In Dwight Carlson's book, Overcoming Hurts & Anger, page 98, we uncover the benefits of being able to express your negative feelings. Some beneficial effects of expressing one's feelings either through journaling or outwardly expressing are: reduction in blood pressure, fewer doctors visits, shorter hospital stays, improved immune system function. But there is a limit to how long a person holds onto anger or the cathartic way a person processes. After a specific point, one can get stuck in the "anger." In the bible, in the book of Job, God has to rein Job in, he has ventilated his anguish to his friends and to God and God has to say, "Job, that's enough!" Continuing to dwell on anger can actually increase pent-up anger and lead to inappropriate aggressive behaviors.
What are some things I can do today to let go of the past pain and turn over a new lease on life?
In Dwight Carlson's book, Overcoming Hurts & Anger, on page 31 he makes a very good point about anger. "Anger in my opinion, is like energy. It cannot be destroyed, but it can be stored, its form can be changed, or it can be properly discharged. When we bury the anger within us and repeatedly deny its existence, I believe it accumulates in what I call the unresolved anger fund."
So, the more we attempt to ignore or push down anger, the accumulative deposits we make into the unresolved anger fund. This will stockpile our anger to a breaking point in which it manifests and expresses itself through an emotional or physical symptom. People in denial of their anger too can store it in the unresolved anger fund and the active holding back of thoughts and emotions can become manifested in disease and the failure to confront trauma or multiples trauma forces the person to live in an unresolved manner. So, unresolved anger in time is like a splinter that never was removed properly. So anger left unresolved will eventually reemerge in a sort of PTSD state and anger will be turned inward and a suppression of the anger feelings will leave the individual depressed, with negative thoughts, unhappy, and in a state where the proportion of anger to the current stress or trauma is out of proportion with the current situation, can leave a person unable to function, perform daily activities. A splinter can fester, and even if we don't know what to call our anger feelings, our brains must eventually make sense of the piling on of one "trauma" after another "traumatic experience" to the point that unresolved anger becomes in inward plight of self-hate and loathing and even little stressors or daily living becomes marred, ruined and drowned by misconceptions of reality.
Confused and hurt people can mask their emotions and also they can split their personalities in a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde approach to living and dealing with unresolved anger. There seems to be a misconception that if I forget about how angry I am, or if I suppress my anger and appear nice, compliant, and accommodating that in essence, they can block the expression of anger. In reality, it's like a dam breaking. Unresolved anger, or suppressed anger actually presses the individual to feel something.
Hurts and anger can lead to mallidies such as high blood pressure or even depression. Depression is suppression of anger. But the triggers to the stressors can become unpredictable and anger and rage outbursts can occur often over the simplest things or situations that shouldn't anger a person. Why? I believe it is because people that suppress anger, or have unresolved anger due to traumas which have maybe transpired at younger ages, have piled on to current life situations, however when the trauma occurred the age of the trauma and how a person would know or not know how to deal with the problem haven't been formed yet, therefore the only thing we have to go by is our flight or fight response and when that is watered down, it drowns our ability to not only feel angry but also feel joy and other feelings. Feelings are neither good or bad, thinking makes them so. But if you inhibit your ability to feel-- anesthetize the feeling then you are unable to express socially acceptable ways of showing your feelings because you are messing with receptors.
Share your thoughts on ways to acknowledge your "unresolved anger."
1) Journal
2) take a walk
3) participate in self-care
4) confront the person or situation that is angering you, if it can be done constructively and in a healthy manner.
5) write the bad feeling on a piece of paper and say, "this too shall pass."
Creamy Pesto Tortellini with capers and sun-dried tomatoes
9 ounces of fresh three cheese tortellini
1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes
black pepper
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
extra Romano and Parmesan cheese
1 Tbs. capers
1 to 1 1/2 cups of pesto sauce
Directions: Cook pasta according to package directions, drain after cooked. Add pesto, capers, nutmeg and black pepper as well as sun-dried tomatoes to the pasta. Stir in 1 cup of pesto sauce, add extra virgin olive oil if need be, top with cheese.
