Imagine this scene: You are driving on the highway, headed to work. Suddenly, some bozo cuts in front of you, almost hitting you, causing you to slam on brakes and swerve into the shoulder. You pound on your horn, and spend the rest of the trip fuming about how SOME people shouldn’t be allowed to have a driver’s license.
Imaging another scene: The waiter at the restaurant gets your order wrong, and suddenly your mood for the rest of the evening is absolutely ruined.
One more: You get into an argument with your spouse over something small, and in five minutes you are screaming at each other, until one of you breaks down crying and the other storms out of the house.
Uncontrollable rages. Foul moods. Relationship breakdowns.
Anger is a common experience throughout our lives. It can affected our health, our careers, our sex life. It can ruin relationships with friends, family, partners, and children.
Left unchecked, it can lead to drug and alcohol addiction and relapse, PTSD or trauma episodes, acting out of sexual compulsions, domestic abuse and violence.
What is anger? Why do we have it? What’s its purpose?
Anger is an emotion, whose purpose is to protect you from harm of any kind. Think of it like the red light on the dash of your car, letting you know something is wrong. So how should you handle it? How can you use it correctly? How much anger is the right amount? Is any amount of anger the right amount?
There are plenty of lists on the internet that will help you with symptoms management. If you are like most people, you have probably tried several of them already and found some immediate relief. That’s important, but not what I’m talking about today.
Today I am going to share with you a technique / approach / tool that I use and teach my clients that have anger problems. It is designed as a long term solution, not a short term fix. When done right, it reduces anger symptoms, makes it so that you get upset less often, get upset slower, get upset less intensely, and lets you recover faster. This tool is called acceptance training.
Note: this article is not meant to be the definitive word on anger. If you have more severe anger issues, you will most likely have difficulty using this approach and will require the assistance of a professional psychotherapist to work through the issues and difficulties.
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In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy there’s a concept called Universal Acceptance or Radical Acceptance. So what does this mean? Most of the time we conditionally accept things: things about ourselves, about others, and about life. Some of them we like, some of them we don’t like, and we choose to accept which ones we like and reject the ones we don’t like. We do this so that we can protect ourselves and make ourselves feel safer. We do this so that we can protect our emotions and make ourselves feel better. We do this so we can protect our ideas and beliefs and make ourselves feel less confused and less unsure. Anger is our body’s way of protecting us from being violated. One of the things we can do is learn how to not push back on things unnecessarily and this is where the concept of acceptance and the practice of acceptance training comes in.
Radical Acceptance or Universal Acceptance is hinged on a specific core belief: We don’t get angry because we don’t like or agree with something, we get angry because we refuse to accept the reality of it. It seems that it’s mere existence is a violation of our bodies, our values, our beliefs. And it’s this sense or fear of violation that leads to anger. We make the mistake of thinking that accepting something makes us vulnerable, when in fact the exact opposite is true. Because when you don’t accept a situation, then you can’t do anything to solve it.
So the practice of acceptance training is the practice of getting into the habit of accepting a situation as it is. The more you can accept a situation, the less vulnerable and violated you feel, and therefore the less anger you will have.
Acceptance practice focuses on three areas: acceptance of self, acceptance of others, and acceptance of life. Let’s start with acceptance of self. Many times we don’t accept our own faults, foibles, or mistakes. This usually takes the form of perfectionism and self-criticism: “it’s not okay that I make mistakes;” “it’s not acceptable that I behaved this way;” “I’m not good at anything;” “I’m a bad person;” etc. In this case the violation come from the idea that being imperfect is not acceptable, that making a mistake is not acceptable. The inability to accept that your actual self will always be less than your ideal self is what leads to anger. Or to put it another way, by resisting your actual self and only identifying with your ideal, perfect self, your actual self is constantly violating your ideal self. Hence the anger.
So acceptance of self is the practice of not resisting or pushing away your actual self. It looks like telling yourself that it’s okay to make mistakes, to accept that you’re not perfect, to accept who you are right this moment. Not accepting yourself leads to a sense of futility. Accepting yourself leads to a sense of hope.
The second area is acceptance of others. Think of it as an extension of acceptance of self. Sometimes we don’t like or agree with other people’s opinions, or mistakes, or faults, or behaviors. Non-acceptance usually takes the form of “I don’t accept that you did or said X.” Like non-acceptance of self, the violation comes from the idea that other people being imperfect is not acceptable, that disagreement is not acceptable, that others not living up to your perfect and ideal standards is a threat and violation, which leads to anger.
So acceptance of others is the practice of not resisting the existence of other people’s opinions, mistakes, faults, and behaviors. It’s reminding yourself that they’re not always going to agree with us; they’re not always going to have the same values; that we’re not always going to see eye-to-eye. Being able to accept others in the same way we accept ourselves is to recognize that their actual self is no more perfect than our actual self, and therefore not threatening or violating. Acceptance of others makes communication easier, problem solving more effective, and relationships more fulfilling.
The third area is acceptance of life. Now everyone knows that life can throw us a bunch of curveballs: that unexpected accident that leads to an expensive car repair; someone else got the promotion at work that we thought we deserved; the rising cost of living; an unplanned pregnancy; an economic downturn results in you losing your job; etc. But in fact it’s even worse than that: you didn’t choose your genetics, you didn’t choose your parents, you didn’t choose where you grew up, your social economic status, your race, your gender, or a thousand other things throughout your life. And if our ideal life does not match our actual life, and it never will, then it becomes easy to fall into resisting life, to rage at our circumstances, to despair.
One of my favorite quotes goes as follows: “Whenever I hear somebody say ‘Life is hard,’ I always want to reply back ‘Compared to what?’ “ So acceptance of life is the practice of not resisting your circumstances. It is to recognize that your life, with all of its problems and issues, is your actual life, unique to you. And by doing so, by accepting your circumstances no matter what, reduces the sense of violation, and therefore the feelings of anger.
There is also a bonus: if you continue your practice of universal and radical acceptance of self, of others, and of life, you can eventually develop an underlying sense of freedom, peace, and bliss that is resilient in the face of adversity or the whims of fate. Friedrich Nietzsche called this state Amor Fati, which is Latin for ‘Love of Fate:’ “My formula for greatness in a human being is Amor Fati: that one wants nothing to be different: not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.”
If you enjoyed this article, please link and share. If you would like me to write about a specific topic, please let me know down below in the comments, or at edwin@thetherapywizard.com.
