Oh WOW! - anger

Saying Im Sorry Is Hard

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:29:08 GMT

Saying I’m sorry is hard, and it’s especially hard to say it to someone who we are pretty sure doesn’t trust anything we say. It can feel like an act of surrender and will give the other person power over you, or will open you up to the possibility of further attack. But would you rather be right than be in the relationship?

The person who feels you harmed them often badmouths you, and that makes it even harder to apologize. Once you have been labeled as a bad guy, your need for self protection increases and it’s really difficult to get those words out.

Admission of ownership or remorse can throw you into the victim corner and bring up feelings of shame.

Often, there is a very bad start when you try to make a verbal apology. The person you are apologizing to may say something like; "You should be sorry!” or "Too little too late", or "I've heard that one before", or "How do I know you won't do it again?" Reactive responses like these come from anger or hurt feelings, but its part of the process.

The words you choose really do make a difference. "I apologize for hurting you" is a lot easier to take than "I apologize if what I said seemed hurtful." And even that is not as strong as "I'm sorry I said you aren’t helping." Don’t qualify it with a “But you” or “But I”… it takes the power out of your apology.

When you are the type of person that tries very hard to do the right thing, to be considerate, and to be helpful, but your efforts to please have backfired - it's just a tremendous letdown to have hurt someone. Accepting that disappointment in yourself can be very difficult and apologizing requires overcoming your sense of shame.

What lies underneath is pride. I don’t mean selfish, arrogant pride; it’s the pride you take in who you are and what you do. Basically your self-esteem is at risk. So to admit that you’re wrong means that you’re admitting that you made a misstep, and that hurts your self-esteem.

Tips for getting an apology:
1. You are a lot more likely to get one if your rebuke conveys your belief in other person’s basic goodness.
2. Publicly chastising someone exposes them to even more humiliation, making an apology even more of a challenge.
3. If the person you want an apology from is someone you know takes pride in themselves, expect it to be hard, and try to make it safer for them by expressing your love or respect for them.

Tips for giving an apology:
1. Express understanding of the other person’s hurt feelings, and that you appreciate why they are angry. (Justifying your feelings will likely be interpreted as you missing the point of an apology.)
2. Communicating vulnerability can help, even if it’s hard to do.
3. Be as specific as you can about the mistake, and as clear as you can about your responsibility.
4. Allow the person time to think about your apology—the time they take may vary but the offended person has the right to determine how much time that should be.
5. Clearly request forgiveness but don't expect or demand it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all very fragile beings. We may pretend we are not, we may even be pretty good at it, but we are. We also have wounds and unmet needs from our childhood that get played out in every relationship we have as adults, which makes our interactions way more complex than we realize.

Gracefully confronting someone with a wrong, and navigating an apology can be very tricky, and very painful. Recognizing the difficulty of the action while at the same time honoring our own need to hear it, is the trick.

Tiger Woods Brain

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:14:56 GMT

Over the last year Mike and I have used Tiger Woods brain as a way to illustrate how a person can learn to calm their primitive brain under stress. The fact that he can do it on the golf course but can't do it in his personal life (so it would seem) has me thinking.
The Connection
I don't think he has realized the connection. Tiger's ability to calm his primitive brain down enough to always (or almost always) hit the ball well even when millions of dollars are at stake, is legendary. Few other athletes have done it as consistently as Tiger. Yet, in full view of his fans, Tiger has let his primitive brain run amok.

In the wee hours of the morning of November 27th, Tiger slammed into fire hydrant and a tree. Witness's say that he was in an argument with Erin, his wife. My heart aches for him. I know how painful it is to get into that kind of altercation with someone you love. Though, if its true that the lacerations on his face could have been from their altercation and not the crash, it's a pain I have not suffered myself.
What really tugs at my heart is the reality of their pain, and how easily it could have been different. Couples who experience a weekend of the Awakened Heart Workshop with Mike and I can maneuver through primitive brain reactivity with much less upset than can other couples.

I wish someone would refer them to us!

San Diego Plane Crash Victim's Amazing Compassion

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:30:16 GMT

On Monday I was startled to see a news report on CNN about a jet crashing into a home in San Diego. Of course, my first thought was, “Oh, God, where was that?” My oldest daughter lives north of San Diego near Miramar. Once I realized it was far from where my daughter lives, I thought, “Oh, I hope no one was home. Its daytime, so maybe the people were at work.” Unfortunately, of course, that was not true.

I read today that a young woman, her mother and her two infant daughters were killed in the crash. The dear man who is the grieving widower and father, Dong Yun Yoon, was quoted in today’s CNN report about his reaction to his loss.

Amazing Compassion

This remarkable young man demonstrates the power of true compassion in what he told CNN. He said “"Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident. He is one of our treasures for the country. I don't blame him. I don't have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could.” How many of us could express such feelings after someone had killed our most beloved family members?

Certainly, Dong Yun Yoon will get through this tragedy in better shape than many people get through equally as devastating ones. His compassionate heart leaves room for the possibility of healing with a lack of blame and revengeful, punitive beliefs, which typically block healing. It truly changes everything when you can allow yourself to fully respect and have empathy for the perpetrators of your loss instead of moving into what our reptilian brains would have us do: blame.

That poor pilot!

Whether the poor bloke who dropped his plane on Dong Yun Yoon can have the same kind of empathy and respect for himself is a whole other question indeed. He is said to have been distraught at the idea that someone might have been injured in the incident. The trauma of what occurred for the pilot will be even more difficult for him to heal from if he is unable to have the same amount of compassion for himself. I pray that he is able to have the same amount of compassion for himself as does Dong Yun Yoon.

How about you?

Can you have this kind of compassion for those who have injured you? Have you been able to do this? If so or if not, I’d love to hear your story. Comment below.

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Enemies a Love Story

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:39:31 GMT

Stay or Go?

That’s the question addressed in the series of short stories about women struggling in a bad relationships. Each of these stories have different women, different relationship issues, and different outcomes. What is the red threat that holds these stories together?

I guess O thought it was the fact that these women all struggled to find themselves and to muster the courage to do what was right for them, whether it be addressing problems head on and fixing the relationship or leaving.

Egocentric positions

The interesting thing to me is how much egocentrism existed in each of these articles. Each woman felt they were alone in their marriage, and the decision was up to them. Each flailed about on their own with the decision instead of recognizing the issue as being about a lack of intimacy that was present in the marriage, not just the man.

My own choices

I remember making similar choices twice before in my life. My first to marriages were stuck in a battle for each of our survival and neither of us fared well in the process. Growth as an individual is impossible if the marriage is not growing too, but growth of the individual is magnified if growth is happening in the marriage.

Making unilateral decisions every day

The funny thing is that in unhealthy relationships we make unilateral decisions about the marriage every day, sometimes every minute. How do we do that? We do that by becoming reactive to our partner and putting up barriers to hold them away from us emotionally. Sometimes it’s all we can muster. I get that. I lived that. But if we are to push for something more than just mere survival we have to be more compassionate.

What compassion really means

Being compassionate means that we stop seeing our partner as the enemy, the “bad guy”, the “wrong” one. It means we accept that all of us are not perfect, including us. When we do that there is a chance of really experiencing closeness, and perhaps even great sex. It changes everything!

What do you think?

Are there times when you just have to accept that your partner is in the wrong and keep your protective boundaries up? Comment below.

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Primitive Reactivity Prevails in Olsteen Lawsuit

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:16:36 GMT

Who is to blame?

In a what her lawyer refers to as a “silly” case involving Joel Olsteens’ wife, Victoria, a litigious flight attendant has filed charges against Mrs. Olsteen. The flight attendant, Sharon Brown, claims injury after Mrs. Olsteen allegedly pushed her against the bathroom door and elbowed her breast. Mrs. Olsteen was apparently upset that her flight attendants had not attended her so well. Someone had spilled a liquid on the arm of her first class seat and none of the attendants would anything about it. Reportedly, Mrs. Olsteen became quite upset and demanded some attention to her needs.

I love this kind of thing because it so clearly illustrates how even the (apparently) most evolved of us can get triggered into primitive responses and look like idiots. Now, I don’t know if Mrs. Olsteen actually did as Ms Brown claims, but clearly the women were upset. Neither of them chose to respond, both were, rather clearly operating from a survival mechanism that resulted in both feeling hurt and angry.

Survival mode

When this kind of primitive response kicks in our brains don’t work so well. Ms Brown has apparently been involved in other disputes of this kind so I am guessing she has a bit of the Self-Protector in her and doesn’t have a clue how this impacts other people. Not that it justifies the reported behavior of Mrs. Olsteen. But it does help us understand and have some empathy for her frustration.

I can picture it now. The beautiful and extremely well dressed Victoria Olsteen gets on a plane expecting to be comfortable and well taken care of as is reportedly the usual case in first class (though I certainly wouldn’t know for sure). She sits down in an outfit that is undoubtedly worth more than everything in my entire closet combined and discovers something on the arm of her chair that could ruin her designer garb. She asks for help since this is not really her territory; it’s the flight attendants. Yet she gets no response. She can’t get comfortable and knows she will not be able to relax until the foreign substance is removed. She asks for help again and now she is getting panicked. How is she going to manage to be in a plane for (however long) and relax?

The flight attendant, Ms Brown, obviously rushed, and stressed views Mrs. Olsteen as an obstacle to her goal of getting the flight off the ground. Both went into Self-Protect mode firing angry reactivity toward each other and hurting each other’s feelings.

At any point if one or the other had been able to contain their reactivity and have some empathy for the other person the whole incident could have been avoided. Of course, the onus to be responsible for the incident really lies with Ms Brown as a representative of the airline and a servant to the people on her flight.

A need for compassion

It seems to me that both of these women could use a course in the practice of compassion. Once they both moved into a place of empathy, respect and ownership the whole necessity of legal action would be removed. If Mrs. Olsteen did physically assault Ms Brown than she needs to apologize and take ownership of her part, but so does Ms Brown. Her job as a flight attendant to first class riders is to be there to take care of them.

Clearly she failed to do that. If there was no assault (only the other witnesses on the flight can say for sure) it would behoove Mrs. Olsteen to listen with empathy to what could have provoked this legal attack on her. Perhaps Ms Brown is financially stressed and saw this as an opportunity to help her recover financially from some terrible financial problem. Perhaps Ms Brown wanted to please Mrs. Olsteen and was hurt at how angry Mrs. Olsteen was by her failure to respond. Whatever the cause, both women own a part in what happened and if that is not recognized in the legal process it certainly should be in some kind of moral or ethical sense. I hope the Olsteens can recognize this because it changes everything. Once you allow yourself to step into compassion and out of the egocentric combatant role everything changes.

What do you think?

I’d love to hear what you think of this. Do you think Mrs. Olsteen was the bad actor in this case, or is this a case of overblown litigiousness? Did Ms Brown fall short of her job duties and cry foul to save her job? Comment below.

Why the Rush? Five Killed by Speeder

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:02:12 GMT

Five Deaths

I don’t know what drew me to the article. I don’t usually read these kinds of things too closely, they tend to resemble to closely the stories I hear in my therapy office. But today, I read an article in the Dallas Morning News about this family that died in a car crash this past week. Well, they weren’t really a family exactly. The couple, Geoff and Christy Hart had taken in three foster children who were in the car with them at the time of the crash. Maybe it was the fact that they were foster children that got my attention.

Evil Choices to blame?

The police said the guy driving the car that hit them could be put up on criminal charges because he was apparently driving way over the posted speed limit of 40mph when he plowed into their car. Senior minister Dr. Ronald D. Henderson said, “What happened was neither of God nor the devil. It is the result of evil in the world. It is the result of choices people make."

Of course the guy driving the Pontiac that hit the Hart’s car made some bad choices: fatal choices. But just saying he made bad choices doesn’t really explain what happened does it? Why in the world would someone be driving like that on a residential street?

The back story

Today’s Dallas Morning News reports that the driver of the Pontiac, police now say, was David Calhoun Jones, age 46. He is in critical condition himself and being treated at an area hospital. According the Dallas Morning News, “WFAA-TV reported that police said Jones, of Metarie, La., was running late to pick up his own children from his ex-wife when the crash occurred.”

Wouldn’t most of us be careful if we want to live to see our children? Perhaps we would, but what if there were a strong reason to have to hurry? In my experiences many ex-wives are so stuck in the Victim role with their ex-husbands that they become very difficult to deal with reasonably. So what they do is lash out in whatever aggressive or passive aggressive ways they can come up with to hurt their ex-husbands. They of course, then, become the Self-Protector, trying to get control over their feelings of being out of control.

The Cycle at work

What if Jone’s wife had a history of yelling at the kids if Jone’s was late? Or perhaps she would even refuse him access to his kids if he were as much as five minutes late? It was obviously important to Jones that he arrive on time to see his kids. I’d love to know the back story about what made it so urgent that he had to drive so extremely fast to try to get there on time. Making the right choices is not always as simple as it might seem.

If understand how the Cycle of Egocentrism works it changes everything in how we perceive what happens to us and in the world.

What do you think?

Ever felt that kind of pressure from an angry ex? Tell me your story, or just tell me what you think! Comment below.

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Conflict in the Workplace

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:38:36 GMT

Zowie, workplace conflict is costly!

Dealing with conflict in the workplace takes up to 60% of human resource managers time, according to an article by Rachel Zupek on Careerbulder.com. And, the number of incidents of employee violence has been increasing.

Her article encourages a sensible approach to dealing with conflict, she gives a list of well researched, common sense ways to deal with conflict. Check them out at cnn.com/living

The article really just skimmed the surface of the issue, of course. But if you really want to fully understand what is happening during workplace conflicts, you need to understand how the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Conflict Resolution

One of her sources, Gus Stieber, national director of sales for Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, a professional services company says; “Avoid retreating to the safety of withdrawal, avoidance or the simplistic view that your co-worker is a "bad person." Zupek goes on to say “These are defense mechanisms that prevent the resolution of conflict.”

The Cycle of Egocentrism

Here, Stieber is talking about the Cycle of Egocentrism. It’s easy to think we are avoiding this kid of “defense mechanism” but most of the time we do it so automatically we don’t even realize it’s happening. And avoidance is only one of the ways the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Getting a full understanding of how the Cycle of Egocentrism works is key to managing workplace conflict, and well, any other kind of conflict. When we understand how our brain tricks us into believing our survival is at stake in conflicts we can discover new ways to respond. The Cycle of Egocentrism locks us into believing that there is a good guy, a bad guy and a rescuer in every situation. This old game helped us manage to survive in our old primitive world, but it no longer serves us so well. Most of the time we are not in those kinds of dire circumstances, but our brain fools us into thinking we are. Then we get stuck in certain ways of responding that keep us trapped in conflictual and painful relationships.

Learning how to apply the Cycle of Compassion, the opposite of the Cycle of Egocentrism allows us to have deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves and others. It changes everything.

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Bloody Chicago

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:48:30 GMT

Gangland Chicago

Chicago has suffered another horrible weekend of what are most likely gang related shootings. 36 people were shot over the course of one single weekend. I don’t know what the numbers were in the 20’s and 30’s when the mafia was running Chicago but I don’t imagine it was any worse than this.

What drives this kind of violence? The police and others want to blame the guns for the problems. I’m reminded of the movie West Side Story when I hear that. They didn’t need guns to kill people. Maybe fewer people get killed, but killing still happens. Blaming the guns doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter. When we understand the Cycle of Egocentrism we can begin to see how the horrors of this kind of violence are triggered.

Gangs and the Cycle of Egocentrism

Gangs are the epitome of the Cycle of Egocentrism at work. Someone at some point felt damaged by someone else in a different gang, heck, maybe that is what started the gang in the first place. Maybe someone’s friend was insulted, hurt, or killed by someone (thereby becoming a Victim) and the friend gathered up a bunch of their mutual friends and became a gang (then becoming a group of Self-Protectors). Now they target this other person (another Victim), who in turn gathers up his friends and they became a gang (another group of Self-Protectors). The blame game ensues and all that results is pain and death.

The Cycle and us

How many times in our lives have we become stuck in the Victim/Self-Protector cycle of blame? I know when I got divorced (both times) I was convinced the guy was horrible. I made up all kinds of good reasons that my friends agreed with about how awful they were. And, yes, their behaviors were awful. My friends and I judged them as being to blame for everything that happened in my relationship and I could see no complicity on my part. He was the one that was screwing around, after all. He was the one with the temper. He was the one behaving irresponsibly. I never saw that I owned as much responsibility for what occurred in our relationship as my husbands. I was trapped in the blame game just as surely as those gang members.

The growing divorce rate

The Cycle of Egocentrism explains the growing divorce rate better than any thing else. When we get caught up in a Cycle of Egocentrism we believe we are the Victim, and our spouse is the Self-Protector/Perpetrator. Our only choice is to look for Rescue. A Lawyer makes a good Rescuer. The lawyer starts handing out harsh complaints against our spouse and we feel much better. Of course, then we become the Self-Protector/Perpetrator don’t we? Our spouse then gets so hurt and angry, and they lash back with their own Lawyer. Breaking that cycle is the only way to really change everything.

How are you engaged in the Cycle of Egocentrism?

Have you ever found yourself stuck in blame and battling for survival? If you are or have been caught up in the drama, I’d love to hear how your story turned out. Comment below.

Good Girls Acting Badly

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:15:21 GMT

Watch out for those girls!

Yesterday CNN ran a story about women’s tendencies to revenge. Wow, this story certainly validates the statement “Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned”. Teri Garr took a hammer to a cheating boyfriends’ windows and wasn’t even arrested. Catch a guy going that and he’ll spend time in the slammer.

Women throughout history have been considered “the weaker sex” and always considered to be the Victim and rarely thought to be the Perpetrator in any conflict. We like to think of women as nurturing caregivers or helpless victims. We don’t like the view of women as the Perpetrator, so even when we do find them there, we justify their behavior by claiming that (as Teri Garr said) she really was.

Our cultural and biological bias

Our biology and our culture demands that we find someone to blame for anything that occurs and that we put ourselves (and everyone else) into defined roles. This helps our rational mind make stories out of what has happened that we can tell future generations and ourselves. This history making activity is as old as time and we still practice it today when we think of our own lives and the stories we tell ourselves.

In Teri Garr’s story she is the victim, and her cheating boyfriend is the bad guy. But can you imagine his story? “There I was eating my dinner after leaving work and this crazy b**ch starts breaking out my windows with a hammer! Then I called the police and they did nothing! Can you believe it?”

Good guys and bad guys

When we categorize the people in our life stories as being the “bad guy” and “to blame” for what occurs and put ourselves in the Victim position then we can leave the story with a clear conscious that we have done “nothing wrong”. We have a logical explanation for what has happened and we can view ourselves as blameless in the situation. We are good while the other guy is the bad one. Whatever behavior we choose to take retaliation on the bad guy is acceptable since they are the bad guys.

When we are attacked, when our sense of safety and well being in threatened, we have a right to fight back don’t we? After all, not doing something to fight back would be considered weak wouldn’t it? Isn’t that why we have the death penalty in Texas, to punish the bad guys? Isn’t that why we go to war, to defend ourselves from the “evil doers” of the world? At least that is what our president told us.

Self Protectors

When we find ourselves thrown into this (what I call) Self-Protective role, we end up being perceived as the “bad guy” by the other person don’t we? I’m sure Teri Garr’s boyfriend (now, “ex” of course) thinks of her actions that day as being that of a perpetrator. He and his property were attacked after all.

Blame drives the game

What blame does is to assign all responsibility for something on to someone in order to meet our survival needs. We either assign all responsibility for something on to someone else in order to preserve the idea that we are perfect, or at least, not all bad or we accept all the responsibility for something in order to reinforce the idea of our worthlessness.

Blame is all black and white. There is no complex formula that includes partial equations. It’s a simple 1+2=3. But life, as in math, is seldom, if ever, that simple.

Is there another way?

What if we stepped out of the simple equation and started seeing the complexities that are the realities of our lives and our world? How would that change your perceptions, not only of your own life, but of the world?

The US Rescuer

Throughout our national history the United States has been the worlds Rescuers. We give more per capita than any other nation in the world. We take our wealth around the world and help developing nations in whatever ways we can think of (whether that’s the help the country wants or not) and then we move on to our next project. Yet on September 11^th, 2001 the US became, not a Rescuer, but a Victim. We then responded by becoming a Self-Protector, fighting against the perceived perpetrators. Now, of course, the world sees us as the bad guy.

What if we had looked at the equation differently?

What if we had done as I thought Donald Rumsfeld was going to do when he said we needed to look at the circumstances which led to this event? We helped Afghanistan beat the Russian invasion and then left the country broken, and without the means to heal itself. Charlie Wilson warned the US government that it would leave Afghanistan as a time bomb. It was a bomb that exploded in New York City on that fateful day.

It really does change everything when you start to look at the fractions in the equation instead of rounding off the numbers. When you do this you get a much clearer picture. What was going on with Teri’s boyfriend that he would “cheat” on her? Did he think she cared more about her career than him? Did he feel his needs didn’t matter to her? When someone “cheats” then there are obviously intimacy issues within both parties. One person’s acting out on the problem is not good ethics, but they are not to blame for the problem.

What do you think?

Is it easier to think of the world in terms of blacks and whites? Does it make more sense to view people as either the good guy or the bad guy? Tell me what you think. Comment below.

Don't Hold Back Your Anger

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:45:53 GMT

New Study on Anger

CNN ran a story yesterday about the results of a recently published study on how much longer we live when we actually speak our true feelings: "The study published in January followed 192 married couples in Michigan from 1971 to 1988 and found that those who kept their anger in when unfairly attacked did not live as long as those who expressed their anger, says lead study author Ernest Harburg, Ph.D., an emeritus research scientist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health and psychology department.”>

Validation

Wow I feel validated! I’ve been preaching for years the importance of expressing your anger and not shying from conflict. Now research validates its importance to the quality of our lives. Holding back our feelings has dire consequences, it seems.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we have license to attack each other, it just means we are encouraged to speak our angry feelings out loud.

Confusion between anger and violence

Those of us who grew up in homes where angry outbursts accompanied hitting, verbal abuse, throwing things – or worse – are often frightened of anyone expressing their anger, no matter how benignly they do it. Some of us are down right anger phobic, both of our own and others.

In my family growing up, the only people allowed to have their anger were the adults. If one of us kids smarted off or expressed our anger we were punished by being shamed with laughter, sent to our rooms and told we were being “ugly”. But the adults were allowed to hit us with belts, “green switches”, hairbrushes and their hands and to yell and scream as long and as abusively as they choose.

Of course, I didn’t want to be like that myself, and certainly felt ashamed if I ever found myself provoked to anger.

The result is that we think that any time anyone expresses anger they are being violent. We then put them in the role of “the bad guy” and think of whoever they dumped their anger out on as “the victim.”

Choosing to be rational

Many people growing up in very refined homes never witnessed anyone expressing anger directly and they internalize it and rationalize it away without ever having a chance to even let it come to conscious awareness. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! Just because we renationalize it away doesn’t mean we haven’t felt it, and that it still doesn’t need release.

The physiology of anger

Anger is like any of our emotions, a necessary part of being a human being. We feel anger for a reason, again, like all of our feelings. Anger is there to tell us “Something is wrong. I need to do something about this!” When we fail to express the need to do something differently, we end up locking this “energy-in-motion” (the definition of emotion) into our bodies. The energy of the emotion of anger starts out in our root chakra and moves outward and upward through our bodies. But, if we block the flow of emotion and fight it down using our physiology to stop it (holding our breath, tensing our diaphragm, tightening our shoulders, gritting our teeth) we lock it into place so that it does not get expressed. Then, the effort of locking in that emotion takes its toll on the body. We experience stomach problems, breathing problems, muscular aches and pains, perhaps fibro-myalgia, some say even cancers can be triggered this way.

What I am NOT saying

I am not saying it’s okay to blast people with unbridled attacks, either. There was a period of time when people used “I’m just having my feelings!” as an excuse to attack anyone and to dump their feelings off on others. I am NOT advocating this kind of behavior. What I am advocating is that we all MUST find a way to express our feelings of anger appropriately and consistently if we are to remain healthy and have strong, long lasting relationships.

A paradigm shift

The next time someone appears angry take the time inside to remember 1) this does not mean they are going to hurt someone (necessarily) 2) this person feels something is wrong in their world and may need some help. The shift that takes place when you begin to view anger in this way can change everything for you.

What do you think?

Are you able to handle it when people express anger? Or do you clam up and try to avoid the situation? Is it best to avoid anger and conflict at all costs? Let me know what you think. Comment below.

England's Child Abuse Horror by Melody Brooke, Author, Conflict Coach

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:10:48 GMT

Horror's in Jersey, England

Since 1867 there has been a children's home in England reported to have been a haven for pedophiles and a hell for children. Over a hundred years of it's history at least some of that time children were raped, tortured and beaten. Many of the survivors are still alive today and report the after effects of living with that kind of trauma. Some did not survive and ended up killing themselves. They have found evidence of murders as well as torture and sexual abuse.

These are the stories of real live human beings, who as innocent children suffered things no one should have to endure. There are stories of these things happening all over the world, at various times and places, and seldom are they verified in the end. It is a rare thing for the evidence to be coming out in such a way as to actually validate the survivors reports.

Does this happen in the U.S.?

In the US we tend to find ways to sweep the incidents under the rug, so to speak. Most of the time when there is a report of systemized abuse of children the report is in the news with much sensationalism. The facts seem irrevocable. Then, over time the facts, the evidence slowly erode into nothing. The evidence disappears, the witnesses suddenly become unavailable for comment or retract their earlier statements. The False Memory people are smug.

The results

Then the adults show up in therapy suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), depression, suicidality, extreme anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, self-abuse, and psychotic breaks. Some therapists don't believe their stories and the sufferer feels like a "liar". Some are put on anti-psychotics and treated as if they were Scizophrenic. Some are put on Lithium and treated for Bipolar Disorder. A rare few get taken seriously and treated for their pain.

Survivor -ism

During the '90's there was a huge wave of sexual abuse survivors coming out and confronting their parents and other perpetrators in the media and in courtrooms. Their justifiable rage aimed at their perpetrators resulted in accusations, charges being filed, and arrests being made. The "bad guys" were called on the carpet and an adversarial situation, fed by the media, was perpetuated. This began a backlash resulting in the organization of The False Memory Syndrome Foundation. The accused took back their power by organizing, hiring lawyers and accusing the accusers of lying, and being manipulated into believing they were abused by "well meaning" therapists. Now, few people will dare risk coming out in the open to accuse their perpetrators.

Here is the rub.

People treat other people the way they were treated. When these things occur, and they do occur, it is because the abusers were themselves abused. Treating them as criminals instead of recognizing their wounding sets up an adversarial condition not conducive to healing.

After years of working with DID clients, I have come to the conclusion that most abuse happens in the form of a dissociative episode. The abusers own splitting creates more splitting in the effects of their abuse on the child they have abused. The abuse is then perpetuated on and on if no one ever recognizes what is happening.

Good-guys versus bad-guys

Putting the abusers in jail without treatment doesn't help the abused. They feel guilty because they know the person in jail is just like them. Now, I am not saying society doesn't need to be protected from people known to be abusers. But I am saying we must begin to treat them as wounded human beings deserving of our help.

Our cultural response to bad things happening is to find someone to blame. When we discover who is to blame, we punish them. This sets us up to live in a split world, one in which black and white never meet and the good-guys and bad-guys are well defined. Unfortunately this perpetuates the cycle of abuse and ignores reality.

It's not so simple

In reality we all have good parts of us and not so good parts of us. When we have been abused and deny it's reality, we have to split off this part of our awareness into a dissociated part of our brain. This part of us needs to heal so it pushes its way out in the form of repeating the trauma in some way or another. We either do it to others or put ourselves in situations where it will be done to us again.

Setting ourselves up as Victims or Perpetrators of the abuse allows us to continue to work out the trauma. It's our brain's attempt to heal. Unfortunately, without treatment, it also perpetuates the abuse cycle.

Staying stuck in the Victim/Perpetrator/Rescuer cycle prevents healing and sets us up for more trauma. Recognizing that we are all at once all of these things,and moving out of the adversarial positions of good-guy versus bad-guy gives us a chance to change and heal. This really changes everything./p>

Let me know what you think.

I know I've gone on longer than you were perhaps prepared to read. I know you must have some opinions. I'd love to hear them. Comment below.

Domestic Violence and Men by Melody Brooke, Conflict Coach, Counselor, Motivational Speaker

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:02:08 GMT

Colorado Snowfall

Anyone notice I’ve been gone for a week? I didn’t really intend to be silent this whole time, but technology failed me. The resort in Colorado didn’t have an effective wireless network, leaving us unconnected to the world wide web for the past week.

And, to be honest, we kept ourselves pretty busy. We drove in late Saturday night the 23^rd. It might not have been so late but our tires did not get along with the road. They didn’t want to move on the ice. Fortunately, in spite of having forgotten many other needed items, we did remember to bring the tire chains. Between the road conditions and the lack of visibility, we were able to reach the astounding speed of 15mph driving through what is known as “Rabbit Ears Pass” into Steamboat Springs. A 90 mile trek that took us nearly 5 hours.

Getting in at 2:30am did not stop us from skiing the next day or going out dancing to Peter Harper. We got up and did it again the next day (even the dancing). We did take a day off, to rest. Then we hit it again Thursday skiing blacks all day until the lifts closed. Friday we got up and checked out other ski towns: Vail and Copper Mountain, then drove down to Denver to my daughter’s in-laws home for the night.

But on Thursday night while sitting in the hot-tub after skiing, Mike and I started talking about some of the subjects that are soap-boxes for us. If I could have blogged right then I would have.

My soapbox

I have an unusual take on intimate violence. It’s unusual because I don’t think in terms of “abuse”. When you use the word “abuse” you absolve the “abused” from any responsibility for what has occurred. Now, don’t get riled up; I know there are plenty of people out there suffering in ongoing violent relationships where one partner is the persistent perpetrator. I don’t deny this obvious fact. I just believe things are not always what they appear.

Men and violence

Men involved in violent relationships are almost always assumed to be the perpetrator. They are almost 100 % of the time the one arrested and put on trial. The woman is given shelter, counseling and support. The man is locked up, forced into “anger management” groups and put on trial, costing them thousands and thousands of dollars. When there is a call made to the police in a domestic violence incident, the police are often required to make an arrest and almost 100 % of the time it’s the man arrested. It makes no difference what the specifics happen to be. Simply being a male means that if there is violence in the relationship you are the abuser. Men are assumed to have more power simply by the nature of their sex. Apparently there are no other criteria for abuse.

Don’t men need shelter, too?

Men are laughed at if they seek shelter from an abusive partner. Throughout the country there are millions of dollars poured in to domestic abuse shelters; less than 1% of those shelters accept men into their protective doors.

Men’s physical strength

Don’t misunderstand. I have witnessed the colossal cost of a man beating up on a woman’s face, ribs, legs, arms and internal organs. Men have more upper body strength, as a rule, and can do far more damage with a single blow than a woman can (generally speaking). But here is the rub.

What is a man supposed to do if a woman abuses him? Leaving might be an option, but what if he is concerned about the welfare of his children? What if he is not in a position of financial stability and cannot financially make it and pay child support? Isn’t he trapped as effectively as a woman needing a man’s money to support her and her kids?

Who is the perpetrator?

As a culture we view men as perpetrators and women as the victims. But in my experience working with survivors of childhood and domestic violence, men and women are equally capable of and culpable for the violence in our homes.

I’ve hears stores of men’s private parts being pulled, their children being kidnapped from them, being barraged with hours of verbal attacks, men being scratched, kicked, hit repeatedly on their faces and their hair being pulled. When the man finally breaks and his rage overcomes him, he’s arrested as the abuser.

Keeping ourselves in the victim role

Choosing to ignore women’s culpability actually keeps women stuck in the role of “the victim”. When we are incapable of experiencing ourselves as empowered human beings, equal partners in both the functioning and dysfunction of our relationships we fail to embrace our power. Women are equally capable of perpetuating violence in a relationship, as are men. We are not merely “victims’ of the “evil male species”.

Equal partners: equal power

Until we can own our power as equal partners both in the violence and in the resolution to the violence we fail to shift into real empowerment.

This is not a case of the “battle of the sexes’. It is a battle for compassion. It is a battle for our own power. Neither men nor women can claim their power by remaining stuck in the victim role. In order to stand toe to toe as partners, and as lovers, we must own that we are equally responsible for the violence that occurs in our relationships.

This doesn’t mean we are to BLAME.

It does mean we have the ability to do something about it. Now, this really does change everything doesn’t it?:

What about you?

Are you in a violent relationship? Have you been in a violent relationship? What happened? Do you think you are a victim and that you had no power? Let me hear about it! Comment below.

"Not the Steven I Knew" by Melody Brooke, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:16:40 GMT

Not a Villain?

Steven Kazmierczak’s girlfriend, Jessica Baty, said, “That’s not the Steven I knew”. She goes on to describe him as a gentle, kind man who was estranged from his family. She said he had been sent to a “group home” as a teen because he was depressed, and he medication he had been on was Prosac. Clearly, there is more to this story than can be deduced from the actions on that fateful day.

Split personalities or Prosaic’s bad side

Listening to what went on with this young man certainly makes him sound like he could have been DID (Dissociatve Identity Disorder). Jessica Baty reported that Kazmierczak could not recall his childhood and that his parents thought he was “unruly” and sent him away. Depressed and “unruly” both could describe someone beginning to display DID symptoms, and the fact that he could not recall his childhood suggests that he must have had some psychic splitting going on. He also had "obsessive compulsive" tendencies according to Jessica, also a sign of DID.

On the other hand, Prosac has strange and unpredictable side effects. As a counselor I have worked with kids and adults prescribed Prosac and other “SSRI”’s (Selective Seratonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). How SSRI’s work is not fully understood and the side effects for some people include anxiety, aggression and violence. Stopping suddenly can worsen these effects. Steven had stopped taking the drug and, from what it sounds like, without the help of a medical professional.

What and be learned?

We’ll never know what was really going on inside Steven’s head, but we have enough clues to know that Jessica Baty was correct. He was a victim, too, just like the others February 14, 2008 at NIU.

When we are shut off from our “shadow” side, the part of us that we want to deny or not accept, it leaves us prone to this kind of splitting. Knowing that ALL of us have sides of ourselves that we don’t like, that are not in congruence with our values and beliefs can help us to confront them and learn from them.

All of us have “Victim”, “Villains” and “Rescuers” inside of us; it’s in our DNA. We are pre-programmed to have these ways of responding to our world and to a sense of threat. Recognizing this can help us to face the unappealing truths about ourselves and, perhaps, keep us from reacting in aggressive, or even, violent ways. This changes everything.

Maybe we can also be more thoughtful and less prone to try to solve everything with a pill, too.

What about you?

How well do you know your own “shadow side”? Have you explored the parts of you that you dislike or reject? Do you think I am making excuses for a monster? Tell me what you think. Comment below.

Split Illinois Shooter by Melody Brooke, MA, LPC, Author, Conflict Coach

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:17:20 GMT

Kazmierczak Dissociatve?
The details about this man who shot 20 people and left 7 dead are beginning to unravel. This mornings AP article talked about the contradictions in his behavior. They sound, in my experience, very much like those of a Dissociative Identity Disordered individual.
Evidence?
Kazmierczak was hospitalized in the past, for what condition we don't know. One of the issues he dealt with is that he didn't like staying on his meds. Many DID clients are mistakenly given anti-psychotic medications which cause them side effects and are inneffective in managing symptoms. Voices that come from being split into alter personalities cannot be silenced by drugs.
Another issue he struggled with was self harm, a common symptom of DID. Reportedly he was a "cutter" (someon who cuts themselves). "Cutters" do this in an effort to manage internal pain. Our bodies release endorphins when we are injured and these endorphins coursing through our system relieve pain in much the same way opiates do. This is one of the reason's it is so difficult to stop "cutters" from cutting. It becomes quite addictive.
Kazmierczak's pain
Most of the people who knew him had little to say about him that sounded like he was suffering in any way. They saw him as a nice guy, though some suggested he struggled with intimacy problems. He had a girlfriend who reports say he sometimes engaged in physical altercations with, though it never involved hitting. He would physically restrain her during arguments.
The night befoe the shootings he talked with his uncle making plans for playing a game of chess with him. None of this sounds like someone in psychological distress. Though there are reports of his possibly haven broken up with his girlfriend.
What could have happened to him?
It's doubtful that we will ever know what happened to him to have created the kind of turmoil he was clearly experiencing. Family's of these type of perpetrators rarely admit to having knowledge of their having been abused in any way. Why would they want to acknowledge what they might have done to contribute to these people's horrific behaviors?
Cho Seung-hui, the gunman who killed 32 students at West Virginia Tech, had sent many more clues as to his misery. He was reportedly on anti-psychotics and also had been hospitalized for mental illness in the past. But his writings certainly indicated trauma history. He wrote repeatedly suggestive statements of his having been sexually abused, and his intense anger about it. Could he have been split, too? It's not so clear with him since his behavior was more consistent with the profile of someone who would do this sort of thing. But he was certainly suffering from some kind of traumatic history.
Traumatic splitting
Traumatic splitting occurs, generally in childhood, when a person is subjected to some kind of traumatic incident that is overwhelming to the child. While the trauma is happening the child energetically leaves their body, looking down on themselves as if from above. They then look at the child being traumatized as being separate from them, as if it were happening to someone else. This kind of splitting, when it occurs frequently enough, becomes DID. At least, that is one of the paths to the disorder.

The faces of evil or the faces of pain?
Looking at these facese is spooky, perhaps because we know what happened to the person behind those eyes. But even without having known what these men did, we could easily see that something is missing in their eyes. Could it be dissociation? Could these hollow expressions carry the blankness of one's mind being split so completely as to carry out such horrific behaviors? Let me know what you think when you see these faces. Could this kind of pain be behind the attacks? Comment below.

Who is to Blame in this 7 Year Olds Death? by Melody Brooke, Author. Speaker, Relationship Coach

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:29:23 GMT

Stepdad Blames Abused Child for her Death

Blame is a deadly thing. It incites our instincts to rail in self protective measures. When we indulge in blame we set up others and ourselves for misery. Our brains are wired to do this, to look to someone else to hold responsible for our misery. ?

Cesar Rodriguez was a young father, with 6 children to feed. Apparently he was having difficulty doing this and was dealing with a vindictive, angry wife (at least that's how he saw it). With six children to care for, a wife who (from his perspective) didn't appreciate him, and little psychological resources, Cesar Rodriguez broke. He held this young, rebellious but innocent, child to blame for his misery.

Or did he? He claims the mother was the girls mother. His lawyer claims the mother, beside herself with blame over the death of her unborn child, blamed the girl for miscarriage and killed the girl herself. The girl had been severely abused prior to her death, both parents had to have been in some way responsible for this.

Blame is the enemy

When blame happens our brains take over; not our thinking brains; our mammalian instinctive brain that executes survival strategies that are often outside our conscious control. Whether it was Cesar Rodriguez or Nixzaliz Santiago (the girls mother) it's clear the girl carried a load of blame that she did not earn, and had no control over.

When we fall into blame, we lose our ability to see things clearly. Our view becomes distorted by our belief in the blame. We fail to see the object of our blame as a human being, we see them as out enemy. Empathy never enters the frame of reference.

This is how these horrid things occur. This is how all acts of violence occur. When there is blame; there is a complete failure of empathy as well. We lose our ability to see how things are from the others position.

How does this happen?

This happens because our brains survival instincts are sometimes so incredibly strong they overpower our thinking brain. Generally, in my experience, the thing that makes these survival instincts overtake us is our own history of trauma. When we have been in situations requiring our instincts to take over as a child, these instincts become very strong. They become so powerful that it takes tremendous strength of will to overcome them.

I know, I've worked with some of the bravest people on the planet. The trauma survivors I have worked with in therapy have had the courage and tenacity to work consciously to overcome their automatic reflexes to move into a survival mode any time they feel threatened.

The rest of us need to be aware of our own survival instincts and how they cause us to blame the people we love and lose touch with who they really are. The price for our relationships is measured in the divorce rate. We may not kill our children; but we kill our marriages. Oh,wow, doesn't this change everything/p>

What needs to change?

The tragedy of a young couple trying to manage caring for 6 children with no community intervention is part of what needs to be changed. We need to be willing to address the problems people have directly. Someone had to have noticed this child's bruises. Why was this not address by Child Protective Services? Where there people in this girls life more concerned with protecting her parents than getting them help?

When we blame the parents for the abuse we are not addressing the problem. Criminalizing abuse is not a good thing. While it has to be stopped, throwing the person into jail doesn't fix the problem. Addressing the needs of the family, educating and providing counseling is the only hope for families like this.

What is to become of the other 5 children? What if the mother was the abuser and they are left with her? One of these other children will be her next blame target.

What do you think?

Should we continue to criminalise child abuse? Should we find a way to intervene and help the family without blame? Comment below, I'd love to hear from you.

Ethnic Fear Fuels More Kenya Violence

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:10:57 GMT

The slant of a headline

The CNN headline yesterday was "Ethnic hatred fuels more Kenya violence", I beg to differ. Fear is what fuels violence. When we are afraid we move into a stance that requires us to do whatever we have to do to survive the situation. Behaviors that are abhorant to us become acceptable when we feel threatend. No matter who we are, or what our values are, when we are threatened, our fear instinct engages us in the need to protect ourselves.

What is really going on?

I don't know the history or full story about what is currently happening in Kenya. I'm not sure that's clear to anyone. But I do know that author and journalist Michela Wrong told Al Jazeera that that the fighting wasn't simply an ethnic split, but was really about the divisions between rich and poor. She is reported to have said: "That's the ugly surface of a much more profound split [but] there is a sense that this was an elitist government, it was a government that was really only interested in itself, in its own particular group."

People in Kenya, it seems are afraid of starving to death. Wouldn't that stir you to action? Fear for our survival is key to our being able to survive. It's a natural, necessary, part of being a mammal, being a human being.

It's easy for us to sit back in our armchairs from our rich country and see this as merely a tribal battle involving long histories of tribal fuedalism, but rarely is that enough to drive human beings to horrific violence. Something immediately dangerous will do that.

How often do we fail to recognize when someone is afraid?

When someone is screaming at us or acting hostilly toward us, what is really going on with them? We don't usually stop to think about this. We usually are frightend ourselves of their behavior and we put up our own defensive barrier to protect ourselves from the perception of their attack. Often, the anger and hostility is not really about us or even aimed at us, yet we do what is instinctive, and we react from our own fear.

Transforming conflict into compassion means being able to recognize the fear behind someone's aparantly irrational, or even violent, behavior. When we can do this, we step outside of our own immediate sense of threat and look at the world through another person's eyes.

This can happen even in radical situations.

Even in the radical world of the pain and horror of Kenya, if the powers that be were willing to negotiate with each other and let go of their own egocentric positions (i.e. self-centered) and step into each other's shoes, change could happen. Knowing how this model affects our selves and our world could "change everything."

Can you do this?

When was the last time you felt someone angry at you or throwing a fit in yoru presence and you thought, "Hmm, this person must be afraid. I wonder what is going on."? Is this a rational way to react when we feel threatened, or is it stupid because the other person, could, perhaps do something to hurt you. What do you think? Comment below and let me know.

Why Did Mark Jenson Murder his Wife?

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:07:04 GMT

What Drives a Person to Murder

Mark Jenson and his son were seen laughing and hi-fiving each other the afrernoon following his wife's death. Either the man and his son are cold hearted, perhaps even psychopaths, or there is more here than meets the eye. When a person commits violence against a (previously) loved one, there has to be some history that perhaps has not been revealed, perhaps never will be, about the nature oftheir intimate relationship.

Turning Conflict into Compassion

When we can move into a place of deeper understanding of what happens in our brains when we percieve each other, then we have a chance of seeing conflict from a new perspective. In the extreme case of murder, there certainly has to be some things that went very wrong in the intimate relationshps of the family for this to have occurred.

What we know about how our brains work is that certain kind of rections occur in the brain, often without our conscious awareness that trigger a sense of threat. When the people around us are not aware of or sensitive to our primative reactions to that perceived threat, we can get pretty determined to protect ourselves. Our behavior may appear outrageous or even crazy to those around us if they don't know or understand why we feel so threatened.

Empathy and Ownership can Parlay Conflict

When someone we love or even just care about, reacts in a way that seems unreasonable or outside of what we percieve to make sense, there is more going on inside that person than we know. Paying attention to and responding to that persons pain can go a long way to transforming the conflict.

Then, if we can find something in what the other person has expressed that we can own as our part, the other person then can see that we are not blaming them. When we can say (for instance) "I can see that something I did upset you, can you tell me what it was"' We move out of the blame game and eeper into understanding.

What was really going on?

I am fairly certain we will never know what happened to trigger Ms Jenson's death. But what we can be fairly certain of is that someone felt really threatened and someone else failed to notice. When this happens violence is much more likely to occur.

What About You?

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt really threatned and no one noticed or cared? How did you respond? Or, have you seen someone behave really crazy and not understood the threat they were experiening? Tell me what you have experiened.

Iran Threatens Security

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:09:52 GMT

What Happens When We Feel Threatened?

When we feel threatened what do we do? We attack back! At least this is what we do when we are in survival mode. We believe that it is the only way we can survive the threat. It is an instinctual, brain driven way of reacting to the perception of threat. Our brains go into a primative mode of "fight or flight" that sends us into a kind of (brain) chemically induced reactivity.

George Bush, Jr. seems to think that is where we should always come from in response to threat. And, its a tactic that has worked well for him politically until recently. People are often motivated to vote out of fear. Fear tactics tend to work well during elections. There was an article about this in newsweek a while back. If you follow elections, you can see how this has worked. Gulianni still envokes 9/11 to get voters on his side.

Is there another reaction possible?

What if there were another way to respond to the perception of threat? What if we could use a different part of our brain to respond when we feel threatened? We do have a part of our brain, in fact, the bulk of our brain, that is set up to think rationally, to ponder difficult solutions and to do more than react. This higher thinking part of our brain evolved since we became humanoids. Our primative, mammalian brain is the part of our brain that reacts to threat with the "fight or flight" mode.

When we choose to use our thinking brain we can often come up with more compassionate reactions than just merely fighting or fleeing. This is not to say there are not times when that is the rational reaction. But what if we could come up with a compassionate response when we are feeling threatened? How would that change our immediate world? How would that change the world at large?

What would another possible response be to Iran?

Do you think there could be a response to Irans threats that the US could take that could provide us with a different outcome than Iraq? I don't know, I am not a politician, but I think it is worth considering. Could compassion work on the world stage? Tell me what you think!

What's your problem with anger?

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:36:07 GMT

What is it with people? We seem to think that we can get close to others by just being around them and doing what the other person wants. Closeness is brought about through a sense of closeness that can only come from shared intimacy. Intimacy literally means: in-to-me-see from the Latin root. Without letting our partner “see into” us we cannot experience intimacy.

What people are afraid of being seen. So the idea of intimacy is really scary. I believe this comes from well meaning parents who try to get us to do what they want us to do by forcing us into their model of what we should be. Who we really are is discouraged, shamed, controlled and strictly forbidden.

The lesson we then learn is that it is not okay to be who we are.

Now, of course, this varies in the extent to which it dominates each of us depending on how severe or controlling our parents were to us. But even parents, who on the surface are very sweet, can be very controlling in their own way. Don’t get me wrong; I am not, really blaming our parents, as is vogue. Because they can’t help it, they were raised in the same way they raised us. >

The thing is, we learned to repress our thoughts, our feelings, our needs, our desires and our very selves in order to get along with those who raised us. Yet to be close to someone we have to unlearn what we learned. We have to learn to let ourselves risk being seen.

How do we know that what people are not going to reject who we are? That is the fear, of course, that no one will like us or want us if they really knew us. That comes from the rejection of our unpleasant feelings we received as a child.

When our parents, understandably punished us for our angry outbursts as a child, or shamed us for displaying anger instead of teaching us how to express our anger appropriately.

What if we were to learn that our anger is always appropriate? The reality is that how we express it is not always “appropriate”, but anger is like all of our feelings a normal part of being a human being!

We have feelings to provide us information. Happiness tells us that things are going well and that this is what we want. Sadness lets us know that we are in a situation we don’t like. Fear lets us know we are in danger. Anger lets us know something is wrong and that we should do something about it.

The problem people have with anger is that they don’t realize that it’s just a feeling. We might feel compelled to act on it, but we don’t have to react instinctively as our gut tells us we should. We have the option, as adults, to figure out what to do with that anger.

Unfortunately, most of us were not taught what to do with anger. Of course we watched what others’ did and that is what we learned. We might have learned that it’s okay to scream, yell, hit and beat others into changing what they are doing. We might have been so frightened by those behaviors that instead of mimicking them, we rejected them and chose to never express anger, thinking that the expression of anger was the problem. We might have learned, through watching those around us that using drugs and alcohol are how you deal with it. Many of us just learned to reject the feeling altogether and pretend that we don’t get angry.

That gets us back to my main point. If we ourselves reject our anger then we can be terrified at the idea of anyone seeing it. And since anger is a part of who we are, we then believe that if someone really knew us they wouldn’t like us.

Therefore we hide ourselves from others, especially those that mean the most to us. The more important someone is to us the less we want them to know us. The result is that we keep ourselves distant from the one person we most want to be close to!

So, stop hiding!

Tell me what you think. Which type are you? Do you hide your anger or what?