Why are we so angry?

I’ve been surrounded by a lot of angry humans recently. People tearing down other people, people having full-on rants (online and IRL), not to mention celebrities trading insults publicly. And briefly a few weeks ago, I was one of them (an angry person, I mean, not a celebrity).

For two days recently, general annoyances compounded to make my blood boil. These included (but are not limited to): people not recycling; people stopping walking in the street right in front of me; people playing loud music on the bus; people trolling Victoria Beckham for kissing her daughter on the lips (I can’t even).

By nature, I’m not an angry person. I’m fairly good at processing my emotions then letting them go. So when I find myself becoming furious about the way other people are behaving – which, unless it’s directed at me, is actually none of my business – it’s a sign there’s something going on within myself that I need to address. Because anger, I think, is a bit like Instagram followers – the more of it you have, the more you’ll attract. 

Recently I found myself nodding along as I read an article in Stylist magazine which said that, as a society, our displays of frustration are becoming more frequent. It quoted a UK study which found that 71 per cent of internet users have exploded over computer problems; 50 per cent of shoppers have blown up over parking and 45 per cent of us regularly lose our temper at work. 

The story gave some reasons we’re – to use a classy Aussie expression – getting the shits, regularly. With long commutes, the relentless lure of the internet and greater work demands, we’ve got very little time to ourselves. So when something threatens that precious time – a traffic jam, a printer error, for example – we become panicked and we lose it. According to a study, 40 per cent of us will abandon a web page that takes more than three seconds to load. Three seconds!

As well as being fuelled by everyday annoyances, my anger was also directed at people who were doing things I didn’t approve of…. because, you know, I totally have the right to sign off on other people’s life choices (lol). When I became incensed at seeing a total stranger posting pictures of a 10-day juice cleanse, I realised my anger was completely irrational. Personally, I would never do a juice cleanse because I believe our livers are perfectly capable of getting rid of toxins, so depriving ourselves of the food our bodies needs to thrive just doesn’t make sense… to ME. But what other people do with their bodies is actually none of my business. So why, then, would I get angry about this woman’s choices? Oh, that would be the work of my inner control freak.

In my 20s (*gulp*), I had a tendency to try to force onto other people my political views, my exercise regimen, even my particular spiritual philosophies of the day... and responding with barely concealed contempt when they didn’t oblige. This did not, as you can imagine, make me good company at dinner parties. I remember one friend confessing she was sometimes scared to express an opinion she knew I didn’t share, for fear of setting me off on one of my shouty diatribes. *cringe*

Here’s the thing about anger: it’s a mask for deeper feelings. That’s why psychologists call it a secondary emotion. Beneath it is usually fear – of being inadequate, being rejected or being deprived of something (love or respect, for example). But instead of comforting and reassuring the scared child within, the angry old man in us takes over. Because shouting and launching verbal attacks seems to offer immediate relief, or at least release. But any relief is short-lived. The painful emotion lingers. 

We live in a world in which we have no ability to predict or control what might be thrown at us (although we always have agency over the way we respond). We are all scared. While talking about Islamophobia recently, The Project presenter Waleed Aly made some incredibly insightful comments about human behaviour: “When we are presented with what we perceive as an outrageous opinion, we can consider what motivated that person, try to understand their fear, and empathise with how they came to their conclusion. The truth is, what motivates them is fear. And fear is one thing we all share.” He wasn’t talking about anger, necessarily, but the sentiment is the same. 

My anger was motivated by fear. I wanted others to be on board with my viewpoints to make me feel assured that I was ‘right’ – others having a differing perspective to mine felt like a threat. I had realised I was different and did not fit in with the crowd. I suppose I was frantically looking for assurance and a sense of belonging.

When I started to engage in a process of personal development (yep, still going with that one!), I started to feel more confident about my place in the world and less inclined to seek validation from other people. I’m at peace with the ‘not knowingness’ that is a part and parcel of being an adult. I have realised that I do not need other people on my side – and that, in fact, there are no sides. I’m more at peace with the idea that I can cope with the beautiful confusion that we call life, instead of becoming increasingly panicked that I am not good enough, am in danger of being overwhelmed or missing out on something. In other words, in learning to respect myself for my differences, I learned to respect other people for theirs. 

These are the lessons I need to return to whenever I find myself getting angry at people for simply being people who are not me. This does not excuse shitty behaviour by people directed to me, obviously. But when it comes to everyday annoyances or people making decisions that have nothing to do with me, it’s about returning my focus to the things that *are* within my control: namely, my own choices.  

If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here cleaning up my own backyard.

My relationship with junk food – an unhealthy way I try (and fail) to make myself feel better

What do you turn to when the Universe deals you a crappy hand? Maybe you crack open a bottle of wine. Perhaps you repeatedly pick fights with your partner. Maybe you go shopping and do your credit card some serious damage. For me, when the chips are down, I turn to… chips.

Also other junk food, but mostly snacks of the salty and savoury variety than chocolate or sugary morsels. Right now, my life is a giant puddle of dementor vomit, and I’ve noticed that I’m turning to a familiar vice with alarming regularity.

At first glance, this doesn’t present as a serious problem. The quantity I’m eating is not huge, and I’m eating well 85 per cent of the time. And of course there’s nothing wrong with me treating myself. But what I’m talking about here is not just an occasional treat, it’s a daily ritual of me using food as an emotional crutch. To rephrase an old New Zealand health campaign around alcohol dependency: it’s not what I’m eating, it’s how I’m eating. This is not an addiction but it is a dependency, which means there’s an underlying issue that I need to address.

Whenever I try to understand an unhealthy behaviour, I look at when it first began. As with most people, I suspect, my emotional attachment to food stems from childhood. My well-meaning mother gave us a plate of chips, biscuits and lollies for afternoon tea each day after school, so I grew up seeing these foods as a staple rather than a treat, and it’s probably no great stretch to say that when I reach for junk food now, at a time when my life is in turmoil, I’m looking for the feelings of comfort and safety that I associate with my childhood. I want to make it clear here that I’m not blaming my mother for my poor choices in adulthood – the responsibility for how I treat my body falls on me alone. Neither can I blame society for conditioning me to regard the act of something unhealthy – rather than taking an evening walk, painting my nails, Skyping a cherished friend or sinking into a sumptuous book – as the most satisfying way to treat myself. The best way for me to get to the bottom of why I consistently make poor food choices is to understand what my body is really crying out for in challenging times, and how I can meet its needs in a healthy way. Which could best be summed up like this: I feel crap about myself and my life, and I delude myself that this will make me feel better (because I don’t have any more appealing solutions right now).

Here’s the situation I’m in right now. I have no work, and haven’t for almost a month. My industry is struggling, and demand for my services is falling away. I have been self-employed for seven years, but never before have I struggled for work to this extent. Occasionally there have been a few days I’ve been unable to fill with projects, but generally it’s been fairly consistent. But to go this long without income is crippling to my lifestyle and my ideas about who I am. On top of that hit to my primary source of income, my secondary business has failed to fire and that’s resulted in bills I am unable to pay. I spend my days scouring job sites, watching British game shows and sending photos of dead cockroaches to my housemate (we had the house fumigated; every dead-insect discovery is a cause for celebration).

So while I cope with the upheaval of starting again and process the associated feelings of failure and inadequacy (there are few experiences more soul-destroying than being a grown-up who is unable to provide for yourself at a material level), you can bet I’m looking for something to make me feel better. And you can bet that those choices will not best serve my needs. Because even though I know that after I scoff a bag of S&V (that’s salt and vinegar, BTW), I will not feel any happier, I do it anyway.

At the heart of the problem is the struggle to make myself feel better. I don’t know how to comfort myself and make myself feel like a valuable human being who is contributing to the world. I still don’t know how to reassure myself on a soul level that I matter and are worthy of respect. And although I do know that gorging on fatty foods is not going to alleviate this pain, the temporary mood lift is a welcome reprieve from my despondency.

I don’t know the answer to this problem (and it IS a problem, because it’s giving me yet another reason to feel like a failure) but I have made a resolution to quit admonishing myself for my unhealthy food choices, and to instead try to extend myself some self-compassion. Right now, everything is not alright. But it will be, eventually (everything always is). I know my desire to seek comfort in confectionery will be something I can overcome, but right now I’m got too much on my plate (pun intended) to do much more than simply be kind to myself. Maybe one day that kindness will result in good food choices but right now it’s more about not beating myself up for trying to cope with trying situations in whatever way I can. For now, that will have to be enough. 

How to let go of pain: pick up a pen and paper

I’ve long been an advocate for writing as a means of healing. Putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, has been the best weapon in my arsenal for plumbing the depths of my emotions and moving past hurts – particularly when an issue involves another person.

The other day I came across some academic endorsement of the catharsis I have experienced via the written word (yay science!).

In her book Rising Strong, vulnerability expert Brene Brown references research from James Pennebaker at the University of Texas. James says: “Emotional upheavals touch every part of our lives. You don’t just lose a job, you don’t just get divorced. These things affect all aspects of who we are – our financial situation, our relationships with others, our views of ourselves, our issues of life and death. Writing helps us focus and organise the experience.”

Pennebaker’s study, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, found that participants who wrote about traumatic experiences for four consecutive days reported greater happiness three months later, visited the doctor less than usual during the following six weeks and seemed to have a healthier immune system compared with the control group who wrote about superficial topics.

Essentially, he says, translating painful and confusing experiences into words helps us get to grips with what happened, which helps us navigate our way through. We become active creators in our own life stories rather than passive bystanders.

I’ve never tried the four-day exercise that Pennebaker advocates, but I did use writing as therapy recently when a friend did something really shitty to me that left me reeling. My first instinct was to contact him and force him to explain his actions, but my wounded pride would not let me. I’m glad I hesitated, because communicating with him before I had got my thoughts in order would mean I would have likely launched some personal attacks that I would regret forevermore (and looked like a dick in the process).

What I did instead was write him a letter (using pen and paper, so I’m less likely to edit it as I go) being very specific about why I was upset. I wrote two pages, and when I read it back, I could see a very clear pattern. My tone had changed from being angry and accusatory to being self-reflective. Which is a helpful progression. I’d expressed my pain without having to confront him, and had managed to make sense of it to the point where I recognised how I had contributed to the situation by having unrealistic expectations of his behaviour. I was still unhappy about the event but I was no longer furious at him. Anger, after all, is a secondary emotion, masking a deeper fear – if we want to move past what happened, we need to find out the issue underlying the anger. I did not send the letter; I did not need to.

When you feel overwhelmed by emotions sometimes you just don’t want to do the things you know will help. You feel justified being angry, so you don’t *want* to move past it. But I know from experience that if I can funnel my emotions onto a piece of paper, I will process the experience in a much more helpful way. And when the lesson has been learned, the Universe won’t send me that situation again.

This entire blog is testament to the power of the written word to ease the pain of the human heart, and build a bridge to peace. Almost every post I have written has reshaped my emotional landscape and empowered me to be proactive in working through the challenges I face.

If there’s something you’re struggling with right now, I’d recommend you try writing about it. Don’t worry about being clever or lyrical or creative, just be honest about how you feel. It might not resolve your pain but I bet it will give you some clarity to move forward. 

RELATED POSTS: In praise of writing. How to make every moment count.

I’m going home. All I want for Christmas is… peace

In a recent post I talked about the tension and pain that can occur at family gatherings over the holiday period. This post is on a similar theme. It’s about returning to your hometown, which I’m about to do, and how that can stir up a complicated mix of memories that be both comforting and confronting.

Geographical places carry vibrations all their own. This is why you can visit a location and instantly feel at home there, while other cities leave you cold or feeling on guard.

I have great affection for the town I grew up in. I could not live there again – it’s too small for me, and I get bored there – but I love returning and immersing myself in its sleepy, beachy vibe. It’s the place where my internal compass resets to true north. Of course it helps that many of my favourite humans and dogs reside there.

However, many of my other favourite humans live in a city that raises my heart rate for all the wrong reasons. This place makes me feel on edge. I lived there for 11 years, all up, but never felt a connection with it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this city. In fact, there’s a lot that’s right with it. It boasts beautiful coastlines, wide skies and expansive parks. But it just never felt right for me. Living there was like putting on a coat every morning that didn’t sit right on my shoulders and didn’t hang close enough to keep me warm. Although I made some wonderful friends in my time there, I never felt like I truly belonged in that city.

I am nervous about returning to this place over the Christmas period because the last two years that I lived there, I was miserable. It is difficult for me to separate my feelings about all that is great about this city from the way it made me feel (not that I’m blaming the city for that!).  When I go back there, my past sadness tugs at my sleeves. It’s a weighty, intangible thing that bounces between the volcanoes, striking an echo only I can hear. I’ve visited only once since I moved to Sydney, and although I loved catching up with friends and was sad to say goodbye to them, I could not wait to leave.

This time I have planned my trip to make sure that peace, not unease, is my overall experience. I fly in close to Christmas so that I can head straight to my hometown. I have limited the amount of time I spend in the city after Christmas and am making sure I only catch up with people who I truly want to see, as opposed to people I feel obliged to see. This time around, there are no big gatherings at pubs or cafes. I am only seeing people on a one-to-one basis, mostly at their homes or at beaches, where we can have solid conversations and actually connect.

Of course there will still be some encounters that leave me feeling uncomfortable. You cannot, after all, edit experiences – life is not an Instagram feed (unfortunately). The past is a nice place to visit but you cannot stay there. And I think that’s for the best. 

I wish you peace this holiday period. Wherever you go, whoever you see, I hope that you remember to carry peace with you. Hold on to that. 

Ever had a bullying boss? Chances are, they had solar plexus chakra stuff going on

You know how people talk about having ‘fire in the belly’? That’s an indirect reference to the solar-plexus chakra, which is the energy centre concerned with personal power and control. This is an energy centre I’ve had constant blocks so I’m very familiar with it.

Symbolised by the element of fire, the solar plexus is the third chakra, sitting above the base and the sacral chakras. Located in the middle of your back and belly (just above the navel), it’s all about asserting your power without dominating other people, having will power and being comfortable with your place in the world.

People with blocks in the solar-plexus chakra might be doormats, or at the other end of the scale they could be bullies. They could be low in self-esteem or they could be workaholics.

If your energy in this chakra is balanced, you’ll be confident, flexible, self-disciplined, able to take responsibility for your actions and will have a good appreciation of your personal power (i.e. you don’t need to exert power over others to feel important). You’re just as happy to lead as to be led. You’ll also be warm and playful, because sense of humour is strongly connected to this energy centre (hence the saying ‘belly laughs’).

Even though chakras deal with esoteric energy, your physical energy is also at play in this chakra. If this chakra is balanced, you use your energy wisely – you don’t overextend yourself for long periods, and you don’t waste it on people who drain you.

While the base chakra was about fear and the sacral chakra was about guilt, the solar plexus’ enemy is shame.

(Image: the solar -plexus chakra symbol)

Essentially this chakra about owning your identity and being at peace with where you’re at in life – and it makes sense that that’s lacking in people who are bullies, workaholics or constantly angry.

People who are deficient in energy in the solar plexus chakra might display these characteristics:

· Low or no self-esteem

· Share no opinions, ever

· Avoid conflict at all costs

· Say yes to everything asked of them (hello, doormat!)

· Rely on other people’s validation to feel like they matter

· Passive approach to life (letting opportunities pass them by)

· Victim mentality

· Constant worry about what other people think of them

People with excessive energy in this chakra might have some of these things going on:

· Arrogance

· Constant need to have things their way (in the extreme: bullying)

· A need to be right and to have the last word

· Always having something to prove (typical of workaholics)

· Aggressive and prone to outbursts of anger

· Domineering and controlling

· Always criticising other people and very judgmental

· Perfectionism

· Always stressed out

Balancing this chakra comes back to instilling a healthy sense of self-esteem. If there’s something deep that’s proving an obstacle to healthy self-worth, seeking professional counsel could be helpful. Setting a goal and working towards it can help, as that requires you to back yourself and see yourself as worthy of success. If outbursts of anger are an issue for you, addressing the underlying issues could also be beneficial. Anger is a secondary emotion – it’s always masking a deeper problem, usually a fear of some sort. And of course, reiki is a brilliant way to clear blocks in any chakra.

If you’d like to work with me to heal any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about how I work is available here.