At IC today, we were talking about my anger, and how I need to get it out. My problem is, it seems like nothing people have suggested makes me feel better. I've tried stream of consciousness journaling, screaming in my car, playing my guitar REALLY loud, punching my pillow... I still feel like it's pent up.

What kinds of things do YOU do to get your anger out? I'm looking for new ideas... Only constructive methods, BTW... nothing illegal or mean, like dropping a cement block through a windshield!

Thanks!

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

I think I may have passed you on the road yesterday. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

hmmm, could have been me. That is my favorite way to express it.

Another thing kind of like journaling is I write letters to the OW and to my FWS and I don't mail them. I get really mean and nasty and I feel so much better <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I haven't found any productive ways to "express" anger. I tend to get more angry the more I express.

"Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend really helped me to get a handle on how to express boundaries before it became anger. Except for the fact that the anger expresses itself physically in my joints and in my skin, at least I don't go through my day "feeling" angry.

But my body says I am. I'm open for suggestions myself.

From The Language of Letting Go

Feelings of hurt or anger can be some of the most difficult to face. We can feel so vulnerable, frightened, and powerless when these feelings appear. And these feelings may trigger memories of other, similar times when we felt powerless.

Sometimes, to gain a sense of control, we may punish the people around us, whether they are people we blame for these feelings or innocent bystanders. We may try to "get even," or we may manipulate behind people's backs to gain a sense of power over the situation.

These actions may give us a temporary feeling of satisfaction, but they only postpone facing our pain.

Feeling hurt does not have to be so frightening. We do not have to work so hard to avoid it. While hurt feelings aren't as much fun as feeling happy/ they are, still, just feelings.

We can surrender to them, feel them, and go on. That does not mean we have to seek out hurt feelings or dwell unnecessarily on them. Emotional pain does not have to devastate us. We can sit still, feel the pain, figure out if there's something we need to do to take care of ourselves, and then go on with our life.

We do not have to act in haste; we do not have to punish others to get control over our feelings. We can begin sharing our hurt feelings with others. That brings relief and often healing to them and to us.

Eventually, we learn the lesson that real power comes from allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to feel hurt. Real power comes from knowing we can take care of ourselves, even when we feel emotional pain. Real power comes when we stop holding others responsible for our pain, and we take responsibility for all our feelings.

Today, I will surrender to my feelings, even the emotionally painful ones. Instead of acting in haste, or attempting to punish someone, I will be vulnerable enough to feel my feelings.

A good, hard workout at the gym works for me, sometimes. (Sometimes, it pumps me up for action! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />) Not always good!

You might still not be to the anger stage yet. At first I couldn't believe it was happening - about 3 months in this stage. Then I was hurt and would do anything to have WH back. That lasted for a couple of months.

Then I hit the anger stage, and it wasn't pretty.

When WH behaved his worst, I would put on Martha Wainwright's pottymouth song and belt it out with her. (Those familiar with Martha Wainwright will know exactly which song this is. I can't type out the title here because my post will look like a galaxy of asterisks.) Man, it felt GOOD.

I've been saving this one for a r-e-a-l-l-y bad day:

Take all of your old ratty, ugly, chipped, nasty coffee mugs out of the cabinet. Yu know which ones. The ones with stupid sayings, advertisements and flowers that make you shutter. Load them into a box. Drive them over to an empty dumpster. One by one, wing them in at a great velocity and smash them against the bottom. Sounds extremely satisfying. And it's gets all that junk out of the cupboard.

I tried beer bottles at the recycle container. It's nice but they don't give a really satisfying smash. Also, they ask you NOT to break the bottles. Such a rule follower...

thank you for that segment from letting go. that is me to a T. wow. I think I will bring that to my IC session and tell the person, "this is 80% of my problem!" wow, its so hard to put that into words, but this author sure did.. what is the full title and autor of the book? i am going to pick it up.

thanks for posting!

I took a kick boxing class a imagened all my kicking and punching going toward someone special. Plus I got a great workout.

I used to play the piano.....don't have the piano anymore.....had to sell it when I moved.... so now I RB to relieve stress. LOL!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Oh yea, I used to RB B4 I sold the piano! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

L.

Running. Far, fast and uphill. Works every time.

Somehow I managed to completely avoid the anger after D-day...for four months. Then the very day we moved overseas FOW put a note in H's pocket (he wasn't wearing the shirt at the time...long story that I won't bore you with), and when he handed me that note, the floodgates opened and my anger took over every cell of my body. Weird enough, though, I expressed it by sobbing for four hours on a plane. Thought I got it all out, but I didn't. It continued to grow, fester, and CONSUMED me. Then it happened--the straw that broke this camel's back--contact resumed between H and FOW, and then she hacked into my email account. I lost it. Screamed, threw things, had a nervous breakdown, and basically gave H one heck of a show. I knew I had to get control of it, because the more I *expressed* it (somebody else has already said this, and it's been true for me too) the more angry I got. Since that blow-up day I've been able to redirect my thoughts when I start getting angry, truly analyzing WHY I'm angry and it's helped to keep me from getting worked up over little stuff.

Cleaning...deep, throw-out-all-the-junk and disinfect-to-the-bare-bones-type cleaning...has been my drug of choice when the anger hits hard. I have a CD of "loud" classical music (Bolero, 1812 Overture, Ride of the Valkyries, stuff like that) that I crank up real loud and throw my anger into the dirt around the house. My house has never been cleaner! LOL

The book...

The Language of Letting Go

In researching for you last night, I came across a pretty cool website, too.

Thought for the Day

It has a reading for every day from their various publications and you can even look up a certain topic, such as anger, in their search feature.

I also signed up to get a daily e-mail with a Thought for the Day.

Well, after 38 years of having significant anger issues I was involved in heavy IC for anger issues. This was after my D. Due to sleepless nights I was working out, very hard at 4:30 AM until about 7 AM, daily....it was only thing that cleared my head...plus the thing that also seemed to help me was journalizing my anger and looking at it later, objectively. Then..

D-day, very close to reconciliation day...and WOW was I angry....and did I journalize?? And what makes it worse was the whole story took months to come out. So my journal looks like a lunatics rantings because it is all over the place, recollections of who knows what? It's been about 18 months since D-day and I have not looked at journal in over 6 months because believe it or not....I leave my anger in there and if I read it, I get angry! By the way...I have not made any entries in it either in that time frame.

Hey, thanks for sharing all that, everyone. I think I like Grapegirl's idea the best... chunking the coffee mugs. I've actually thought about buying some cheap plates at a yard sale/Goodwill to have that satisfaction. One of my friends used to break plates when she was mad. She worked at an outlet store that dealt in fine china, and the manager there would get on her nerves. Whenever she had to throw out odd/damaged plates, my friend would shatter them in the dumpster as hard as she could.

Dancing has seemed to work OK for me, at least it did last night. It's physically challenging, I love wearing my costume, and for some reason, it reinforces how dumb/crazy WH must be for choosing OW over me, a bellydancer!

Interesting point from Believer about the fact that maybe I'm not in the angry stage yet. I hadn't really thought about it. I almost feel like all those stages of grief, the disbelief, bargaining, anger, all of it, roll through me sometimes hourly! It feels pretty muddled most of the time.