May 5 2009 – Tip #190

Ian
writes: "I've been 'working on' anger for the last few years, and
finding various Focusing things useful: sensing for various parts that
arise with/around the part that's feeling angry about something,
sensing for what's getting it so angry, sensing for what it's not
wanting and wanting, and so on. But I feel that there's more.

"The
whole thing's got me wondering again about anger, and I'm wanting to go
deeper with the whole issue and I'm tired of getting caught up in
society's perspectives, because all of that societal stuff, and
parental stuff, and Christian stuff, and Buddhist stuff, and
psychotherapy stuff, and all that other stuff in the mix, just all
seems so stale and lacking something vital about understanding anger,
and anger's 'life forward' energy."

Dear Ian,
It sounds like you're sensing that there's something
in the energy of anger that you want to draw on, something there you
don't want to suppress or dissipate. Something positive and
life-forward there. Of course!

What I'd recommend is to let go
of the word "anger"–at least for a while. It's a category label that's
bringing up all the parts of you that react to the "stuff" that you
list, and I suspect it's getting in the way of your tapping into the
pure energy that's there.

I don't say this out of any dislike of anger. It's nouns that I'm suspicious of! I would recommend the same for categories like "fear," "anxiety," and "pain" (to name the most common).

Let's
say you've got a present-moment felt experience that feels like anger.
I'm not doubting that… I'm just proposing, as a process to take you
closer to what you're wanting, letting go of the word "anger" for a
while. Letting go of all words for a while. Just letting your body have
the feel of it, what it's like, and stay with it with a
"sensing-tasting-curious" quality of awareness. "Mmmm… what's this
like?"

Now words can come back–but they need to be fresh words, metaphors perhaps, arising right now, for how this
feels at this moment. As if you've never felt it before… and even the
word "angry" can come back if it needs to, which a "what it's like"
that let's you sense what's unique about this, right now. That will let
you really have the life-forward energy of it.

So what is anger?

Here's what it might be. It might be something in you knowing
that how it was, was not how it should be–or that how it is, is not
how it should be. I'm using that word "knowing" in the special way that
Gendlin uses it, where even plants have "knowing." It's not a mental
knowing, but a deep, visceral, organismic knowing.

You might
check inside the next time a felt experience comes, and it's some form
of anger. Notice if it feels like some kind of "that's not right!" or
"that's not right for me!" about some event, situation, circumstance,
way of being treated, etc.