{"id":3329,"date":"2016-07-04T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T06:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=3329"},"modified":"2016-07-04T00:01:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T06:01:15","slug":"the-roots-of-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/the-roots-of-anger\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roots of Anger"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have a safe word at my house. The word is \u201cflooded.\u201d If someone declares themselves to be flooded or we suspect someone is flooded, the expectations for the moment must shift. Flooded means someone is totally overwhelmed, melting down, has lost their rational faculties and therefore is at great risk to say or do something regrettable. \u201cI\u2019m flooded\u201d or \u201cshe\u2019s flooded\u201d means: get clear, slow down, stop speaking, do not provoke and DO NOT CORNER.<\/p>\n

Understand the state you\u2019re in.<\/h3>\n

An overwhelmed person is capable of behaving like a wild animal complete with scratching and biting. An overwhelmed person who feels attacked or cornered can quickly become violent \u2013 hitting, pushing, slamming, or throwing objects or people. The majority of us lash out with our words. Words are our modern day domestic weapons, always within reach. Our stressed brains are masters at bypassing our rational common sense and hurling the sharpest words they can find. Obscenities, put downs, \u201cyou always!!,\u201d \u201cyou never!!,\u201d \u201cI hate!!\u201d And once the heat of the moment passes, the heavy sludge of regret and sorrow descends.\u00a0 \u201cMommy\u2019s sorry baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s OK mama.\u201d Ugh, I did it again \u2026 when will I stop for good?<\/p>\n

Rage is tunnel vision, it only wants to fight or flee, and those two reactions are far too simplistic for the complex and nuanced roles of mother, wife, friend, sister or daughter. When we vent our words in the moment we destroy the very thing we value when we are in our right minds. Namely, being a steady safe place for our crazy, vulnerable and often dysregulated children or spouses to lean on, and draw strength and sanity from. The nugget of advice here is: When you\u2019re furious, literally bite your tongue. I am always thankful when I do, and I always regret it when I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Get safe.<\/h3>\n

Rage is a state of pretty serious emotional dysregulation. When we are dysregulated, job #1 is to get grounded again. Back to ground zero, back to yourself, centered back inside of your values, loving heart and intelligence. This is done by slowing your body down, breathing, exiting the heated situation, walk\/run\/yoga-ing it off \u2013 even for just 60 seconds. Optimally it takes about 20 minutes for the rage feelings to dissipate, but moms of littles don\u2019t often have that kind of time. Even 1 or 2 minutes of breathing, stretching, crying or texting in the bathroom can help us round the corner back to sanity. I\u2019ve put myself in timeout on the stairs when I felt I couldn\u2019t be in control. The girls stared at me like a zoo animal, but I don\u2019t care because it helped all of us.<\/p>\n

But what about speaking my truth? When we are \u201cflooded\u201d is not the time to speak our truth. Weapon words are not true, or not entirely true and tend to leave more collateral damage than they do good. Once the hot moment has passed, wise people reflect on what triggered their rage. At that point, with a settled mind, through the lens of their values, they can intentionally decide their next move. Determine what needs to be addressed and do so only from a steady place.<\/p>\n

Work upstream.<\/h3>\n

In order to minimize future episodes we must go further upstream from the angry event to learn what caused it. Notice what triggered you. You probably have three or four repeating triggers. Not feeling heard, feeling disrespected or feeling out of control are very common. Spend some time exploring these triggers. What does it mean to you when you don\u2019t feel heard? (I don\u2019t matter.) What other times in your life have you felt that way? (When I was little.) What do you need to do to repair the wound? (Talk it through as often as necessary with your spouse or shrink, and explore the lie that fuels your anger and work to accept the truth.)<\/p>\n

Negative beliefs live way below the surface of all of us. They are the product of life experiences we have translated into assumptions about ourselves. Experiences in our own families of origin, past relationships, or unhealed trauma or neglect lie buried, waiting to be triggered like land mines. If you take the time to visit the minefield you can dig out the explosives, and in the future the ground doesn\u2019t feel as tenuous. Making a habit of doing this work gives us a much better shot at staying present and patient in the difficult moments downstream with our families who usually aren\u2019t the cause of our wounds, just the unlucky triggers of them.<\/p>\n

Get connected.<\/h3>\n

Make sure your spouse and close friends know your triggers. This enables them to mobilize quickly to help ground and comfort you when you\u2019re spinning out; a quick text to the right person in a hard moment can bring a dose of relief.<\/p>\n

What doesn\u2019t help moms get calmer or more patient is beating ourselves up, demanding patience from ourselves when we have none to give or never exploring our triggers and just hoping they don\u2019t come back again.<\/p>\n

\n

Kelley Gray has been a private practice psychotherapist in the Denver area for 14 years. She is passionate about promoting growth, healing and making messes with her daughters.<\/em><\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0magazines@mops.org<\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/p>\n

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We have a safe word at my house. The word is \u201cflooded.\u201d If someone declares themselves to be flooded or we suspect someone is flooded, the expectations for the moment must shift. Flooded means someone is totally overwhelmed, melting down, has lost their rational faculties and therefore is at great risk to say or do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":3330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,117],"tags":[258,467],"class_list":["post-3329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-anger","tag-anger-management"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}