It usually comes at the end of a long day, when you are most in need of rest and settling into the comfort of a warm bed, eager for respite. It is the arrival of “busy brain,” or “monkey brain” as the Buddhists refer to it because of the way random thoughts swing from “vine” to “vine. It’s the surge of unwelcome ruminations that seemingly come out of nowhere and are intent upon keeping you from your precious slumber.

Unfortunately, they are often not the rehashing of the day’s pleasantries but rather a review of situations that made you frustrated, angry, or anxious and, like a juggling of spinning gyros, one thought leads seamlessly into the next, one tangent to another, without a break in between. This happens to all of us, but for people who experience obsessive thoughts, this can happen for hours on end, night or day, with no relief.

Many of us know OCD from movies such as As Good As It Gets, or from shows like Monk. We use the acronym to denote any degree of perfectionism or eccentricity. We like to say he has OCD because he needs his car meticulously clean or she’s OCD because she alphabetizes her breakfast cereal.

But not all of these behaviors equate to OCD. Sometimes they are just personality traits that don’t necessarily cause any dysfunction or distress. Clinical OCD—obsessive compulsion—on the other hand is much more apparent in terms of the individual’s (as well as his or her loved one’s) dysfunction or distress.

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One of the main symptoms is obsessive thoughts, which are more difficult to depict in the movies and television as they are representative of the internal world of the person. These are different from the rituals and compulsions that get characterized, such as when Jack Nicholson can’t step beyond the threshold of his apartment without going into a full-blown panic attack.

Obsessive thoughts are thoughts that churn in the mind in perpetual cycles over and over again. It provokes curiosity as to why people affected by OCD can’t just move on and why, after days, they still seem stuck on one particular issue. Most of us, when we think about a problem, for example, identify the issue, recognize our reactions, decide how we want to deal with it, and then it’s over; we are ready to move on to the next challenge. But those who experience obsessive thoughts find themselves in a type of analysis paralysis and, instead of putting an idea to rest, they get stuck. Psychoneurobiologists refer to this stuckness as the ring of fire, because on a PET scan of the brain, which helps to identify brain functioning and patterns, the process is illuminated by a bright red circle of activity in the form of an endless loop.

So what can people do to manage themselves out of this ring of fire when their brains are predisposed to functioning this way? What can any of us do, OCD aside, when we find ourselves in this maddening merry-go-round of the mind? Research has pointed to the practices of meditation and mindfulness as valuable tools in training the brain to shift its focus. Each time an obsessive thought arises, instead of trying to stop it with another thought or idea, the person practices present-moment awareness via a checking-in process or what I call a “sensory inventory.”

The best way to conduct this sensory inventory is to focus on one’s primary senses—auditory/hearing, somatic/touch, gustatory/taste, olfactory/smell, and vestibular/movement—because this kind of awareness grounds us in what is happening right now, the present moment. Asking questions such as the following can help direct this focus: What sounds am I hearing right now? What is the temperature or sensation on my skin—is it hot or cold, dry or moist? Are there any particular smells in the room? What is my body feeling? What am I noticing in terms of bodily sensations (e.g., a churning in the stomach or tightness in the shoulders)?

When we conduct this sensory check-in, we are essentially arriving into presence and, in doing so, shifting the mind’s focus away from the storylines orchestrated by our psyches, thereby neutralizing the obsessive thought’s pull into either the past or future, both of which present us with myriad judgments, regrets, fears, anxieties, and the perpetual “I-should-haves” or “what-ifs.”

Another benefit of the mindfulness practice is the new superhighway it creates in the brain. The brain works efficiently, and when given a choice between a clear, quick route (the road that represents our habits) and unclear, rocky terrain (that which is undeveloped and uncharted), it will choose the former. Through practice, we can clear the brush away and begin to build our own, detoured path. It may be difficult at first, but just like the toddler who pulls herself up on the coffee table and, in the next miraculous moment, takes her first steps, once the road is open, the brain is eager to redirect its traffic and we find that we can quickly shift from rumination to conscious awareness.

The first question a person who is seeking help for trauma often asks is, “Will I ever get better?” It is common to feel hopeless after experiencing a traumatic event. Trauma affects how the brain functions. It can physically change the brain and make people feel that they are not themselves any longer. Activities that were once simple and automatic become difficult or feel downright impossible. Fortunately, the options for the treatment of trauma are very effective.

There are several options when it comes to choosing a modality of trauma treatment; I’ll cover them in subsequent articles. Having information about each modality can help a person to make an informed choice when choosing the route of treatment that is right for him or her.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is one effective method of treating trauma. The name of this intervention is a mouthful; just seeing or hearing it can cause a person to feel overwhelmed and confused. It is, in reality, a fairly simple intervention that addresses the many effects of trauma, including negative beliefs about the self (such as “I am not safe” or “I am bad”) that commonly arise, the sensory aspect, including images and body sensations related to the trauma, as well as emotions.

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According to the EMDR Institute, Inc., several studies have been conducted to test the efficacy of EMDR, and the data show that a majority of people experience a reduction in their trauma-related symptoms after treatment. One such study, conducted by Carlson et al. (1998), found that 77.7% of veterans who had experienced multiple traumatic events had an elimination of posttraumatic stress (PTSD) symptoms after participating in 12 sessions of EMDR. Another study, conducted by Arabia et al. (2011), found that people who had experienced a life-threatening health issue related to cardiac problems had a reduction in symptoms related to PTSD, depression, and anxiety.

Overview of EMDR Treatment

There are eight phases in EMDR treatment. Francine Shapiro (2001), who developed this therapeutic technique, states that it is important to understand that how long a person must spend in each phase will be different for each individual.

The phases include:

1. Getting a history
2. Preparing a person for the trauma work through building coping skills
3. Determining the specific components of the first trauma that will be reprocessed
4. Desensitization
5. Installing a positive belief about the self when recalling the trauma
6. Checking in with the body for any residual trauma (body scan)
7. Closing of the session
8. Reevaluation during the next session to see if any new information has come up or changes have happened between sessions

The Role of Dual Attention Stimulus

The thing that most people find fascinating or even strange about EMDR is what is called dual attention stimulus, which is utilized during the desensitization, installation, and body scan phases of EMDR. This involves either moving the eyes back and forth, tapping on one side of the body and then the other (i.e., left hand and then right hand), or using sounds in alternating ears.

The dual attention seems to do a few things: helps the brain to work through previously difficult material, makes recalling memory easier, and has a calming effect. It is unknown why the dual attention has this effect, but several studies support its effectiveness (EMDR Institute, 2011).

Dual attention can also help a person to keep the attention in the present while allowing the brain to go to the past, which can help to decrease the potential for hyperarousal, which could get in the way of treatment. It is also thought to help with moving information through the brain so it can be filed away correctly.

How EMDR Helps the Brain

Another way to see the EMDR process and how it helps is to imagine that your brain and its memory networks are a network of streams and rivers. When a traumatic event happens, it is almost like a beaver dam has been constructed somewhere within the network, which can send the entire network into panic mode. The water gets backed up and overflows, which can affect areas that don’t seem connected to the network with the block.

In the case of trauma, it is the emotion, memories, body sensations, thoughts, and beliefs that are overflowing and not getting where they need to go. EMDR’s main objective is to address and remove the beaver dam, or block, so that the brain can process. Removing blocks essentially helps the brain to tap into its own ability to heal itself.

Is It Right for You?

If interested in participating in EMDR therapy, make sure that the therapist you choose was trained by a reputable source.

EMDR is a well-researched and effective treatment for trauma on any level, no matter how small or big. Even if EMDR is not the right fit for you, other resources and treatment modalities are available.

References:

1. Arabia, E., Manca, M.L., and Solomon, R.M. (2011). EMDR for survivors of life-threatening cardiac events: Results of a pilot study. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 5, pp. 2-13. Retrieved September 1, 2014 from http://www.emdr.com/general-information/research-overview.html
2. Carlson, J., Chemtob, C.M., Rusnak, K., Hedlund, N.L, and Muraoka, M.Y. (1998). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): Treatment for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 11, 3-24. Retrieved September 1, 2014 from http://www.emdr.com/general-information/research-overview.html
3. EMDR Institute, Inc. Dual attention stimuli. Retrieved September 1, 2014 from http://www.emdr.com/general-information/dual-attention-stimuli.html
4. EMDR Institute, Inc. Research overview. Retrieved September 1, 2014 from http://www.emdr.com/general-information/research-overview.html
5. Shapiro, F. (2001). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures, second edition. The Guilford Press: New York

I see it all the time in my work with divorcing people: the anger, bitterness, and frustration felt when one partner betrays or deceives the other with little or no remorse for their actions.

If you’re waiting for an apology or some explicit expression of remorse from your ex, pull up a comfortable chair and get ready to sit for a while. The ability to repent for an act of betrayal requires a level of evolution that most people never aspire to reaching. Saying I’m sorry means admitting fault, as does acknowledging that the action has deeply hurt another person. Both require courage and a deep capacity for empathy and compassion.

Waiting for an apology you may never get will keep you stuck, unable to move on with your life. When the need for an apology becomes connected to healing, the focus becomes your ex as opposed to yourself. It leaves you in a powerless place because you will never be able to will your ex into giving you what you so rightly deserve.

So the work for you becomes more about how to relinquish the need for an apology, accountability, or remorse, which will enable you to move on and begin picking up the pieces of your life.

Here are five steps to relinquishing the apology you’ll never get:

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1. Acceptance: Accept that life isn’t fair, that the process of divorce is riddled with inequities. Life, love, and relationships are not about being even, and you cannot make someone do something for you even in the name of love. Start to focus on how you can live with never getting the acknowledgment you deserve instead of what it means to not get it. This is one of the hardest things to do because it feels like the other person is getting away unscathed. Remember that this is about integrity; it’s not about who wins or loses.
2. Awareness: Awaken to the truth of the person you’re dealing with. If your partner shows little or no remorse, then they may possibly be lacking empathy. Empathy is a human capacity that makes it harder to hurt other people. You may not have noticed it until now, but if you think back, it may be that a lack of compassion and empathy is not out of character for your ex. Get real with your expectations, and open your eyes to the truth of who you’re dealing with.
3. Let go: Work on detaching emotionally from the expectation of an apology. Your need for an apology or remorse is directly connected to your emotional attachment, which makes it impossible to let go of the need to be acknowledged and honored by someone who has betrayed you. When your ex’s actions don’t matter and don’t define your experience, you are well on your way to letting go. Ask yourself if you want to be emotionally attached or if you would rather be set free from that connection. Meditate on how much energy you’re expending on this issue, and then come to terms with whether getting what you are hoping for would change anything for you.
4. Self-reflect: Sometimes, focusing on your ex’s actions (or lack thereof) is a way to move away from focusing on yourself. What can you take responsibility for, and what can you learn about yourself from this experience? Inner wisdom will allow you to rise above this petty situation, and you’ll feel empowered in your own process. Reflect on why you need an apology or to see remorse, and why that has become such a determining factor in your ability to move on.
5. Reframe: Your ex’s lack of remorse does not devalue your pain and suffering. Betrayal is not measured by the act; it’s measured by the pain it causes the person being hurt. Sometimes, we think the level of remorse equals the crime, but some people have horrible regret for even the most benign acts. Reframe your ideas about remorse and apologies as things to appreciate if they happen, but not essential to your process. A lack of an apology is more a reflection of the person not giving it than of the person who was wronged.

It can be hard to know for certain whether what you have been experiencing is, in fact, a series of previously repressed memories or something else. It is very possible to rediscover memories that have been tucked away and buried for years and not just traumatic ones. Sometimes a smell, a sound, a place, or an experience brings something back to us in vivid detail that had previously been hidden. Sometimes we just get a glimpse of it, an impression, but the effect can be quite unsettling and even disturbing.

I have had the experience of suddenly recalling an event from decades earlier with vivid detail. I had to call a family member to confirm if what I was remembering was accurate (it was). My event was not traumatic or upsetting; I was far more troubled by the fact of its absence than by its reappearance.

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It is possible that your memory, triggered by your experience with your friends’ children, is accurate. You may be remembering an event or an amalgamation of a series of events. It is not unusual for children to engage in play with dolls that explores sexual themes. What seems troubling is the violent nature of the play you are describing. Perhaps you were acting out something you witnessed or heard about. My hope would be that, if you had experienced something so violent in your childhood, someone in your family would have known or been aware that something had happened. Is there anyone you can check in with who might know if what you are remembering happened or who can lend insight?

In regards to your dream about possible child pornography, our dreams are often a way of processing information that we aren’t able to make meaning of during our waking hours. Your dream may be connected to an experience you had, but it may also be something else. If your dreams and memories are causing you distress, which it sounds as if they are, I strongly urge you to connect with a licensed professional to explore what may be at the root of this and how to reduce your distress in the present.

The second part of your question, however, brings up another set of concerns. You mention being drawn to abusive relationships in your older years. No matter the reasons or the root causes, this is something I strongly encourage you to get support with. If you find yourself in an unhealthy relationship or unhealthy patterns of relationships, there are steps you can take to change that. A history of abuse in childhood can contribute to adult relationship patterns, but that history doesn’t limit or determine the kinds of relationships we are capable of having.

Best of luck,
Erika

You find yourself in a fraught situation: your partner has just learned about your affair. Feelings of panic, anxiety, fear, shame, and guilt overwhelm you. You aren’t sleeping well, maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop, worried that every conversation will lead to your partner telling you it’s over. You have some decisions to make: should you stay or leave the relationship? If you decide to stay, there are some realities you must accept—specifically, the repair process could take a couple of years. It will require a lot of emotional and behavioral work.

Think of it this way: repairing an affair is like trying to rebuild an investment account after having made a series of short-sighted trades that wiped you out. You feel pressured to save and reinvest quickly to recreate what you had, but just like with a financial investment, relationship investments cannot be rebuilt quickly. At first, your balance is zero. It is through your efforts that the balance in the account grows. Just as all of your spending decisions will affect how much you are able to deposit in your retirement account, the daily decisions you make about your relationship will result in how quickly you build up your relationship account.

The unfaithful partner must accept the reality of the slow repair process. Just when everything seems to be going well and you are hopeful that forgiveness will come soon, your partner may be triggered by a thought, event, or feeling and be thrown back into the well of anger and despair. Continue to think of it as an investment account. Checking the balance every day won’t make it grow faster. What does make it grow faster is making everyday choices that please your partner.

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Love is behavioral—it takes attention, attunement, regular and healthy communication, compromise, and a willingness to play the long game. Short-sightedness in relationships is a self-inflicted wound. Do not cut corners by passing up chances at affection or emotional connection, or by rationalizing that unhealthy behaviors don’t count or won’t be noticed. When in the process of repair, the unfaithful partner must act from an understanding that everything he or she does matters. Your actions and words will serve to either help rebuild your relationship or contribute to its breakdown.

The partner in the process of repair needs to accept that he or she may be under the microscope. You will be watched, assessed, and perhaps feel like you are under surveillance. Before allowing this to upset you, remind yourself that you created this situation.

You may be wondering what really helps in rebuilding trust in your relationship. From my perspective, relationships are repaired mainly through small gestures. Trips to romantic destinations and expensive gifts may seem like obvious ways to increase trust, but they’re not. Trust is developed by engaging in trustworthy behavior on a regular basis.

To help you clean up your relationship mess, here are some suggestions that may increase trust between you and your partner:

1. Cut out the secrecy. Your partner may want to have your passwords for your phone, banking, credit cards, and social media accounts. This may feel invasive and unnecessary to you, but to your partner, this gesture sends the message that you get it. Hurt partners often gain reassurance by engaging in the process of “checking.” Many hurt individuals greatly dislike the act of checking up on their partners because they genuinely want to trust you. Reading emails and text messages can make the hurt partner feel parental. It’s an uncomfortable situation for both parties, which is why it often stops shortly after it starts.
2. Increase your availability. If your partner contacts you, make every effort to either answer the phone, text, or email back immediately. If there were frequent communication dark periods during your affair, your partner will respond to your unavailability with increased anxiety, which leads to lack of trust.
3. If after ending the affair you are still contacted by the affair partner, tell your partner of the contact. You may resist doing so out of fear it could lead to a fight, but if he or she finds out later about any further contact between you and your affair partner, trust will be weakened.
4. Be honest about why you chose to have the affair. One way to not make the same mistake twice is to understand why you made the choices you did. Sharing the truth can be and often is very painful, but it is a vital aspect of the repair process.

When parents divorce, they sometimes forget that their children didn’t also get a divorce. They still have their two-parent family, even if that family occupies two households instead of one.

Sometimes, though, it seems too hard to figure out how to communicate with someone you are no longer in a relationship with. But because you have children together, you can’t just go your separate ways, hoping you do not run into each other. Perhaps you or the other parent thought you’d no longer have to have the same, old arguments about parenting that you used to have, that it would all be behind you.

What you have perhaps learned by now is that you continue to have the same disagreements about the children, only from your separate homes. You still have to figure out your parenting timeshare as well as how the children will go back and forth between your houses, get to school and to their activities, get their homework done, make medical and educational decisions, and other considerations. And you still have to learn how to interact with the other parent to help make all these things happen, and to be civil and cordial with each other while in the children’s presence.

Perhaps instead of getting easier, it has not only gotten harder, it hasn’t changed the problems that weren’t addressed when you were together. What to do now?

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Working on your co-parenting relationship may be more than you may have thought you were emotionally prepared to do. One of you may have moved out of the family home, emotions may be running high due to the pain and disappointment of the end of the relationship, and perhaps not knowing what’s next—or worse, continually anticipating that what’s next is something you won’t like—is wearing on you. You may find that every decision holds the possibility of anger and anxiety. It may be that all you want to do is stay as far away from the other parent as possible, if only to collect yourself and find a way to try again.

If this is your experience, it is often helpful to work with a co-parenting therapist to help turn down the heat.

In co-parenting therapy, with the help of a third, neutral party, you will have the opportunity to:

1. Talk about the issues that you find most difficult to discuss with your ex.
2. Make decisions regarding those things which cannot be different for a child living in two households (the school your child attends, medical decisions, team sports, etc.).
3. Identify the decisions you can make separately for each of your households (bed times, food, houses of worship, etc.).
4. Address your communication styles and the interactions you have with each other as a result of the different ways you have of expressing yourselves.
5. Understand the reactions you each have to the other. The most effective tool you have to change the level of conflict in your relationship is to work on how you react to the other parent.

Co-parenting therapy can help you learn how to communicate more effectively, with the goal that you will not need the help of a third party to co-parent your children and you will be able to do so without conflict. Research has shown that when parents are able to put their differences aside and work to establish a post-divorce family that is not characterized by conflict, most children are able to adapt well to the changes in the family structure.

Co-parenting therapy is appropriate regardless of whether you still live in the same house and are preparing to live separately, have recently set up separate households, want to make adjustments to the parenting plan you’ve had in place for some time, or just need help communicating better about your child’s needs. Having a relationship with a co-parenting therapist can help you create an amicable relationship with your ex and protect your children from unnecessary conflict.

Power, the ability to have an effect or to have influence, is our birthright. We all have power and need it to survive, to have relationships, and to be productive. Think how much power a baby has when he or she cries or laughs.

Our lives are full of relationships where there are power differences, and we all move back and forth between being in what I call “up-power” and “down-power” roles. For example, there is a power differential between a CEO and the employees, a doctor and the patients, a clergyperson and the parishioners, a teacher and the students. Both sets of people in these relationships have their personal power, but the person in the up-power role has the additional power that accompanies his/her assigned, elected, or earned role. A therapist moves from up-power with a person in therapy to down-power with a supervisor. A CEO going to the dentist moves from up- to down-power. We make this shift more often than we notice.

Research (Google: Joris Lammers, power; Dacher Keltner, power paradox) is showing that people who have greater power act differently from people who have lesser power. Increased or decreased power has cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and somatic effects. “Good” people tend to have the idea that those who abuse their up-power do so because they are simply greedy, fearful, self-aggrandizing, or power-hungry. However, it turns out that the situation is more complicated. Power affects everyone, and unless it is understood and mediated, very often it results in abuses. In fact, the greater the power difference, the greater and more widespread the harm. The widely held idea (Lord Acton) that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is largely true.

There are two ways to respond to this information. The first is to decide that power is bad; therefore, if you don’t want to cause harm, don’t have power, or if you have it, pretend you don’t. A teacher tries to be “just friends” with her students. A committee chair gives a committee member too many chances to get something done. A therapist fails to assess the effectiveness of the therapeutic process. A CEO doesn’t hold the employees accountable.

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The second way is to learn about the effects of power so that you can notice and mediate them by using or responding to positional power with wisdom and skill, whether you are up-power or down-power.

So, what are these effects, and what kind of self-reinforcing loop do these effects create?

1. Social distance. This stance allows people, especially those in up-power positions, to see the whole project or situation and to make good and often tough global decisions knowing they can’t please everyone. The shadow impacts of social distance, however, are many and harmful. Those with greater power can and are likely to dehumanize those down-power to them by seeing them as objects that are expendable and can be manipulated and exploited. In doing so, those up-power persons become less empathic, less interdependent, and less collaborative.
2. Freedom to act without interference. This effect causes those with greater power to be impulsive, unconstrained, inappropriate with touch, more aggressive, less vigilant, and less aware of their impact. They ignore, fail to respond to, or punish those who offer negative feedback.
3. Moral hypocrisy. Increased power causes leaders to have stricter standards for others than for themselves and to stick to the rules regardless of whether they have negative or positive impacts. They also shift the blame for their mistakes and misuses of power onto others with lower power.
4. Approach orientation. Up-power individuals take actions that prioritize their needs and act freely on their whims. Those with lower power have an avoidance orientation. They take actions aimed at avoiding punishment or loss and at placating the leader.
5. Role identification. Leaders tend to identify with their increased power as if it were their personal power rather than added-on role power that comes with responsibilities for care and effectiveness. Such a misunderstanding of who they truly are results in a deep disconnection from empathic, respectful, and sustainable relationships.

Not surprisingly, the attitudes and behaviors resulting from the effects of greater power create a self-reinforcing loop of exploitation and abuse. Those in down-power roles, by becoming more and more vulnerable and disempowered, are led to focus on being more passive and avoidant or, on the other hand, more resistant and provocative. They disown their personal power, or they become lightning rods by taking actions against misuses of power that can cost them their jobs or their integrity. Read the paper or look at the news and you can see this destructive and harmful loop on a global scale. Look inside most organizations, even small ones, and you will likely find some version of these shadow impacts of power, even on people with good intentions.

The horrific way that power’s shadow plays itself out in the world would have those who want to be helpful and leave the world a better place running away from power. However, as much as anything else, we need people who say yes to their role power and learn to use it wisely and well. Accepting leadership and role power is not for the faint of heart. Doing so takes courage and skill.

Here’s the good news. By understanding these normal effects of power, we can bring them out of the shadows and into the light. When we shine a light on them, we can choose to take action to mediate or decrease the negative impacts. Taking such action is important for leaders, because those who have up-power roles have much greater responsibility for the health of their differentiated power relationships. It is also important for the many times we are in down-power roles, since it is liberating and strategic to understand the shadow effects of increased power.

We thus have the stunning opportunity to change Lord Acton’s insight from power always corrupts to power can corrupt. Understanding, vigilance, and skill can prevent power differences from becoming abusive and keep relationships healthy.

The best antidote for the negative impacts of power is staying in or returning to right relationship. My experience is that right relationship has two aspects. Both have to do with empathy. One is staying in empathic connection with the people who are in down-power roles. The other is having and maintaining a vision or mission that is larger than egotistic self-interest, fear, and the need for control. This vision is driven by compassion for being in right relationship with society.

Here are a few stories of leaders staying connected with—or in one case disconnected from—their hearts.

Miley Cyrus, in an interview, talked about her newfound awareness that she has a lot of power and influence and that she can choose how to use it: “I didn’t realize my power. … Wherever I go everybody’s sitting there talking about me. … And I thought … instead of using it as a negative, how can I use it as a positive? If I’m going to be speaking this loud, what am I trying to scream at the world? … It’s kind of a wake-up.” Miley is now launching a campaign to urge her fans to donate to a center for homeless youth (“People in the News,” Boulder Daily Camera: 8/26/14).

Livingston Armytage works as a consultant to large organizations such as the World Bank. He has a lot of positional power that could easily keep him far away from the daily lives of the people his work affects. He and his wife Miyako keep in touch with these people by finding ways that they can develop a personal relationship with children they meet in their work and travels. They foster and support children, preferably girls, to attend school and university in countries such as Nepal and Cambodia.

One hundred fifty years ago, the Colorado militia spent a month looking for Arapahoe Indians on the warpath. They didn’t find any. The commanding officer was convinced that the Indians were armed and dangerous. A lone Arapahoe carrying a white flag and bearing a letter from the chiefs asking for peace came to the fort. A captain let him in and questioned him. “Weren’t you afraid you would be killed?” the captain asked. “I knew I would be killed,” the messenger responded, “but white people always look in our pockets, and my message of peace was more important than my life.” The captain was so moved by the man’s courage and dedication to peace that he changed his mind about Indians and did all he could to convince his commander to call off the hunt.

The commanding officer exhibited behaviors described above as the shadow effects of power. He had dehumanized the Indians, he was driven by his selfish desire to win an upcoming election to the Senate, he knew he could act without interference, and so he engaged in moral hypocrisy by demanding that only the Indians be unarmed in encounters. Experiencing the courage of one Indian brought the captain back into a relationship that changed his heart, his convictions, and his actions. It is a great tragedy that his influence didn’t change the outcome of the egregious Sand Creek Massacre, in which several hundred unarmed Indian men, women, and children were killed and mutilated.

I remember that just before he took office, President Obama talked about what he would miss most. What he was most worried about was that he would no longer be able to walk into a coffee shop, sit down, and talk with the people there. He was aware that the huge power difference that goes with the office of the president would automatically distance him from ordinary citizens and keep him surrounded by people who would feed him particular or well-funded points of view or by those who did not want to risk their status by giving him critical feedback. What a challenge to be able to take the pulse of reality!

Even leaders known for their good works, such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Mikhail Gorbachev, struggled with shadow and limitations. Working with power compassionately and skillfully is personally challenging. However, understanding and mediating the shadow effects of power by staying in touch with our greater vision, and with our connectedness with the humanity and dignity of those in our care, will have ever-expanding benefits.

The shadow effects pull us as leaders away from being in right relationships. Right relationships are those in which we hold our role power with responsibility, clarity, accountability, and authority. We also maintain our power with heart through empathy, compassion, nondefensiveness, collaboration, and humility. The formula might be standing in our strength while staying in our hearts.

Going through a breakup is one of the most difficult experiences we can have. Heartache, grief, and confusion, mixed with feelings of powerlessness or even betrayal, can bring out the crazies in all of us. It can be hard to focus and function, making daily life overwhelming.

If you are going through a breakup, my heart goes out to you. I’ve been through it and I know how overwhelming it feels.

Here are my five top tips for moving on:

1. Cease ALL Contact

One of the biggest mistakes people make is fooling themselves into believing they can still be friends with their ex—right away. It may be possible down the road, but in order to get over someone, it’s best not to see them, speak to them, or know anything of them for a long time. You can’t simply switch off your romantic feelings toward someone and view them in a platonic or neutral way overnight. Continuing to stay in contact prolongs pain by allowing you to be hopeful. And having hope for reconciliation keeps you stuck in the transition and won’t allow you to get past the pain.

Zero contact means the obvious: no texting, talking, or getting together. But it also includes the covert: voyeurism and cyber-stalking, positioning yourself to “bump into” your ex by hanging out in places they go, communicating with his/her friends, or fabricating reasons to see each other, such as returning a toothbrush. [fat_widget_relationships_right]

2. Remember You ARE Lovable

We tend to bash ourselves after a breakup. We think of everything we believe we did wrong to drive the ex away, reminding ourselves of all our regrettable actions. We inflate our flaws and tell ourselves we aren’t good enough for the ex. This makes us feel unlovable and that we are somehow excluded or disqualified from winning in love.

It may be true that you tend toward a specific behavior that is not so appealing and it could have become the deal-breaker for the relationship—but even if that is the case, your behavior is not you and it is something you can change. YOU are still lovable. And the right person for you will appreciate all that you are.

3. Focus on the Big Picture

So often when someone breaks up with us, we tend to focus on all the positive things about the person and the relationship. This makes us pine for them even more, and we long to be with them for all those amazing qualities and times we had together. We relive the happy times and focus so vividly on the wonderful qualities of our ex.

If you allow yourself to step back, you will be able to see the whole picture. There were problems or unhealthy dynamics in the relationship, parts of your ex you didn’t like, and unpleasant feelings you had that you ignored. When you find yourself focusing on the wonderful parts, you will feel distraught, but if you shift your focus to include the unpleasant truths of your ex and the relationship, your emotional state will respond accordingly.

To solidify this, write a list of all the negative qualities of your ex, the parts of the dynamic you didn’t like, and how you often felt in the relationship. This is to help ground you in reality and not remain starry- eyed. You will soon come to understand that your ex did you a huge favor!

4. Look for the Lessons

When a relationship ends, people tend to get stuck in the idea that they wasted time. This kind of thinking puts us in a victim position, which can feel extremely powerless.

As tough as it can be to look within right now, it will help more than you can imagine if you are able to reflect on yourself in the relationship. If your ex is at fault or to blame for the relationship going wrong or ending, then you have no control in this situation and it will absolutely feel like a waste of time.

Dig in! Really try to take responsibility where you can, without condemning yourself, of course. If you can own up to your contributions that caused the relationship to sour, you will be able to learn the lessons this relationship was meant to teach you. And though it is a hard lesson to come by, it means you didn’t waste time at all. You will be more prepared and whole going into your next relationship, and both of you will benefit from those hard-earned growing pains.

If you take the time to write your findings, you may actually see a pattern emerge. You may come to see that your role in this current relationship looked very similar to previous relationships as well. Allowing yourself to see patterns of behavior means you can finally be clear about how to be healthier in the future.

5. Take Care of Yourself

If taking care of yourself means reaching out to friends or family, then do it now! You may tend to isolate when going through a tough time, so staying connected to your staunch supporters is vital to your recovery. They know you may not be great company right now, and that is OK.

On the other hand, if you tend to avoid your sadness by being social, drinking too much, or working a lot, you may need to provide yourself some downtime. Time alone to fall apart and grieve will help you move through this time quicker.

Make sure you are eating well, getting enough water, sleep, and exercise, and continue engaging in the activities that bring you pleasure. It may be tempting to forego all of that in self-punishment or self-pity, but it will truly only make you feel worse.

The quickest way to the other side of a long, dark, and scary tunnel is straight through. Embrace your reality, feel the feelings (you won’t melt), fall apart, and be a mess. Such a response is natural and congruent to the situation you are in right now. If you didn’t have these feelings, I would say you didn’t much care for the ex or the relationship.

If you feel yourself trying to take the long way around the tunnel to avoid feeling the feelings, please know that it will prolong your pain and you may get stuck. You can’t drink, eat, shop, exercise, or party your way around this pain, and if you try, you may just end up with another problem on your hands.

Please know:

You will feel happy again.

These unpleasant feelings will pass.

You will experience love and connection again if you remain open.

You are worthy and deserving of love.

With compassion,

Hilary

“If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it is to die over and over again.” —Abraham Lincoln

“Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.” ―Joseph Heller

I recently came across the above quote by Joseph Heller and it hit me right to my very depths. I remember as a child actively learning to—in essence—feel constant dread, as I taught myself to avoid disappointment and failure by always anticipating the worst. That way, when it came to be, I wouldn’t be devastated—just fatalistically accepting. It gave me a sense of control when I felt none. In so doing, I—like Joseph Heller—set into motion a lifelong habit of dreading just about everything. In fact, it has so pervaded my thinking that I have often observed myself dreading a fun or enjoyable event, just because it is my habit to do so.

The above description might not be exactly true for you (I hope it is not!), but it is a common state for many people in our culture. Most of us were not taught to deal with adversity in a healthy way, so we learned or taught ourselves how to avoid pain. As for me, as I’ve gotten older, gone through several rounds of psychotherapy, and explored many different spiritual traditions for help with dread, I have learned to work with the feelings. I’ve also helped many people deal with these same kinds of feelings. So what has worked?

I think the great Sufi poet Rumi expressed it best in his poem, The Guest House (excerpt):

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The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Most of us spend a lot of our time fighting this sense of dread, feeling powerless to combat it and completely at its whim. We push it away, only to find it resurfaces at just the wrong time! Once you recognize this cycle, you can simply accept this dread that is so often present instead of fighting it off. When it arrives, allow it to be there without beating yourself up. Take some deep, yogic breaths to quiet your mind a bit, and then ask yourself some questions:

• Are there any data to support this feeling of dread? Is there really anything to be afraid of in this particular circumstance?
• Even if you can clearly identify the fear, ask yourself, “What’s the worst-case scenario? Would I be OK if that happened? Would it change who I am, or would it just be a challenge?” Most of the time, when I answer these questions honestly, I realize that my fear has been exaggerated in my mind. I realize that I am capable of handling whatever happens, and that I am just afraid of what I don’t know or perhaps of pain or rejection. Once I have softened my “rigid” response, I feel less dread and can tolerate whatever still lingers (and by the way, it often does not miraculously disappear!).
• Ask yourself, “Is anything happening to me right now?” Usually the answer is no; the dread is arising from some anticipated event in the future. You can then take a few breaths and remind yourself that your monkey mind is hijacking the moment instead of allowing you to be present in this moment. I often bring my attention to sensations in my body or to something beautiful in my immediate environment that grounds me in the reality of that moment. And I quickly realize “I have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

The more I have practiced this, the more I have been able to “work with” the dread and not allow it to disable me from living fully. There are days when I have to go through the above steps many times, and yet others where I am fully engaged moment-to-moment and don’t have the “time” to dread.

Next time you can’t get out of dread, try teaching yourself that you can: once you loosen your attachment to those feelings, they have way less power over you than you might think.

Editor’s note: Susan Heitler, PhD is a clinical psychologist specializing in healthy conflict resolution and the author of The Power of Two, a workbook for couples. Her continuing education presentation for GoodTherapy.org, titled Narcissistic Habits: Couples Therapy Treatment Techniques, is scheduled for 9 a.m. Pacific Time on September 19, 2014. The event is available at no additional cost to GoodTherapy.org members and is good for two CE credits. For details, or to register, please click here.

Codependency as a personality diagnosis is a label with significant limitations. Having emerged initially from the world of alcohol and drug treatment, codependence neatly describes the husband who makes excuses to his wife’s friends to cover for his wife’s evening drinking binges. In that context, the husband is acting as a codependent in the sense of fostering his wife’s alcohol dependency. For use beyond the arena of alcohol and drug dependency treatment, however, the term needs an upgrade.

For instance, Jack who is married to a quick-to-anger woman with narcissism, strengthens his wife Julie’s narcissism when he self-smothers his inner voices lest he say something that might arouse Julie’s ire. Similarly, a corporate assistant, Brenda, fosters her boss Peter’s self-defeating workaholic tendencies when she consents to work late hours to help him tackle too many tasks. While Julie’s narcissism and Peter’s work excesses both create problems, the narcissism and workaholic patterns are not “dependencies” in the sense of a drug dependence. So describing Jack or Brenda’s enabling behaviors as codependent stretches the term excessively.

The term enabler—commonly used as a synonym for codependent—may be a more fitting alternative. Jack functions as an enabler when he smothers his own preferences, fostering his wife Julie’s narcissism. Brenda functions as an enabler when she too often works late to help her boss Peter complete the excessive number of work projects he has taken on.

The True Nature of Codependency

Although codependence may be better labeled as enabling, the phenomenon merits further clarification. To this end, I have coined four additional terms that clarify the internal experience of “codependent” enabling: excessive altruism, appendagitis, wishful thinking, and misplaced locus of focus.

While I speak these terms with my tongue somewhat in my cheek, diagnostic language is clinically useful to the extent that it guides therapeutic interventions. These terms, for me, pass that test.

What’s more, the new terminology brings an added bonus to treatment. Clients almost always chuckle when I tell them with exaggerated seriousness, “I’m afraid that you have a quite serious case of wishful thinking” (or either of the other three terms). Humor relaxes them so they are more open to accepting feedback on these self-defeating phenomena.

What Is Excessive Altruism?

Giving feels good. By contrast an excessive inclination to help others through giving—that is, giving more time, money, energy, or affection than feels do-able—incurs a sense of burden.

In healthy partnerships altruism is a two-way street. Hopefully each partner gives and receives ample affection and appreciation, the ultimate contributions of value in relationships. The contributions needn’t be identical: One partner may cook, the other may wash dishes and take out garbage, so long as the contributions are subjectively felt to be of similar value.

When the overall traffic of giving and receiving feels approximately equal from both sides, goodwill prevails. Excessive altruism and/or selfishness, by contrast, unbalance the giving and getting, inviting resentment.

What Is Appendagitis?

Appendagitis characterizes an attachment in which one person serves as another person’s additional appendage. This psychological diagnosis is not to be confused with Epiploic appendagitis, a self-limiting inflammatory process of the epiploic appendices which are small, fat-filled projections along the surface of the colon and rectum.

Psychological appendagitis occurs when individuals shed their own preferences, life goals, and voice, and instead devote all their energies to another, such as a spouse, boss, or friend with needy or narcissistic tendencies. This shift usually is motivated out of a mixture of love and fear that without this shift they may incur the other’s anger and/or lose the relationship.

What Is Wishful Thinking?

Wishful thinking is the cognitive habit of believing that others will change when there is no realistic basis for this hope.

Brenda wishes her boss would become more appreciative of her efforts. She devotes ever-increasing efforts to please him in misplaced hope that someday he will change into a person who expresses gratitude and praise.

[fat_widget_right]Jack likewise wishes that his wife Julie would become less self-centered, entitled to special treatment, and quick to anger, but when Jack tries to discuss these concerns with her, Julie immediately erupts in anger, turning on him with blame that the problems are in fact his fault. Julie’s blaming responses indicate that the likelihood of her making changes is very low.

What Is Misplaced Locus of Focus?

A locus is defined as a place—a center of activity—where something occurs. Misplaced locus of focus means that someone’s attention is riveted to reading another’s thoughts, feelings, and facial expressions, periferalizing their awareness of their own thoughts and feelings, and assuming or guessing what the other person is thinking instead of asking.

Brenda, for example, stayed late at work three nights in a row. When her boss, Peter, was surprised to find her still in the office, she explained, “I thought it would make you less stressed, more relaxed, if I could get this report out before the weekend. I’m here working late because I thought it would make you happy.”

“Actually,” Peter responded, “I want to wait a month before sending the report out. I have more information coming in over the next few weeks that I’ll want to include in it.”

Brenda was disappointed to discover that she not only failed to anticipate Peter’s needs, but also neglected the needs of herself and her friends with whom she had cancelled plans in order to fulfill her boss’s needs.      

When Is Helping Others a Good Thing? When Is It Excessive?

Codependent-like behaviors have their healthy variants. Infants and young children for instance depend upon the consistent attentions of parents to stay alive. Parents’ responsivity, attunement, and nurturance contribute positively to the survival and thriving of young children.

At the same time, even parents can go overboard on attending to their young, allowing attunement and nurturing to slip inadvertently into appendagitis. Jack, the devoted husband and dad of four young children, often gets overwhelmed at breakfast time when he asks his wife and each of their children, “What would each of you like for breakfast today?” Bacon for this one, scrambled eggs for that, a fried egg for another, sunny side up with pancakes for the fourth, and French toast for the next. What’s wrong with this picture?

In other large families, parents put cereal and bowls on an accessible shelf where even the younger children can reach the boxes and pour their own, adding fruit, nuts, and milk. Maybe Mom or Dad cooks toast and eggs, and sometimes even pancakes, but only one kind of food is on the menu for everyone.

By catering to each individual’s daily preference, Jack’s excessive altruism is training his children in unrealistic expectations. He is fostering dependence and narcissism instead of training his children to become increasingly independent, to adapt to living as part of a group, and to be considerate of their dad’s time and energies.

Behaviors like altruism become problematic when people dedicate their energies to another person (1) to their own detriment, (2) to the detriment of the receiver and (3) when the other does not want the help.

For instance, Brenda suffers unhealthy appendagitis to the extent to which she allows her contribution of extra work hours to be exploited. Does she get paid? Does she really want to devote these additional hours to work? Also, while she believes she is helping her boss Peter, Brenda may actually be harming him by encouraging his tendencies to take on more and more until he is ready to collapse from stress and fatigue.

What Causes Excessive Altruism, Appendagitis, Wishful Thinking, and Misplaced Locus of Focus?

The all-about you attachment stance of people with the four enabling tendencies described above inadvertently attracts individuals with narcissism who love being the focus of someone’s attention and adulation. A hallmark of narcissism attachment patterns is an all-about-me stance that allows the coupling of enabling and narcissistic habits to seem, initially at least, to dovetail beautifully.

In enabler-narcissist partnerships, all-about-you habits may then be sustained because they seem to attenuate the narcissistic partner’s quickness to criticism, controlling behaviors, and anger. For someone trying to live in relative harmony with a narcissistic partner, these seemingly self-defeating habits may in fact help.

Family of origin can also play a role in creating a template for enabler interactions. Most often, individuals who develop excessive altruism, appendagitis, wishful thinking, and misplaced locus of focus are repeating patterns they observed in their parents’ marriage relationship. A child learns to speak French by hearing French spoken at home. We learn interaction and survival habits the same way, by hearing and observing our parents.

Children also may become highly skilled at enabling habits in order to cope with a narcissistic parent. Parents with narcissism insist that their children ignore their own preferences and become instead what the parent wants them to do and be. The development of enabling habits, like appendagitis, offers children of narcissists less animosity and more positive attention than if they were to interact with the parent in a more emotionally healthy manner. Children learn to do whatever contortions they must to retain the necessary positive attentions of their caretakers. Survival of the bond with the attachment figure is a first priority.

Treatment Implications for Each of These Terms

Excessive altruism, appendagitis, wishful thinking, and misplaced locus of focus each exacerbate the other, creating a vicious downward cycle of circular causation with ever-increasing anger, depression, and relationship dissatisfaction. What can reverse this cycle so that the spin switches upward toward ever-more positive feelings?

Excessive altruism leads to feeling over-burdened and resentful toward those on the receiving end of the giving. Folks with excessive altruism therefore need to learn to balance their giving to others with self-care.

Similarly, people with appendagitis need to refocus their attention on themselves. They need to turn up the volume on their own thoughts and preferences so they can hear their inner drummer. They then need to learn to speak up tactfully and still effectively about what they feel and want. Lastly, they need to learn win-win ways of making decisions so that the partner with narcissisism is less likely to feel disempowered, wrong, or like a loser.

Wishful thinking creates a faulty personal guidance system. Therapy that clarifies the realities regarding the other person’s repeated motivations and behavior patterns enables the development of better life decisions. The narcissistic partner may someday change, but often only after the wishful thinking partner first has begun making decisions based on reality.

Misplaced locus of focus can be reversed with practice drills on utilization of new sentence starters. For example, each time clients use the sentence-starters such as “I feel … ,” “My concern is … ,” and “I would like to … ,” their locus of focus must switch to their own inner feelings and thoughts in order to complete the sentence.

A change of habits seldom comes with a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. As Jack ceases to foster Julie’s narcissism, it therefore is vitally important that Julie be included in the treatment process, preferably in a couples therapy treatment format, so that the two spouses can change and grow simultaneously. If so, Julie and Jack are likely to end up feeling increasingly loving toward each other and happier within themselves. If not, they are likely to end up divorced.

As to Brenda, if she embarks on therapeutic change Brenda may lose interest in continuing to work for Peter. On the other hand, Brenda’s growth could free Peter as well, so that he may enjoy a fuller life less clogged by work.

Words have power. Naming a phenomenon helps to clarify what a phenomenon is and does, and how to attenuate its negative impacts. Each of the playful terms introduced in this article can help therapists to guide their codependent/enabler clients to awareness and correction of the technical mistakes they have been making, leading them toward the more positive emotions and fulfilling relationships that they have come to therapy to discover.

A child changes everything. As a parent, you start seeing things from a completely different perspective. Whereas you would not have bothered before about cars driving too fast on a suburban street, now you find yourself yelling out, “Slow down, there’re kids in this neighborhood!”

Being a parent brings on a new sense of responsibility. At least one study shows that dads start spending more time at the office after having a child, working harder, hoping for a promotion. Another group of studies show that stress increases significantly for new parents, and some even suggest that, because of the added stress, parents are not much happier than their childless counterparts.

Ah, responsibility. You hold that little bundle of sleepless joy in your arms, and tell them, “I will never let anything happen to you. I promise. I will dedicate my life to you, and you will be the happiest person to ever walk this earth.” However, raising the smartest, happiest, and most amazing human being is a lot of work. Just keeping a child alive is huge responsibility!

The constant pressure can lead you to over-parent your child. Your desire to shield and protect them at all times allows the child little room for making mistakes.

Children, and people in general, learn best from experience. If a parent constantly guides a child to assure the child’s success, then the child may not know what to do when left to their own devices.

A common sign of over-parenting is when parents express worries in the form of instructions. For example: “Don’t fall!” How does that statement reduce the child’s chances of falling? Another one: “Be good.” Instead of helping your child succeed, these vague statements communicate mistrust in the child’s abilities.

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Another sign of over-parenting is when a parent rushes in to fix a child’s problems to avoid the child becoming upset. When a child loses a toy, they get a new one. When a pet dies, and parents are overwhelmed with their child’s feelings of grief, they might rush to the pet store for a new animal to replace their child’s best friend.

So, what’s a loving parent to do? What if the parent has a superpower to foresee danger. Should the parent not give warnings? Step in to save the day?

Here are some suggestions on how to step back so your child can step up:

• Keep your fears in check. Having a child feels as if your heart is walking around outside your body—all you want to do is keep it safe. Instead of expressing your fears to your child, give things a positive spin. “Wow, those are a lot of heavy plates you are holding!” builds your child’s confidence. If your child needs help, provide specific suggestions. “Hold the plates with both hands” may be enough. If you find yourself providing too much anxiety-filled feedback, you may be overdoing it.
• Think about the realistic worst-case scenario. Fear keeps us safe. That’s why fear makes us think about the worst that could happen. But how hurt can your child really get if they run too fast or swings too high? How sick can they become from playing with someone who has the sniffles? Give your child room to learn their own limits. The child may need to fall once or twice to find out.
• Allow your child to experience upset feelings. Although you want to raise the happiest kid, your child will experience disappointment, frustration, and grief. When you experience these feelings, you don’t usually want someone to just fix it. It helps much more to be listened to and feel “felt.” Let your child tell you about their feelings. Connect with the child without immediate suggestions or solutions. For your child, it is often more important to know you are available than it is to know you will fix all of their problems. And, learning to remain calm when things aren’t going well builds the child’s stress tolerance.

Above all, remember that your child will benefit from learning to figure things out. A child will be more careful holding an ice cream cone after dropping it once. And if it’s their emotional well-being you are looking out for, keep in mind that the way in which your child is able to overcome difficulties is what will make them feel successful and empowered. Our children are often stronger, wiser, and more responsible than we think.

Can you understand how a driver might want to ram another car off the roadway in a fit of rage just because he or she was cut off at a light? Maybe that’s even you? If so, you are not alone—more than 16 million people struggle with anger while driving.

Of course, anger rears its ugly head in many different forms—so-called “road rage” is just one. No one is immune to feelings of rage, frustration, anger, or irritation at one time or another. I have been coaching anger-management skills in my private practice over many years in addition to teaching 52-week, mandated domestic violence classes to male offenders and working with high school gang members. I am passionate about teaching pissed-off, posturing individuals why anger is one of the most important emotions they have and how it can be used to serve them.

When I am coaching anger-management skills, I am quick to start the conversation by emphasizing that the goal of what I am teaching is not to help a person never to experience anger. Anger will never go completely away for anyone. A primary goal of anger management is to help the person learn how to control his or her anger, learn from it, and use it appropriately in a given situation. (I am not suggesting that violent acts against others are ever appropriate; I am focusing on the underlying feelings of anger and what it is trying to tell us about ourselves.)

In my work with regular folks, gang members, and domestic violence offenders, I have found many ways that anger serves us, but these five seem to be the most prevalent:

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1. Anger sets boundaries around us when we feel threatened. When something feels intuitively wrong to us, as when we are being mistreated, we tend to feel anger. This is an internal sign to us that we need to remove ourselves from a situation that is not treating us well.
2. Anger covers up an emotion that we are not comfortable feeling. Many times when a person is angry, he or she actually has an underlying feeling going on, such as guilt, sadness, vulnerability, or fear. These feelings are so uncomfortable that the person would rather get angry than feel the underlying emotion. When you feel anger, one of the first questions to ask yourself is: what emotion am I trying to avoid?
3. Anger acts like a suit of armor. Anger keeps others away from us and gives us space. Many times this can be an effective defense mechanism if we need space or want to work something out. Teenagers use anger in this way a lot to give themselves space away from a situation that they are not able to handle.
4. Anger can prepare you for battle. As anyone who has ever gotten into a physical altercation with someone threatening can tell you, you need to energize yourself and pump up your adrenaline in a way that will be accessible to you in an emergency. Anger can harness your power in order to physically protect you if you are being hurt.
5. Anger can point you to unresolved internal issues. If you find yourself having feelings of anger when you think of someone in your life, an issue from your childhood, or a future event that you are dreading, you more than likely have something unresolved going on. Maybe your friend asked you to help host a neighborhood barbecue and you have trouble saying no, when you really don’t want to help. You feel resentment and anger toward your friend, when in fact you are the one who has trouble setting boundaries and saying no. Or maybe you hold anger from a breakup that has left you lacking in trust of the opposite sex, and every time you think of your ex you get angry and bitter. You can use this feeling of anger to realize that you may need to get some closure or process this termination of your relationship so you can learn how to let it go and move on.

In learning how to become a better listener to your feelings of anger as they arise, you can begin to learn things about yourself that you may not have known. You will never be free of anger popping up in your life, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. As the above list points out, anger is an incredibly valuable guide to help you gain insight into your true self.