If you’re a people pleaser who tries to avoid conflict and confrontation at all cost, it’s likely that your desire to be kind will suppress your anger.
You will forego your real feelings to keep the peace. And as a result of that rage not being metabolized, it can turn into resentment, sarcasm, passive aggression or something worse.
The goal, then, is not to get angry and scream and break things, but to free yourself to healthfully express your entire spectrum of emotion and become more whole.
Masters writes about this subject in his books on intimacy and masculinity. His research explains that most of us don’t learn how to allow our anger to work for us. We never come to love our native capacity for forceful expression and claim the potency of our own power.
What’s needed is anger that burns cleanly, he says. Expressed directly as a call to action. Leaving no smoldering pockets of resentment or ill will. Anger that comes from a place of love and asks not for domestication, but for an honoring of its wildness.
One version of this clean anger is simply speaking up when people cross your boundaries or you upset. And so, instead of growing angry at yourself for letting people get away with treating you badly, you actually look them in the eye and say that you’re pissed at their behavior.
That this is not okay. And that it stops now.
Now, if you’re a people pleaser, this expression will feel very uncomfortable to you. It might even make your stomach feel queasy. That’s certainly what happens to me anytime conflict is faced head on.
But that’s good. It means you’ve found an edge.
And the good news is, you only have to do it once or twice to put people on notice that they will be informed when they have done something that has upset you.
It’s amazing how far a few expressions of clean anger can go.
Next time you’re tempted to keep the peace and be agreeable, tap into your native capacity for forceful expression.
Just to see how it feels. You might surprise yourself.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you risking expressing your anger in constructive and healthy ways?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!
Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.
Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs
Subscribe
Daily updates straight to your inbox.
Bio
