[Anger Management] Are you able to say both 'Yes!' and 'No!'?
Author: Charlie Badenhop

1. Experience

I think most people will agree that they see more and more harmful expressions of anger in their everyday life, and thus I feel this is an important topic for all of us to take a closer look at.

Recently I had a client who came to me because he was feeling a lot of anger related to his job.

It seemed to him that his boss wanted him to enthusiastically engage in every new project, while never asking him for his own opinion. This left my client feeling that his saying "Yes" was based more on his fear of creating conflict, than it was on his actual agreement with what was being suggested. Because of this, when he said "Yes" he wound up feeling powerless and angry, and he was finding it difficult to be enthusiastic, even when he thought a new project was a good idea.

My client's experience is one that is common to many people. If we feel we do not have the right to say "No" and have our opinion respected, then we soon discover that our saying "Yes" is done without true enthusiasm and agreement. We wind up saying "Yes" while feeling disrespected and frustrated.

We took a couple of sessions to carefully construct a new conversation for my client to engage in with his boss. As we worked on coming up with a positive approach that would get the desired results, my client's initial reaction to each suggestion I made was either "He won't want to hear this." Or, "This will never work." I let him know I was happy he was able to tell me he was not feeling confident about my suggestions, and that his letting me know this was great practice for learning how to say "No". Somehow, my saying this really touched him emotionally. His face softened and he told me he was amazed to hear my words. He said that in his family any form of disagreement had always led to big arguments, and he felt like this was just the way life was.

I asked him to go ahead and tell me what he thought might work in this situation. It didn't take but a moment for him to say, that as frightened as he was to disagree, he was even more frightened to offer up his own ideas, knowing they might be shot down. This proved to be a very powerful learning for my client. He was frightened to say "No" to others, and he was even more frightened that others would say "No" to him. And all of this fear led him to feel frustrated and angry. He noticed in working with me, that his anger and resentment quickly subsided once he felt his opinions were sought after and respected, and that just as important, his emotional state changed once he realized that it was safe for him to offer up his opinions, without getting them shot down in a harsh manner.

He took his new insights into his conversation with his boss. He said if he could critique new ideas before implementing them, he would feel a sense of ownership of what was being done. He asked his boss to help him create a process that would encourage critiquing new ideas. He talked about the importance of tearing a new idea apart, while being certain to respect the person who had come up with the new idea. As they worked out the kinks of their new relationship, his boss came to more and more appreciate my client's viewpoints. He said he experienced my client as much more positive and collaborative than before, and that their new initiatives were meeting with a good deal more success than in the past!


Only when you feel like you have the right to say "No" can you truly engage your heart in saying "Yes."



2. Commentary
If you take the time to delve deeper into your anger, or resentment, you will often find that you are seriously limiting your ability to feel and express the full range of your emotions. In the process, you become the victim of your emotions. You might be angry because you feel that someone else should be punished, but in the long run your anger will wind up punishing yourself. You might wind up resenting the way you are treated by others, but if you take a look you will usually find that your resentment limits your ability to feel happy in a more general sense.

When you feel like you have no choice and you can only say "Yes" then your response does not come from your heart, and it is not supported by the emotions generated by your body. When you feel unable to say "No" then you will likely find that no matter what you say verbally, "No" becomes the default response you want to give to others. You likely find yourself becoming more and more frustrated as you understand on an emotional level that you are never sharing your true feelings. When you are able to speak the truth of your "Yes" or "No" in a calm manner, you will find that you experience a sense of emotional freedom and well-being.

When it is all said and done, when we delve deeply into our emotions, we almost always find that our strongest and most habitual response is covering up other feelings that we are not fully aware of. We feel hurt, disrespected, abandoned, or sad, and we cover over these feelings and lose touch with them, by expressing anger or resentment instead.

When we find ways to tap into our deeper emotions we invariably find that we have been neglecting some form of pain or discomfort. When we neglect or simply don't notice our deeper emotional reactions, we lose the ability to express our full range of emotions. In the process we find that by consistently expressing only one segment of our entire emotional range, we limit our ability to be happy and feel at ease within ourselves and with those that we interact with.

In Seishindo we believe that our emotions emanate from the body. When you are feeling angry, your body generates a specific set of reactions that inform your rational mind of your emotional experience. When you are feeling respected or loved your body generates a very different set of reactions. With Seishindo and other disciplines you can explore the process of how your body generates your emotional state and you can come to understand how at times you say one thing with your body and something rather different with your words. You can come to understand how you wind up confusing yourself when you say one thing with your heart and another with your logical mind. If you do wind up confusing yourself on a regular basis, you will find that your overall health and vitality suffer in the process.

Only when you feel like you have the right to say "No" can you truly engage your heart in saying "Yes." Only when your body and your rational mind communicate the same message in a congruent manner, will you find yourself feeling empowered and at ease. Take the time to gently explore your feelings and you will find that your emotional well-being resides deep inside yourself, waiting to be touched and acknowledged.






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from his thought-provoking ideas and a new self-help Practice every two weeks, by subscribing to his complimentary newsletter "Pure Heart, Simple Mind" at http://www.seishindo.org/anger/index.html.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------