Women's Anger
Bernie Petzold
Women’s anger is a highly underrated topic. Certainly it isn’t in the headlines like our counterpart men’s anger which we read and hear about daily. Yet if you look around the effects of women’s anger can be seen in lives and relationships like the lost career due to angry outbursts or the sadness in a child as mommy was too angry to approach or the relationship broken because of pent up anger bubbling just below the surface tagging itself to each topic that came up. Women’s anger is very costly to the lives of women. The good news today is that woman can learn to manage their anger. Let’s consider some of the ways that anger can be dealt with.
Some things to consider first are the ways that anger hides itself. Depression is often anger turned inward. If anger hasn’t been allowed to come to awareness it can be internalized to be depression –often in the form of self loathing. Moodiness and general anger toward oneself can be other indicators of this. Often this is a societal training that happens in the lives of girls because it isn’t “nice” to show angry feelings or even acknowledge them so they stay inside. Another way that anger hides itself is when an incident such as abuse –sexual, emotional, physical --has taken place and it was “hidden away” just to be “gotten over”. These wounds, often occurring in childhood, can’t be ignored or they become the hidden source of anger.
Some of the features of anger in our lives which brought us to the awareness that we have a problem may not look like anger at all at first. Like relationship problems which may appear like we are picking the wrong person or just can’t get the quality in a relationship that we want. Anger can also mask as poor working situations or work relationships gone sour. Another feature might be our terrible feelings toward self that may appear like very bad self esteem or self confidence.
Some techniques to consider when dealing with women’s anger:
1. A look at events in your history that caused emotional hurts which have not been dealt with.
2. A look at your emotional awareness in your present life.
3. A look at patterns in areas of your life that are not working to your success.
4. A look at new ways of responding to old emotional triggers.
5. A new plan for successfully handling your emotional life with confidence and success.
Women’s anger can add to the passion and richness in our lives not its sadness!
Tip: Be aware of the triggers to your anger today.