurs that you did n’t expect or want—

whether it’s an event, in a con ver sa tion, or the fact of some thing not

hap pen ing—stop what you’re doing and start watch ing the flags. These

are the red flags sig nal ing that you’re start ing to get angry: feel ing hot,

clench ing your jaw, throb bing tem ples, tight stom ach, point ing your

fin ger, mak ing fists, voice get ting high or loud, heart pound ing, feel ing

shaky, shortness of breath, and so on.

You watch the flags by look ing with mind ful aware ness at what’s

hap pen ing with your body (mus cles, breath, heart, tem per a ture), your

pos ture, and your voice. Make no attempt to sup press, reduce, or

change the sen sa tions. Just ride them out as in the wave exer cise

described in chap ter 6. Stay firmly in your observer self posi tion for as

long as the prob lem atic con ver sa tion or sit u a tion con tin ues.

Watching Your Mouth

Once you become aware of feel ing angry and you’re in a sit u a tion

with other peo ple, switch your focus to your words—both planned and

uttered. Stop and lis ten to the words in your head before they take

shape in your mouth. What is your anger push ing you to say?

If you’re in a social sit u a tion and it’s okay to do so, just be quiet

and say noth ing. In fact, if it’s socially appro pri ate, leave the sit u a tion

so you can be alone and stay with your surg ing anger. It’s best not to

talk to any one for as long as you’re angry. The rea son is that it’s vir tu -

ally impos si ble not to sound angry when you are angry and feel like


you’re sit ting on a vibrat ing keg of dyna mite. Even say ing some thing

like “I love you” may come out sound ing more aggres sive than kind.

Say ing noth ing or leav ing the sit u a tion does n’t mean sup press ing anger

or run ning away from it. Quite the oppo site: you’re actu ally stay ing

with and attend ing to your anger. That takes more cour age and is

much harder to do than to speak out in anger.

If you’re expected to say some thing or if it’s socially inap pro pri ate

to leave the sit u a tion, say as lit tle as pos si ble. Lis ten to each sen tence

as you start to say it. Each spo ken word is a choice you have that can

pro mote har mony or dis cord, pre vent wounds or make them, solve

prob lems or deepen them.

As in the pre vi ous exer cise, don’t try to sup press thoughts and

sen sa tions; just notice and acknowl edge them. Watch ing your mouth

allows mind ful obser vance of every thing your mouth does, or is about

to do. It’s your key to chang ing an impor tant part of angry behav ior.

Chang ing any thing requires inten tion. You have to decide to do

something new. Watch ing the flags and watching your mouth will only

hap pen with inten tion. Right now, you can make a com mitment to

your self to use these mind ful ness tech niques when ever some thing

happens that frus trates or dis ap points you. Prom ise your self that you’ll

con tinue prac tic ing mind ful ness, as best as you can, until the sit u a tion

is over.


The five mindful acceptance exer cises described in this chap ter are

build ing blocks to a crit i cal new skill: embrac ing what you feel right

now with out run ning away from or block ing it. It’s impor tant to go

beyond read ing these exer cises. You need to do them. Accep tance

takes work and prac tice. But—and this is a guar an tee from us to

you—it will change your life.



WEEK 7

Learn ing how to accept what I expe ri ence

Point to ponder: I can learn to watch the strug gle, feel the

pain, and honor my hurt with mind ful accep tance.

Ques tions to consider: Am I ready to sep a rate my thoughts

and feel ings from my actions so I can make better choices

about what to do when I feel anger? Am I will ing to prac tice

mind ful accep tance so I can learn to respond to anger in a

different way?

Chapter 8

Taking Controlof Your Life

Life is a choice. Psychological pain is not a choice.

Either way you go, you will have problems and pain.

So the choice here is not about whether or not to have pain.

Your choice is whether or not to live a meaningful life.

—Ste ven C. Hayes

In pre vi ous chap ters, we have talked a lot about what you can not

control. The remain ing chap ters are about what you can con trol. They

are about dis cov er ing or per haps redis cov er ing what is impor tant to

you. You can take charge of and reclaim your life.

STOP FEEDING THE ANGER TIGER

We often com pare anger to a tiger grow ing inside a person. It starts out

like a baby tiger. Each time you act on your anger feel ing, you feed the

tiger and he gets just a lit tle bit big ger. In the short term, it may not

seem this way. But, in the long run, this is what act ing on anger

does—it feeds your anger, and it crip ples your life.

We talked to one of our cli ents, Frank, a thirty-four year-old store

man ager, about the anger tiger and asked him to write down his expe ri -

ence. Frank gave us per mis sion to share his ther apy jour nal entry with

our read ers.

Frank’s Story

When this anger tiger first appeared, he was just a baby. In

fact, I was just a child back then, too. But it was nasty

enough that I wanted it to just go away. Some times I got so

enraged that I would hit even my best friends. That got me

into all sorts of trou ble. My anger tiger just kept grow ing

bigger and big ger the more I lashed out at the peo ple who

annoyed me. I’ve been get ting more upset all this time

because I see the car nage in my life. I feel out of con trol and

like I’m not get ting any where. The tiger is in charge of my

life, and it does n’t look like he’s plan ning on leav ing anytime

soon. I’m fed up with this and I want to take back my life.

If you’re like Frank, the anger tiger has been run ning your life.

The direc tions you take are cho sen not by your high est val ues, but

rather by who or what has pissed you off. Now is the time to ask a

critical ques tion: “Who is in con trol here? Who is choos ing? Is it me,

or is it the anger tiger?” You don’t have to devote your life to feed ing

the anger tiger. You have the power to choose a dif fer ent direc tion.

LIFE WITHOUT ACTING ON ANGER

Have you ever won dered what your life would be like if you were n’t

always strug gling against anger and rage? Sit back for a moment and


think about what kind of things you’d do if your time was no lon ger

con sumed by act ing on your anger, going after every one who upsets

you, and try ing to win the end less bat tle against the peo ple who are

seem ingly out to get you and have wronged you. How would you spend

your day dif fer ently? And how might your rela tion ships be dif fer ent

then?

Now just pause for a moment. Go ahead and sit back, close your

eyes, and imag ine your new life for a min ute or so. Then come back to

read ing.

We sus pect that some of the images that came up in your mind

had to do with impor tant aspects of your life that you’re miss ing out

on, or may have even given up on, because of anger. We’d like to

recon nect you with some of those impor tant parts of your life, because

we know that you can reclaim them.

WHAT ARE MY VALUES?

To fig ure out what your val ues are, you’ll need to think about areas of

your life that are deeply impor tant to you. These are the things that

make your life worth liv ing, that you want to cher ish and nur ture, and

that you’d act to defend when nec es sary. These are the very things that

you might look back on at the end of your life and say—if you took

good care of them—“There was a life lived well.” What you value and

con sider impor tant may not be exactly what oth ers value and con sider

impor tant. This is fine and to be expected.

Val ues tend to fall within sev eral core areas or domains: fam ily,

inti mate rela tion ships, friends, work, edu ca tion, lei sure, spir i tu al ity, cit -

i zen ship, and health. Although we list them sep a rately, most domains

over lap. For exam ple, the value of health can lead you to join a yoga

group or sports club. Doing this can in turn lead to meet ing new peo ple

and being a good friend to peo ple in your life (another value), and

being around long enough to be a good par ent to your chil dren and

grand par ent to your grand chil dren (another val ue).


Anger has a way of push ing val ues from view. If val ues are at the

core of the life you want to lead, then any thing—includ ing anger—

that gets in the way of your val ues is a prob lem.

Values Are Like a Road Map

Val ues serve as a map that guides the direc tion you want to move

in. With out val ues, you are directionless. Any thing that hides your val -

ues from view can keep you stuck, not know ing where to go. You can

end up spin ning your wheels through life, feel ing like you’re get ting

nowhere fast. You’ve prob a bly felt this way at some point when you’ve

been angry.

We want to help you stop spin ning and get mov ing in direc tions

that are impor tant to you. Val ues are the com pass that will help guide

you away from anger behav ior and back into your life. This is the real

prize and why it is impor tant for you to recon nect with your val ues.

When you start con nect ing with what mat ters in your life, you will

want more of your life to focus on that. Once those value-guided direc -

tions are clearer to you, you can begin to focus your efforts on mov ing

in those directions.

Values Help You Stay Focused

Work ing toward liv ing con sis tently with what you value will also

moti vate you to keep up with the exer cises in this book. We real ize this

is not easy and requires com mit ment. But the invest ment you make in

read ing and work ing with this book will pay off. As you start spend ing

more of your time liv ing con sis tently with what you value, your life and

every thing you want to be about will come into focus.

Peo ple who have prob lems with anger often have quite a lot of

energy. This energy is a gift. In fact, you can think of your energy as

being like a ham mer. You can use a ham mer to destroy things or to

build things. You can like wise focus your energy con struc tively or

destruc tively in your life, whether that means get ting even or being a

lov ing part ner, a good friend, an ath lete, or what ever else you desire.

As you explore your val ued direc tions in this chap ter, keep think ing

about this ques tion: “How can I use my energy wisely?”


Values Give You an Alternative to Blowing Up in Anger

Val ues serve as a bench mark to eval u ate which actions are use ful

and which aren’t. This is espe cially impor tant when you feel angry and

won der what to do about it. Val ues guide you toward actions that

exem plify what you want your life to be about. You will learn a

response to anger feel ings that involves stop ping, observ ing, and then

con sidering your val ues along these lines: “Act ing on this anger feel ing

will prob a bly con flict with one of my values. It will hurt some one I

love. It can affect my sta tus at work.” You will know what to do and

what not to do by answer ing the fol low ing ques tion: “Does this action

move me closer to or fur ther away from my val ues?”

Val ues are not a dis trac tion from anger. Instead, they help you

decide what mat ters more: get ting even or liv ing a life you value.

That’s how work ing toward what mat ters to you becomes a via ble

alter na tive to blow ing up in anger.

For exam ple, let’s say you have cho sen being a lov ing hus band

as one of your val ues. One day your wife approaches you. She’s upset

and demands an answer to her ques tion of why you can’t be more

under stand ing about her sit u a tion as a work ing mother. Your val ues

help you ask your self the fol low ing ques tion: “What is mov ing me

closer to being a lov ing hus band: snap ping back at her right away and

defend ing myself (that’s what I feel like doing), or being quiet for a

while, strok ing her hand, and admit ting with a kind tone of voice

that she’s in a dif fi cult sit u a tion, and tell ing her that I’ll make an

effort to help her?”

One of our cli ents, Jim, would rou tinely fly off the han dle when

his daugh ter did n’t clean up her room. He would raise his voice and

ulti mately say some thing that left his daugh ter in tears. He would usu -

ally walk away fum ing. The last time this began to unfold, Jim took

stock of what he cared about—his rela tion ship with his daugh ter. This

time, he did n’t flare up and instead approached his daugh ter, hugged

her, and said that he cared about her and loved her. When he com mit -

ted to this way of inter act ing with his daugh ter, their rela tion ship

improved and she made an effort to keep her room clean because she

wanted to please him.

A life lived in the ser vice of anger is typ i cally not high on any -

one’s list of val ues. Jim came to this real iza tion, too, as he put his value

of a good rela tion ship with his daugh ter into clear focus.


You’re at a crit i cal choice point in your life. You can choose to

live it in a way that upholds your deep est and most cher ished desires,

or you can choose the same old way of life ruled by anger. It’s up to

you.

You can think of these choices in this way: Imag ine life as a walk

down a long cor ri dor with many doors on either side. You have the

power to choose which doors to open and enter. One of those doors is

labeled “anger.” You have cho sen the anger behav ior door for so long

that you may have lost sight of other options in the corridor. You can

ven ture out and open up other doors. You can also choose to stay

inside the anger room.

What choice do you want to make? Stay ing locked behind the

anger door lim its your life. Anger pushes away the fam ily mem bers you

love and moves you fur ther away from hav ing a sat is fy ing fam ily life.

Anger also pushes away friends who are con cerned about you or could

help you. Now is the time to mus ter the cour age to explore other doors

in your life cor ri dor. Think about your life. Besides anger, what other

doors can you and would you like to open? Maybe there’s a door

labeled “love” and another sport ing a sign that says “phys i cal fit ness.”

There’s a door to pro fes sional sat is fac tion, and another that leads to

polit i cal activ ism. Yet another is marked “inner peace.” It’s a long

corridor with many, many doors.

IS IT A GOAL OR A VALUE?

It’s easy to con fuse goals with val ues. Goals are actions you can put on

a list, com plete, and then check off. Once you reach a goal, the work is

done, and you’re fin ished. Tak ing out the gar bage is a goal you can

check off, as are other goals such as los ing ten pounds, tak ing a vaca -

tion, get ting a degree, or mow ing the lawn. Even the act of get ting

mar ried fits our def i ni tion of a goal. Once that ring is on your fin ger,

your goal is achieved. So, you can tell if some thing is a goal by whether

you can do it and then get it off your plate.

Unlike goals, val ues are life long jour neys. You can’t answer the

ques tion “Am I done yet?” with val ues. Val ues have no end point.

Instead, they direct us through out life.

For exam ple, reach ing a par tic u lar goal (get ting mar ried) is just

one of many steps in a val ued direc tion (being a lov ing part ner). The


value of being a lov ing, devoted part ner is not com plete the moment

you say, “I do.” Being a lov ing, devoted part ner is some thing you must

con stantly keep on work ing toward, and there is always room for

growth. Like wise, reach ing your goal of spend ing two hours of qual ity

time with your child every week end does not com plete the value of

being a good par ent. Val ues such as being a lov ing per son or a good

par ent are ongo ing com mit ments and actions you can not fin ish while

you’re alive.

Although val ues and goals are not the same, they are related. Just

think of one or two goals you have set for your self. Be open to the

seem ingly mun dane here too, like tak ing out the gar bage to please your

wife. To deter mine the value that under lies the goal, you can sim ply

ask your self, “Why am I doing this?” “What am I try ing to accom plish

in my life with this goal?” “Where am I head ing with this?” Answers to

these ques tions will point you in the direc tion of your val ues. You may

find the sim ple act of tak ing out the gar bage reflects a value of help ing,

being part of a fam ily, or being a sup port ive spouse.

Outcomes

Some times we hear peo ple say, “I want to be calmer,” or “It’s

impor tant for me to be happy.” Both state ments sound like val ues, but

they are really goals. Being calmer and happier are emo tional goals.

Essen tially, they are an out come, a result that may or may not hap pen

after you start mov ing toward your val ues. Remem ber, val ues are a

direc tion that must be lived out again and again by actions, large and

small, each and every day. In a nut shell, val ues are the cumu la tive

effect of what you spend your time doing, not what you think and feel

about what you’re doing.

If a Dead Man Can Do It, It’s Not a Good Goal

As you think about val ues, think about what you want to or can

do, not what you don’t want to do or can’t do. Exam ples of to-do goals

include call my best friend at least once a week, enrol in a music class,

attend church once a week, exer cis e thirty min utes daily, read to my

chil dren every night before bed, and so on.

Many of us have a ten dency to focus our time and effort on

not-to-do goals. These not-to-dos often show up after you’ve done


some thing hurt ful, and when you let your feel ings and thoughts guide

your actions. Sara found her self doing quite a bit of this. She would fre -

quently spend her time tell ing her self “Don’t yell at the kids,” “Stop

crit i ciz ing Dan [her hus band],” or “Don’t get worked up when oth ers

are late.”

Any time you write or think “don’t,” “never,” “stop,” “quit,” and

the like, you are set ting what we call a dead man’s goal. Dead men

don’t yell at their chil dren or crit i cize their spouse. If you start to write

a dead man’s goal, ask your self, “What can I do instead?” This sim ple

ques tion helps reframe your not-to-do into a to-do. When you know

what to do, you have a direc tion and can start doing. So, instead of

say ing “Stop crit i ciz ing my part ner,” you might instead focus on behav -

ing in a more lov ing, com pas sion ate fash ion toward your part ner by

doing things that show you care. When you only know what not to do,

you are as exiled from life as a dead man.

Valuing Involves Action, Not Feeling

Many peo ple assume that val u ing is how they feel about a par tic u -

lar area in their lives. This is a poten tial trap. There are many actions

you take in life regard less of how you may feel at the time. You prob a -

bly go to work in the morn ing regard less of whether you feel irri tated,

sad, anx ious, or happy. Or you may have paid a visit to Aunt Edith

even if you don’t like her much. So, if you feel angry at some one you

love, you can still reach out to them and give them a hug or a gift even

though inside you feel resent ful. This is why we stress that val u ing is all

about action. You actu ally value with your hands, feet, and words. If

you say you value your career, then you should be doing just that:

work ing to build your career. If you don’t work to build your career,

then you don’t value it, regard less of how you feel about it.

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO STAND FOR?

Have you ever thought about what you want your life to stand for?

Most peo ple don’t think about this until it’s too late to do some thing

about it. To help you avoid this sad out come, we’re going to walk you

through two exer cises: a funeral med i ta tion and writ ing your own


epitaph. These exer cises are very pow er ful, per haps even a lit tle fright -

en ing. The pay off for doing them is that they will give you a clear

vision of what you want your life to stand for, and they’ll begin to

reveal what you truly value in your life.

Death is inev i ta ble. We can delay death, but we can never avoid

it. Although you can’t con trol when or how you will die, you can con -

trol how you live. The fol low ing exer cise will help you make con tact

with this sim ple tru ism in a pro found way.

FUNERAL MEDITATION

Go ahead and get com fort able. For this exer cise, imag ine that you’re

watch ing your own funeral. Visualize your self in an open cas ket. Smell

the fresh flow ers. Hear the soft music in the back ground. Look around

the room. Who do you see? Per haps you can see your loved ones, fam -

ily, friends, rel a tives, cowork ers, and acquain tances. Lis ten closely to

their con ver sa tions; eaves drop on what they are say ing about you.

What is your part ner say ing . . . your kids . . . your best friend . . . your

col leagues . . . your neigh bor?

Listen care fully to each of them as they say the words that, in

your heart, you most want to hear about yourself. This is how you want

the peo ple whom you care about to remem ber you. Your wis dom will

let you pick and choose exactly what you want and need to hear from

them.

Pause for a moment and con tinue to imag ine this sit u a tion. Stay

with this image for a few min utes. Then come back to read ing.

Think about the com ments you heard that touched and pleased

you. These will give you an idea of what you really want your life to be

about. Some of what you heard may have left you feel ing hurt and dis -

ap pointed. Per haps one per son said, “He was a cyn i cal, angry man,” or

“She was often quite bitchy.” The good news about this exer cise is that

your life isn’t over yet, and the pri vate con ver sa tions at your funeral

have not yet taken place. You still have time to do things so that you

will be sorely missed and remem bered as the type of per son you want to

be. You can start liv ing that way right now.


WRITE YOUR OWN EPITAPH

Imag ine that one day the head stone in the draw ing below will be the

head stone on your grave. Notice that the head stone is blank. Your epi -

taph (a brief description of your life) has not yet been writ ten. What

inscrip tion would you like to see on your head stone? Think of a phrase

or sen tence that would cap ture the essence of the life you want to have

led. What is it you want to be remem bered for? Give your self some

time to think about these impor tant ques tions. If you find an answer—

or more than one—write them down on the head stone. This may seem

like another strange and some what scary exer cise. How ever, if you

stick with it and com plete it—even if you feel a bit queasy—it will help

you get in touch with what you really want your life to stand for.

This is not really a hypo thet i cal exer cise. What you will be

remem bered for, what defines your life, is up to you. It depends on

what you do now. It depends on the actions you take being con sis tent

with what you care about. This is one way you can help deter mine the

word ing of your own epi taph.

Now, we make no prom ises that peo ple will build a Lin coln-type

memo rial for you at the end of your life. Yet if you make pos i tive steps


Here Lies

___________________

to take your life in the direc tion of your val ues, chances are that you’ll

be remem bered with warmth and love by all who know you.

Liv ing your val ues is a life long jour ney. Each day you live is a day

an oppor tu nity to move in a val ued direc tion while taking your pain ful

thoughts and feel ings with you. You write your own eulogy and epi taph

by the choices you make and the actions you take each and every day.

So what do you want your epi taph to say? What sorts of things do you

want to have peo ple mur mur ing at your memo rial? Answer ing these

ques tions will point you in the direc tion you want to go.

IDENTIFYING VALUED LIFE DIRECTIONS—

THE LIFE COMPASS

Iden ti fy ing your val ues and set ting goals are impor tant steps on the

road to liv ing the life you want to lead. To iden tify your core val ues,

you can ask your self a cou ple of sim ple ques tions: “What do I want my

life to be about?” “What really mat ters to me?” To get to the heart of

such ques tions, we encour age you to com plete the life compass. It will

take a while to com plete, but it’s time well spent because it will help

you fig ure out some impor tant things:

+ Which areas of your life are most impor tant to you

+ How you would like to conduct your life vis-à-vis the

things that mat ter most

+ How con sis tent your actions have been with your inten -

tions

+ Obsta cles or bar ri ers that stand in the way of pur su ing

your val ues

What Life Domains Do You Value and Find Important?

Take a look at fig ure 2 so you’ll have some con text for this exer -

cise. The first step in this exer cise is to con sider your qual ity of life in

each of the ten life domain areas. One aspect of qual ity of life involves

the empha sis you put on each of these ten areas. Start by rat ing the

impor tance of each area using a scale of 0 (unim por tant), 1 (mod er ately


impor tant), or 2 (very impor tant). Write your impor tance rat ings into

the “i” box con nected to each value. Not every one will value all of these

areas, or value all areas the same. Rate each area accord ing to your own

per sonal sense of impor tance. Go ahead and do this now.

What Are Your Intentions?

Next, go back to each area you rated as either mod er ately impor -

tant (1), or very impor tant (2), and write down your inten tion. Your

inten tion is sim ply a state ment of how you would like to live your life in

that area (for exam ple, what is most impor tant to you in that area?).

Write that inten tion directly in the box. If you’re hav ing dif fi culty

coming up with an inten tion state ment because you’re unsure what a

par tic u lar domain is about, you can ask your self the fol low ing ques tions:

+ Inti mate rela tion ships: What kind of part ner would I

most like to be in an inti mate rela tion ship? What type of

mar i tal or cou ple rela tion ship would I like to have? How

do I want to treat my part ner?

+ Parenting: What type of par ent do I want to be? How

do I want to inter act with my chil dren?

+ Edu ca tion/learn ing: Why is learn ing impor tant to me?

What skills, train ing, or areas of com pe tence would I like

to acquire?

+ Friends/social life: What kind of friend do I want to be?

What does it mean to be a good friend? How do I behave

toward my best friend? Why is friend ship impor tant to

me?

+ Phys i cal self-care/health: How and why do I take care

of myself? Why do I want to take care of my body and

my health through what I eat, by exer cis ing, and by

being phys i cally fit?

+ Fam ily of ori gin: How do I want to inter act with my

fam ily mem bers? What type of sis ter or brother do I want

to be? What type of son or daugh ter do I want to be?

+ Spir i tu al ity: What are the mys ter ies of life before which

I stand in awe? What are the things larger than my own


life that inspire me? In what (if any thing) do I have

faith?

+ Com mu nity life/cit i zen ship: What can I do to make the

world a better place? Why are com mu nity activ i ties (such

as vol un teer ing, vot ing, recy cling) impor tant to me?

+ Rec re ation/lei sure: How do I feed myself through hob -

bies, sports, or play? Why do I enjoy them?

+ Work/career: What do I want my work or career to be

about or stand for? What is impor tant to me about my

work (for exam ple, finan cial secu rity, intel lec tual

challenge, inde pend ence, pres tige, or inter act ing with or

help ing peo ple)?


Fig ure 2. The Life Compass—a behav ioral com pass of impor tant life domains, inten -

tions in each area, and poten tial bar ri ers to reach ing those goals (adapted from Dahl

et al., 2004; Copy right (2004) by the Asso ci a tion for Advance ment of Behav ior

Therapy. Reprinted by per mis sion of the pub lisher.

Are You Doing What Matters to You?

After you’ve fin ished writ ing down your inten tions on the life

compass, please think about your activ i ties in the past week. How con -

sis tent have your actions been with your inten tions in each area? If we

call your activ i ties “your feet,” how con sis tent were your feet with the

inten tions you just wrote down? For each inten tion, rate how often you

have done some thing to move you for ward in this area dur ing the past

seven days. Use the fol low ing scale for your rat ings: 0 = no action, 1 =

one or two activ i ties or actions, 2 = three or four activ i ties, 3 = five or

more activ i ties. Write your rat ings in the “a” = (actions) box next to

the “i” box con nected to each value. We’re not ask ing about your ideal

in each area or what oth ers may think of you. Just rate how actively

you have you been work ing toward your inten tions dur ing the past

week.

What Stands in Your Way?

Now go back and look at your inten tions and actions. How well

do they match up for each domain you rated as impor tant to you? Take

stock here, par tic u larly of areas where the “i” is a larger num ber than

the “a.” Are you doing things that are impor tant to you? If you’re like

most peo ple with prob lem anger, you might see dis crep an cies between

impor tance and action rat ings. For instance, if you con sider fam ily very

impor tant and your action rat ing is low (0 or 1), you’re liv ing a life that

is quite dif fer ent from the one you want.

Dis crep an cies between your intentions and actions in val ued

areas are often related to bar ri ers. Bar ri ers are any thing that stands in

the way of you liv ing out your val ues. If you look deeply, you’ll see that

some of these are directly related to your hurt and anger. The flash of

anger can side track you from see ing your val ued inten tions and fol low -

ing through on them. In the next two chap ters, we’ll pro vide you with

some skills to iden tify and overcome these bar ri ers.



You can take charge of your life by focus ing on what you can con trol:

what you do with your hands, feet, and mouth. Instead of giv ing in to

anger feel ings, you can iden tify what truly mat ters in your life and then

focus your energy on pur su ing goals that will move you in those

direc tions.

The val ues you choose are the road map for guid ing you in the

pro cess of reclaim ing your life from anger. They help you stay focused

on what mat ters. When you feel the anger sen sa tions surg ing in your

body, you can stop, observe the feel ing, and then lis ten to your val ues.

They will help you choose a course of action that moves you closer to

rather than away from your value-driven goals. This is how liv ing for

your val ues can become an alter na tive to blow ing up in anger.

Pur su ing your val ues is all about action. You can write your own

eulogy and epi taph through the choices you make and the actions you

take every day. Each day you live is a day to move in a val ued direc tion

and take your pain ful thoughts and feel ings with you.


WEEK 8

Iden ti fy ing and think ing about my val ues

Point to pon der: Life is short. My val ues make my life

worth while.

Ques tions to con sider: Am I liv ing con sis tently with my val -

ues, or am I let ting my anger and emo tional pain get in the way

of my val ues? Am I ready to start mov ing in the direc tion of

my val ues and take anger, hurt, and joy along for the ride?

Chapter 9

Facing the Flame ofAnger and the Pain

Fueling It

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your

wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your

tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last

toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving

back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that

what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

—Fred er ick Buechner

Unforgiveness is the seed of resent ment and bit ter ness. It’s the key

ingre di ent in the feast of anger that trans forms emo tional pain and

hurt into suf fer ing and mis ery. Like a can cer, unforgiveness allows

anger to grow and your heart to harden, while breed ing judg ment, crit i -

cism, blame, ill will, and a host of harm ful behav ioral ten den cies.

When peo ple fail you in some way, the nat u ral ten dency is to feel

hurt, used, robbed, or wronged—like they owe you. This is what you

get when you don’t for give —an ever-pres ent debt to be repaid, with

you stuck as the vic tim. This is why for give ness is vital. “For give ness”

means “for giv ing,” the release of an imag ined debt: soft en ing up to the

pain and hurt you expe ri ence, giv ing it lov ing com pas sion and accep -

tance, and then let ting it go. When you choose for give ness, you cut

out anger at its root and allow peace to settle in.

Patience is about get ting smart and just stop ping, sit ting still, and

wait ing when the hard ness of the hot, noisy, pul sat ing, want ing- to-

just- get-even state of mind shows up. You can make a deci sion to cul ti -

vate patience in your life by learn ing to sit still with your pain, hurt,

and resent ment—and do noth ing. This sim ple and yet dif fi cult move

will help you take your life in direc tions you want it to go.

For give ness and patience are the most pow er ful anti dotes to

anger and aggres sion. And nei ther comes easy. Build ing on pre vi ous

exer cises, we’ll offer you more ways to nur ture and develop your capac -

ity for for give ness and patience. We’ll teach you how to for give your self

and oth ers, take care of your pain and hurt, and prac tice patience to

cool the flames of anger when they flare up.

Pema Chödrön (2001, 2005) has writ ten widely about the wis dom

of approach ing anger with mind ful accep tance and com pas sion, and

prac tic ing patience with anger. We have included many of her sug ges -

tions in the exer cises in this and the next chap ter. It’s best to prac tice

patience at home first, so that you can apply this vital life skill later in

those crit i cal stress ful sit u a tions when pain ful emo tions run high.

LEARNING TO FORGIVE

Most major reli gions tell us that for give ness is good, but they do not

teach us how to go about doing it. Many stud ies report that the

ability to for give improves health—phys i cal, emo tional and spir i tual

(McCullough, Thoresen, and Pargament 2000). Stud ies also show that

you can learn to for give. Those who learn this impor tant skill report

expe ri enc ing less hurt, stress, anger, depres sion, and ill ness, and more


energy, hope, opti mism, com pas sion, and love, and a greater sense of

well-being. These are some of the con crete ben e fits of for give ness.

Just as with accep tance, many peo ple think for giv ing means con -

don ing or for get ting past wrongs, ignor ing hurt and pain; or else they

see it as a sign of weak ness. None of this is true. When the late Pope

John Paul II met with his would-be assas sin to for give him, he was n’t

con don ing the wrong that was done. Instead, he was extend ing mercy

and com pas sion. He was let ting go. The man who tried to kill the Pope

still sits in prison for his crime.

It is much eas ier to be angry than to choose for give ness. For giv ing

is the most cou ra geous and ben e fi cial thing you can do for your self. It’s

a gift to your self. To expe ri ence the ben e fits of for give ness, you need

no other per son than your self.

Four Steps to Forgiveness

Below we describe an exer cise that out lines four steps on the path

to learn ing for give ness:

1. Aware ness: Wak ing up to your hurt and pain as it is,

with out judg ment or denial

2. Sep a ra tion: Soft en ing to your expe ri ence using your

wise mind while invit ing heal ing and change

3. Com pas sion ate wit ness: Extend ing com pas sion to your

expe ri ence and that of oth ers

4. Let ting go and mov ing on: Releas ing the grudges,

resent ment, and pain, and then mov ing for ward in your

life in direc tions you want to go

Before begin ning this exer cise, we’d like you to find a quiet, com -

fort able place where you can set up a can dle. Light this can dle as a

sym bol of your com mit ment to for give. This can dle rep re sents some one

who recently caused you pain or hurt. You will be focus ing on the

flame as you go through each step.

This exer cise is likely to be dif fi cult for you at first. Steps 3 and 4,

bring ing com pas sion and let ting go as you extend for give ness to the

source of hurt or pain, are par tic u larly tough at first. Be gen tle with

your self if it feels like it’s too much or too dif fi cult. Your mind will give

Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 137

you all sorts of rea sons why you should n’t do it. Acknowl edge those

doubts, appre hen sions, and uneas i ness about extend ing for give ness and

see whether you can be will ing to have them for the sake of liv ing the

life you want. It takes prac tice to cul ti vate for give ness. Give your self

time to get the hang of it. Spend at least fifteen min utes doing this

exer cise at least once per day. Tape-record it at a slow pace if that

makes it eas ier for you. Remem ber, this is for you, not for those who

have hurt you!

THE CANDLE OF FORGIVENESS

Go ahead and light the can dle, and then get in a com fort able posi tion

in your chair. Sit upright with your feet flat on the floor, your arms and

legs uncrossed, and your hands rest ing in your lap (palms up or down,

which ever is more com fort able). Allow your eyes to focus on the

candle flame and sim ply watch it.

As you watch the flicker of the can dle flame, bring your atten tion

to the gen tle ris ing and fall ing of your breath in your chest and belly.

Like ocean waves com ing in and out, your breath is always there.

Notice its rhythm in your body. Notice each breath. Focus on each

inhale . . . and exhale. Notice the chang ing pat terns of sen sa tions in

your belly as you breathe in, and as you breathe out. Take a few

minutes to feel the phys i cal sen sa tions as you inhale and exhale.

Step 1: Acknowledge the Wrong and HurtUnderneath the Anger

Now allow your aware ness to shift to a recent sit u a tion where you

became angry. See if you can allow your self to visu al ize the scene fully.

What hap pened? Who else was there? Watch the can dle as you

acknowl edge the anger sit u a tion unfolding in your mind’s eye. Focus

on your breath ing as you watch the sit u a tion unfold. With each slow

breath, see if you can slow the anger sit u a tion down, like a slow-

motion movie. As you do, bring your atten tion to any sen sa tions of

discomfort that show up. As best you can, bring an atti tude of gen er ous

allow ing and gen tle accep tance to your expe ri ence right now. See if

you can make room for the pain and hurt you had then and that you

may be reliv ing now. Soften to it . . . as you breathe in . . . and out . . .


in and out. Don’t try to fight what you expe ri ence. Open up to all of it:

the hurt, pain, sad ness, regret, loss, and resent ment. Allow your self to

become more aware of your hurt and pain ful emo tions, and sim ply

acknowl edge the hurt you expe ri enced and the hurt you may have

caused. Don’t blame. Sim ply acknowl edge and become aware of your

expe ri ence.

Step 2: Separate Hurtful Actions from Your Hurt and Its Source

Visu al ize the per son who hurt you. As you begin to visu al ize that

per son, allow them to drift over to the can dle and become the can dle.

Focus on the can dle as the per son who hurt you, and remem ber what

hap pened. As you focus on the can dle, notice what your mind, the

language machine, is doing, and the sen sa tions that come up. You

might see your mind passing judg ment . . . blam ing . . . and lin ger ing

over feel ings of sad ness . . . bit ter ness . . . resent ment. As these and

other thoughts and sen sa tions come into your aware ness, sim ply label

them as you did in pre vi ous exer cises—“There is judg ment . . . blame

. . . ten sion . . . resent ment”—and allow them to be. Bring a gen tle and

kind aware ness to your pain and hurt as you breathe in . . . and out . . .

in . . . and out . . . slowly, and deeply.

Next, cre ate some space between the actions that made you feel

hurt and angry and the per son who com mit ted them. If it helps, you

can visu al ize the action that hurt you as the flame and the per son who

com mit ted the hurt as the can dle stick. Notice the dif fer ence between

the flame and the can dle. The flame is not the can dle stick. The

actions of the per son who hurt you are not the same as the per son who

com mit ted them. As you breathe in and out, give your self time to

connect with this dif fer ence. Bring each hurt ful action into the flame,

one by one, and notice it, label it, and then see the dif fer ence between

the hurt ful action and the per son who com mit ted it. Visu al ize what

was done, not who did it.

Then, after you spend some time notic ing each action, allow it

to dis ap pear up into the heat leav ing the can dle flame. Keep watch -

ing any ten sion, dis com fort, anger, hurt, or what ever else your body

may be doing. Make room for what you expe ri ence as you return

your atten tion to your body and your breath ing. Don’t change or fix

any thing.


Step 3: Bring Compassionate Witness to Your Hurt

Next, bring your atten tion back to the human being sym bol ized

by the can dle—the per pe tra tor of wrongs against you. Notice how he

or she is also a per son who is vul ner a ble to harm, just like you. At a

basic human level, the two of you are not that dif fer ent. See if you can

allow your self to take his or her per spec tive as a com pas sion ate wit -

ness—see what life might be like through that person’s eyes. Con nect

with his or her hard ships, losses, missed oppor tu ni ties, poor choices,

faults and fail ings, hurts and sad ness, hopes and dreams.

With out con don ing that person’s actions, see if you can con nect

with his or her human ity and imper fec tions as you con nect with your

own human ity and imper fec tions, hard ships, loss, pain, and suf fer ing.

As a com pas sion ate wit ness to this other human being, see if you can

con nect more deeply with that per son as another human being. Notice

the offender’s thoughts and feel ings, know ing that you’ve also expe ri -

enced sim i lar types of thoughts and feel ings. What might it be like to

have lived the life of the per son who offended you? As best you can,

bring an atti tude of gen er ous allow ing and gen tle accep tance to what

you expe ri ence now.

Step 4: Extend Forgiveness, Let Go, and Move On

Now see if you can bring into aware ness what your life would be

like if you let go of all the neg a tive energy you are hold ing on to—your

griev ances, grudges, bit ter ness, and anger. Con nect with the rea sons

behind why you want to be free from anger and the desire for revenge.

Allow your self to visu al ize an alter na tive future full of the things you

have missed out on or given up by not offer ing for give ness. See if you

can con nect with your future with out amne sia about what has

happened in the past, and with out car ry ing the weight of bit ter ness,

anger, and resent ment toward the per son who hurt you.

Allow your self to take the cou ra geous step for ward in your life of

let ting go of your anger and resent ment. Per haps you can feel the

burden and weight of past hurts and unre solved anger begin to lift from

your shoul ders. Take time to really con nect with this relief as you

imag ine your self sep a rat ing from the resent ment and bit ter ness you

have car ried for so long. Allow all of it to drift away with each out


breath, and with each in breath wel come peace and for give ness.

Continue to breathe in . . . and out. Slowly. Deeply.

When you’re ready, bring into your aware ness how you have

needed other peo ple’s for give ness in the past. Imag ine extend ing that

for give ness to the per son who hurt or offended you. What could you

say to that per son now? As you think about this, notice any dis com fort

show ing up and how your mind is reacting. If the thought “The per son

does n’t deserve that” shows up, just notice that thought and gently let

it go. Return your focus to your breath ing as you remind your self that

kind and gen tle acts of for give ness are for you, not for oth ers. Imag ine

the weight of the bur den being lifted from you as you choose to give

for give ness. Allow your self to con nect with the sense of heal ing and

con trol that comes along with this. As you give the pow er ful gift of for -

give ness, notice some bud ding feel ings of soft ness where before there

was only hard ness, hurt, and pain.

Embrace this moment of peace as you return to the image of the

per son who offended you. Gently extend your hands as you say, “In

forgiving you, I for give myself. In let ting go of my anger toward you, I

bring peace to myself. I invite peace and com pas sion into my life and

into my hurt and pain. I choose to let go of this bur den that I have

been car ry ing for so long.” Repeat these phrases slowly as you extend

for give ness.

Stay with and sim ply observe and label what ever thoughts and feel -

ings come up as you extend this act of for give ness. Sense the emo tional

relief that comes when the bur den of a grudge is melt ing away. See if

you can notice the peace and feel ing of inner strength that comes about

as you extend com pas sion and for give ness in this moment. Then, when

you’re ready, bring your aware ness back into the room, to your body, and

to the flicker of the can dle flame. Fin ish this exer cise by blow ing out the

can dle as a sym bolic ges ture of your com mit ment to for give and let go,

and your readi ness to move on with your life.

Barriers to Forgiveness

A recent Gal lup poll showed that 94 per cent of Amer i cans

believe that it is impor tant to for give, and yet only 48 per cent reported

that they rou tinely prac tice for giv ing oth ers. Some thing is get ting in


the way of peo ple offer ing for give ness as often as they’d like to. The

chief bar ri ers to for give ness are men tal—the same kinds of mind

chatter that seem to pro tect you from hurt and pain but actu ally help

fuel your anger and keep you stuck and hurt ing. You’ll need to face

each of these bar ri ers squarely and rec og nize them for what they are if

you want to release your self from the grip of prob lem anger.

Larry’s Story

Let’s look at how this played out with Larry, who recently

attended an anger and for give ness work shop. About two

months before the work shop, Larry learned that his wife of

fif teen years had lied to him about some thing that had a

major impact on their future. He had sus pected that his wife

had lied to him in the past about fairly impor tant finan cial

mat ters, but now the full extent of her decep tion was

revealed. Even though the rev e la tion came to light two

months pre vi ously, Larry was still strug gling with feel ings of

hurt and betrayal, and he wanted to learn how to deal with

them. His anger and hurt were as vivid as they’d been when

he’d first unearthed the lie. Larry loved his wife, but he had

qualms about for giv ing her. He asked him self these

ques tions:

+ If I for give my wife, am I con don ing her decep -

tion?

+ How can I for get that she blew most of our

savings?

+ How can I stop obsess ing and fum ing over this?

Larry learned over the next sev eral weeks a few simple

facts: Just because some one hurt you does n’t mean that you

have to suf fer end lessly. For give ness did not mean excus ing

or gloss ing over his wife’s decep tion. It did not mean naively

trust ing her, and it did n’t even nec es sar ily mean that they’d

stay together. For giv ing sim ply meant choos ing to let go of

his resent ment. Larry also learned that there is no such thing

as try ing to for give. You either for give or you don’t.


TRYING TO FORGIVE VERSUS FORGIVING

“I’ll try” was Larry’s first response when asked whether he was will ing

to for give his wife and let go of his anger and hurt. Per haps you’ve

also tried to for give some one. Maybe you’ve said some thing to your -

self like “I tried to for give, but [he or she] does n’t deserve it” or

“Why should I for give what hap pened when I suf fered so much

because of it?” Maybe what hap pened was so hor ri ble that you feel

you could not pos si bly for give the per son who harmed you.

This brief exer cise is a pow er ful way for you to con nect with the

fact that for give ness is some thing you do for yourself—and it’s also an

all-or-noth ing action: You do or you don’t; it’s not some thing you try

to do.

To get a sense of what we mean, go ahead and have a seat at a

table and place a pen in front of you. Now, we would like you to try to

pick up the pen. Try as hard as you can. Go ahead and try it. If you

find your self pick ing up the pen, stop! That is not what we asked you

to do. We want you to try to pick it up.

After some effort, you’re prob a bly think ing, “Well, I can’t do that.

Either I pick it up or I don’t.” You’re right. There is no way to try to

pick up the pen and at the same time pick it up.

Try ing is actu ally a form of not doing. This is why we never want

you to try any thing. You must first make a choice about whether you’re

will ing to do some thing. If you are willing—if you are com pletely will ing,

rather than just a bit will ing—then go ahead and do it. And if you

aren’t will ing, then don’t do it.

Doing is not about get ting it right or meet ing fail ure. For

instance, you could decide to pick up the pen and then find that it

slips from your fin gers and drops to the floor. Your mind might say,

“You tried, but it did n’t work.” Yet your expe ri ence tells you that you

could still bend over and repeat the act of pick ing up the pen, if that’s

what you’re com mit ted to doing. Some activ i ties in life sim ply require

per sis tence; you may need to do them over and over again before

you’ve accom plished your goal.


Fail ure is a subjective eval u a tion by what we like to call your

mind machine. Such eval u a tions need not stop you from doing what is

impor tant, even if that doing is a trial-and-error pro cess that is played

out over time.

For give ness is a pro cess that fits this bill. For Larry, for give ness

was a pain ful pro cess that led him to con front two crit i cal ques tions

about the use ful ness of resent ment: First, did being upset and angry for

the past eight weeks change what had hap pened? Sec ond, would

choos ing to hang on to his resent ment in the com ing months and years

change what had hap pened? Larry, of course, knew the answers. He

loved his wife and fam ily deeply and did not want to ruin the next

months and years of his life, mar riage, career, and fam ily. So he was

will ing to for give and let go. (And he and his wife went into mar riage

coun sel ing to deal with their com mu ni ca tion prob lems.)

For give ness takes hard work and cour age, because you need to be

will ing to con front your pain and hurt with renewed com pas sion,

gentleness, and patience. Larry did this by mak ing space for his hurt

and dis com fort and by choos ing not to buy into his evaluative mind.

You can do this, too, by open ing up, observ ing, soft en ing to, and

appreciating all of what you expe ri ence, both the plea sures and the

sorrows, the good times and the dif fi cult times. How you act in all

these life situations is up to you: this is some thing that you can con trol.

FACING YOUR ANGER AND HURT

Behind all anger is unre solved and often hid den pain and hurt. The

exer cises below are designed to bring you into close con tact with your

hurt and emo tional pain. Prac tice them at home first, so that you can

apply the skills later in sit u a tions where your anger gets trig gered. The

long-term goal is to develop a will ing ness to be in con tact with your

anger and sit still with it.

When you learn to wit ness and accept your pain and hurt, you

remove the fuel from anger—and you make room for com pas sion and

for give ness. In the pro cess, you’ll learn sev eral new things:

1. You’ll develop greater hon esty about your expe ri ence.

You’ll learn to acknowl edge anger, rage, fear, guilt, rejec -

tion, and hurt when you feel them.


2. You’ll develop the cour age to do noth ing, to just sit with

your anger. This part is crit i cal. You’ll learn to stop run -

ning from your self, and you’ll develop com fort in your

own skin. There is sim ply no way to be com pas sion ate

about your expe ri ence while you’re busy run ning away

from it.

3. You’ll develop an observer’s per spec tive on your expe ri -

ence. Watch ing with out judg ing will allow you to dis en -

tan gle your self from what your body and mind are doing.

This will give you the con trol to act in ways that mat ter

to you, rather than react ing with out con trol. It will free

you to let go and move for ward in your life.

Doing these exer cises is likely to be scary at first. But if you stick

with them, you will find that your anger is far more harm ful and dam -

ag ing than the hurt and pain beneath. It’s the anger that’s ruin ing your

life, not your capac ity to hurt and feel emo tional pain. Whole heart edly

practicing these exer cises daily is extremely impor tant to your prog ress

toward get ting out of the anger trap and into your life. Do not attempt

the exer cises if you merely feel like try ing them. Wait until you’re ready

to do them, and then find a quiet place and fol low through.

The next exer cise is one of the most impor tant ones in this book.

Set aside ten to fifteen min utes for doing it. As before, with the anger

armor exer cise, we rec om mend that you read through the script a few

times first. Then close your eyes and fol low the instruc tions. You can

also record the script on an audio cas sette and play it back to your self

while you prac tice.

SITTING WITH YOUR ANGER AND

DIVING INTO YOUR HURT

Once again, get in a com fort able posi tion in a chair. Sit upright with

your feet flat on the floor, your arms and legs uncrossed, and your

hands rest ing in your lap (palms up or down, which ever is more com -

fort able). Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Relax. Allow

your body to rest with out drift ing off to sleep.

Now bring into your aware ness a recent sit u a tion where you felt

anger. Really work to bring this expe ri ence into your full aware ness and


right into the room with you. Make it as real as pos si ble. Con tinue to

visu al ize the sit u a tion until you can really notice a wave of unpleas ant

changes sweep ing over your body and mind. Allow your self to con nect

with the expe ri ence. Relive every bit of it as best as you can. Keep

doing so until you’re at a point where you feel taken over by feel ings of

anger and a strong desire to do some thing about it.

Now we want you to go more deeply into this expe ri ence. Imag -

ine that you have a large bub ble wand like kids some times play with at

the beach or in the park. Go ahead and fill the wand with soap, get ting

it ready to form a giant bub ble. Then, look within your self and notice

all the ele ments of the anger expe ri ence. Start by locat ing judg ments

and blam ing thoughts. For each one, take your bub ble wand and sweep

it through. Trap each thought in a giant bub ble. Then, one by one,

notice each thought in its bub ble. Label each one as you watch it drift

upward in the gen tle breeze: “There goes judg ing . . . blam ing . . .

criticizing.” Keep watch ing as all of them go higher and higher until

they’re out of sight. Then, take a few slow, deep breaths.

Next, notice the phys i cal sen sa tions of anger in your body: heart

pound ing in your chest, feel ing shaky, trem bling hands, short ness of

breath, feel ing hot, feel ing sick to your stom ach. There is ten sion every -

where. You feel like explod ing. As you feel impulses to respond, label

them one at a time: “There is my impulse to shout . . . make a fist . . .

lash out . . . point my fin ger.” Your task now is both sim ple and dif fi cult:

Do noth ing! Sit with these sen sa tions and impulses. Feel the rest less ness

of the energy in this sit u a tion. Sit ting still and doing noth ing is the last

thing you want to do, and it is the wis est thing you can do. Say nothing.

Do noth ing. You want res o lu tion now, and there isn’t any.

The energy of anger works like the big ocean wave we described

in chap ter 5. Con tinue to sit still with the energy you feel in this

situation, and let the anger wave run its course. Watch as it crests,

stay ing strong and pow er ful for a while until it even tu ally loses force

and dissipates.

Now, gently return to the anger sit u a tion and take a final inven -

tory. What are you left with? What do you see? We pre dict that there

are only two things left. You still have the pain and hurt that fueled

your anger to begin with. And you still have your val ues—although

they might feel a bit bruised and beat up by the anger. First, turn your

atten tion to the pain and hurt. As you did in the anger armor exer cise,

find a label to identify each feel ing. Take a moment to really take

stock.


Per haps you can see hurt, fear, aban don ment, lone li ness, feel ings

of inad e quacy, loss, guilt, or shame. There is no need to deny or hide

these feel ings. They are part of you and belong to you, with out being

you or defin ing who you are. Just allow them to be, and see if you can

make space for them. Treat them like an open wound: take care of

them by bring ing kind ness, care, and com pas sion to your expe ri ence

and to this moment. For give your self for bury ing and reject ing your

pain for so long, for act ing in ways to push it from view.

If at any time you feel like stop ping and step ping back inside the

anger armor, thank your mind for that option, and sim ply return to

your expe ri ence. If you notice judg ment or resent ment pop ping up

again, place them into their own bub bles and let them go, float ing

upward.

Next, gently turn your atten tion to your val ues, which are lying

close by. Which ones do you see? Pick one or two that are par tic u larly

impor tant to you. Now ask your self this impor tant ques tion: “If anger

and hurt stand between me and mov ing in the direc tion of those

values, am I will ing to own them and still do what mat ters to me?” If

you’re willing, anger will no lon ger be a bar rier.

Think of a sit u a tion where anger has got ten in the way of act ing

in accordance with your val ues. Then, go ahead and imag ine your self

doing what you value in this sit u a tion while bring ing your hurt and

pain with you. That prob a bly feels strange; and it will also feel vital,

because you’re mov ing toward what you care about in life. You’re

exert ing con trol where you truly have it. Take time to really con nect

with this concept. Feel ing your anger, your hurt, and your pain while

act ing to pro mote your val ues is what it’s all about!

Then, when you’re ready, grad u ally widen your atten tion to take

in the sounds around you. Take a moment to resolve to bring a sense

of com pas sion and for give ness into the pres ent moment and to the rest

of your day.

Doing this exer cise isn’t easy. You may at first have prob lems

taking an observer’s per spec tive and bring ing some kind ness to this

expe ri ence. Don’t beat your self up over this; don’t judge those dif fi cul -

ties as failures. Com pas sion does n’t require perfection. Just stay the


course, be patient, and relax with your self. Sim ply com mit to doing the

exer cise again tomor row, and again the next day. Do the best you can.

We sug gest that you con tinue to go over the same anger epi sode

once a day until you can more readily adopt a wise mind per spec tive as

you stay with the neg a tive energy and hurt you feel. Then, move on to

dif fer ent anger epi sodes and cycle through the same pro cess as before.

Con tinue prac tic ing until you can stay with the bodily dis com fort and

hurt with com pas sion and for give ness, with out judg ing (let ting your

judg men tal thoughts come and then let ting them drift away). This will

take weeks, not days. The key is to stay on the path!

Practice Patience When Anger Is Hot

In many of the pre ced ing exer cises, you imag ined being angry but

you were at home, prob a bly alone in a room, and you brought on the

anger expe ri ence delib er ately. That is not how anger usu ally occurs. It

flares up when you may not have expected it, catch ing you off guard.

This is the tough est chal lenge: What do you do when the anger is hot,

right there, rag ing inside of you?

One of the rea sons why you prac ticed the pre vi ous exer cises—

and par tic u larly the last one—is to pre pare for those times when anger

gets ignited quickly in real-life sit u a tions. Of course, you can bring any

of the new skills you’ve been prac tic ing into the moment when anger

flares up. Yet in the heat of the moment it’s some times dif fi cult to

remem ber what exactly you’re sup posed to do. So let’s keep it sim ple:

Do noth ing and prac tice patience. Step back. If you can sit down at that

moment, do so, and sit still with what you expe ri ence in that moment.

Here are spe cific guide lines for what you can do:

+ Say and do noth ing. It may not feel like it, but you do

have a choice here. You can do what your mind and

body tell you to do. As in the past, every thing’s push ing

you to act: you want to be right, and you want to

straighten things out. You could do that—and what does

your expe ri ence tell you about that choice? Or you can

make a choice that seems as ridic u lous and unnat u ral as

push ing into the fin ger traps: you can choose to act with

patience. You stop, shut up, sit still, and wait until the

hard ness of the stir ring, rau cous, and sear ing energy

grad u ally soft ens and cools. You aren’t sup press ing here.


You’re just hon est with the fact that you’re angry, or

hurt, or sad, or lonely, or fear ful, or what ever you’re

expe ri enc ing at the moment. And you stay with it,

without feed ing it or react ing to it.

+ Watch the mind machine as an observer. We guar -

antee that the mind machine will be in over drive doing

its blam ing. Don’t get tan gled up in what it’s doing;

don’t respond to it. Just watch what it’s doing from the

compassionate observer per spec tive, and prac tice gen tle

accep tance.

+ Ride the tiger. This is really tough. Sit ting with the dis -

com fort and doing noth ing while you feel like explod ing

is like rid ing a wild horse or a wild tiger; it’s very fright -

en ing. In that moment, bring atten tion to the phys i cal

expe ri ence of anger. Is there pres sure? Is there tight ness

or con trac tion? Where, spe cif i cally, do you feel it? Does

it have a shape? Observ ing your feel ings will help you see

them as sep a rate from you.

Here, per haps for the first time, you can make a choice to sit and

stay with the juicy energy that you have for so long acted to push out

of view. And you can do so in your daily life. Once you are still, you

can bring com pas sion and curi os ity to the energy and pain. Look

deeply into your expe ri ence with out attempt ing to resolve it, fight it, or

sup press it, and with out act ing on it. Just let it be. As you look, see if

you can find the pain. Once you locate the pain, as in the pre vi ous

exer cise, look more deeply behind it for some thing that you are

attached to or that you are hold ing on to. The attach ments will be dif -

fer ent for every one. If what you find seems too big, start with the lit tle

attachments that are also there.

Approach this act of patience with soft ness and curi os ity. You do

have a choice to hold on here or let go. This qual ity of patience is very

much like the prac tice of extend ing for give ness.

We men tioned res o lu tion and relief ear lier, and that what ever

you do in anger will bring no relief. As you prac tice patience, you may

very well find that let ting go of your attach ments and resent ments can

bring a sense of enor mous relief, relax ation, and con nec tion with the

soft ness and ten der ness of your heart. Patience breeds con nec tion with

oth ers; anger does the oppo site.


Nurture Comfort in Your Own Skin

Emo tional pain and hurt will show up in many areas of your life.

The sug ges tions below are about fur ther expand ing your response-

ability when faced with pain and hurt. Each builds on skills out lined in

ear lier exer cises. All take you into your pain and dis com fort, and help

you develop com fort in your own skin. The pay off is this: Your emo -

tional pain will no lon ger be fer tile soil for your anger. It won’t have

the capac ity to side track you from mov ing in direc tions you care about.

We sug gest that you take the per spec tive of wise mind and com pas -

sion ate wit ness for each exer cise. They will help you choose to open up

to and embrace these pain ful expe ri ences when they show up and learn

to bring com pas sion and for give ness to them.

Fac ing Your Fear

Start by mak ing con tact with the dan ger ous or pain ful thing you

are afraid of. What is the night mare or worst-case sce nario? Notice the

bodily sen sa tions that accom pany these thoughts. Be spe cific. You may

fear being exposed as incom pe tent or being embar rassed, humil i ated,

crit i cized, or deval ued. Or per haps you fear the emo tion of fear itself.

The prob lem here is not the emo tion, but what you do about it and

how that action gets in the way of doing things you value. Adopt an

observer per spec tive and watch your fear-related thoughts, wor ries,

bodily sen sa tions, and images. Sep a rate them out using the wise mind

tech nique, and stay with them. Don’t try to resolve or fix them. Sim ply

watch, as you’ve been prac tic ing.

Fac ing Guilt

Start by ask ing your self this ques tion: “What is the rule for how I

am sup posed to be or act that I vio lated when I started feel ing guilty?”

You may have one rule that emerges again and again (such as, I must

never miss an appoint ment or fail to fol low through with what I said I

would do); or there may be other rules that get in the way of you

moving in the direc tion of your val ues. As you con tact these rules,

notice the hard and rigid qual ity of each of them, the feel ing that to

break them is to be bad. Also notice how each rule stands in the way of

some thing that’s impor tant to you. Now exam ine the rule for what it is.

Does this rule come from your own expe ri ence? Is the rule life affirm -

ing? Has it worked for you? Is this rule get ting in the way of some thing


you cher ish and hold dear? Within cul tural bound aries, you need to

decide whether fol low ing the rule is more impor tant than what you

value in this sit u a tion. Are you will ing to let the rule go if that means

doing what is impor tant to you? If so, then let go and get going.

Fac ing Loss and Grief

Peo ple run from grief because they resist pain and fear being over -

whelmed by pow er ful feel ings. This run ning, in turn, tends to be life

con strict ing. Have you allowed your self to grieve and expe ri ence the

nor mal pain that goes along with loss? If not, you need to do just that.

Your work here is to expe ri ence the pain of loss and then allow your self

to let it go. To do this, allow your self about half an hour each day to

rem i nisce, appre ci ate, and expe ri ence regret. At the same time, let in

the feel ings of sad ness that come along with giv ing up the lost person

or object. Trust that the waves of pain will pass before their inten sity

over whelms your abil ity to stay with them.

Fac ing Hurt

The active work of fac ing hurt is to acknowl edge it—openly,

directly, and hon estly, with out blame or accu sa tion. Focus on what

hurts and how that hurt is get ting in the way of aspects of your life that

are impor tant to you. Focus on com mu ni cat ing the feel ings of hurt

directly to your self and oth ers who may have brought these feel ings on.

For instance, you might say “I feel hurt when you joke about my cook -

ing.” Don’t look for apol o gies to resolve your hurt. Sim ply acknowl edge

it, bring com pas sion to it, and let it go with the gift of for give ness. As

with all the other exer cises, doing it once will not be enough. You need

to prac tice repeat edly. Over time, you will get better at fac ing your

hurt with com pas sion.

Fac ing Help less ness with Response-Abil ity

Many things in life occur out side of our con trol. It’s vital that you

detect the dif fer ence between what you can and can’t con trol. As you

learned in chap ter 4, try ing to meet uncon trol la ble cir cum stances with

con trol only buys you frus tra tion, anger, and a sense of help less ness.

Feel ings of help less ness almost uni ver sally redi rect our atten tion from

what we can con trol to what we can not con trol. Acknowledge feel ing

stuck; then choose to be response-able. Focus on what you can con trol


to have your needs met and to keep you mov ing for ward in direc tions

you care about. These are both things you can con trol and do some -

thing about. Be spe cific here: write down a plan that keeps you mov ing

for ward, even in the face of adver sity.

Feel ings of Emp ti ness and Lone li ness

Most peo ple will go to great lengths to block feel ings of emp ti ness

and lone li ness from their aware ness. It’s impor tant here, as with the

other pain ful emo tions, to sep a rate blame from the pain. You need to

expe ri ence your own lone li ness directly with out link ing it to the faults

and fail ings of oth ers. To encour age the feel ing and to develop com fort

with it, you could take a brief walk in a quiet place, sit alone for ten

min utes with the TV and radio off, or resist the impulse to call some -

one to fill the void, and instead notice what it’s like to post pone

contact for ten min utes or so. These lit tle exer cises will make you

aware of your lone li ness; and, some what par a dox i cally, they may gen er -

ate a sense of calm and inner peace. The most impor tant ele ment of

these exer cises is to notice and embrace what it feels like to be alone

with your self instead of run ning away from emp ti ness and lone li ness

and fill ing these voids with anger and blame.


Pain and hurt are facts of life so long as one is liv ing. Anger and

unforgiveness feed off unre solved pain and hurt. This is why we are

show ing you the path way into your own pain and hurt, so that you can

douse the fuel that drives your anger.

It’s impor tant to remem ber that fac ing pain and hurt is not about

self-tor ture. As Pema Chödrön (2001) noted, stay ing with pain with out

lov ing-kind ness is just war fare. This is why most of the exer cises in this

book have a soft and gen tle, rather than a con fron ta tional, qual ity to

them. Self-com pas sion and cour age are vital. By learn ing to develop

com pas sion and lov ing-kind ness for your expe ri ences, rather than stuff -

ing them or run ning away from them with anger and aggres sion, you

are exer cis ing con trol where you truly have it!

Become mas ter ful at bring ing com pas sion to your expe ri ences—

all of them. Then com mit to extend ing com pas sion, for give ness, and

kind ness to oth ers, regard less of how they respond. This is about you


and for you—for give ness is the most cou ra geous, hon est, and lov ing

gift you can give to your self. Expect big changes as you work with these

exer cises, but don’t expect changes overnight. Con tinue to work with

the exercises daily. Stay com mit ted to the prac tice. Stay on the path.

The out come will take care of itself.


WEEK 9

Fac ing my hurt with for give ness

Point to ponder: Prac tic ing for give ness and patience are the

most pow er ful anti dotes to anger. They are for me, about me,

and given by me.

Ques tions to con sider: Am I will ing to choose the path of

for give ness and extend kind ness to myself and oth ers? Am I

will ing to face my emo tional hurt and pain with patience,

compassion, and kind ness so that I can move on with my life?

Chapter 10

Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no

loss of enthusiasm. Until you are committed, there is hesitancy,

the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. The moment

you definitely commit yourself, then providence moves, too.

All sorts of things occur to help you that would never have

otherwise occurred. Whatever you can do or dream you can do,

begin it! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

—Sir Winston Chur chill and W. H. Murray

Pre vi ous chap ters pro vided you with fun da men tally dif fer ent ways to

respond to your anger and hurt. You are now get ting to a place where

you’ve never been before. This place affords you more pro duc tive and

vital options when faced with hurt. If your val ues are the com pass

points that guide you through your life’s jour ney, then your goals are

the road map that can lead you there (Hayes and Smith 2005). The

next step is to take con trol of your actions and start mov ing in

directions you want to go.

We’ll help you put your val ues into action in ways that can

profoundly change your life for the better. The won der ful thing about

val ues is that you can live them. The key to liv ing out your val ues is to

break them down into incre men tal steps. You must com mit your self to

tak ing those steps by set ting goals and fol low ing through with action.

Liv ing a rich life is all about tak ing steps, how ever small or large, each

and every day toward achiev ing your goals and liv ing your values. By

tak ing charge of your behav ior, you take charge of your life.

Bar ri ers are bound to show up as you jour ney out of your anger

and hurt into the rest of your life. The risk of get ting side tracked by

these bar ri ers is great. So we’ll also help you learn to move with the

inev i ta ble bar ri ers that will spring up along the way, and how to

approach set backs and slip-ups with gen tle for give ness.

SETTING AND ACHIEVING GOALS

Go back to the life compass you used in chap ter 8 to explore your val -

ues. Now is the time to decide which of these val ues you want to start

enact ing in your life right now. Choose a value that is impor tant to you

and rep re sents an area of your life that you have been putt ing on hold

until now (you might choose one with a low action score). Per haps you

put this aspect of your life on hold because of anger-related bar ri ers. If

you sense that this is a domain where you’re not yet ready to con front

the bar ri ers, choose a dif fer ent one first.

At this point, we just want to walk you through one area to give

you an idea of how the pro cess works. Later you can go through the

same steps for the other domains on your life com pass. Once you’ve

cho sen a value, write it down on the top line of the val ues and goals

worksheet that appears a bit later in this chap ter. You may want to

make sev eral pho to cop ies of this worksheet so that you have plenty of

blank cop ies for other val ues that you will want to work on later.


Our col leagues Michael Addis and Chris Martell (2004) devel -

oped a behav ioral pro gram with six man age able steps for achiev ing

goals. Let’s go over them one by one:

1. Clearly define the goal.

2. Iden tify the steps nec es sary to achieve the goal.

3. Arrange the steps in a log i cal order.

4. Make a com mit ment to each step.

5. Take each step, no mat ter how you feel.

6. Pat your self on the back after you com plete each step.

Identify Concrete and Achievable Goals

As you start think ing about goals, you’ll find that some are short-

term goals you can attain in the near future. Oth ers are long-term

goals you’ll only be able to attain fur ther down the road. Both types of

goals are impor tant, and achiev ing one may lead you to the next.

For instance, sup pose you value your health and want to increase

your fit ness level. So, you com mit to walk ing each day. Your long-term

goal might be to walk to a tele phone pole one mile up the road from

where you live. Between your house and that pole are a num ber of

other poles all spaced about the same dis tance apart. A short-term goal

here might be get ting to the first pole. The next day you com mit to

get ting to both the first and the sec ond pole, and so on. Ulti mately,

you need to go past all the inter me di ary poles to reach the long-term

goal of reach ing your one-mile marker. This is how short- and

long-term goals work—they get you mov ing on a val ued path.

In the space below (or on a sep a rate sheet of paper), write down

some goals related to the first value you chose on your life compass:

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

It’s impor tant that your goals meet cer tain cri te ria to avoid end -

ing up on a dead-end street. Ste ven Hayes and Spencer Smith (2005)

give some good advice in this regard:


Set ting goals is all about workability. If you don’t make your

goals work able in the con text of your life, it’s unlikely you’re

going to get very far down the path of your val ues. Choose

achiev able, obtain able out comes that can real is ti cally fit with

your life. Doing this makes it much more likely you’ll actu ally

be able to live your val ues every day. (p. 182)

We sug gest that you start with up to three goals. One of those

goals should be a short-term goal—something you can start work ing on

this week. Ask the fol low ing ques tions for each goal to make sure it’s

achiev able:

+ Is the goal con crete, prac ti cal, and real is tic?

+ Is it obtain able (some thing I can do and have con trol

over)?

+ Does it work with my cur rent life sit u a tion?

+ Does this goal lead me in the direc tion of my value?

If you can answer yes to all of these ques tions for a goal, write it

into the left-hand col umn of the val ues and goals worksheet later in

this chapter. If nec es sary, revis e and clar ify the goal until you get a yes

answer to each ques tion.

Identify Steps and Arrange Them in Logical Order

Hav ing set tled on goals, you’ve put the first guide posts on your

road map. Now focus on the incre men tal steps you need to take to get

you there. Start with the short-term goal and break it down into

smaller inter me di ate steps. Think of each step you need to take to

attain your goal. Then write them down in the space below (or on a

sep a rate piece of paper):

Now think about a log i cal order for the steps. What needs to

happen first before the other steps can fol low? If no par tic u lar order is

nec es sary, then start with the eas i est step. Copy the steps into the


values and goals worksheet in the order in which they need to be

completed. Put the first one at the top. You can go through the same

pro ce dure for other goals you’ve iden ti fied. Put them in log i cal order

and write them on the worksheet. You may want to make a few pho to -

cop ies of the worksheet first or use addi tional blank sheets if nec es sary.

Let’s look at two exam ples. Say your goal is to change jobs and

even tu ally become man ager in a larger cor po ra tion rather than the

small out fit you’re cur rently work ing for. This goal, in turn, includes

smaller spe cific actions such as check ing rel e vant news pa pers and

Internet sites for post ings of man a ge rial jobs, net work ing with oth ers in

your field, updat ing your resume, set ting up an infor ma tional inter view

at a com pany that inter ests you, and mak ing a job appli ca tion to a

poten tial new employer.

For another exam ple, let’s say you want to work on spend ing

more qual ity time with your spouse or part ner. This goal may be

approached via sev eral steps, such as doing some thing once a week

with your part ner that you both enjoy such as going to a movie or the

the ater, din ing out, going away for the week end, or tak ing a bike ride

together. It is impor tant that you do these things regard less of how you

feel at the moment.

Make a Commitment and Take the Step

Now it’s time to make a com mit ment to step num ber 1. Are you

will ing to accept what ever dis com fort your mind and body will give

you? Are you will ing to com mit to the val ues explored in chap ter 8 and

to the behav ioral and life changes they imply? Are you ready to

commit to fol low ing through?

If so, com mit to a day and time to begin step 1. Tell some one else

that you have done so. Then, no mat ter how you feel at that time, do

it. This is all about action and doing some thing dif fer ent with your life.

Unless you take action, noth ing will change, and you’ll con tinue to get

what you always got.

Write the date when you achieve each step. Put a gold star on

the chart if you want to. Make sure to con grat u late your self; give your -

self credit for what you’ve accom plished, no mat ter how small the step

was. Review this worksheet fre quently. It gives you valu able feed back

on how you’re pro gress ing, and it will encour age you once you start

checking off your goals.


Values and Goals Worksheet

My Value:

The goal I wantto achieve

Steps towardachiev ing mygoal

Barriers Strategies Dateachieved

Goal 1: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.


Goal 2: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.


Here’s how Harry, a forty-four-year-old mechanic and father of

three, com pleted a sec tion of his val ues and goals worksheet.

Values and Goals Worksheet

My Value: Being a good dad with my kids

The goal Iwant toachieve

Steps toward achievingmy goal

Barriers Strategies Dateachieved

Goal 1:Spendmore timewith mykids

1. Set aside time eachday to spend with eachof my three kids. Get a daily planner for timewith kids and toremember importantdates like birthdays,sporting events, family trips

Stress fromwork—hard forme to unwindand have timefor myselfduring the week

Use the plannerto make time formyself. Get upearly to havesome time alone

2. Be available for thekids. Be around thehouse more often,especially on weekends

Old habits afterwork justplopping myselfdown in front of the TV with abeer

Tape the news.Keep the TV offafter I get home, and watch TVonce the kids are in bed

3. Brainstorm funactivities that I can do with the kids—go swimming at thelake, go see a movie,go to the carnival, play flashlight tag, card games

Noise—kidsyelling andscreaming (I’drather be alone)

Use a wise mind perspective when the kids aregetting to me.Remind myselfthat kids arekids, and that Iam responsiblefor what I do

4. Practice patiencewith them. Work onenjoying the time withthe kids for the sake of it

Anger—whenthey don’t listen to me, Iwithdraw andwant to be bymyself

Use the calendar to remind myselfof my values—having a goodrelationship withmy kids as a dad

5. Show them that Icare about them—say “I love yous more”; give out more hugs,even when I don’t feellike hugging; be willingto do what they want to do, even if that’s not exactly what I wantto do

So many thingsto do aroundthe house afterwork

Try to involve the kids in some ofthe houseprojects—havethem be my littlehelpers. A goodway for me toteach them some skills and for usto spend timetalking.


Moving with Barriers and Setbacks

As you embark on your jour ney of accep tance, putt ing your

values into action, you will find the road to be full of bar ri ers. Some

bar ri ers are exter nal, such as lack of money, time, oppor tu nity, phys i -

cal space, geo graph ical con straints, or even weather. You can work

through some of these bar ri ers by brain storm ing alter na tives and

perhaps talk ing with a good friend about them to get some fresh

ideas. Yet by far the most frequent and tricky bar ri ers that you face

are those nagging inter nal barriers that have also slowed you down in

the past. These may be difficult anger-related thoughts, feel ings,

bodily sensations, or impulses.

That’s what the pre vi ous chap ters have mostly been about—

getting you ready for all the moments when bar ri ers are going to show

up in the form of thoughts you’ve believed in, along with the pain,

hurt, feel ings, and sen sa tions you’ve been try ing to avoid. This is the

time to employ some of the strat e gies you’ve learned in this book: the

observer, mind ful ness, and accep tance strat e gies. If you can’t remem -

ber these, flip back through the book to remind you what they are and

how to do them.

We are brought up to believe that when a bar rier comes up, we

should just get rid of it, over come it. The prob lem with this strat egy is

that get ting rid of and over com ing entails strug gle. As you may have

found out in the costs of anger exer cise in chap ter 2, this kind of

struggling with your anger does n’t tend to work well. These are the

times when you need to lis ten to and trust your expe ri ence, not your

mind!

You don’t need to over come bar ri ers on your road to liv ing your

values. The key is to accept and move with the barriers—take them

along for the ride! You can deal with the obsta cles, set backs, and anger

slip-ups you’ll undoubt edly expe ri ence in the same way you deal with

your evaluative mind and your anger feel ings. You don’t push them

aside; instead, you make room for all the unwanted stuff that has been

stop ping you from doing what is best for you. You acknowl edge that

stuff, stay with it, watch it from the wise mind observer per spec tive,

and keep on mov ing in the direc tion you want to go—all at the same

time.


DRIVING YOUR LIFE BUS

You can think of your self as the driver of a bus called, “My Life.”

You’re headed north toward your Value Moun tain, [insert one of your

val ues here]. Along the way, you pick up some unruly pas sen gers, like

these blam ing, crit i cal, anger-related thoughts that your mind comes

up with. Other pas sen gers on the bus trav el ing with you are the

feelings of pain and hurt that you con tacted in ear lier exer cises. These

pas sen gers are loud and per sis tent. They frighten and seem ingly bully

you as you drive along your cho sen route.

After a while, you real ize that when you turned around while

trying to argue with these other passengers and calm them down, you

missed a road sign and took a wrong turn. Now you find your self about

one hour out of your way, headed south. What do you do? You are, in

a sense, lost, but you’re not directionless. You could stop the bus and

focus on get ting your pas sen gers in line. What would it cost you to do

so? Thoughts and feel ings can not pre vent you from turn ing your bus

around and head ing north again toward the mountain—unless you


Fig ure 3. “Tak ing the Bul lies with You to Value Moun tain” was con cep tu al ized and

illus trated by Dr. Joseph Ciarrochi and Dr. David Mer cer, Uni ver sity of Wollongong,

New South Wales, Aus tra lia. Reprinted with per mis sion of the authors.

give them that power. If get ting to the moun tain is impor tant to you,

then what you need to do is stay in the driver’s seat of the bus and

keep on driv ing north toward the moun tain, no mat ter how much

noise those other pas sen gers are making.

The uncom fort able pas sen gers are still on the bus with you. You

can’t get rid of them. As you get back on the road to your Value

Moun tain, they creep for ward and scream, “Pay atten tion to us! Turn

around! Go back! Take this detour—it’s safer, eas ier—it’ll make you

feel better.” What will you do? Stop ping won’t get you to the moun -

tain, and nei ther will the detour. Only you can take your self to where

you want to go—and you have no choice but to take the whole crowd

with you.

Those pas sen gers on your bus will grab every oppor tu nity to steer

you off course. They’ll try to con vince you that you don’t feel like

doing this any more, that it’s all too much, too dif fi cult, not worth it . . .

and you keep on mov ing north.

You are in con trol of your life bus. You con trol the steer ing wheel

with your hands and the accel er a tor with your feet. You can’t con trol

what kinds of feel ings, thoughts, or fears will ride along with you. But

you can deter mine where you’re going. That is what you truly can

con trol.

Don’t Let the Mind Machine Trap You

The mind machine won’t stop its chat ter just because you’ve

made a com mit ment to act with com pas sion. Some times you will fall

short of being accept ing. Your evaluative mind may scorn you: “Stop

all this accep tance and for give ness BS. You just can’t do it. The only

thing you should accept is that you’re a fail ure at accep tance!” When

your mind is throw ing this and other curveballs at you, it’s impor tant

not to get tan gled up in all that chat ter. This is just another exam ple of

your mind doing what minds do all the time: eval u ate. It’s just more

“blah, blah, blah” from your mind.

Do you really need to argue with blah, blah, blah? Or can you

make room for what ever your mind comes up with and let it be? This

will free you up to move on with your life, no mat ter how strong or


pow er ful the feel ings are, no mat ter how loud the thoughts yell at you.

These are the times when you need to watch and expose your mind

machine in action as you’ve learned to do in pre vi ous exer cises. The

prac tice is always the same: you sim ply acknowl edge and observe your

mind’s doings with out strug gling against or believ ing them. Instead of

fall ing prey to a chain reac tion of vil i fi ca tion of oth ers, anger behav ior,

and self-scorn, you can grad u ally learn to drop all the story lines your

mind is com ing up with.

Flex i bil ity Cre ates Response-Ability

It’s really impor tant to be flex i ble when you encoun ter bar ri ers.

Look at Anna’s sit u a tion. When all the Ivy League col leges she had

applied to rejected her appli ca tion, she felt sad and angry at all those

“stuck-up admis sions peo ple.” Her mind told her, “You have to go to

an Ivy League school.” She lis tened and ended up spend ing her time

and money reap ply ing, get ting rejected, reap ply ing, and so on. Anna

ended up not going to any col lege for two more years. She’d allowed

her feel ings and her mind chat ter to keep her from get ting a col lege

edu ca tion—one of her val ued goals—by rig idly insist ing she had to go

to an Ivy League school. She’d let her sad ness, anger, and events that

were mostly out side her con trol keep her from apply ing to state

schools. The more flex i ble your behav ior is when obsta cles crop up, the

greater your abil ity to respond with inten tion and in accor dance with

your val ues. Flex i bil ity nur tures response-abil ity—and makes it ever

more likely that you’ll achieve your goals.

Are You Mov ing For ward or Back ward in Your Life?

When ever you encoun ter bar ri ers and you’re unsure whether

your planned action is good for you, ask your self one sim ple question,

“Is my response to this event, thought, feel ing, worry, or bodily sen sa -

tion mov ing me closer to or fur ther away from where I want to go with

my life?” Below are some vari a tions of this crucial ques tion:

+ If that thought (emo tion, bodily state, mem ory) could

give advice, would the advice point me for ward in my life

or keep me stuck?

+ What advice would the value of [insert a per ti nent value

here] give me right now?


+ What would I advise some one else or my child to do?

+ In what val ued direc tion have my feet taken me when I

lis tened to this advice?

+ What does my expe ri ence tell me about this solu tion?

And what do I trust more, my mind and feel ings, or my

expe ri ence?

Ask ing ques tions like these when faced with adver sity and doubt

is far more help ful than lis ten ing to what your unwise anger mind

comes up with, or what the surg ing impulses seem to be tell ing you.

The answers will remind you that past solu tions have not worked. You

now have the oppor tu nity to choose to do some thing dif fer ent, per haps

even rad i cally dif fer ent.

Break ing Com mit ments and Recommitting to Action

Bring ing com pas sion to your expe ri ence and prac tic ing patience is

dif fi cult. When you make a com mit ment to an activ ity, or to prac tice

com pas sion, it’s impor tant that you have a clear under stand ing of what

com mit ment means. We’re pretty sure that the pas sen gers on your bus

are going to be yell ing and scream ing at you, “You’ll never make it!”

“You’ll just make a fool of your self!” “You’re going to get hurt!” Know -

ing that you’re bound to expe ri ence dis com fort and doubt, are you still

will ing to com mit to this activ ity 100 percent and go through with it?

Remem ber, com mit ment is not some thing you can merely try or do

half way. You either make the com mit ment or you don’t.

We’re not ask ing you to com mit to a par tic u lar result or out come

(“being in a steady rela tion ship by July 1” or “feel ing better and less

angry”). Par tic u lar out comes are beyond your con trol. We’re only ask -

ing whether you’re will ing to com mit to doing some thing that will work

for you and take all those pas sen gers with you on your life bus. Will

you do that and mean it?

The com mit ment is that you fully intend to fol low through, not

that you never fall short. In fact, we pre dict that you will fall short at

some point. Your com mit ment is that if and when you do break a

commitment, you will recom mit and mean it once again. You will do

what ever you can to stay on the path of com mit ment, mov ing in the

direc tion of your val ues.


Choice and action deter mine how we deal with bar ri ers and

setbacks. At times, every one of us fails to live con sis tently with our

val ues. Yet, every day we can make a renewed com mit ment to take

actions that move us in life direc tions that we care about. A bar rier or

an anger slip-up does not mean that anger will take over your life

again—unless you allow that to hap pen. It’s your choice to either give

up or recom mit to small actions that make your life mean ing ful—and

then put those actions into prac tice. So long as you do that and keep

mov ing, you will be truly liv ing a life that expresses your val ues. Our

aim in this book is to help you make choices—every day and every

moment of your life—that will keep you mov ing in the direc tion of

those val ues.

PRACTICE ACTS OF TLC AND KINDNESS

Being kind to your self and oth ers is also a value—and it’s directly

related to anger. Anger and kind ness are two oppos ing forces. When

one shows up, the other gets pushed aside. Prac tic ing acts of kind ness

toward your self and oth ers is a behav ioral anti dote to anger. It’s a

simple thing you can do to bring peace and joy to your life. Be mind ful

that you may not always get kind ness in return. The point is that you

are tak ing charge by being kind. This is some thing you can do,

regardless of the out come.

How to Be Kind to Yourself

Per haps you’d like to be kinder to yourself, but you don’t know

how to start. We sug gest that you begin by mak ing a com mit ment to

prac tice at least one act of kind ness toward your self every day. Start

each day with this com mit ment. Think about some thing you could do

to be kind to your self. These acts are par tic u larly impor tant when what

we call “TLC” issues arise—when you feel Tired or stressed, Lonely,

and Crav ing (for example, for food, stim u la tion, nur tur ing, or praise).

Our expe ri ence shows that at least 50 percent of all anger epi sodes are

in some way asso ci ated with TLC prob lems. When peo ple are irri ta ble

and needy, anger is eas ily pro voked.

You can attend to TLC prob lems by nur tur ing Tender Loving

Care toward your self. This might involve tak ing time to prac tice


med i ta tion, read ing a good book, going for a walk, lis ten ing to music,

gardening, or pre par ing a good meal. Being kind can also include prac -

tic ing accep tance and com pas sion toward your own feel ings, mem o ries,

and hurts. You could give your self the kind ness of your mother’s hand,

as we described in chap ter 6.

Val ued liv ing and being kind to yourself are related. When ever

you do some thing that moves you closer to one of your val ues, you’re

also being kind to your self. Return to your life compass in chap ter 8

and the val ues and goals worksheet in this chap ter, and iden tify some -

thing you can do, how ever small, in the service of one of those val ues.

Then com mit your self to doing it. Make giv ing your self TLC every day

a pri or ity.

Put Kindness Toward Others into Action

Be mind ful of any chance you get through out your day to act in a

kind and com pas sion ate way toward oth ers. These acts of kind ness

could take many forms. You might prac tice say ing, “please,” “thank

you,” and “you’re wel come” more often. You might open a door for

some one or offer a help ing hand. You could let a driver merge into

traf fic instead of mak ing it impos si ble for them to do so. You could

extend a smile to a stranger. Give a hug or a kiss to a loved one.

Convey under stand ing, com pas sion, and for give ness when you feel

hurt, anger, and the urge to strike back.

The point of these activ i ties and other ran dom acts of kindness is

that you are doing some thing pos i tive and per son ally uplift ing for the

sake of doing so—“just because.” You are express ing the value of kind -

ness and com pas sion. Doing so may feel con trived at first, but don’t let

this feel ing get in the way of your com mit ment to act ing kindly. You

need not feel peace ful and lov ing first to act in a kind and lov ing way.

You can just do it regard less of what you feel.

With prac tice, acts of kind ness will become auto matic and bring

with them an increased sense of peace, love, and trust. You’ll find that

peo ple will be more likely to grav i tate in your direc tion when you

practice acts of kind ness. This out come can only enrich your

rela tion ships.

Regard less of the tar get or the out come, kind ness is fun da men -

tally about you! Nur ture it. Develop it. Make it the core of your being

and how you choose to live.


Make a Twenty-Four-Hour Commitment to Act with Compassion

We’re not sug gest ing that you make a com mit ment not to feel

hurt or anger. “I won’t get angry today” makes no sense, because you

can’t con trol whether you feel angry. What we are sug gest ing is that

you make a com mit ment to act with com pas sion toward your self and

oth ers by act ing in a car ing and lov ing way. Remem ber that com pas -

sion is not a feel ing. It con sists of many acts of kind ness and car ing for

your self and oth ers. Write this com mit ment down on paper; or, better

yet, share it with some one you care about. Here’s how to make it work:

+ Tell peo ple. Share with every sig nif i cant per son in your

life that you are 100 per cent com mit ted to behav ing in a

lov ing and com pas sion ate way between [time] and

[time]. Explain that this means that you won’t shout at,

swear, hit, blame, attack, or den i grate any one (includ ing

your self). No excep tions or excuses. Let them know that

you’re going to be on your guard for dis agree able,

aggressive behav ior through out this day as part of your

com mit ment to make com pas sion a reg u lar part of your

life.

+ Decide what you can do and are will ing to do.

Compassion can take many forms. You’ll need to decide

on clearly vis i ble acts of com pas sion for your self and

others that fun da men tally go against the grain of your

old pat terns of act ing with cyn i cism and anger. So think

pos i tive and brain storm here. Acts of com pas sion need

not cost one penny. They are free and can be freely

given—a help ing hand, smile, hug, kiss, or lis ten ing ear

when you feel like strik ing back; kind words instead of

gos sip, sar casm, or crit i cism; express ing grat i tude and

appre ci a tion for what oth ers have done; time alone with

those you care about; tak ing time out for your self to

relax; or mak ing time to prac tice the exer cises in this

book. Be cre ative. Do some thing pos i tive and uplift ing

for your self and those around you.

+ Ask for help. There’s a good chance that keep ing this

com mit ment won’t be easy—espe cially if you expe ri ence


fre quent, unpre dict able anger. It will prob a bly feel a bit

strange. Ask oth ers to let you know when they notice

your acts of com pas sion. Don’t be seek ing approval or

kudos here. Just look for acknowl edg ment that you are

doing what you intended to do. Also ask them to

remind you when they notice you slip into old pat terns

of express ing your anger, either toward your self or

others. You could come up with a hand ges ture or a code

word to sig nal anger behav ior.

Practice Patience and Compassion One Day at a Time

Sit ting still with your anger after it’s been ignited is one of the

tough est parts of prac tic ing patience on a day-to-day basis. So is let ting

go of the inter nal dia log and strug gle with your self. Over time, you’ll

get more skilled—so long as you keep prac tic ing lov ing-kind ness

toward your own slip-ups, lim i ta tions, and all-too-human inabil ity to be

perfect.

Begin each day with this com mit ment: “Today, to the best of my

abil ity, I’m going to act with patience.” In the eve ning, go back and

exam ine your day with lov ing-kind ness. Don’t beat your self up if your

day ends up filled with the same old things you’ve always done.

Instead, bring lov ing-kind ness, com pas sion, humor, and for give ness to

your eval u a tion.

Com pas sion, soft ness, flex i bil ity, and cour age are vital. Rec og nize

that you’re only human, and that you’re going to make mis takes and

expe ri ence set backs. You’re never going to be able to be patient and

accept ing all the time; still, you keep mov ing in that direc tion, one day

at a time. What mat ters is that you are tak ing steps to bring accep -

tance and com pas sion to your self and your expe ri ences. The small

steps even tu ally add up. Sooner or later you’ll find that lov ing-kind ness

and patience will become a habit in your life.

Use the Energy of Anger

Pema Chödrön (2001) describes an intrigu ing way you can use

the energy of anger con struc tively. Emo tions typ i cally pro lif er ate

through our inter nal dia log—that is, our evaluative thoughts. If you


label those thoughts as “think ing” when you notice them, you may be

able to sense the vital, pul sat ing energy beneath them. This energy

under lies all of your emo tional expe ri ence, and there is noth ing wrong

or harm ful about it.

The chal lenge is to stay with this under ly ing energy—to expe ri -

ence it, leave it as it is, and, when pos si ble, put it to good use. When

anger arises unin vited, let go of your blam ing, crit i cal thoughts, and

con nect directly with the energy under ly ing it (as you learned to do in

chap ter 9). What remains is a felt expe ri ence rather than a sub jec tive

com men tary on what is hap pen ing. If you feel, and can stay with, the

energy in your body—neither act ing it out nor sup press ing it—you can

har ness it in the ser vice of actions that will move you for ward toward

achiev ing your goals. The raw energy of anger is fuel. You get to

choose how to use it.


To change your life, you’ll need to com mit your self to chang ing what

you do, pure and sim ple. Accep tance, com pas sion, and kind ness are

never more impor tant than when you deal with bar ri ers. In the past,

you’ve prob a bly shied away from the dif fi cult feel ings, unwanted

thoughts, uncon trol la ble impulses, sit u a tions, peo ple, and per sonal ene -

mies that tend to trig ger your anger. You can choose to con tinue to do

that, and you know where that will lead you. Or you can choose to

take a dif fer ent path, one that you can travel on side by side with the

best teacher you’ll ever have:

I must empha size again that merely think ing that com pas -

sion, reason, and patience are good, will not be enough to

develop them. We must wait for dif fi cul ties to arise and then

attempt to prac tice these qual i ties. And who cre ates such

oppor tu ni ties? Not our friends, of course, but our ene mies.

They are the ones who give us the most trou ble. So if we

truly wish to learn, we should con sider ene mies to be our best

teacher! (Dalai Lama 2003, p. 62)



WEEK 10 (and beyond)

Putt ing my val ues into action

Points to pon der: I can live my val ues and take my anger and

my hurt—all of me—along for the ride. My great est bar ri ers

are those that my mind cre ates. I need not let them stand in

the way of where I wish to go with my life.

Ques tions to con sider: How can I put my val ues into action

every day? How can I best move with my bar ri ers toward a

valued life? Is what I am doing now mov ing me for ward or

back ward in my life? Is what I am doing now what I want to be

about?

Further Readings,References, and Other

Resources

Besides the mate ri als we’ve used for writ ing this book, we’re includ ing

sug gested read ings for learning more about the ACT approach to

anger. We par tic u larly rec om mend the book by Steve Hayes and

Spencer Smith for more exam ples and sug ges tions on how to use ACT

in your life. We also rec om mend the book by Pema Chödrön—a great

source of strength, cour age, and prac ti cal advice on how to approach

anger with its most pow er ful anti dotes, com pas sion and patience.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s book con tains prac ti cal advice on trans form ing

your self through mind ful ness and water ing the pos i tive seeds in

yourself and oth ers, while starv ing the neg a tive seeds.

FURTHER READING

Chödrön, P. 2001. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in

Difficult Times. Boston: Shambala Pub li ca tions.

Hanh, T. N. 2001. Anger: Wis dom for Cooling the Flames. New York:

Berkley Pub lish ing Group.

Hayes, S. C., and S. Smith. 2005. Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life:

The New Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy Guide. Oak land, Calif.:

New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.

McKay, M., P. D. Rog ers, and J. McKay, J. 2003. When Anger Hurts. 2nd

ed. Oak land, Calif.: New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.

REFERENCES

Amer i can Psy cho log i cal Asso ci a tion. 2005. Con trol ling Anger Before It

Controls You. APA Online, Pub lic Affairs. Retrieved on August 9,

2005, from www.apa.org/pubinfo/anger.html.

Addis, M. E., and C. R. Martell. 2004. Over com ing Depression One Step at

a Time. Oak land, Calif.: New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.

Brantley, J. 2003. Calm ing Your Anxious Mind. Oak land, Calif.: New Har -

bin ger Pub li ca tions.

Bry, A. 1976. How to Get Angry With out Feel ing Guilty. New York: New

Amer i can Library.

Chödrön, P. 2001. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fear less ness in

Dif fi cult Times. Boston: Shambala Pub li ca tions.

———. 2005. The answer to anger: The cour age to do noth ing. Shambala

Sun 13(March):32-36.

Chodron, T. 2001. Work ing with Anger. Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Pub li ca -

tions.

Dahl, J., K. G. Wil son, and A. Nilsson. 2004. Accep tance and Com mit -

ment Ther apy and the treat ment of per sons at risk for long-term dis -

abil ity result ing from stress and pain symp toms: A pre lim i nary

ran dom ized trial. Behav ior Ther apy 35:785-802.

Dalai Lama (Four teenth), Tenzin Gyatso. 2003. A Dalai Lama trea sury.

Shambala Sun 11(Sep tem ber)63.


http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/anger.html

DeAngelis, T. 2003. When anger’s a plus. Mon i tor on Psy chol ogy

34(March):44-55.

Eifert, G. H., and M. Heffner. 2003. The effects of accep tance ver sus

con trol con texts on avoid ance of panic-related symp toms. Jour nal of

Behav ior Ther apy and Exper i men tal Psy chi a try 34:293-312.

Fried man, H. S. 1992. Hos til ity, Cop ing, and Health. Wash ing ton, D.C.:

Amer i can Psy cho log i cal Asso ci a tion.

Hanh, T. N. 2001. Anger: Wis dom for Cool ing the Flames. New York:

Berkley Pub lish ing Group.

Hayes, S. C ., J. Luoma, F. Bond, A. Masuda, and J. Lillis. (in press).

Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy: Model, pro cesses, and out -

comes. Behav iour Research and Ther apy.

Hayes, S. C., and S. Smith. 2005. Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life:

The New Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy Guide. Oak land, Calif.:

New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.

Hayes, S. C., K. D. Strosahl, and K. G. Wil son. 1999. Accep tance and

Com mit ment Ther apy: An Expe ri en tial Approach to Behav ior Change.

New York: Guilford Press.

Hokanson, J. E. 1970. Psychophysiological eval u a tion of the cathar sis

hypoth e sis. In E. I. Megargee and J. E. Hokanson (eds.), The Dynamics

of Aggression. New York: Harper & Row.

Lerner, J. S., and D. Keltner. 2001. Fear, anger, and risk. Jour nal of Per son -

al ity and Social Psy chol ogy 81:146-159.

McCullough, M. E., C. E. Thoresen, and K. I. Pargament. 2000. For give -

ness: The ory, Research, and Prac tice. New York: Guilford.

Purdon, C. 1999. Thought sup pres sion and psychopathology. Behav iour

Research and Ther apy, 37:1029-1054.

Siddle, R., F. Jones, F. Awenat. 2003. Group cog ni tive behav ior ther apy

for anger: A pilot study. Behav ioural and Cog ni tive Psy cho ther apy

31:69-83.

Smith, T. W., and L. Gallo. 1999. Hos til ity and car dio vas cu lar reac tiv ity

dur ing mar i tal inter ac tion. Psy cho so matic Med i cine 61:436-445.

Suarez, E. C., J. G. Lewis, and C. Kuhn. 2002. The rela tion of aggres sion,

hos til ity, and anger to lipopolysaccharide-stim u lated tumor necro sis

fac tor (TNF) by blood monocytes from nor mal men. Brain, Behav ior,

and Immu nity 16:675-684.

Further Readings, References, and Other Resources 177

Tavris, C. 1989. Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (rev. ed.). New York:

Simon & Schuster.

Wegner, D. M. 1994. Ironic pro cesses of men tal con trol. Psy cho log i cal

Review 101:34-52.

INTERNET RESOURCES

ACT-Related Books and Materials

www.ACT-for-Anx i ety-Dis or ders.com

This Web site for our anx i ety dis or ders book pro vides infor ma tion on

how to con tact us, and addi tional infor ma tion about our other ACT

books and the ACT approach in gen eral. We also pro vide infor ma -

tion on our lec tures and workshops.

www.acceptanceandmindfulness.com

This Web site con tains infor ma tion on New Har bin ger books, includ -

ing some of our own, in which accep tance and mind ful ness

approaches are applied to a vari ety of life prob lems.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

www.acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy.com

This Web site has many use ful resources for those inter ested in learn -

ing more about ACT, as well as those actively engaged in ACT

research and appli ca tion. There is also an exten sive col lec tion of

research sup port (for instance, you can find updated lists of empir i cal

stud ies on ACT—and many of them can be down loaded directly from

the Web site).

Bruderhof Forgiveness Guide

www.forgivenessguide.org/for give ness/sites/index.htm?rs=0/62/-59

This Web site con tains sev eral use ful resources and links to sites that

help you nur ture and develop your capac ity for for give ness.


http://www.ACT-for-Anx

http://www.acceptanceandmindfulness.com

http://www.acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy.com

http://www.forgivenessguide.org/for

Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care,and Society at UMASS Boston

www.umassmed.edu/cfm/

This is the Web site for the Cen ter for Mind ful ness in Med i cine,

Health Care, and Soci ety. The cen ter is ded i cated to fur ther ing the

prac tice and inte gra tion of mind ful ness in the lives of indi vid u als,

insti tu tions, and soci ety through a wide range of clin i cal, research,

edu ca tion, and out reach ini tia tives. One of these ini tia tives is the

Stress Reduc tion Pro gram—the old est and larg est mind ful ness pro -

gram in the coun try based at an aca demic med i cal cen ter.

Pema Chödrön

www.shambhala.org/teach ers/pema/#

On this Web site, you’ll find infor ma tion about Pema Chödrön’s

teach ings, addi tional exer cises, and her forth com ing books and

lectures.

Further Readings, References, and Other Resources 179

http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/

http://www.shambhala.org/teach

Georg H. Eifert, Ph.D., is pro fes sor and chair of the depart ment of

psy chol ogy at Chap man Uni ver sity in Orange, CA. He was ranked in

the top thirty of Research ers in Behav ior Anal y sis and Ther apy in the

1990s and has authored over 100 pub li ca tions on psy cho log i cal causes

and treat ments of anx i ety and other emo tional dis or ders. He is a clin i -

cal fel low of the Behav ior Ther apy and Research Soci ety, a mem ber of

numer ous national and inter na tional psy cho log i cal asso ci a tions, and

serves on sev eral edi to rial boards of lead ing clin i cal psy chol ogy jour -

nals. He is also a licensed clin i cal psy chol o gist.

Mat thew McKay, Ph.D., is a pro fes sor at the Wright Insti tute in

Berke ley, CA. He is the author and coau thor of more than twenty-five

books, includ ing The Relax ation and Stress Reduc tion Work book,

Thoughts and Feel ings, Mes sages, When Anger Hurts, Self-Esteem and The

Self-Esteem Guided Jour nal. He received his Ph.D. in clin i cal psy chol ogy

from the Cal i for nia School of Pro fes sional Psy chol ogy. In pri vate prac -

tice, he spe cial izes in the cog ni tive behav ioral treat ment of anx i ety,

anger, and depres sion.

John P. Forsyth, Ph.D., is asso ci ate pro fes sor of psy chol ogy and direc -

tor of the Anx i ety Dis or ders Research Pro gram in the Depart ment of

Psy chol ogy at the Uni ver sity at Albany, State Uni ver sity of New York.

He has pub lished numer ous arti cles on accep tance and expe ri en tial

avoid ance and the role of emo tion reg u la tory pro cesses in human

suffering. He has been doing basic and applied work related to accep -

tance and com mit ment ther apy (ACT) for more than ten years. He is a

clin i cal fel low of the Behav ior Ther apy and Research Soci ety and a

licensed clin i cal psy chol o gist in New York. He serves on the edi to rial

boards of sev eral lead ing clin i cal psy chol ogy jour nals, and is asso ci ate

edi tor of the Jour nal of Behav ior Ther apy and Exper i men tal Psy chi a try.

He is coau thor of Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy for Anx i ety

Dis or ders.

act on life not on anger: the new acceptance and commitment therapy guide to problem anger

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