act on life not on anger: the new acceptance and commitment therapy guide to problem anger
TRANSCRIPT
“Any one who sees their anger as a strug gle, as some thing to con front,
sup press, con trol—or, worst of all, ignore—will find this book to be a
gift of life and hope. The authors offer prac ti cal ways of under stand ing
the prob lem and debunk ing the myths of anger, all with gen u ine accep -
tance and com pas sion. This feel ing is trans lated into prac ti cal exer cises
which are easy to use, and most impor tantly, they really work! I have
been for tu nate to wit ness this in my own prac tice, even with cli ents
with severe trauma his to ries and self-destruc tive ness. Use these tech -
niques on your own, use them in ther apy, but by all means use them
and find a gen tle path toward heal ing in the pres ence of anger.”
—Francis R. Abueg, Ph.D., founder and owner of TraumaResource
and former associate director for research for the National Center
for PTSD at the VA in Palo Alto/Menlo Park, CA
“Empowering and com pas sion ate, this book was writ ten for peo ple who
strug gle with anger and who find it hard to con trol their feel ings of
rage. The book describes a counterintuitive and extraor di narily insight -
ful approach to liv ing effec tively with anger. In a lively and acces si ble
voice, the authors describe sci en tif i cally based behav ior ther apy skills
for let ting go of our futile strug gle to con trol anger and offer strat e gies
to pro mote ‘response-abil ity’ for the one thing we can truly con trol:
our actions. Through real-world exam ples, cre ative met a phors, and
pow er ful expe ri en tial exer cises, the reader learns to prac tice accep -
tance at even the most try ing times. This book essen tially is about love
and free dom from unnec es sary suf fer ing—it teaches us to open up fully
and to live com pas sion ately with what is.”
—Laurie A. Greco, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department
of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical School and
John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development
“It is pos si ble to find a place from which you can patiently and com -
passionately ride a wave of anger as it rises and falls inside you and
simul ta neously choose to live a val ued life with your hands, feet, and
mouth. This book will show you how to do that with patience and
compassion for your self and oth ers. If you reg u larly prac tice what it
teaches, you will find your self hav ing more LIFE in your life.”
––Hank Robb, Ph.D., ABPP, past president of the American Board
of Counseling Psychology
“Look ing for another way to help your cli ents with their anger? ACT
on Life Not on Anger is the book for you. This book adds sig nif i cantly to
the ther a pist’s options for help ing cli ents cease bat tling their anger and
the other vul ner a ble feel ings it cov ers and instead come to terms with
them as part of them selves and their lives with out judgment, eval u a -
tion, and self-con dem na tion. This book helps peo ple under stand and
accept the func tion of their own anger, the vital dif fer ence between
feel ings and actions, and the respon si bil ity we all share to live our lives
to the full est, with respect and dig nity even when we don’t “feel” like
it. I have already begun using this work in my own prac tice!”
––L. Kevin Hamberger, Ph.D., professor of family and community
medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin
“As an edu ca tor com mit ted to the value of nur tur ing emo tional intel -
ligence in the school envi ron ment, I rec om mend this book par tic u larly
to stu dents as a trust wor thy life raft for nav i gat ing the end less ado -
lescent seas of pain ful thoughts and con fus ing feel ings, includ ing one of
the most bur den some and prev a lent expe ri ences of ado les cence:
persistent anger. As read ers progress through the book, they learn—
and expe ri ence—that anger need not be a prov o ca tion to destruc tive
actions with neg a tive con se quences that are some some times irre -
versible. ACT on Life Not on Anger’ is an excel lent and life-affirm ing
resource with clear, acces si ble prose, engag ing illus tra tions, and care -
fully explained prac ti cal exer cises. This highly read able book deserves a
place in every national cur ric u lum pro gram.”
––Gary Powell, MA, head of German and 6th Form tutor at
Trinity School in Croydon, England
Acton lifenot on anger
the New
*Acceptance & commitment therapyGuide to Problem Anger
*
GeorG H. eifert, PhDMAttHew McKAy, PhDJoHN P. forsytH, PhD
foreword by steveN c. HAyes, PHD
New HArbiNGer PublicAtioNs, iNc.
Pub lisher’s Note
This pub li ca tion is designed to pro vide accu rate and author i ta tive infor ma tion in regard to
the sub ject mat ter covered. It is sold with the under stand ing that the pub lisher is not engaged
in ren der ing psy cho log i cal, finan cial, legal, or other pro fes sional ser vices. If expert assis tance
or coun sel ing is needed, the ser vices of a com pe tent professional should be sought.
Dis trib uted in Can ada by Raincoast Books
Copy right © 2006 by Georg H. Eifert, Mat thew McKay, and John P. Forsyth
New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Ave nue
Oak land, CA 94609
Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Cath ar ine Sutker;
Edited by Barbara Quick; Text design by Tracy Marie Carlson
All Rights Reserved; PDF ISBN: 9781608828319
Library of Con gress Cat a log ing-in-Pub li ca tion Data
Eifert, Georg H., 1952-
ACT on life not on anger : the new accep tance and com mit ment ther apy guide to
prob lem anger / Georg H. Eifert, Mat thew McKay, and John P. Forsyth.
p. cm.
Includes bib lio graph i cal ref er ences.
1. Anger—Treat ment—Pop u lar works. 2. Cog ni tive ther apy—Pop u lar works. 3.
Behav ior ther apy—Pop u lar works. 4. Self-accep tance. 5. Com mit ment (Psy chol ogy)
I. McKay, Mat thew. II. Forsyth, John P. III. Title.
RC569.5.A53E36 2005
616.89’142—dc22
2005035658
(GHE)
To Diana, my lov ing wife.
She con tin ues to teach me about anger and
its pow er ful anti dote of patience with lov ing kind ness.
(MM)
In mem ory of Peter D. Rog ers.
Bon voy age, my sweet friend. Thank you for every thing,
espe cially for teach ing me to savor life.
(JPF)
Each day my wife, Celine, and my three chil dren give me
oppor tu ni ties to nur ture the values of patience, com pas sion,
and love as vital alter na tives to hurt and anger. This book is
a tes ti mony to the les sons I have learned through them.
Contents
Foreword vii
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
In tro duc tion
A New Way of Approaching Anger 1
Chap ter 1
Debunking the Myths of Anger 13
Chap ter 2
Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 25
Chap ter 3
The Heart of the Struggle 37
Chap ter 4
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 53
Chap ter 5
How Your Mind Creates Anger 73
Chap ter 6
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 87
Chap ter 7
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 105
Chap ter 8
Taking Control of Your Life 119
Chap ter 9
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It
135
Chap ter 10
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 155
Further Readings, References, and Other Resources
175
vi ACT on Life Not on Anger
Foreword
ANGER, ACCEPTANCE, AND ACTION
What human beings call anger is a com plex mix of thoughts, feel ings,
and urges toward actions pulled together into a thing called anger.
Most of us have expe ri enced the dan gers of anger when it is allowed to
exist entirely in that com bined form. We may have hurt oth ers in the
name of anger, and in so doing we have some times hurt our selves. We
may have been on the receiv ing end of anger and have learned to fear
its explo sive power. We may have been obsessed by past wrongs and
have allowed anger to color too many of our moments, los ing con tact
with the oppor tu ni ties for liv ing that are here and now.
But anger is not one thing. It is many things, loosely orga nized by
lan guage into a whole. It is worth remem ber ing that it’s not the feel ing
of anger per se that has caused harm. Rather, the cold soup of enacted
or con tem plated self-righ teous ness or the hot energy of attack ing oth -
ers can eas ily lead to actions with neg a tive con se quences. But these
need not be the core fea tures of anger. Remem ber, anger is not one
thing. It is many. And there are many things to do with the var i ous
“its” that reside inside anger in all of its aspects.
This book is the first effort to apply the Accep tance and Com mit -
ment Ther apy (ACT, said as a word, not ini tials) model to anger (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wil son 1999). The authors care fully pull anger apart at the seams, show ing how it is more use fully con sid ered to be a mix ture of sit u a tional cues, thoughts, feel ings, impulses to act, and overt behav ior. Once anger is in this dis em bod ied form, the ACT model can be readily applied to its ele ments.
In this book you will be guided to do counterintuitive and pow- er ful new things with the feel ing of anger, the thoughts that set the
occa sion for it, and the thoughts that trig ger it. You will be able to see for your self whether you have fused the var i ous aspects of anger
need lessly and whether new approaches are pos si ble with each aspect of anger con sid ered indi vid u ally.
Why a self-help book? It is known that many peo ple with anger prob lems will avoid tra di tional cog ni tive behav ioral treat ments (Siddle,
Jones, and Awena 2003). They may fear being on the short end of the stick; they may fear their own anger responses. This book can reach through that resis tance and fear and try to touch the hearts and heads of those with anger prob lems.
Anger is not a clin i cal syn drome, and per haps for this rea son there are rel a tively few empir i cally sup ported approaches to it. Those that do exist show fairly lim ited ben e fits. The sur pris ingly ubiq ui tous anger-man age ment pro grams are also sur pris ingly under-eval u ated empir i cally. Clearly, something more is needed.
Step ping into that empir i cal void is a bit fright en ing, but the present approach is not a ran dom walk through the issues raised by anger. This book is care fully linked to pro cesses and ideas that are increas ingly well sup ported empir i cally in more gen eral terms.
The value of accept ing emo tions and defus ing from thoughts has been shown in prob lem area after prob lem area. A recent review of the ACT evi dence (Hayes et al., in press), showed that these pro cesses were help ful in the areas of depres sion, anx i ety, stress, burn out, prej u -
dice, hal lu ci na tions, delu sions, smok ing, sub stance abuse, man ag ing dia be tes, chronic pain, and epi lepsy, among oth ers. The spe cific emo -
tions and thoughts trig gered by these kinds of prob lems run the range of pos si ble emo tions and thoughts. Given that anger over laps with other neg a tive emo tions that have suc cess fully been tar geted, it seems to be a fairly safe bet that the same meth ods will be help ful in this related area. As this research pro gram expands, we will know for sure.
viii ACT on Life Not on Anger
There is also tan ta liz ing research emerg ing from labs around the world sug gest ing that anger is in part a method of expe ri en tial avoid -
ance, and that mind ful ness and accep tance can be help ful. Such intu -
itions and early find ings have turned into robust approaches in many other areas of human suf fer ing and strug gle. The work on anger seems poised for that same pat tern of devel op ment.
We are not yet at the point of con trolled research on ACT for anger, but this book is help ing to make that research pos si ble. Given the state of the evi dence, how ever, read ers need to be espe cially atten -
tive to their own expe ri ence. If you are stuck in anger, this book should
help give you very dif fer ent things to try with this dif fi cult col lec tion of
reac tions. But no one approach will work for all. The best advice seems
to be to engage in the work reflected in this book fully and hon estly and to peri od i cally exam ine your prog ress to see if you are happy with the results.
The authors are nation ally vis i ble experts in both anger and in ACT. Their knowl edge able hands will guide you through a counter-
intuitive but and inno va tive approach, skill fully and humanely. If you embark on this work seri ously, your view of anger, its role in your life, and what you need to do with it will change, per haps even fun da men tally.
You are about to begin an inter est ing, excit ing, and some what sur pris ing jour ney. The des ti na tion is a val ued and vital life that includes anger when you have anger, but which is not dic tated, con -
trolled, or harmed by anger feel ings. Enjoy the ride, and keep your eyes
wide open for the emo tional and cog ni tive wild life this new approach may reveal. If you stay open, you will learn a lot about how to ACT on Life Not on Anger.
—Ste ven C. Hayes
Reno, Nevada
Novem ber 2005
Foreword ix
Preface andAcknowledgments
There is not a human being on this earth who will go through life
without emo tional pain or anger. There is sim ply no way to get around
this fact. Human beings suf fer. You’ve suf fered. We’ve suf fered. This is
the human con di tion. Yet we’ve learned that pain and anger need not
destroy our lives. These emotions can be har nessed and used to enrich
lives—your life!—and the human con di tion. ACT on Life Not on Anger
was con ceived in this spirit. Your life is what mat ters. The trick is to
learn how to live with your hurt and anger and with out dam aging or
restricting your rela tion ships or pos si bil i ties. This book will show you
how to do that—to reclaim the prize that is your life before it’s too
late.
In the pro cess of writ ing this book, we suf fered the tragic loss of a
dear friend and col league, Dr. Peter D. Rog ers. He had every inten tion
of con trib ut ing his wis dom to this book. Yet he did not get the chance.
For a time, it looked like this trag edy might keep us from com plet ing
the book and ful fill ing our inten tion to help peo ple like you.
One les son we learned from Peter’s untimely death is that we all
have so lit tle time on this earth. We need to make every moment
count, even when we are hurt ing inside. Peter learned that pain and
anger could be a friend in his life, not a bar rier to the life he wanted to
lead. You can do this, too. Anger need not turn into suf fer ing. You can
have anger and hurt and live out your life with dig nity, mean ing, and
pur pose. Hurt and anger need not destroy what you want your life to
stand for.
Mov ing with the pain of Peter’s loss allowed us to refo cus our
ener gies on the task of writ ing this book. Our inten tion in this book is
sim ple—to help peo ple who have dam aged their lives and the lives of
oth ers because of their hurt and anger. Our goal is to get peo ple like
you back into their lives and out of their anger trap. This life is where
your leg acy is—so make it count!
The ideas we express here are not just ours. We owe a debt of
grat i tude to the many indi vid u als whose ideas and insights have made
their way into this book. We are par tic u larly grate ful to Ste ven Hayes
and Pema Chödrön.
Dr. Ste ven Hayes gen er ously made his work and ideas avail able
to us. In 1999, Dr. Hayes, along with his col leagues Kirk Strosahl and
Kelly Wil son, pub lished the first full-length book on Acceptance and
Com mit ment Ther apy (ACT). Several of the exer cises we adapted for
use with prob lem anger first appeared in their book.
Pema Chödrön, an Amer i can Bud dhist nun, has writ ten widely
about the wis dom of meet ing the strong energy of emo tions such as
fear and anger with patience, com pas sion, accep tance, and for give ness.
Her words are sim ple and clear, echo ing the cen tral mes sage of this
book. Her teach ings about how to approach anger with mind ful accep -
tance and com pas sion, and prac tic ing patience when the anger flames
are hot, embody the ACT approach to anger that we are shar ing with
you here. We hope that your life will be changed in pro found ways by
putt ing this approach into action in your every day life. We have
learned much from Pema Chödrön’s astute knowl edge and prac ti cal
sug ges tions, and we thank her, as well as her pub lish ers, for allow ing us
to draw upon her wis dom in this book.
We also thank the fol low ing pro fes sion als and the orga ni za tions
that kindly gave us per mis sion to repro duce their work: Joseph
Ciarrochi and David Mer cer for their artwork in chap ters 4 and 10,
and Joanne Dahl and the Asso ci a tion for Advance ment of Behav ior
Ther apy (AABT) for the life compass in chap ter 8.
xii ACT on Life Not on Anger
New Har bin ger is becom ing a major out let for the dis sem i na tion
of newer third-gen er a tion behav ior ther a pies such as Accep tance and
Com mit ment Ther apy. The other two authors are grate ful to Mat thew
McKay and all the New Har bin ger staff for see ing the value of this
work and its poten tial to alle vi ate a wider range of human suf fer ing.
We owe a debt of grat i tude and heart felt appre ci a tion to Cath ar ine
Sutker of New Har bin ger for her tire less energy, encour age ment, and
kind sup port as we moved ahead with this pro ject, and like wise to
Barbara Quick and Heather Mitchener for their mas ter ful and dil i gent
edit ing.
We sin cerely hope you will ben e fit from read ing this book as
much as we have bene fited from writ ing it. We par tic u larly hope it will
be use ful to you in your every day strug gle with anger and other dif fi cult
emo tions. Our work on this book has pro foundly changed how we view
the emo tional pain and suf fer ing of the peo ple we encoun ter (our
clients, col leagues, fam ily, and friends). We now approach pain and
suf fer ing in ways that keep us all mov ing in direc tions we value.
Finally, we would like to thank our wives and chil dren for giv ing
us extra time, space, and sup port to com plete this book. They saw the
value in the work and showed a will ing ness to make per sonal sac ri fices
so that it could come to fru ition. We truly hope they feel it was worth
it—and we are com mit ted to repay ing them for their effort and faith in
us!
Preface and Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction
A New Way ofApproaching Anger
This book offers you a way into your life and out of the anger trap
based on a rev o lu tion ary new approach called Accep tance and Com -
mit ment Ther apy (ACT). You will learn how to reduce the suf fer ing
that anger has caused you and oth ers by focus ing your ener gies on the
peo ple and expe ri ences that mat ter most to you. This book will teach
you how to bring accep tance and com pas sion to your anger, your hurts,
your pains, and your thoughts—and how to extend accep tance and
com pas sion to oth ers in your life. Doing so will defuse the sting of
anger, soften its punch, and weaken its power to get you off track from
the life you want to live. You can learn to have com pas sion for your self
and oth ers, and you can find out and focus on what matters most to
you; you can learn to live your val ues.
It is pos si ble to change your response to the trig gers that make
you feel angry, and to the feel ings them selves. Chang ing those
responses will change the way you behave when you’re angry. Trust us
that this is a brand-new approach; we’re pretty sure you’ve never tried
any thing like this before.
We are going to take you down a path with your anger that will
chal lenge you in many ways. If you read the book and do the exer cises,
you’ll reduc e your anger-related suf fer ing. You’ll increas e your vital ity
and enhance your abil ity to cre ate the kind of life you want to live, a
life free of the pain of con stant anger.
Learn ing to approach anger with accep tance and com pas sion will
make all kinds of rad i cal changes pos si ble. As odd as it may sound,
there are ways for you to have pain and find ful fil ment in what you do
with your life, all at the same time. Act ing on and out of anger is no
way to live. This is why this book is titled ACT on Life Not on Anger.
FREEDOM FROM ANGER MANAGEMENT
We sus pect that you have already tried to deal with your anger.
Perhaps you’ve talked to a friend about it or per haps you have turned
to one or another self-help book. Most anger self-help books try to
teach peo ple better ways to cope with their anger. They describe
people’s unsuc cess ful strug gles with anger-related thoughts and emo -
tions. If you’re like most peo ple with prob lem anger, you’ve prob a bly
tried some of these strat e gies:
+ Keep ing the anger down when it arises
+ Sup press ing your anger
+ Try ing to calm your mind
+ Chang ing your thoughts
+ Dis tract ing your self
+ Hit ting pil lows instead of peo ple
How have such anger man age ment tech niques worked for you?
We sus pect they have n’t worked well at all. Every per son who strug gles
with anger knows that it is not an emo tion readily con trolled or coped
with. Intense and action-ori ented emo tions such as anger are
extremely dif fi cult to change or con trol. The truth is that you may not
2 ACT on Life Not on Anger
be able to reduce, let alone elim i nate, your anger- related thoughts and
feel ings.
That may sound like very bad news to you. Take heart—we are
not going to take you down that same old path of more cop ing and
anger man age ment as a way out of your anger.
CHOOSE A NEW APPROACH—ACT
Here’s the good news: You can con trol and change how you respond to
your anger feel ings:
+ You can stop try ing to cope with anger feel ings (if cop ing
and other man age ment strat e gies have not worked).
+ You can learn to leave anger alone and sim ply expe ri -
ence it as a thought or feel ing.
+ You don’t have to act on your anger, and it does n’t need
to drive what you do. As much as you feel like yell ing at
your kids or the store clerk, you can learn to act dif fer -
ently. You can learn to watch your anger feel ings and
resent ful thoughts and not do what they tell you to do.
The solu tion to prob lem anger is not to try to keep the anger
down when it arises or try to get rid of it. The solu tion is chang ing your
rela tion ship with, and response to, anger thoughts and feel ings. To get
there, you’ll need to learn how to acknowl edge angry thoughts with out
becom ing them, and with out act ing on them.
As we guide you in learn ing these skills, you will develop com pas -
sion for your self and oth ers. You’ll also redis cover what truly mat ters to
you; you’ll focus on what you want your life to stand for and then act
in ways that move you for ward in your life, even if that means bring ing
anger or other unwanted thoughts and feel ings along for the ride. This
is the real prize—reclaim ing your life! Looking at your life and what
mat ters most to you is what will really help end your strug gle with
anger and pain.
This is not the first book on anger that attempts to help peo ple
like you develop greater com pas sion for your self and oth ers. But it is
the first book that teaches you how to approach anger with
A New Way of Approaching Anger 3
com pas sion, so that you can live your life with mean ing and pur pose.
Our goal is to help you spend your pre cious time on this earth doing
what you care about deeply. Engag ing in anger behav ior is likely not at
the top of your list. After you drop the rope in your tug-of-war with
anger, you’ll notice that your hands, feet, mind, and mouth are free to
be put to use for the things in your life you truly care about. In the pro -
cess, your life will evolve in ways that may have seemed impos si ble
before. This book will refo cus your atten tion and pas sion from your
anger to the life you want to live.
WHAT IS ACT ABOUT?
ACT is all about allow ing your self to feel what hurts while doing what
works and is impor tant to you. In a nut shell, it is about accep tance and
change at the same time. If you are 100 percent will ing to give this a
shot, then you’ll learn to accept and live with your uncon trol la ble
anger- related thoughts and feel ings and take charge of what you can
con trol: your behav ior.
It is only with your actions—what you do—that you move your
life in the direc tions you want to go. When you act in ways con trary to
your aspi ra tions, you become emo tion ally and psy chi cally stuck. This is
a guar an tee. ACT teaches you how to get unstuck and mov e for ward
by devel op ing com fort in your own skin. You will explore new ways of
liv ing with the unpleas ant thoughts and feel ings that your body and
mind dishes out from time to time, rather than strug gling against them.
Our goal is to help you under stand and approach anger-related suf fer -
ing in a mind ful, com pas sion ate way while pur suing what really matters
to you.
The basic phi los o phy of ACT is sim i lar to the well-known seren -
ity creed: “Accept with seren ity what you can not change, have the cour age
to change what you can, and develop the wis dom to know the dif fer ence.” It
is much eas ier to agree with the seren ity creed than to do what it says.
The rea son is that many peo ple sim ply do not know what they can or
can not change, nor how to accept and live with thoughts and feel ings
that hurt. As a result, they do not know how to apply this pro found
state ment to their daily lives. Instead, they become frus trated with it.
When you read this book and do the exer cises, you’ll learn how to
make the impor tant dis tinc tion between what you can and can not
4 ACT on Life Not on Anger
change. This will start you on the path toward putt ing the seren ity
creed into action.
How ACT Helps Problem Anger
Because anger can come and go very quickly, it’s not nec es sar ily
harm ful. Anger is only harm ful and prob lem atic if we react to feel ing
anger with anger behav ior. ACT will help you dis man tle this con nec -
tion and see it for what it is—a source of need less suf fer ing.
The ACT approach helps you expe ri ence anger with out act ing on
it. So instead of try ing to replace angry, neg a tive thoughts with less
angry, pos i tive thoughts, we’ll teach you how to watch your thoughts,
all of them—gently, with dis pas sion ate inter est, and with out get ting
caught up in them.
Learn ing to be a dis pas sion ate, kind, and gen tle observer of your
anger thoughts and feel ings may sound a bit odd. Trust us that as you
learn this, you will be able to dis en tan gle your self from your anger
thoughts and feel ings. This will help you real ize that you are not your
anger. Your iden tity remains while your anger comes and goes like
waves in the ocean. Know ing this will free you from the feel ing that
anger con trols your life. You will be ready to refo cus your time and
energy on liv ing the life you choose and care about.
Three Core Steps of ACT
ACT is not just short for Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy.
The ACT acro nym also cap tures nicely the three core steps or themes
of this approach—Accept thoughts and feel ings, Choose direc tions,
and Take action.
Step 1: Accept thoughts and feelings
You can accept and embrace your thoughts and feel ings, par tic u -
larly the unwanted ones (pain, guilt, inad e quacy). Even though this
may sound impos si ble to do, the basic idea is very sim ple:
+ You accept and acknowl edge what you already expe ri -
ence any way.
+ You there fore end your strug gle against unwanted
thoughts and feel ings.
A New Way of Approaching Anger 5
There’s no need for you to attempt to elim i nate or change your
anger thoughts and feel ings. But instead of act ing upon them, you observe
them with a gen tle curi os ity until you can ulti mately let them go.
Why should you accept—and even embrace—unwanted thoughts
and feel ings? Mainly because old solu tions in your strug gle with anger
have not worked and will not work. Learn ing to rec og nize what trig gers
your anger, and learn ing to observe and accept anger feel ings and
thoughts with out act ing on them, is cat e gor i cally dif fer ent from blow -
ing up, get ting even, or stuffing your anger only to act on it later by
get ting back at those you per ceive as hav ing wronged you. Accept ing
your anger thoughts and feel ings is also different from the ten dency to
be passive when anger shows up.
Accept ing anger is not about giv ing up, being pas sive, or play ing
the patsy. On the contrary, fol low ing this pro gram requires a great deal
of per sonal resolve and cour age.
Once again, there is a dif fer ence between you as a per son and the
thoughts and feel ings you have, whether about your self or the per son
or event that trig gered your anger. The bio log i cal func tion of anger is
to reg u late stress and pain. It’s so impor tant to rec og nize that stress
and pain are caused by cog ni tive, emo tional, and phys i cal trig gers.
Each of these can pull you into anger and rage. That’s why it’s so
essential for you to learn to develop a com pas sion ate response to them.
This step ech oes the accep tance part of the seren ity prayer.
Step 2: Choose directions
The second step is about choos ing a direc tion for your life. You
can learn to focus your atten tion and energy on what really mat ters:
your val ues, your goals, who you want to be in the world—the whole
pack age. We’re includ ing several expe ri en tial exer cises to help you
iden tify what you most value in life, what you want your life to stand
for. We’ll hazard a guess that being an angry per son 24/7 is not on your
list. So this step is about help ing you dis cover what is truly impor tant
to you and then mak ing a choice. It is at the heart of this book:
choosing to act on life, not on anger.
When you feel anger, it may seem as if your actions are auto -
matic. But how you respond to anger feel ings with your words, hands,
and feet is actu ally based on a choice. When you feel anger, you can
make a choice to respond with anger behavior. Or you can feel anger
and respond in ways that are com pas sion ate, car ing, gen u ine, open,
6 ACT on Life Not on Anger
hon est, and respect ful—ways that will help move you in direc tions you
want your life to go.
Step 3: Take action
Com mit ted action involves tak ing steps toward real iz ing your
most highly val ued life goals. This step is about tak ing charge of what
you can con trol and chang ing what you can change. It involves learn -
ing to behave in ways that move you for ward in the direc tion of your
cho sen val ues.
Tak ing action does not mean act ing on anger or because of anger.
Rather, based on your choices in step 2, you act in ways that move you
in direc tions you want to go. You do this while accept ing anger feel ings
that may accom pany you along the way.
This is dif fi cult, because it requires that you take a hard look at
where anger is tak ing you and where you want to go instead. Tak ing
action is ulti mately about respon si bil ity—or being “responseable”—
using your hands, feet, and mouth for the pur poses of liv ing the life you
want to live. We’ll show you how to do that.
It’s nat u ral to feel skep ti cal, scared, or intim i dated by the
prospect of mak ing such fun da men tal changes in the way you behave.
You may be hav ing self-defeat ing thoughts right now, like, “This is too
big.” Don’t worry about these. You can not and need not con trol your
thoughts or feel ings. What you can con trol is what you do with your
eye mus cles and your hand mus cles. Keep the book in your hands, use
your eye mus cles to keep on read ing, and let the thoughts be what they
are and do what they do. As with all thoughts and feel ings, it is okay if
they come, it is okay if they stay, and it is okay if they go.
APPROACHING ANGER WITHACCEPTANCE
When you accept a gift, you take what is offered. This is what accep tance
is. Accept ing anger involves rec og niz ing and stay ing with your angry
thoughts and feelings— making space for them—with out act ing on
them. Accep tance does n’t mean that you believe those thoughts and
feel ings; it isn’t about agree ing or dis agree ing with them. Nor does it
mean giv ing in to anger or being pas sive. You sim ply take note of any
feel ings of guilt, shame, or inad e quacy—you don’t argue with them or
A New Way of Approaching Anger 7
try to replace them. With accep tance there’s noth ing to defend. With -
out accep tance, you have every thing to lose when anger and emo tional
pain show up!
Your crit i cal, evaluative mind is the part of you that judges your
thoughts and feelings. We’ve included sev eral sim ple mind ful ness, or
aware ness, exer cises to help you learn to neu tral ize these judg ments
and the dis com fort they bring.
These exer cises will teach you to take a com pas sion ate observer
per spec tive so that you come to expe ri ence your thoughts as thoughts
with out react ing to them or let ting them dic tate your actions. We also
include imag ery exer cises to help you notice and accept the feel ings
that fuel anger, such as shame, hurt, fear, fail ure, loss, rejec tion, weak -
ness, and so on. You will see that the pur pose of most anger behav ior is
to make those thoughts and feel ings go away. Learn ing to rec og nize
and stay with unwanted feel ings when you have them is an impor tant
first step toward learn ing not to respond with anger behav ior because
of anger feel ings.
APPROACHING ANGER WITHCOMPASSION
Anger needs an enemy to exist and grow. Meet ing anger with com pas -
sion leaves anger with no room to grow. This is why com pas sion is so
impor tant. Compassion means that you value the hap pi ness and wel -
fare of oth ers just as intensely as your own desire to be happy and lead
a meaningful life.
You may ask, “Why should I have com pas sion? I was hurt so
badly that the other guy deserves to rot in hell.” Com pas sion does not
mean con don ing or tol er at ing behav iors that dam age you or keep you
in an abu sive sit u a tion. You can still pro tect your self and oth ers from
harm and dan ger. You can still be heard. But it is better for you if you
do so with out har bor ing ill will toward those peo ple. Hold ing on to
your anger keeps it alive, even when you don’t act on it. This will not
only keep you feel ing tense and unhappy, but it will also give anger
room to spill over and affect just about every part of your life that you
care about: work, fam ily, friends, health, and rec re ation. Is this what
you want?
8 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Respon si bil ity for your anger behav ior is just the same as
responsibility for the other ways in which you choose to live your life:
the choice begins with you and is ulti mately about you. We can not
guar an tee that other peo ple will meet your com pas sion with com pas -
sion. But act ing on anger only fos ters more neg a tive energy; anger
behav ior rarely if ever yields com pas sion. Here’s the one guar an tee we
can give you if you put this pro gram into action: you will act in ways
that will nur ture your sense of value and dig nity. If this mat ters to you,
then stick with the pro gram!
APPROACHING ANGER WITH GENTLEAWARENESS
Through the mind ful ness exer cises in chap ter 7, you will learn to
develop aware ness of what you are expe ri enc ing in the pres ent
moment. The exer cises will help you expe ri ence that you are not your
thoughts or feel ings; you are not your anger. They all are part of you,
but they are not you. Your expe ri ence is not some thing you need to
con trol or run away from, or act on at all.
If you’ve strug gled with anger, you prob a bly already know that
with anger comes a ten dency to judge your self and oth ers. Judg ing only
feeds anger and gets us nowhere. This is why we sug gest a dif fer ent
approach, using exer cises to build up your capac ity for com pas sion by
acknowl edg ing and accept ing your anger, along with the pain, fear, and
judg ments about your self and oth ers that drive it. The pur pose of these
exer cises is to set the stage for grad u ally replac ing old, habit ual, auto -
matic ways of behav ing (such as blow ing up) with new, flex i ble, and
inten tional ways of behaving—ways that you con sciously choose.
You will learn to notice and observe the tem po rary feel ings that
arise in your mind and body with com pas sion, with gen tle kind ness,
and with out act ing on them or because of them.
Anger and judg ment are fleet ing parts of you that, although
recur rent, come and go like clouds in the sky, the chang ing sea sons,
and so on. For exam ple, Mike’s wife prom ised to pick up the kids but
she did n’t do it. Enraged, Mike had the thought, “She only cares about
her sched ule and does n’t give a damn about my time. I’m really going
to tell her off when she gets home.” Mike could n’t do any thing about
the rage aris ing in his body or the venge ful thoughts pop ping into his
A New Way of Approaching Anger 9
mind at the time. Yet, he had lots of options when it came to how he
responded to them and what he decided to do about them. Mike even -
tu ally learned to sim ply watch these feel ings and thoughts, rec og nize
them as feel ings and thoughts, and abso lutely not fol low through on
them. This opened up a range of choices for Mike to act dif fer ently.
You can also learn to make life-affirm ing choices rather than
letting your anger feel ings coerce you into destruc tive choices. And
guess who’s in charge then: you!
DON’T BELIEVE US OR YOURMIND—TRUST YOUR EXPERIENCE!
We’ll do our best to explain what we know about anger. Yet words are
only words unless you expe ri ence their mean ing. Sim ply learn ing about
anger with your head, with out tak ing steps to put your learn ing into
action, is a dead end. You know as much from your own per sonal expe -
ri ence. Stud ies have shown over and over that learn ing is most effec -
tive when peo ple expe ri ence what they learn about. So the chal lenge is
to apply what you learn from this book in your daily life. This will take
hard work and com mit ment.
Here’s an impor tant consideration: You don’t need to believe
what we say or under stand every point we make. Some of what you
read in this book is going to sound quite strange at first, per haps even
silly and bizarre. We guar an tee that your mind will throw many argu -
ments at you why this or that sounds impos si ble, is too dif fi cult, or
does n’t make any sense. When such thoughts occur, thank your mind
for each of them and then move on. You need not argue with your
mind or try to con vince your self of any thing. The only things we ask
are that you try to stay open to a new way of relat ing to anger and new
expe ri ences; that you do the exer cises; and that you check out
whether, over time, they start work ing for you. Then trust that expe ri -
ence, and let your mind do its thing.
This is why each chap ter includes a num ber of exer cises. The
exer cises are the most impor tant parts of this book. They help you
expe ri ence what works and what does n’t. Exer cises bring to life in a
per sonal way what you have learned. Some of them help you feel what
hurts, what under lies your anger, and how you can expe ri ence anger
with out act ing on it. Under stand ing this log i cally is help ful, but only
10 ACT on Life Not on Anger
expe ri enc ing it will make a dif fer ence in your life. This book will help
you and work for you—but only if you work with it.
How can you do that? Make read ing a pri or ity in your sched ule.
Com mit to a rea son able amount of time you can set aside to read this
book and prac tice the exer cises. We rec om mend that you not read
several chap ters of this book all at once. Doing so will make it dif fi cult
for you to put the con cepts into action. You need to think about the
con cepts pre sented here—let them per co late. You need to allow
yourself time to put the con cepts into prac tice. This will take time.
Put tak ing care of your self on your to-do list every day. Pace your
read ing so that you read and prac tice the con cepts in one chap ter
every week. We’ve struc tured the chap ters to be read this way for the
sim ple rea son that change and learn ing any new skill take time. Read -
ing one chap ter of this book every week is a great way to take care of
your self, as is doing the exer cises every day. Don’t move on until
you’ve spent suf fi cient time with the mate rial in each chap ter to allow
you to put the con cepts into action.
Com mit ment is a cen tral com po nent of any effort to change
one’s life. Are you ready for that com mit ment when it comes to your
anger? Are you will ing to learn another way to approach your anger
thoughts and feel ings? If you are, you can take con trol over your
actions and com mit to move in life direc tions you truly value. With -
out com mit ment to action—if you don’t com plete the exer cises—
noth ing much is going to change in your life. As Ste ven Hayes and
his col leagues wrote, “If you always do what you always did, you will
always get what you always got!” (1999, p. 235). Just read ing this
book with out doing any thing new is a sure fire way to con tinue to get
what you’ve always got.
BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY
In the end, you con trol the direc tion you want your life to take—that
is your choice. Read ing this book—and inter nal iz ing what you learn—
is part of this pro cess. But there’s no book on the planet, nor any
person, who can make you live your life in a cer tain way. It will be up
to you to put what you learn into action and make the changes you
need to make. This book is designed to help you get some thing dif fer -
ent by doing some thing dif fer ent! As you commit to putting your
A New Way of Approaching Anger 11
values into action, the qual ity of your life, and the qual ity of life of
those around you, will begin to improve.
There is a Bud dhist say ing that the jour ney of a thou sand miles
begins with one step. By select ing and read ing this book, you have
taken that first step on your jour ney out of your anger trap and into a
new life. Con grat u la tions! Now keep mov ing for ward. Liv ing accord ing
to your val ues is a life long pur suit. On your jour ney, you will con -
tinuously learn, prog ress, and see life in a way that you may never have
expe ri enced before. This book is a kind of travel guide. Use the
information here to help you decide where you want to go.
12 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Chapter 1
Debunking theMyths of Anger
At the moment you become angry, you tend to believe
that your misery has been created by another person.
You blame him or her for all of your suffering. By
looking deeply, you may realize that the seed of anger
in you is the main cause of your suffering.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Have you some times felt that the feeling of anger is inev i ta ble and that
you’d better find a way to let off steam before you burst into aggres -
sion? Have you been to a ther a pist who advised you to stop holding
your anger in? Have you ever got ten angry and had a friend reas sure
you that it’s good to get it all out? Have you ever found your self in
situations think ing such thoughts as “If I had n’t got ten angry and
fought back, this guy would have con tin ued to walk all over me” or “If
they had treated me with respect, I would n’t have yelled at them”?
These are all com mon beliefs and mis con cep tions about anger—even
some men tal health pro fes sion als accept them. Yet, none of them are
true. Each is based on a myth. They are harm ful because they keep you
and oth ers like you stuck in self-destruc tive pat terns. Let us intro duce
you to the five basic myths of anger:
Myth 1: Anger and aggres sion are instinc tual to humans.
Myth 2: Frus tra tion inev i ta bly leads to aggres sion.
Myth 3: Vent ing your anger is healthy.
Myth 4: Anger is always help ful.
Myth 5: A per son’s anger is caused by oth ers.
All myths of anger jus tify the expres sion of anger and aggres sive
behav ior. Each myth sug gests that anger is an inev i ta ble part of being
human. This inev i ta bil ity makes anger seem ines cap able—and per haps
even gives it value as a human attribute. Pop psy chol ogy arti cles and
talk shows play into this misperception by encour ag ing and even prais -
ing the expres sion of anger, affirm ing its inev i ta bil ity, and stress ing the
value of man ag ing it. Anger, we are told, is part of our nature. All of us
have heard, in one form or another, that express ing anger—letting it
all out—is the royal road to physical and mental health.
You may already sense from your own expe ri ence that there is
some thing wrong with this set of assumptions. Has let ting anger out
really worked for you? Has it helped you live the life you want, or has it
brought ruin to impor tant areas of your life? Let ting anger out does not
work for most of us, and it prob a bly has caused you—and oth ers in
your life—a lot of pain.
Through our work and the research of oth ers, we’ve come to
believe that the expres sion of anger isn’t unavoid able or nec es sary, and
it cer tainly isn’t help ful. Let’s briefly exam ine each of the five myths
one by one.
14 ACT on Life Not on Anger
MYTH 1: ANGER AND AGGRESSION AREINSTINCTUAL TO HUMANS
The idea that humans are endowed with a basic instinct for anger and
aggres sion has been used to explain just about every thing from mar i tal
quar rels to global warfare. The think ing here is that innate bio log i cal
pres sures can push peo ple past some built-in anger thresh old. Even the
Amer i can Psy cho log i cal Asso ci a tion (APA) con trib utes to keeping this
view alive:
The instinc tive, nat u ral way to express anger is to respond
aggres sively. Anger is a nat u ral, adap tive response to threats;
it inspires pow er ful, often aggres sive, feel ings and behav iors,
which allow us to fight and defend our selves when we are
attacked. A cer tain amount of anger, there fore, is nec es sary
to our sur vival. (APA 2005)
We Thrive on Cooperation and Nurturing
Though these ideas make some intu itive sense—seem ingly
account ing for the often explo sive and sense less nature of rage and
aggres sion—they are fun da men tally flawed for one main rea son:
Successful evo lu tion is based on coop er a tion, not destruc tive con flict
and aggres sion. Even pri mates fight in a rit u al ized way. They do so to
pre serve the spe cies, not to kill their adver sar ies. More com monly, acts
of vio lence across spe cies tend to occur in defense of the group, typ i -
cally for pur poses of pro tect ing ter ri tory or resources.
When people feel threat ened, it is nat u ral for them to feel anger.
But this feel ing does not jus tify anger behav ior. In fact, in the con text
of coop er a tion and pro mo tion of the greater good, acts of violence,
aggres sion, hate, and envy are non sen si cal. As human beings, we have
always lived in small bands of closely related mem bers who have nur -
tured and helped rather than destroyed each other. Such actions pro -
mote growth and sur vival. Vio lence directed toward one’s own group
or kin under mines the sur vival and over all wel fare of the group and
those who belong to it.
Look at the fun da men tal pat tern of our exis tence from birth to
old age: we con stantly seek nur ture, and thrive when we’re nur tured.
Humans and other pri mates deprived of basic nur tur ing fail to thrive.
Debunking the Myths of Anger 15
Maybe the fun da men tal nature of human beings is gen tle ness and
kind ness—although we admit that watch ing the nightly news can
make you won der!
Anger Is Not in Our Genes
After con sid er ing all the avail able evi dence at a con fer ence in
1986, a group of twenty dis tin guished behav ioral sci en tists con cluded
that there is no sci en tific evi dence to sup port the belief that humans
are innately aggres sive. Wag ing war and other vio lent behav ior is not
genet i cally pro grammed into our human nature. Except for rare pathol -
o gies, genes do not pro duce indi vid u als pre dis posed to vio lence. There
is noth ing in our brain setup that com pels us to act vio lently. In fact,
our evo lu tion ary his tory has favored our abil ity to coop er ate.
Violence Doesn’t Always Stem from Anger
We know that lots of aggres sion occurs with out any feel ings of
anger. Vio lence (even kill ing) can occur for a num ber of rea sons that
have noth ing to do with feel ing angry. A hunter kill ing an ani mal for
food typ i cally kills with out feel ing anger. A prize fighter aims to hit
another fighter with out feel ing angry, because such feel ings are likely
to mar his abil ity to score punches. Sol diers in the mil i tary train to kill
other human beings, but they may expe ri ence guilt and sor row more
often than anger. You can feel angry with out act ing that anger out in
vio lent ways. In fact, anger feel ings seem to be fol lowed by aggres sive
behav ior only about 10 per cent of the time (DeAngelis 2003).
Aggres sive behav ior is one among many choices you can make
when you experience anger. You can learn to make other choices.
MYTH 2: FRUSTRATION INEVITABLY LEADS TO AGGRESSION
The view that frus tra tion leads to aggres sion was pop u lar ized by
Sigmund Freud, who believed that indi vid u als are born with an innate
16 ACT on Life Not on Anger
aggres sive instinct. He also thought that block ing or frus trat ing the
instinct for aggres sion only leads to it being redi rected some where else.
So, when you per ceive what ever makes you angry as being too risky to
attack (for example, your boss), you redi rect or dis place your anger on
some one or some thing that’s less risky or threat en ing. Thus, you may
dis place aggres sion toward your boss by pick ing a fight with one of your
sub or di nates, yell ing at your chil dren, smash ing some thing, or even
kick ing your dog.
The idea that frus tra tion leads to aggres sion received quite a bit
of research sup port early on in the 1950s and 1960s. We now know,
how ever, that aggres sion is not the only behav ior that can fol low
frustration and hurt. In fact, there are many instances in other
cultures, includ ing those that are West ern ized, where frus tra tion does
not invari ably lead to aggres sive behav ior. For instance, many Tibetan
peo ple were abruptly dis placed from their home land after the Chi nese
invaded Tibet in 1952. Most of these indi vid u als now live in exile. Yet,
despite the hard ship they endured, the Tibet ans have largely refrained
from aggres sive action toward the Chi nese. In fact, their lead ers shun
vio lence and con sis tently encour age their peo ple to prac tice non vi o -
lence and com pas sion ate under stand ing. The same pos ture is true of
the people of Bali. Even in West ern ized cul tures, you will find that
peo ple respond in a vari ety of ways to frus tra tion. Some peo ple will
curse, hit, or kick some thing after los ing money in a vend ing machine.
Oth ers will write down the name and address of the vend ing com pany
and request a refund by mail. Many more peo ple will sim ply shrug their
shoul ders and walk away.
Still, the per sis tence of the frus tra tion-leads-to-aggres sion myth
is sur pris ing. An unfor tu nate con se quences of this lin ger ing misper cep -
tion is that peo ple use it to explain and excuse the anger they express
when they don’t get what they want. Frustration is far too often seen as
a direct route to pro vok ing anger and aggres sion, and anger is ratio nal -
ized as an auto matic and nat u ral response. Many peo ple assume that
anger is the only pos si ble way to respond when things go wrong and
they feel frus trated. This myth leads peo ple to buy into the idea that
they have no choice about how they respond.
The real ity, though, is that there are always choices; anger is only
one of sev eral pos si ble responses to frus tra tion. In this book we offer
you a whole new range of choices and ways to respond when you feel
anger and expe ri ence frus tra tion.
Debunking the Myths of Anger 17
MYTH 3: VENTING YOUR ANGER IS HEALTHY
The idea that vent ing anger to let off steam is nec es sary and help ful
has become part of pop u lar cul ture. It orig i nates from what we see as
mis un der stood state ments by Sigmund Freud and his fol low ers.
The myth is that frus tra tion can build up over time; that it
must be released one way or the other. Bot tled-up, unex pressed
anger supposedly fes ters in your mind and body, cre at ing both
physical and emo tional dis ease and poi son ing rela tion ships at work,
school, and play, in love, in all areas of life itself (Bry 1976). The
basic cure, then, is to express your anger—let ting it all out—to
cleanse and purify your body and mind. This cleans ing is some times
referred to as “cathar sis,” which lit er ally means “purg ing.” It is
supposed to clear the air, result ing in health ier and hap pier com mu -
ni ca tion with the peo ple around you, giving you a good, clean
feeling, and increas ing your self-esteem.
It took many years of research to finally put the vent ing idea to
rest. Blow ing off steam is not ben e fi cial. One of the most renowned
anger research ers, Carol Tavris (1989), rightly observed that the peo -
ple who are most prone to vent their rage sim ply get more rather than
less angry when they do so. And those at the receiv ing end of anger
out bursts get angry too. You may have noticed this your self in your
inter ac tions with col leagues, with friends, or per haps with your part ner
or chil dren at home. It all starts with some pre cip i tat ing event, which
is fol lowed by an angry out burst, shout ing, scream ing, or cry ing; a
crescendo (per haps even includ ing phys i cal vio lence); exhaus tion and
finally with drawal and/or even tu ally an apol ogy. Have you noticed how
this cycle can be replayed over and over with no cathar sis or decrease
in your over all level of anger?
When anger is let out, it is typ i cally met with anger right back.
This is what vent ing anger does. Neg a tive energy breeds more neg a tive
energy. Behav ior such as yell ing or even talk ing out an emo tion does n’t
reduce anger feel ings. What actu ally hap pens is that you are rehears ing
more of the same. Punch ing a pil low while think ing of some one you
dis like is rehears ing punch ing the per son. Numer ous stud ies have
shown as much: vent ing anger typ i cally serves to “freeze” a hos tile atti -
tude or opin ion (Tavris 1989). You prob a bly know from your own
18 ACT on Life Not on Anger
expe ri ence that vent ing does not make hos tile feel ings go away.
Instead, they tend to stick around lon ger and haunt you.
The bot tom line is that the pop u lar rem edy for anger, vent ing it
by let ting it all out, is really worse than use less. Express ing anger does
not reduce anger. Instead, it func tions to make you even angrier. Vent -
ing also solid i fies an angry atti tude and state of mind, esca lates anger
and aggres sion, and does noth ing to help you (or the recip i ent of your
anger) resolve the sit u a tion. Buy ing into the idea that let ting it all out
some how puri fies you is also dan ger ous because peo ple can use it as a
license to hurt oth ers. You may have even done this your self.
Some times peo ple do feel relieved after they vent their anger.
You may have expe ri enced this, too. Yet numer ous research stud ies
have found that such relief is not a nat u ral con se quence of anger, but
rather a learned reac tion (for exam ple, Hokanson 1970). Some peo ple
have learned to feel relief fol low ing expres sion of anger, just as other
peo ple learn to feel shame or increased com pas sion after vent ing. This
learn ing involves mak ing an erro ne ous con nec tion between act ing out
anger and the calm most peo ple return to after anger has passed. This
con nec tion is erro ne ous because peo ple would have felt calmer and
better any way after a while, even with out act ing out their anger. The
good news is that you can learn new responses and change how you
respond to your anger feel ings. Viewed this way, your response to anger
feel ings with anger actions becomes a choice rather than an inev i ta bil -
ity. Act ing on anger is not inev i ta ble, instinc tual, or some thing you
need to keep doing.
MYTH 4: ANGER IS ALWAYS HELPFUL
Because it trig gers a surge of adren a line, anger can mobi lize you to
defend your self or escape when you are phys i cally threat ened or
attacked. This is called the fight-or-flight response. Anger can help you
set appro pri ate lim its and over come any fear you may have about
assert ing your needs. Anger is also a com mon inter me di ate step in the
heal ing pro cess fol low ing sex ual or phys i cal abuse. Yet even in those
dif fi cult sit u a tions, anger ceases to be ben e fi cial when the abused
person is unable to let go of it. Con sum ing anger can actu ally leave you
stuck and unable to move beyond your pain.
Debunking the Myths of Anger 19
Anger is ben e fi cial when it serves as a warn ing sig nal that some -
thing is wrong. It can increase your sense of con trol and cer tainty,
and—most impor tantly—pre pare you for action (Lerner and Keltner
2001). The type of anger and pain we are talk ing about here involves
situations in which peo ple have clearly been hurt or are at risk of being
harmed. Their pain is both an impe tus and a cat a lyst for pos i tive action
to pro tect them selves or oth ers from fur ther harm.
Anger in such cir cum stances isn’t fueled by a stance of gen eral
hos til ity. Instead, it is an appro pri ate reac tion to a real threat or dan -
ger. Fear is like wise an appro pri ate emo tion upon see ing an approach -
ing gang of thugs while walk ing alone on a city street at night. When
the dan ger passes, so does the fear. Con struc tive anger can func tion in
much the same way. But when anger spills over into other life sit u -
ations where it is uncalled for, it can become a prob lem for you. Take a
moment to think about how often your anger occurs in response to
situations that have lit tle or no chance of caus ing you phys i cal injury
or risk of death. This prob a bly hap pens fre quently, right?
Anger fueled by hos til ity (as dis tinct from anger that serves as a
warn ing) is anger in its most harm ful form. Hos til ity or cyn i cal anger is
a state of mind of ill will fueled by strong judg ments about your self and
other peo ple. This type of cyn i cal or hos tile anger, let alone hatred, is
never use ful or help ful. It can eas ily lead to aggres sive behav ior, ver bal
or oth er wise. It is toxic in that it ulti mately dam ages your mind and
body.
Research ers found evi dence seem ingly show ing that all anger is
bad for your health, par tic u larly for your heart (see Fried man 1992).
Now, half a cen tury and many stud ies later, con vinc ing med i cal and
psy cho log i cal research shows that hos tile anger is the only type of
anger that is truly harm ful to you, both phys i cally and psy cho log i cally.
A recent study was able to dem on strate exactly how hos til ity increases
your risk of devel op ing car dio vas cu lar dis ease by weak en ing the
immune sys tem. The crit i cal toxic ele ment is an atti tude of ill will
toward oth ers and the ten dency to cause phys i cal harm and express
aggres sion toward oth ers (Suarez, Lewis, and Kuhn 2003).
Hos tile anger dam ages areas of your life you care about, harm ing
other peo ple in your orbit at the same time that it harms you. A study
by Smith and Gallo (1999), for instance, showed that hos tile angry
peo ple are not only at greater risk of devel op ing car dio vas cu lar dis ease,
but their nonangry spouses are put at greater risk as well!
20 ACT on Life Not on Anger
MYTH 5: A PERSON’S ANGER IS CAUSED BY OTHERS
In our clin i cal prac tice, we con sis tently notice that angry cli ents
come into ther apy with one or more rea sons to explain and jus tify
why they are so angry. Though the sto ries dif fer, the mes sage is the
same: “My anger is caused by some one else or some thing else. I’m not
to blame.
When you’re in pain, it’s log i cal to ask your self, “Who did this
to me; who’s respon si ble?” As soon as you decide that some one else is
respon si ble for your hurt or phys i cal ten sion, the focus shifts from you
to them. You can then feel jus ti fied in dis charg ing your pain and hurt
with anger directed toward those you believe to be respon si ble for it.
Anger is trig gered by peo ple and events out side your con trol.
How you react to your anger thoughts and feel ings is up to you,
though. By shift ing the blame to others, you rob your self of the oppor -
tu nity to make changes in your behavior—and you keep your self stuck
in a cycle of anger behav ior trig gered by anger feel ings.
WHY ARE THESE MYTHS SO PERSISTENT?
The belief that anger is caused by exter nal fac tors, and that anger-
inspired aggres sion is unavoid able, is psy cho log i cally attrac tive for
many peo ple. It allows them to excuse and jus tify acts of aggres sion
by sug gest ing that they had lit tle choice in the mat ter. Buy ing into
any of the anger myths cements the rela tion between anger feel ings
and anger behav ior. It makes anger behav ior seem nat u ral and even
healthy.
Yet the rela tion is nei ther nat u ral nor healthy. All of the myths
serve to keep you think ing that there is noth ing you can do, that you’re
doomed, with no space to move and make other choices. In this book,
we will help you expe ri ence the pos si bil ity of sep a rat ing anger feel ing s
from anger behav iors. What you do in response to anger feelings is
deter mined far more by choice than by your nature.
Debunking the Myths of Anger 21
TAKING CHARGE: ASSERTING PERSONALRESPONSE-ABILITY IN YOUR LIFE
So the ques tion is, Who really is respon si ble when anger and hurt show
up? The per cep tion that some one has caused your pain turns you into
a vic tim. You see your self as threat ened, under siege by another
person’s wrongdoings. When some one else is respon si ble, you can turn
your focus away from your pain. You can con cen trate on list ing the sins
per pe trated against you and the injus tices that you have suf fered—and
for a while you may even feel better.
But let’s pause for a moment here and ask: Has this relief ever
lasted? Or has it instead led to more anger, ten sion, and suf fer ing? How
has blam ing worked for you? Has blam ing and blow ing up moved you
closer to lead ing the life you want to live? Could it be that anger
behav ior is more about the per son hav ing it (you) than about the
person who seems to trig ger it?
You may be won der ing whether we are about to turn on you and
tell you some thing like “It’s not other peo ple or other things that make
you angry. It’s you—only you are respon si ble for how you feel.” Relax!
We’re not about to do that, sim ply because blam ing and beat ing up on
your self is no more help ful than blam ing and beat ing up on oth ers.
Blam ing is neg a tive energy that puts you and oth ers down. It feeds
anger, tends to inflict need less harm, and keeps the anger cycle going.
There are alter na tives to this cycle, and two of them stand out: under -
stand ing and com pas sion.
Is it pos si ble that the whole pro cess of assign ing blame does n’t
work—that the answer to your ques tion about who’s respon si ble can’t
be found by find ing some one to blame? Per haps it might help to put
the ques tion in a slightly dif fer ent way: Who is response-able? Who is
truly able to respond when anger shows up? Who can choose to
respond dif fer ently? Who has the power to change things in your life?
Like it says in the Cole Por ter song, “You, you, you!”
Think about what you can really con trol in your life. What is
really impor tant to you, and what do you want to live for? Hon est
answers to such ques tions are likely to point you in new direc tions.
Ulti mately, the idea of response-abil ity is a very pos i tive and lib er -
at ing one. It begins by rec og niz ing that it is dif fi cult, if not impos si ble,
to con trol your anger thoughts and feel ings—as much as you may want
to. The next part involves acknowl edg ing what you can con trol—
22 ACT on Life Not on Anger
namely, what you do with your hands, feet, and mouth when anger
shows up. This issue of con trol is an impor tant one, and we’ll dis cus it
thoroughly in chap ter 4.
Respon si bil ity for anger behavior begins with you. It is time to
face up to that real ity. This is good news, because your behav ior is
some thing you can con trol—even though it may feel hard to con trol
what you do when anger thoughts and feel ings seem to pos sess you. For
the moment, ask your self these questions:
+ Where has anger behav ior got ten me, and what have I
gained from it?
+ How much energy have I been tying up in man ag ing my
anger feel ings?
+ Do I have the cour age to take a stand and respond
differently to anger feel ings?
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
Anger has cost you dearly in many domains of your life. The myths
sug gest ing that anger is bio log i cally inev i ta ble and help ful, and that
anger vent ing is use ful, are all wrong. Buy ing into these myths works
against you. The prin ci ple of response-abil ity sug gests a new and dif fer -
ent pos ture with respect to your anger and your life. This pos ture has
the power to pull the rug out from under neath your anger, because it
focuses on what is impor tant to you and what you can do and change.
It weak ens the ten dency to point the fin ger at oth ers. It also weak ens
your insis tence that oth ers should change what they do first. The ACT
approach puts you in charge.
Debunking the Myths of Anger 23
24 ACT on Life Not on Anger
WEEK 1
Anger is nei ther instinc tual nor caused by oth ers
Point to ponder: By tak ing response-abil ity for my anger, I can
take charge of my life.
Ques tions to con sider: What myths of anger have I bought
into to jus tify my behavior? Have I let anger con trol my life?
Am I will ing to take response-abil ity for what I do about my
anger and with my life?
Chapter 2
Struggling with AngerIs Not a Solution
Clinical experience has shown that, ironically, it is often the
patient’s very attempts to solve the problem that, in fact,
maintain it. The attempted solution becomes the true problem.
—Giorgio Nardone and Paul Watzlawick
You want to change your anger. Per haps your wish to change fol lows
some event where you lost con trol. Or per haps you’ve strug gled a long
time, look ing des per ately for a way to stop the dam age anger does to
your rela tion ships and your life. You’ve reached this moment—read ing
this book—because you no lon ger want be trapped in your old anger
responses.
ASSESSING THE COSTS OF ANGER
The strug gle with anger has cost you—in the coin of energy, of deep
and pain ful regret, of dam age to your clos est bonds. You sense that
your efforts at anger con trol—and all the ways those efforts have
failed—have left a deep mark on you.
You prob a bly already have a pretty good idea how much respond -
ing with anger has cost you in the var i ous areas of your life. Have you
expe ri enced bro ken and strained rela tion ships? Sick ness and poor
health? Exces sive stress? Dif fi cul ties at school or work? Prob lems with
alco hol or other sub stances? There may also be other costs that are less
obvi ous, or that you choose not to think about.
The fol low ing exer cise on assess ing the costs of anger can help
you exam ine exactly what anger has cost you in your life. This will also
give you a better idea of what you have missed out on by respond ing to
anger feel ings with anger behav ior.
You may already have an idea that some thing is wrong. This is a
good start ing point. The dif fi cult work is fac ing exactly what is wrong
and com ing to terms with what anger has cost you. You will see that
we are ask ing you to look at your per sonal expe ri ence with anger.
Nobody is more of an expert about your expe ri ence than you. Are you
will ing to get started? If so, then get a pen and a sep a rate piece of
paper. Let’s begin.
ASSESSING THE COST OF YOUR ANGER
1. Interpersonal Costs
Sum ma rize the effects of anger on your rela tion ships. Have
friend ships changed or been lost? Have fam ily mem bers been alien ated?
Do they avoid you, or do you avoid them? Have you lost a mar riage or
roman tic rela tion ship due to anger?
2. Career Costs
Sum ma rize the effects of anger on your career. Have you ever
quit or been fired from a job because of anger? This includes overt
anger as well as pas sive aggres sion—slack ing off, being late, being less
26 ACT on Life Not on Anger
pro duc tive, bad-mouth ing peo ple, gos sip, and so on. Have cowork ers
ever been alien ated by your anger? Has your anger affected your school
career (rela tion ships with teach ers, admin is tra tors)?
3. Health Costs
Describe the effects of anger on your health. There is a lot of
research show ing that anger stresses your body. Do you have any phys i -
cal prob lems that could be stress related? Do you tend to get sick
often? Do you expe ri ence phys i cal symp toms dur ing or after anger
episodes (such as chest pain, mus cle ten sion, upset stom ach, head -
ache)? Do you some times rumi nate and stew over anger to the point of
feel ing sick or keyed up or hav ing insom nia?
4. Energy Costs
Out line how anger has affected your energy. Does your anger
some times exhaust you? Have you put time and energy into dis ap point -
ing efforts at con trol? Have your attempts to man age anger left you
feel ing dis cour aged, fatigued, or worn out?
5. Emotional Costs
What has anger cost you emo tion ally? How much guilt do you
carry for dam age done by your anger? How do regrets about your anger
epi sodes affect you emo tion ally? Are you affected by rela tion ship losses
due to anger? Do you suf fer depres sion or hope less ness in the wake of
your anger?
EXAMPLE ASSESSMENT
Here’s how Rachel, an insur ance claims adjuster, com pleted her assess -
ment of the costs of her anger:
1. Interpersonal Costs
Mom and I fight, and then we don’t talk for months. Two rela tion ships
with boy friends got screwed up because of fight ing. Rod and Jeanine—both
friend ships blew up in a fight. Quit the Uni tar ian sin gles group because of a
Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 27
has sle with Bill (the leader). Tend to get angry when I’m just start ing to date
some one and they don’t do things like I expect.
2. Career Costs
Lost three jobs because of has sles with a boss. Blew a pro mo tion
because I told Carl (old boss) he was a cheap shit. Has sles with Annie made
life shit at the job I had before that.
3. Health Costs
Upset stom ach when I stayed pissed for a while. Get ting sick a lot.
(Does anger lower resis tance?) I worry about my heart some times, because it
beats hard the whole time I’m angry.
4. Energy Costs
I’m always try ing to watch myself, try ing not to get into it with peo ple
who piss me off. I guess that’s tir ing. The anger kind of ener gizes me and
then I crash later. It’s like I’m on some thing, but it wears off and I go down.
I get bummed after I get into it with some one— much later I kick myself for
los ing con trol.
5. Emotional Costs
Lone li ness—there’d be more peo ple in my life if I did n’t get angry.
Maybe I’d have a boy friend if lit tle stuff did n’t get me so pissed off. Depres -
sion, dis ap point ment, things not turn ing out and all that shit. Think ing about
Lou—screw ing up a good thing. I think about him a lot.
Com plet ing your assess ment of the costs of your anger is a cru cial
first step in hon estly fac ing how anger has dam aged you and con tin ues
to do so. But it has a fur ther pur pose. It’s impor tant that you rec og nize
and feel the effects of your anger despite all your efforts, prom ises, and
res o lu tions to change it. So let’s start there.
28 ACT on Life Not on Anger
YOUR ANGER MANAGEMENT HISTORY
In the pre vi ous exer cise, you expe ri enced the costs asso ci ated with
your anger. Many of these costs prob a bly led you to do this or that to
avoid them in the future. For instance, you may have blamed your self
or others for your hurt. You may have insisted on your being right and
oth ers being wrong. You may have blown up and yelled at peo ple.
Have these strat e gies made you less angry and hap pier with your life?
Have they moved you in direc tions you want your life to take? Here,
we want you to expe ri ence with what you have done about your anger
and how well that’s worked for you. You need to feel this in your heart
and not just under stand it in your mind. Why might this be?
The sim ple and hon est answer is that we don’t want you to go on
doing more of the same, espe cially when old anger man age ment strat e -
gies haven’t worked for you. Suc cess ful anger trans for ma tion begins
with fac ing—openly and hon estly—each attempt at anger man age -
ment, each past strat egy, and seeing how it has worked. This isn’t easy,
which is why we’ve designed an exer cise to help you iden tify clearly
what hasn’t worked for you.
TAKING STOCK OF YOUR ANGER
MANAGEMENT HISTORY
Right now, we’d like you to look back at your past attempts to man age
and con trol anger. This exer cise will help you orga nize your mem o ries
across dif fer ent sit u a tions and rela tion ships. The exer cise is a bit long,
so we’ll do it in two parts. The left-hand col umn of the grid lists cat e -
go ries of peo ple who might trig ger anger. If you’ve expe ri enced anger in
rela tion to one or another such per son in your life, fill in the cor re -
spond ing boxes in col umns 2 and 3 (or use a sep a rate piece of paper for
your answers). You can skip the peo ple trig gers that don’t apply to you.
In col umn 2 you should describe how you cope to man age and
con trol your anger when it’s ignited. What do you do with the feel -
ing? Do you try to keep it from erupt ing? Do you push it down? Do
you talk about it? Do you tell your self not to react? Do you try to
relax? Do you reach for a drink? Do you beat your self up for past
episodes with lots of neg a tive self-talk? Do you prom ise peo ple you’re
going to change?
Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 29
In col umn 3, go ahead and describe the out come of your anger
man age ment efforts. Have you suc ceeded in reduc ing your anger
feelings? Have you suc ceeded in con trol ling your aggres sive behav ior?
Have you been able to pro tect your rela tion ships? Have you dealt with
trig ger ing feel ings (shame, guilt, stress, frus tra tion) in ways that don’t
ignite anger? Think about both the short term and the long term as
you respond to these ques tions. Most impor tantly, what have you
traded in or lost because of anger man age ment and con trol efforts?
Exam ples could be lost time or energy, frus tra tion, missed oppor tu ni -
ties, or dimin ished rela tion ships or activ i ties that you might enjoy or
care about. Some of these losses may be sim i lar to the costs you out -
lined in the pre vi ous exer cise.
People triggers Coping strategy
(my behaviors)
Outcome
Parents
Other family members
Supervisors
Coworkers/subordinates
Friends
Partner/spouse
Other drivers
30 ACT on Life Not on Anger
When doing an exer cise like this, it can some times be help ful to
read how another per son filled it out. Take a look at the notes that
Andy, a body shop fore man, made on his anger man age ment his tory
exer cise.
People triggers Coping strategies (my behaviors)
Outcome
My father criticized me. I act tough, withdraw, and stay away fromhim.
No relationship. Talkat Xmas on thephone.
My sister puts medown.
I tell her nothingabout myself, giveher no ammo.
No relationship. Feelalone.
Boss criticizes mywork.
Get cold, distant, tellhim he doesn’t knowwhat he’s talkingabout.
Used to be friends.Now he doesn’t invite me to do thingsanymore.
Coworkers give mesloppy work.
Only give themwritten feedback toavoid blowing up.
People resent mynotes, make jokesabout me.
Friends don’t keeppromises or aren’t ontime.
I don’t say anythingand pretend I’m okay about it.
I withdraw and stopcalling them. Feeldisgusted. Thinkabout it for long time.
Girlfriend disses orpressures me.
I get sarcastic, orwithdraw and stuff it.
Feel resentful andmore distant; losesexual interest.
Other drivers cuttingme off.
I seethe. Shout atthem in my car; layon the horn.
Get the finger a lotfrom other drivers.Two speeding ticketsin the past year.
In the first part of this exer cise we looked at peo ple who might
trig ger your anger. In the sec ond part, you’ll iden tify feel ings that might
trig ger your anger. Exam ples of such feel ings are listed in the left-hand
col umn. If you’ve expe ri enced anger in response to any of the feel ings
Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 31
listed, fill in the cor re spond ing boxes in col umns 2 and 3. Again, you
can skip the trig gers that don’t apply to you.
Emo tional trig gers are often less obvi ous than peo ple trig gers, so
you may find it harder to iden tify them. Pay spe cial atten tion to feelings
you don’t like or that have an unpleas ant qual ity to them. As before, in
col umn 2 you should describe what attempts you make to man age and
con trol anger when it’s ignited. In col umn 3, describe the out come of
your anger man age ment efforts. Again, focus on what you’ve traded in
or lost because of anger man age ment and con trol efforts. Some of these
may be sim i lar to the costs you described pre vi ously.
You can use a separate piece of paper for your answers if they
won’t fit eas ily on the chart.
Emotional triggers Coping strategies
(my behaviors)
Outcome
Frustrated
Ashamed/guilty
Stressed
Afraid
Controlled
Disappointed
Threatened
32 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Here’s how Andy filled in this part of the exer cise. Notice that he
cus tom ized the feel ings cat e go ries to more closely reflect his per sonal
sit u a tion.
Emotional triggers Coping strategies
(my behaviors)
Outcome
Frustrated I try to keepfrustration to myselfor come up with areason for why things have gone wrong.
Sometimes I hitsomething (like thewall) to release myfrustration.
Ashamed/guiltyafter screwing up
Try to say nothingand just fight forcontrol of how I feel.
End up feeling worse for it; push peopleaway and they resent me.
Feeling stressedwhen rushing or late
Try to stay controlled and keep my voicecalm.
Eventually lose it;blow up if slightestthing goes wrong.
Feeling controlled by my girlfriend
I get sarcastic andwithdraw.
Feel resentful, distant, “not there.” We fightabout this.
When Andy reviewed this exer cise, it was clear that his usual
cop ing strat e gies (being cold, dis tant, con trolled, with drawn, sar -
castic, or silent) were n’t work ing. That’s because the out come was
usually to get so dis tant from oth ers that rela tion ships were dam aged
or lost.
After com plet ing the anger man age ment his tory exer cise, we’d
like you to take stock of what you’ve learned. Have your efforts to
con trol anger worked? Have you kept rela tion ships safe from the
corrosive effects of your anger? Have all your efforts to man age rage
still ended in epi sodes of lash ing out? Have your efforts to keep anger
feel ings down actu ally kept them down? Or has anger con tin ued to
eat at you?
Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 33
If you’re like a lot of peo ple, noth ing you’ve done to con trol anger
has really worked. You keep doing things you regret. You keep dam ag -
ing the ones you need and love. And you keep trad ing in more and
more of your life flex i bil ity in an effort to get a han dle on your anger.
What does your heart, your gut, tell you about your his tory with
anger? In your heart, do you feel sick about it? Help less? Hope less?
What does your expe ri ence tell you about your response to anger?
Take a moment to take stock.
Anger is a pow er ful feel ing that can sweep away your stron gest
resolve. Despite your efforts to man age and con trol anger, you still pay
for it. You keep feel ing bad about your self and those who trig ger your
anger. You want to change, but no amount of remorse or effort seems
to stem the force of your ignited rage. This is not a time to apply more
will power, either. You’ve already been down that road. We can tell you
this much: more willpower is not the solu tion. You only need to be
will ing to adopt a dif fer ent strategy—take a dif fer ent path.
I’M STUCK AND AT MY WITS’ END; NOW WHAT?
Feel ing stuck and at your wits’ end is an impor tant moment, because
there is a les son here that can change your life. Know ing in your mind
and heart—with abso lute certainty—that the things you’ve done
because of anger and to manage anger don’t work is the first step on a
new road. Admit ting and accept ing that your anger feel ings are stron -
ger than your efforts to stop them cre ates a par a dox i cal new free dom.
You can do some thing new— because all your old, tried-and-true ways
to cope aren’t work ing and will not work.
This is a water shed. It starts with acknowl edg ing that your expe ri -
ence is your best guide. What does that expe ri ence with anger tell you?
Go ahead and look back at your responses to the ear lier exer cises. The
sit u a tion prob a bly looks hope less. Yet there is hope, because there is
another way. Hope starts with giv ing up on and stop ping all your old
anger man age ment and con trol efforts. They have n’t worked and will
not work in the future. They’ve kept you trapped with a false belief
that con trol is pos si ble, that anger man age ment is pos si ble, and,
perhaps, if you work harder at it or trade in a lit tle more of your life,
34 ACT on Life Not on Anger
things will get better. Your expe ri ence tells you this isn’t so: so as long
as you keep try ing, you keep fail ing.
Every thing you will learn here rests on this under stand ing: All
the old strat e gies for man ag ing anger lead to a dead end. They hurt you.
This is why you need to stop them. Your expe ri ence tells you as much.
It is time to let go of old, unwork able strat e gies.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
There is a way out of the anger trap. You can lib er ate your self from the
strug gle. But the answer lies in a place you’ve never looked before. It
will be dif fi cult, it will feel back wards, it will mean head ing toward what
you instinc tively rush away from. All that said, we prom ise that you
can do it. What you learn in this book will work as long as you’re
willing to accept what you expe ri ence rather than fight it. And this
new path will give you relief from the strug gle, the losses, the fail ures.
All you need to do now is keep read ing . . . and do the work.
Struggling with Anger Is Not a Solution 35
WEEK 2
Assess ing the costs of my anger
Point to pon der: Anger has cost me dearly. Lib er at ing myself
from the strug gle with anger is a way out of the anger trap.
Ques tions to con sider: Have I (and oth ers) suf fered enough
from the effects of my anger behav ior? Am I will ing to give up
try ing to man age my anger feel ings and go down a dif fer ent
path?
Chapter 3
The Heart of the Struggle
You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame:
how else could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?
—Friedrich Nietz sche
ENDING THE TUG-OF-WAR WITH ANGER
The answer to your strug gle with anger may lie in the heart of the
strug gle itself. There’s a real pos si bil ity that your strug gle with anger
has some thing to teach you, some thing it can reveal to you. Feel ing
anger is not your enemy. It’s a mes sage that some thing needs attend ing
to. We will help you find out what that is and how to attend to it.
You’ve already taken the first step toward under stand ing the
strug gle. You’ve exam ined the costs of your anger. You’ve faced all
your past attempts to man age and con trol anger thoughts, feel ings, and
actions. And, if you’re still read ing, then you’ve faced the dif fi cult
truth that noth ing has really worked. No mat ter how hard you tried,
no strat egy to man age anger has ever helped long term. The costs are
still there.
The health i est response is to give up the strug gle with anger, to
sur ren der. By sur ren der ing you will expe ri ence—per haps for the first
time—what your strug gle with anger has really been about.
It seems like you’ve been fight ing a tug-of-war with the anger
mon ster pull ing at one end of the rope and you pull ing at the other
end. Yet no mat ter how hard you’ve pulled to defeat the anger mon -
ster, it has always come back stron ger, pull ing harder at the other end.
While you were engaged in this end less and exhaust ing fight, with both
your hands firmly clench ing the rope, it prob a bly never occurred to you
that you don’t need to win this fight. What would hap pen if you
decided to stop fight ing? You could sim ply sur ren der and end the fight
by drop ping the rope. The anger mon ster would still be around, throw -
ing the rope at you, try ing to get you back into the fight. But it’s your
choice whether to pick up the rope again and con tinue the bat tle, or to
keep your hands free so that you can start doing the things you really
care about.
Drop ping the rope and end ing the strug gle cre ates a door way. If
you aren’t con sumed with the effort to con trol anger, there may be an
open ing to see and expe ri ence some thing deeper, some thing that the
strug gle has masked.
DISCOVERING THE HEART OF THE STRUGGLE
You may won der how you can actu ally drop the rope. The first thing
you would do is give up being a man ager of anger. You can stop fight -
ing against the feel ing, the waves of upset. And when you give up
being a man ager of anger, you can start becom ing an observer of the
anger pro cess. You can watch your thoughts, feel ings, and impulses. In
a moment, we’ll give you some tools to help you learn to keenly
38 ACT on Life Not on Anger
observe your expe ri ence—both in the moment and ret ro spec tively. But
first, what should you watch for?
Anger—In Five Easy Pieces
There are five com po nents to the anger pro cess. Each one can
offer vital infor ma tion about what lies at the heart of the strug gle.
Pre-Anger Feel ings
The first com po nent is your pre-anger feel ings. These are emo -
tions, as well as the phys i o log i cal sen sa tions, that pre cede the anger
upset. Most typ i cally, pre-anger emo tions are pain ful, some thing you
want to avoid. Shame and guilt are exam ples—both feel ings attack
your basic sense of self-worth. They cre ate a feeling that you are bad or
wrong at the core. Anger is a clas sic way to avoid these feel ings.
Instead of you being wrong, anger turns the tables and makes it the
other per son’s fault.
Another pre-anger emo tion is hope less ness. A lot of male depres -
sion, which has hope less ness at its root, shows up in rela tion ships as
anger. The expe ri ence of hope less ness is muted by the high-energy
emo tion of anger or dis gust.
Other pre-anger feel ings include hurt and anx i ety. Both cre ate
alarm reac tions. With hurt, you feel the sud den risk of aban don ment;
with anx i ety, an immi nent dan ger. Anger con verts alarm into a drive
for action and the fear goes away—at least for a while.
Bodily sen sa tions can also play a role in your pre-anger expe ri -
ence. Ten sion in your abdo men, shoul ders, or jaw can be a har bin ger of
upset. Feel ings of heat or heavi ness, agi ta tion, head ache, shak i ness,
and the like are fre quently mentioned pre cur sors to out bursts of anger.
Anger behav ior can sub merge or mask all of these unpleas ant
sen sa tions.
Trig ger Thoughts
The sec ond com po nent of the anger pro cess is trig ger thoughts.
These include pain ful mem o ries and images elic ited by the pro vok ing
inci dent. Rec ol lec tions of past hurts, fail ures, losses, and so on can
become unpleas ant to the point where you just des per ately want to
avoid them. Trig ger thoughts also tend to be good/bad, right/wrong
judg ments about your self or other peo ple and their behav ior. In fact,
The Heart of the Struggle 39
anger is vir tu ally impos si ble unless your mind comes up with some type
of judg ment. Trig ger thoughts usu ally paint you as a vic tim and blame
some one else for your pain. They often con tain broad labels such as
stu pid, incom pe tent, self ish, crazy, lazy, wrong, jerk, and so on.
Anger Feel ing
The third com po nent is the anger feel ing itself. It can show up as
either a grad ual or sud den surge of arousal. This arousal typ i cally con -
sists of auto nomic ner vous sys tem responses, such as a pound ing, rapid
heart beat, fast breath ing (hyper ven ti la tion), trem bling hands or legs,
clenched jaw, mus cle ten sion, and feel ing hot or flushed.
Impulse to Act
The arrival of the anger feel ing usu ally gen er ates a fourth com po -
nent of the expe ri ence—an impulse to act. This impulse often feels
indis tin guish able from the trig ger thoughts and anger feel ing; but if you
watch care fully, you can see them as dis tinct stages of the pro cess. The
high energy gen er ated by esca lat ing anger gets more unpleas ant as it
grows, and there’s a nat u ral pres sure to dis charge this anger phys i cally.
You want to do some thing—now—and so you begin to file through a
short list of responses learned dur ing past upsets.
Anger Behav ior
Up until this moment, you have n’t actu ally done any thing. To be
sure, you have expe ri enced quite a few changes on the inside, but
noth ing much has hap pened on the out side. Yet the pres sure is mount -
ing. Now it seems that this pres sure will lead nat u rally to the last and
most destruc tive com po nent of the pro cess, which is often some form
of aggres sive behav ior. At the dra matic end, this includes shout ing,
finger point ing, flounc ing away, hit ting, break ing things, and the like.
Some times anger behav ior is more sub tle—rolled eyes, a look of dis -
gust, cross ing your arms and look ing away, a deep con temp tu ous sigh,
cut ting com ments, sar casm, gos sip, emo tional and phys i cal with drawal,
and so on.
You can cycle through these five anger stages again and again
dur ing a sin gle anger epi sode, and likely see this play ing out mul ti ple
times over the course of a day.
40 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Arthur’s Story
Take Arthur, for exam ple—he and his girl friend got into it fol -
low ing a com plaint she made that Arthur isn’t very affec tion -
ate. Arthur’s pre-anger feel ing was hurt with accom pa ny ing
tight ness in his stom ach. Trig ger thoughts included mem o ries
of other com plaints, as well as the fol low ing self- talk: “What a
hyp o crite! She never hugs, never touches me, unless I start it.”
Then the anger feel ing ignited—build ing fast—and included
the sud den impulse to do some thing. In this case, it was
Arthur say ing some thing sar cas tic: “That’s funny, com ing from
some one with all the warmth of an ice tray.”
The argu ment did n’t stop there. Arthur’s girl friend
came back at him: “Remem ber when I hugged you at your
birth day party, and you would n’t even hug me back because
you did n’t like the music I had on? Your arms just hung
there.” Now Arthur had a new pre-anger emo tion—shame. It
felt awful—like some thing was really wrong with him. He
did n’t want to feel that, so he started rev ving up for a real
rage. His trig ger thoughts included an image of his girl friend
turn ing away when he tried to kiss her later at the party, and
the judg ment—“I’m sick of her shit. She’s totally self ish and
ungiving.” Now came a flush; his heart started beat ing like a
trip-ham mer. Big anger feel ings equal a big need to do some -
thing. Arthur roughly pushed his girl friend out of the way
and stormed out of their apart ment.
Five min utes later, his cell phone rang. “I don’t need
this,” she said. “I won’t be here when you get back.” Sud -
denly Arthur was afraid—he felt the icy wind of aban don -
ment. This feel ing was too hard to stay with. He could n’t
stand it. So the words came to him: “What a bitch!” He
suddenly needed to say it out loud, and so he did. “You’re a
bitch,” he told her, and then hung up the phone.
BECOMING AN IMPARTIAL OBSERVER
If you want to really watch some thing, you have to plant your self firmly
in the pres ent moment. The past and the future, where our thoughts so
The Heart of the Struggle 41
often dwell, must be aban doned in favor of the here and now. This is
the place you are any way, and where your life is lived out.
You do this, first of all, by decid ing to do it. You decide you want
to under stand the heart of the strug gle, to fully expe ri ence every thing
that hap pens when you get angry. You can make this choice any
time—even right now—and com mit to it.
The sec ond way to stay in the pres ent is by lis ten ing to your body.
This is achieved by notic ing your breath ing, your beat ing heart, your
pos ture, and your areas of ten sion. You observe any sig nif i cant sen sa -
tions in your body: areas that hurt or feel hot, heavy, or shaky. This is
not an easy skill to learn, which is why we have exer cises for you to
prac tice every day, so that you can apply these skills when anger arises.
If you want to apply these skills in the heat of the moment, it’s best to
prac tice them at other times first.
The third way to stay in the pres ent is to notice and keep track of
your con scious mind—your thoughts, emo tions, and drives. Through -
out an anger epi sode, you need to keep ask ing your self these questions:
+ What am I feel ing besides anger?
+ What judg ments am I making—what good/bad, right/
wrong thoughts are going through my mind?
+ What am I driven to do right now?
The final strat egy for stay ing in the pres ent is to use a sim ple
man tra to remind your self of your role as observer: “Lis ten and watch;
do not judge.” For the observer, there is no right or wrong—there is
just see ing and learn ing. And if you find your self judg ing, then sim ply
observe that—with out judg ing the judg ing. In the end, a judg ment is
just another thought.
The Advantage of Being an Observer
As an observer you can sim ply observe what is going on (your
expe ri ence) with out hav ing to take sides or decide what is good or bad,
right or wrong. Being an observer allows you to end the strug gle; it’s
one way of drop ping the rope in your tug-of-war with anger.
This is eas ier said than done. Anger thoughts and feel ings are so
strong and pow er ful that they can seem to rule you. In the moment you
expe ri ence them, anger thoughts and feel ings are dif fi cult to dis tin guish
42 ACT on Life Not on Anger
from your own sep a rate iden tity. It becomes dif fi cult to see that, while
thoughts, wor ries, and feel ings are part of you, they aren’t you. They
come and go. You don’t own them. You can’t make them go away if you
dis like them. You can’t hold on to them, even if you like them.
A “good” thought (“I am con fi dent”) is not more like you than a
“bad” thought (“I’d like to hit this guy”). They are both part of you,
and they come and go all by them selves.
Think of your self as being like a house. Just as a house pro vides
the space for peo ple to live in along with all their fur ni ture and other
belong ings, we pro vide the space in which our expe ri ences can occur.
The struc ture of the house remains the same, regard less of who lives in
it, how it’s fur nished, or how it’s dec o rated. The house does n’t care
about who lives in it, how peo ple fur nish it, or what they think or feel.
The house sim ply pro vides the space in which all that liv ing can occur.
What Chess Can Teach You About Your Anger
Another way of learn ing to be an observer is to think about a
game of chess. You have two play ers, a black team and a white team,
with pieces that move in spec i fied ways. Each team wants to cap ture
the other’s king. When one player makes a move, the other player can
coun ter with a move that is offen sive or defen sive, stra te gic or reac tive.
Now imag ine for a moment that you’re part of this game. The
pieces of one team are your anger trig gers (your “but tons”) and the
pieces of the other team are your responses. For exam ple, when the
black knight attacks (“This idiot is so lazy!”), you move your bishop to
a square where he threat ens the knight that attacked you (“I’ll show
him!”).
Look ing at your expe ri ence, ask your self if this has ever worked
with your anger. Even when you’ve man aged to knock out one of your
anger trig gers, has n’t another one emerged to pro voke you into action?
There’s a tricky prob lem in this chess game because, unlike a real
chess game, it is not a game with dif fer ent play ers. In this sym bolic
game, the two oppos ing teams are really one team: you. The thoughts,
feel ings, and actions on both sides of the board are your thoughts, feel -
ings, and actions. They all belong to you. No mat ter which side wins,
one part of you will always be the loser.
How can you win a com pe ti tion where your own thoughts and
feel ings com pete against each other? It’s like wag ing a war against
your self. This is a war you just can’t win. So the bat tle goes on, every
The Heart of the Struggle 43
day, for years. You feel hope less and sense that you can’t win; and yet
you can’t stop fight ing.
Let’s step back for a moment and look at this sit u a tion from a
different angle. What if we said that those chess pieces aren’t you,
anyway? Can you see what else you might be? How about the board?
Let’s sup pose you are the board in this game. This is an impor tant role,
because with out the board, there is no game. The role of the board is
to pro vide a plat form where it can all hap pen, and to pro vide the grid
on which the play ers move.
As the board, you can see all the pieces, and you can sim ply
watch all the action with out tak ing sides. If you’re a player, the out -
come of the game is very impor tant: you’ve got to beat that anger as if
your life depends on it. But the board does n’t care which team seems
to be win ning or los ing. The game just hap pens; who wins does n’t
make any dif fer ence to the board. Being the board is a great relief,
because you don’t have to take sides. You’re sim ply the place where
the game is played out.
When observ ing your anger thoughts and feel ings, you notice
that some of them are pain ful and scary. You may not like what you
think or feel and wish you felt dif fer ently. As the board, you can
choose to be an impar tial observer who watches the game as it pro -
gresses. You need not be a player, with a stake in the out come of each
game. Remember, your thoughts and feel ings—all of them—are part of
you. But they are not you.
The chess anal ogy may help you when you’re hav ing trou ble
separating your self from your anger thoughts and feel ings. You can tell
your self, “I am not on one team or the other. I am the board.”
MENTAL DVD
Some times it’s impos si ble to track every thing that’s hap pen ing dur ing
an anger epi sode. Things move too fast and furi ously. You get swept
into the upset and stop notic ing key thoughts and feel ings. But you still
want to under stand what hap pened—to look beneath the sur face of
that anger and see what’s hid den there. Men tal DVD is a great
technique for recov er ing for got ten details of a recent expe ri ence.
Start by clos ing your eyes and tak ing a deep breath. As you
release it, try to let some of the ten sion drain out of your body. Now
44 ACT on Life Not on Anger
imag ine a white hoop of light just above your head—like an over sized
halo. The hoop of light starts to descend, sur round ing first the top of
your head, then mov ing down to your face, neck, and shoul ders.
Try to relax each area of your body as the hoop passes. Take
another deep breath and visu al ize the hoop descend ing to your upper
arms and chest; then to your fore arms and abdo men. Take another
breath and watch the hoop descend to your hips, thighs, and calves,
then dis ap pear beneath your feet.
With your body more relaxed, take one last deep breath, and
focus your atten tion on the anger epi sode you want to under stand.
Start in the mid dle—where you’re fully angry—and imag ine you’re
watch ing every thing on a DVD. Observe the scene for a min ute.
You’re really steamed. On this disk, there’s a voice-over of your
thoughts—lis ten to what’s going on in your mind.
Now hit the but ton that takes you back to the begin ning of the
epi sode, before the anger started. Press Play. Watch the action; lis ten
to what’s being said. What are you feel ing in that moment before the
anger? Are you hurt, ashamed, scared, hope less, guilty, feel ing wrong or
unwor thy? Pay atten tion to your pos ture and your voice. Try to make
con tact with what’s hap pen ing inside you just before the anger surges.
Now notice any mem o ries or images that have been trig gered.
What are your thoughts? Do you have trig ger thoughts that paint the
other per son or the sit u a tion as bad or wrong? Keep lis ten ing until you
hear the words of this inner mono logue.
Now the anger is com ing. Watch as it grows. Notice what it feels
like, what it makes you want to do. Be aware of any impulses to speak
or act on your anger. Don’t do any thing about your feel ings. Just be the
house or the chessboard (as in the sec tions above), and let your
feelings be. Just observe them.
MAPPING YOUR ANGER PROCESS
Now that you have some tools to help you observe your anger, it’s time
to map how your anger really works—the pro cess of your anger. For
the next week, closely watch each anger epi sode. Use the tech niques
we’ve sug gested to remain a here-and-now observer of your expe ri ence.
The Heart of the Struggle 45
Adopt the house or chessboard per spec tive, and watch what’s going
on. Or use the men tal DVD to recap ture an anger event that was too
over whelm ing to track as it unfolded. What have you learned? Record
as much detail as you can in the fol low ing anger map exer cise. Use a
sep a rate piece of paper for your answers if you need more room.
YOUR ANGER MAP
Pre-Anger Feelings
Describe the emo tions and phys i cal sen sa tions you noticed this
week pre ced ing your anger. Is there typ i cally one feel ing, or are there
sev eral that may show up at the begin ning of your anger pro cess? How
do these feel ings affect your sense of self-worth? Do you find your self
want ing to escape or sup press them? Are there phys i cal sen sa tions pre -
ced ing anger that are pain ful or uncom fort able? Does anger help to
push them out of your aware ness?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Trigger Thoughts
Write down as much as you can remem ber about any pain ful
images or mem o ries that come up in anger sit u a tions. What judg ments
do you typ i cally make about other peo ple? Which of your expec ta tions
or rules for liv ing do they fail to live up to? Note how your trig ger
thoughts may change your pre-anger feel ing or dis tract you from them.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
46 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Anger Feeling
Does your anger build slowly, or sud denly ignite full force? Does it
some times stick around and fes ter for long peri ods of time, like a low-
grade cold? Does it feel good, sweep ing away hurt or shame? Does it
feel scary or dis turb ing? Write every thing you’ve learned as an observer
of your anger, every detail about the feel ing and its effect on you. Note
par tic u larly what hap pened to your pre-anger feel ings and any changes
in your trig ger thoughts.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Impulse to Act
What did you want to do this week when your anger surged?
What images or thoughts came to mind? Write down everything you
imag ined say ing or doing. You may have done only some or per haps
none of those things, but it’s impor tant to iden tify as many anger-
driven impulses as pos si ble. How did you decid e whether or not to act
on them?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Anger Behavior
Write down what you actu ally did, via ges tures, facial expres sions,
words, tone of voice, or overt behav ior (acts of aggres sion, vio lence) as
a response to your anger. How did the aggres sion feel at the moment?
How did it affect your anger (both the emo tion and phys i cal
The Heart of the Struggle 47
sensations)? As time went on, how did your feel ings change, if at all,
regard ing your anger behav ior?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
EXAMPLE ANGER MAP
Here’s how Julia, a thirty-eight-year-old nurse in a con va les cent
hospital, com pleted the anger map exercise.
Pre-Anger Feelings
Embar rass ment when I’m crit i cized. Feel ing I’m not good enough, that
I’m a messed-up per son. It’s the same feel ing with my hus band, with the
head nurse, with my kid when he’s on my case for some thing. It’s a hor ri ble
feel ing—like I’m a piece of crap on some one’s shoe and I just want to stop it.
I notice that I want to throw some thing between me and the feel ing—so it
can’t stab at me. The phys i cal stuff is like this sick, sink ing feel ing and this
“all is lost” feel ing. It’s in my stom ach, and it goes along with feel ing I’ve
done some thing wrong.
Trigger Thoughts
Images of past embar rass ing mis takes. Then my first thought is, “No,
shut up, don’t say that.” And then I notice myself think ing, “They should n’t
be doing this to me; they don’t know what they’re talk ing about.” Some times
that turns into some thing wrong with them, some flaw or another that I can
pick on. And I just focus on that, and try to remem ber exam ples of it—sit u a -
tions where they’ve really screwed up. I expect peo ple to be kind and sup -
port ive, and when they’re not, I really hate that. Really judge it. The trig ger
thoughts seem to put space between me and the embar rass ment, the feel ing
48 ACT on Life Not on Anger
I’ve done some thing wrong. It’s like I’m dis tracted by them; think ing those
thoughts instead of feel ing bad.
Anger Feeling
It comes over me in a few sec onds. I’m hot, my heart starts pound ing.
I’m totally zeroed in on the per son I’m pissed at. And sud denly that’s all
there is—the anger. It’s so big, I’m instantly over whelmed. I’m scared that
I’m going to explode (what ever that means). There’s an incred i bly tight
feeling in my gut. And it’s like I’m speed ing, in this big rush that’s over -
powering me. It’s kind of too much. But I don’t know how to stop it. All the
other feel ings are gone now, blasted out of exis tence by the anger. I have no
aware ness that I ever felt ashamed. It’s just, these . . . holes. Gotta get away
from these holes.
Impulse to Act
I want to shout, scare them, make them go away. I want to shout,
“My hus band is a hyp o crite.” And some times I have an image of slap ping
him. And I def i nitely want to slap my son and scream that he needs to be
more respect ful. A mil lion things flash through my mind with my head
nurse. I want to shout, “Why don’t you try my job instead of sit ting at
that desk all day? When’s the last time you did bed pans, when’s the last
time you got crap on your uni form?” And while I’m imag in ing all these
things I could say, I’m scared at the same time for what would hap pen,
how I’d screw up the rela tion ships. There’s a voice in my head say ing:
“You better not.”
Anger Behavior
I flounce away from my hus band and won’t talk to him. I go totally
cold. I do yell at my son. I called him “a punk, with no f—ing grat i tude”
yesterday. With my boss, I go, “Fine, fine, what ever you say,” in this really
cold voice. I notice now, what ever I do, it does n’t make my anger better. I
go on feel ing upset and hor ri ble. I think yell ing or get ting real icy will help
it, but my heart just keeps on pound ing and I have to just wait till it
sub sides.
The Heart of the Struggle 49
THE BIG QUESTION: ARE YOU READY FOR A CHANGE?
The path out of your anger and into your life will take you to places
you’ve never been before. Some of these places may be scary and
difficult for you to expe ri ence, at least early on. Yet there is some thing
at the core of this strug gle that is soft and has extraor di nary value:
protecting a del i cate human being (you) who fears two things—that
peo ple will judge and reject you and that you will reject and hate
your self.
The fear is that you will finally be seen—by yourself or oth ers—as
unwor thy, bro ken, or bad. The only hope is to stay hid den. Safe. Pro -
tected from those pre-anger feel ings by trig ger thoughts and rage. That
vul ner a ble self you’ve been shield ing has always felt like it could be
bro ken or muti lated if the arrows of judg ment were ever allowed to hit
home. So you remain vig i lant, on guard, and angry.
Anger is a way of pro tect ing that del i cate human being. It masks
the feel ings of inad e quacy, hurt, shame, and guilt and keeps them out
of view. Think, for a moment, what it feels like to have your but tons
pushed. When oth ers, either by their words or by their actions, push
your but tons, you become angry, in part because those but tons rep re -
sent aspects of your self (includ ing your past) that are pain ful, hurt ful,
and embar rass ing to acknowl edge openly and directly. A lot of us feel
this way. When our but tons are pushed, the total ity of who we are is
right in our face, and not entirely by our own doing. Anger is a nat u ral
reac tion to this pro cess. We feel wronged and then we act on it to
defend that frag ile self that has been brought out in the open; this way
we can push those unwanted feel ings and old hurts and pains back out
of view.
Here’s a novel idea: What if all this pro tect ing and defend ing and
hid ing is the prob lem? What if there is no need to hide any thing?
What if let ting go of those pain ful feel ings, of those moments of hurt
and judg ment, of the fear of being seen and rejected is the begin ning of
an answer?
You’ve tried the old way—run ning away from the pain—long
enough. It has n’t worked. It only cre ates more prob lems; the strug gle
just keeps play ing out in your life. Are you ready for a change? What if
you were to stop strug gling and drop the rope? What if you started to
be an observer rather than a mem ber of one team or the other?
50 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Sim ply notic ing what you feel means begin ning to accept what
you feel. It does not mean lik ing what you feel or agree ing with what
some body has done to you. It only means being aware of what you feel
and acknowl edg ing it for what it is (a thought, a feel ing, a sen sa tion, a
mem ory, an image), with out tak ing sides or doing any thing about it.
In the com ing chap ters, we’ll pro vide you with sev eral exer cises
that will help you become an expert observer.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
Pro tect ing your vul ner a ble self from hurt and pain using anger and
blame is at the core of your futile strug gle with anger. This has not
worked; instead, it has caused numer ous prob lems in your life. As you
learn to acknowl edge anger thoughts and feel ings for what they really
are, it will become eas ier to give up your strug gle with anger. Learn ing
to become an observer is a skill that can bring remark able relief from
suf fer ing.
The Heart of the Struggle 51
WEEK 3
Dis cov er ing the heart of my strug gle with anger
Points to ponder: I can learn to become an observer of, rather
than a par tic i pant in, my anger. I am not my thoughts and
feel ings.
Ques tions to con sider: Do I really need to hide and pro tect
myself from feel ing hurt, shame, fear, and inad e quacy? Am I
will ing to learn to be an observer of anger feel ings and
thoughts rather than par tic i pat ing in a strug gle with them?
Chapter 4
Controlling Anger andHurt Is the Problem
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of
throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
—Gautama Siddhãrta
If you’re read ing this book, chances are that a good deal of your life has
been col ored by anger, rage, unre solved hurt, and pain. This may be
hard for you to face squarely. You may still believe that man ag ing and
con trol ling anger is a way out. Yet you’ve been down that path, and it
has n’t solved your anger prob lem. Each so-called solu tion—each
attempt to stop or slow down the pain, to man age and con trol it—has
got ten you to this place. And you’re still angry.
We know that most seem ingly sen si ble solu tions to anger
problems are really about con trol. The voice in your head tells you to
con trol anger. This voice comes from the belief that anger is dan ger -
ous; that it’s impos si ble to feel anger and still live a good life.
The voice is lying to you. Con trol ling anger does n’t work in the
same way that con trol works in other areas of life. In this chap ter you’ll
learn why. You’ll also learn how to begin let ting go of the anger con trol
agenda and get on with your life.
TWO PLACES WHERE CONTROL DOESN’T WORK
Try ing to con trol areas of your life where you don’t have much con trol
is a surefire guar an tee of dis ap point ment and anger. There are some
sit u a tions where desir able choices seem non ex is tent—severe ill ness,
decep tion by a part ner, or get ting laid off from a job (to name a few).
Peo ple can usu ally see that such sit u a tions are out of their con trol, and
they don’t beat them selves up for not being able to make things turn
out dif fer ently.
Most angry peo ple feel they must strug gle might ily to get a grip
on their angry thoughts and feel ings. Strug gling with what you think
and feel may be how you have learned to cope with your anger. You
may even beat your self up for not being able to con trol your hurt, pain,
and dis ap point ment. You’re not alone; it’s nat u ral to think that you
should be able to con trol them.
But the prob lem with con trol strat e gies is this: they work just
enough to keep your pain ful feel ings at bay, but in the long run you’re
left feel ing angry and hurt. Once this cycle of strug gle and con trol is
set into motion, it can take over and become the dom i nant fea ture of
your life.
The good news is that there are still some con struc tive choices
avail able. But you have to learn to dis tin guish what you can con trol
from what you can’t. To reach this goal, you’ll need to face how your
strug gle for con trol has failed you with your anger. We’ll help you look
deeply into this strug gle so that you come to see it for what it is.
Every one’s anger stems from two main sources: their strug gle to
con trol other peo ple and their struggle to con trol pain ful emotions
such as anger and shame.
54 ACT on Life Not on Anger
You Can’t Control Other People
Angry peo ple go to great lengths to exert con trol over other
people. You may achieve an illu sion of con trol with infants and very
young chil dren, but it’s impos si ble to even fool your self when it comes
to exert ing con trol over older chil dren and adults. The goal of con trol
will fail 99 percent of the time.
When you try to con trol oth ers, you’re oper at ing under the
mistaken assump tion that other peo ple in your life ought to behave,
think, and act like you think they should. The plain and sim ple truth is
that other peo ple don’t like feel ing con trolled, and nei ther do you.
Trying to con trol oth ers sends the mes sage that you do not accept
them for who they are. You are expres sing mis trust of their judgment—
in effect, putt ing them beneath you.
Here your mind machine is feed ing you two lies. First, it is tell ing
you that you have the right to con trol oth ers. The sec ond lie is that
you actu ally have the abil ity to con trol oth ers. Both are fun da men tally
false. You can’t force your way into the minds of other peo ple, just as
other peo ple can’t force their way into your head to dic tate how you
feel, think, or behave. If you think you can do this, then you’re only
kid ding your self. When you act to con trol oth ers, we can give you a
100 percent guar an tee that they will even tu ally find ways to resist and
run from you. We can also prom ise you that your efforts will leave you
feel ing frus trated and angry.
Con trol over Oth ers Is Illu sory: A Self-Inven tory
Below is a list of behav iors driven by efforts to con trol other
people. All these efforts even tu ally fuel anger, frus tra tion, con flict,
bitterness, and alien ation. Take stock of your behav ior as you go
through the list and check off each state ment that applies to you:
0 I rou tinely offer advice that is unwanted by plead ing,
per suad ing, or lec tur ing.
0 I repeat a point over and over in an effort to get oth ers
to align their thoughts and views with mine.
0 I com mu ni cate by tell ing rather than dis cuss ing.
0 I use “shoulds,” “musts,” “had bet ters,” and sim i lar
absolute state ments when com mu ni cat ing.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 55
0 I use my anger to get my mes sage across or force com pli -
ance in oth ers.
0 I use dog matic state ments, stub born non com pli ance,
closed- mind ed ness, or chill ing silence to influ ence others.
0 I impose my choices, beliefs, and stan dards on oth ers
with unyield ing stub born ness of con vic tion.
0 I dis count the behav iors, val ues, thoughts, opin ions, and
choices of oth ers as wrong headed and in need of my
correction.
0 I pro cras ti nate or give a half hearted effort as a way to get
back or get even.
0 I tend to be impa tient with myself and other peo ple.
0 I feel uneasy about loose ends and strive for clo sure,
even if it hurts me or oth ers.
The fol low ing exer cise will help you see the prob lems that arise
when you try to con trol other peo ple. All you need to do here is imag -
ine that you are a pup pe teer. The show you are about to put on is
entitled Mag i cal Mind Con trol over Peo ple Who Make Me Feel Pissed Off.
THE HUMAN PUPPETEER IN
MAGICAL MIND CONTROL
Take a moment to think of the char ac ters involved in a recent anger
epi sode where you were try ing to get oth ers to do as you willed. Then,
go to your imag i nary pup pet box and pull out the mar i o nettes, one for
each char ac ter in the show. From your perch high above the stage, you
begin to play out the anger scene below you. Try to play it out as you
would have wanted it to go. As you do, notice how easy it is to get all
the char ac ters to do as you wish. You can make them bend over,
gesture, and do what ever you want them to do. If you think “That
person is mak ing a stu pid request,” you can sim ply replace what that
per son says with what ever you wish them to say in that moment. You
can get them to think and say what you’d like to hear, and to show
emo tions that you think are appro pri ate in the sit u a tion. You and only
you have con trol over the pup pets.
56 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Now, let’s mix this up a bit. In the sequel, real peo ple dressed to
look like mar i o nettes are the char ac ters in this show. As before, you
are high above the stage in your perch. The actors are still con nected
to the strings. But as you try to replay the scene, you notice that the
char ac ters are not doing what you are try ing to will them to do. You
want them to go left, but they go right. You say “They should n’t be
doing that,” and you pull the strings, but now you feel them pull ing
back, resist ing you. You try to force them to think and say this or that
but hear them say ing some thing else. You become frustrated because
you really don’t know what they’re think ing and feel ing and you have
no way to get them to do what you wish. You feel anger build -
ing—the human pup pets are run ning this show, not you!
The real-life mar i o nettes in this sequel are play ing out the scene
just as they should, because they are human beings. Unlike the
puppets, they con trol their choices and actions, what they say and do
on this stage. You, mean while, are pow er less over them. But you are
not pow er less over how you respond to them. You have con trol over
what you do here. You can either fight the char ac ters and engage in a
strug gle, or you can let go of the strings and sim ply allow the char ac ters
to do as they would do, think as they would think, feel as they would
feel, with out try ing to change how they play out their roles. You can
sim ply watch, trust ing that the char ac ters know what is best for them,
that they may choose to do this or that, and that in the end, they—
not you—are hold ing their own strings. You hold your strings.
You Can’t Control Your Emotional Reactions
Rec og niz ing that you hold your own strings in life will put you
face-to-face with your own pain, hurt, and other emo tions, both
positive and neg a tive. You may think, “Well, if I can’t con trol other
peo ple, then maybe I can con trol the neg a tive energy and thoughts
that arise in my mind and body when I hurt and feel angry.” This
sensible- sounding solu tion is unfor tu nately another dead end. Con trol
over your emo tional reac tions is just as illu sory as your desire to con trol
other peo ple.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 57
Anger Is Not a Real Hot Stove
Life has taught you how well con trol works to help you avoid
phys i cal sources of pain and harm in your life. When you were very
young, some one prob a bly told you not to touch the hot stove [or the
iron or the heater] because you could get hurt. Keep ing your hand
away from touch ing what ever was hot kept you safe and pre vented
injury. This very sen si ble and rea son able strat egy has repeated itself
over and over again in both obvi ous and sub tle ways in your life,
because it gen er ally works to keep you alive and unharmed.
But using this same strat egy to man age or run from pain ful
experiences that are hap pen ing inside you has n’t worked nearly as well.
When unpleas ant thoughts show up and you try to stuff them, guess
what you get? More unpleas ant thoughts. When emo tional hurt and
pain show up and you try to avoid them, guess what you get? Some
tem po rary relief, but at a cost of more pain and suf fer ing later on. The
prob lem here is that the same pro gram ming that helps you stay alive
and safe when real dan ger shows up does n’t work when you apply it to
unpleas ant thoughts and feel ings happening inside you.
Mar tha’s Story
Mar tha was a long time mas ter of sup press ing her anger and
hurt. On the out side, she was a calm and cool oper a tor, wife
and mother of three chil dren, and an active mem ber of her
church. She had stress ors: run ning the home and tak ing care of
most of the house work, car ing for her ail ing par ents who lived
nearby, shut tling the kids to and from a full sched ule of
after-school activ i ties, all the while try ing to main tain a via ble
home busi ness. Few could tell that these stress ors weighed
heavily on her. She had devel oped a rou tine of low fric tion.
There was lit tle con flict in her fam ily, and Mar tha always main -
tained a calm demeanor, greet ing every one with a big smile.
All of this came to a head when her hus band expressed
inter est in tak ing a weeklong fish ing trip with his friends. That’s
when Mar tha exploded in a rage of tears, “Go ahead—take a
trip! You always put your self first any way!” Her hus band
reacted defen sively, for he too had a very busy work sched ule
and had n’t got ten away by him self for many years. This was a
58 ACT on Life Not on Anger
legit i mate need. Mar tha like wise had legit i mate needs: time
with her hus band, a break to recharge and unwind, and sup port
and help man ag ing the fam ily and her other obli ga tions. The
con fron ta tion quickly esca lated. Both aired old hurts and ugly
feel ings, and they flung accu sa tions back and forth about things
that hap pened long ago. Finally, Mar tha said, “I can’t take this
bullshit any more” and stormed out of the room. Then she took
the kids with her to stay with her par ents.
This ugly exchange was the result of years of sup pressed anger
and emo tional pain. Small issues were never addressed openly. Feel ings
were never dis cussed or acknowl edged. Emo tional and psy cho log i cal
bat ter ies were slowly and steadily depleted and never recharged. From
the out side, Mar tha, her hus band, and her fam ily seemed free from
anger and con flict—they fit the Ozzie and Har riet image. Yet, things
had been pil ing up over time and eat ing at every one lit tle by lit tle. So
one day a seem ingly small inci dent broke the pro ver bial camel’s back,
with disas trous con se quences. This is what hap pens when you try to
sup press anger.
Sup pres sion is about ignor ing legit i mate needs and fail ing to
accept what is going on inside you. It fol lows from an unwill ing ness to
address con cerns openly, for fear that open ness will be use less and
uncom fort able. Mind traps fuel it. You know the self-talk, the voice in
your head that tells you that liv ing the good life means that you must
shut out all hurt, pain, and unpleas ant emo tions and mem o ries. The
result is that you deny your human ity and may find your self hurt ing
and upset inside. Mean while the energy grows and, like a pow der keg,
the energy explodes in anger. This is what hap pens when you fight a
bat tle with your unpleas ant feelings and thoughts.
You’ve been down this road. You’ve prob a bly treated your anger
much like you would when faced with a red-hot stove. You try to pull
away because anger, like the hot stove, seems dan ger ous. So when
anger shows up, you must do some thing about it. Yet, pull ing away
from a hot stove or other poten tial sources of real pain and harm rarely
works in the same way when applied to your pain ful thoughts and
emo tions.
Why You Can’t Con trol Anger and Emo tional Pain
Numer ous stud ies (for exam ple, Purdon 1999 and Wegner 1994)
have shown that when peo ple act to get rid of emo tional and
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 59
psy cho log i cal pain, they end up instead with more emo tional and psy -
cho log i cal pain. All of what we know about deal ing with human
emotional pain boils down to this sim ple fact. You can’t keep your
unpleas ant thoughts and emo tions from burning you in the way you
can pull your hand away from a hot stove. There’s no on and off switch
you can use to high light or deep-six your thoughts and emo tions.
In fact, try ing to con trol unpleas ant emo tions, inter nal bodily
sensations, and even dis turb ing thoughts will mostly back fire. You’ll get
more of the very thing you don’t want to think and feel. This hap pens
because your body is a sys tem with a built-in sys tem of feed back
loops—your brain and ner vous sys tem. When you act against parts of
this system—sup press ing, avoid ing, stuff ing pain ful feel ings—it sends
out rever ber a tions to all other parts of the sys tem. This mind-body
con nec tion is like a sen si tive spiderweb in this respect. Every thing is
con nected.
Sup pres sion and con trol take enor mous effort. As in a spi derweb,
the effort required to keep one part of the sys tem in check sends small
vibra tions out to all other parts of the web. The vibra tions even tu ally
return to what ever it is you are try ing to keep at bay. Suppressing
unpleas ant expe ri ences—be they thoughts, mem o ries, anger, anx i ety,
hurt, or bodily sen sa tions—actu ally makes mat ters worse. Why?
Maybe we can draw a par al lel with try ing not to think about a
pink ele phant. Go ahead and try! This is pretty much impos si ble,
because the thought “Don’t think about the pink ele phant” is itself,
obvi ously, a thought about a pink ele phant. The more you try not to
have this thought, the more of this thought you’ll have. The same is
true of unpleas ant thoughts, feel ings, and some inter nal bodily sen -
sations. The take-home mes sage here is this: You can’t win a fight
against your self.
Such strug gles with your self are fueled largely by an unwill ing ness
to make space for every aspect of your expe ri ence and iden tity. Your
mind would like you to believe that to be happy and to live life fully,
you must get rid of your pain ful and unpleas ant thoughts, feel ings, or
mem o ries. To have the “good life” means that you must be pain free. So
you strug gle to man age, stuff, bury, deny, or med i cate the hurt and pain.
All this time spent con trol ling tends to get in the way of what most peo -
ple wish to spend their time doing—the expe ri ences and rela tion ships
that you’d prob a bly much rather be hav ing.
The sim ple les son here is this: Control works against you when
applied to unwanted and pain ful aspects of your pri vate world, just as it
60 ACT on Life Not on Anger
works against you when you try to impose it on other peo ple. In both
cases, you are send ing a mes sage that dimin ishes your own and oth ers’
human ity and dig nity. This is no way to live.
To get out of this cycle, you’ll need to first come to terms with
the fact that delib er ate con trol is not a solu tion. It is the prob lem. Your
thoughts and feel ings—the good, the bad, and the ugly—always go
with you wher ever you go. These expe ri ences define what is uniquely
human about you. You can not escape or avoid them so long as you’re
alive. They are part of you. To act against them is to act against your
very being. To act against them means that you will remain stuck in
hurt and anger.
Sup pres sion and Con trol Are About Pain Avoid ance:
A Self-Inven tory
All efforts to sup press and con trol anger are fun da men tally about
pain avoid ance. The goal is to make the hurt go away. This goal is
unat tain able; it’s a dead end. Cov er ing up hurt with anger does not
make hurt go away. Instead it bot tles the energy. As in Mar tha’s case,
it stores it for release at a later time. The release later on might take
the form of unfet tered anger. Or it may show up as depres sion, anx i ety,
panic attacks, or phys i cal symp toms such as head aches, ulcers, back -
aches, and fatigue. We don’t have to con vince you that none of these
are good for you.
Let’s have a look at how you may be sup press ing your emo tional
pain and hurt. Below is a par tial list of behav iors that sug gest you’re in
the habit of sup press ing your anger. Read each state ment care fully, and
think about them as they apply to your life. Take stock of your behav -
ior as you go through the list, and put a check mark in front of each
state ment that applies to you.
0 I tend to hide my pain ful feel ings for fear that noth ing
good can come from emo tional trans par ency.
0 I act to push out of my mind upset ting thoughts or
memories.
0 I avoid feel ing unpleas ant emo tions and act to reduce
them quickly.
0 I habit u ally stuff my feel ings or use dis trac tion, alco hol,
or other drugs and strat e gies to feel better.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 61
0 I resort to anger to mask other unpleas ant emo tions and
thoughts.
0 I see my emo tional hurt and pain as real bar ri ers to liv ing
the life I want and becom ing the per son I want to be.
0 I tend to with draw from prob lems, even if that means
they are left unre solved.
0 I refuse to air per sonal prob lems, needs, or con cerns.
0 I focus on main tain ing the appear ance of hav ing it all
together.
0 I avoid con tro ver sial or trou ble some top ics.
0 I sec ond-guess my own choices.
0 I play the role of peo ple pleaser by putt ing myself sec ond.
0 I let my hurt and frus tra tion pass with out dis cuss ing it.
0 I pre tend that I don’t have resent ment, or that all is rosy
in my life.
The fol low ing exer cise will help you more fully expe ri ence the
futil ity of try ing to con trol your anger and emo tional pain. It will also
show you why strug gling with unpleas ant feel ings and thoughts makes
them worse.
YOU’RE WIRED TO A PERFECT
POLYGRAPH, AND ZAP!
To begin, find a quiet place where you can sit and get com fort able.
Imag ine that you’re con nected to the best and most sen si tive poly graph
machine that’s ever been built. Because this poly graph is incred i bly
effec tive in detect ing anger, there is no way you can be aroused or
angry with out the machine detect ing it. Now here is your task (it
sounds quite sim ple): All you have to do is stay relaxed—just stay
calm—while think ing about a recent epi sode where you felt really
pissed off. If you get the least bit angry or aroused, how ever, this
machine will detect it.
62 ACT on Life Not on Anger
We know how impor tant it is to you to be suc cess ful here, so
we’re going to give you a spe cial incen tive to suc ceed. If you can stay
com pletely relaxed while you imag ine the anger scene, then we’ll give
you $100,000! (Funny money here, but try to imag ine that you would
really get that cash pay out.) The catch is that the poly graph is designed
to give you a deadly shock if you show the slight est bit of anger or
arousal. So long as you stay relaxed, you won’t die. But if you get the
least bit angry or aroused—and remem ber, this per fect poly graph will
notice that imme di ately—the machine will deliver the shock and kill
you. So, just relax!
Take a moment to con sider how impos si ble it would be to sur vive in
this sit u a tion. You might react by say ing to your self, “Oh my God! I’m
get ting tense and angry! Here it comes—zap!” The tini est bit of anger or
arousal would be ter ri fy ing for you or for any other per son in this sit u a tion.
There is no way to stay calm when you are already con nected to
the per fect poly graph: your ner vous sys tem, which is better than any lie
detec tor at search ing out anger or arousal. If you’ve been strug gling to
squelch your anger feel ings, the very workability of your life may seem
to be at stake. When anger and emo tional pain show up, you strug gle
to keep them at bay. But you only get angrier and feel more pain. Your
ner vous sys tem kicks in and guess what you get? You get zapped!
CHOICES, ACTIONS, DESTINY: THREEAREAS WHERE YOU DO HAVE CONTROL
Con scious, delib er ate, pur pose ful con trol works well in the exter nal
world out side your skin wherever the fol low ing rule applies: “If you
don’t like what you are doing, fig ure out a way to change it or get rid of
it using your hands and feet. Then go ahead and do it.”
Unfor tu nately, this rule does not apply to inter nal events that
occur inside your skin, such as anger feel ings, pain ful thoughts, and
other emo tions. Rather than try ing to change these, you are far better
off refo cus ing your atten tion and expending your energy on the three
areas where you do have con trol: your choices, your actions, and your
des tiny.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 63
Only You Have Control over the Choices You Make
You have full response-abil ity for the choices you make. Coming to
terms with this can feel both sober ing and lib er at ing. For instance, you
can not choose whether you feel hurt or angry. Yet you can decide what
you do with that hurt and anger. You can choose to rumi nate on your
hurt and anger, run from it, or bury and hide it. You also have the
option of doing noth ing about the feel ings and thoughts. You can decide
to let them be or actively meet them with com pas sion and patience.
As you learn to rec og nize that every moment of your life is about
choices, you free your self from being a slave to your impulses, your
resentments, and your anger. In essence, you’re free to choose how you
respond to trig gers for anger and what you do with your emo tional pain
and anger when you feel it. It’s your choice whether you behave in a
kind, for giv ing, or accept ing fash ion while rec og niz ing your pain ful
feel ings; or whether you give in to your impulse to either deny your
anger or act on it.
Tak ing Stock of Where You Have Response Choices
Let’s take a look at some spe cific places where you have the
power to choose:
+ Meet ing your hurt and anger with com pas sion and
forgiveness ver sus strug gling with it to stuff or deny it
+ Hear ing what oth ers have to say (even if you dis agree
with them) ver sus refus ing to lis ten and giv ing them
advice they don’t want
+ Speak ing words of accep tance and under stand ing ver sus
words of judg ment and blame
+ Let ting go of old hurts, resent ments, and pain ful mem o -
ries ver sus hold ing on to them
+ Prac tic ing patience with oth ers and your self ver sus
blow ing up in anger and frus tra tion
+ Act ing in ways that uphold your human ity and dig nity as
well as that of oth ers or act ing in ways that shame and
demean
+ Mov ing for ward in your life with anger or strug gling with
it and remain ing stuck
64 ACT on Life Not on Anger
BRAINSTORMING ALTERNATIVES
TO ANGER BEHAVIOR
For this exer cise, you’ll need to recall an upset ting sit u a tion that
brought on feel ings of anger, blame, rage, and other unpleas ant
thoughts and feel ings. (We pro vide some exam ples below.) Once you
have the scene clearly in mind, go ahead and list the main trig gers
(whether peo ple, thoughts, or feel ings), bodily sen sa tions and emo tions
that you felt, and, lastly, how you coped or behaved in this sit u a tion.
Be as spe cific as you can. This exer cise has sim i lar i ties to the anger
man age ment his tory you com pleted in chap ter 2, but this exer cise will
take you further.
Here’s how Andy, an eigh teen-year-old gro cery clerk, com pleted
the first part:
Peo ple trig ger: My father crit i cized me.
Feel ing trig ger: Feel ing frus trated and hurt.
Emo tions and bodily sensations: Irri ta ble. Anx ious. Heart is rac ing and
pound ing in my chest. Surge of adren a line. Tense in neck and shoul ders.
Feel ing sad and humil i ated.
My anger behavior (how I coped): Acted tough. Told him to “shut the
fuck up.” Called him “a bit ter old man and a lazy son of a bitch.” I left and
drove to my friend’s house and vowed to keep away from my dad. Spent time
vent ing with friends about how much of a dick he is. Smoked a few
cigarettes. Tried to think about rea sons why my dad has to be such a jerk.
Now comes the more dif fi cult part: brain storm ing alter na tive
choices to anger behavior. Start with the trig gers and see how they
ulti mately led to self-destruc tive anger behav ior. Rewind the tape, and
for each trig ger, see if you can brain storm other choices, apart from
anger behav ior, you had avail able to you in that moment. For a hint,
take a look at your cop ing strat egy. You’ll want to come up with fun da -
men tally dif fer ent choices than the ones you listed under cop ing strat e -
gies and anger behav ior. As you do, be mind ful that there are no right
or wrong answers here. These are your choices—what you do and can
do for your self. Later on, we’ll guide you through this pro cess more
deeply. With prac tice, you’ll find that you do have a broad range of
choices when anger and hurt show up. Act ing on anger is one choice
among many other choices.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 65
After Andy fleshed out this scene, he then went back and
brainstormed other choices he had avail able to him. Here’s how he
com pleted the brain storm ing part of the exer cise:
Peo ple trig gers: I had abso lutely no con trol over what my dad decided to
say. My dad’s choice of words and his actions are not my respon si bil ity. He
can say or do as he wishes. I can choose to sim ply lis ten. I’ve heard this stuff
before. I don’t have to let my trig gers be engaged. I can just let the words be
with out react ing to them.
Feel ing trig gers: The frus tra tion and hurt I feel are my own. I can sim ply
notice what my body is doing here. I can decide not to push the feel ing away,
but not to use it as fuel for anger. I can just let it be, and expe ri ence it for
what it is.
Emo tions and bodily sen sa tions: There is really noth ing I can do about
what my body is doing right now. What I’m feel ing is unpleas ant, but I don’t
need to run from it. I can choose to sit still with the energy and do noth ing to
make it go away. I can allow the energy go away on its own.
My anger behav ior (how I respond): I can see that I have lots of choices
here. I can choose to lis ten to my dad or leave. I can choose to respond to him
in a calm voice by let ting him know that I feel hurt and sad when he says
those things to me, even though I’m boil ing over inside; or I can con front him
with a loud voice, name-call ing, scream ing, and leav ing. I can extend com pas -
sion to my dad and let him know that I do love him, even though his words
drive me crazy. Or, I can act in ways that do not reflect my love for him as
another human being. I can decide not to run from my dad, because this
relationship is impor tant to me. I can choose to carry the hurt and pain with
me to my friend’s house, or let it go. I can choose to gossip and vent with my
friends about my dad, or I can choose not to do that. Vent ing really did
nothing to resolve the sit u a tion with my dad. I could have taken a walk instead
of reaching for a cig a rette. I also could have decided to do some thing less
damaging to my health, like lis ten ing to some music.
Above all, Andy began to appre ci ate that how he responded to
this sit u a tion was his own respon si bil ity. Only he could do things to
meet his needs and uphold his val ues. The same is true of you. The
choices you make can lead you to anger and mis ery or the life you want
to cre ate and nurture.
66 ACT on Life Not on Anger
You Can Control Your Actions
Your actions, in this chap ter, are any thing you do with your
hands, feet, and mouth—how you respond to the thoughts, mem o ries,
physical sen sa tions, and feel ings dished out by your body and mind.
Let’s say you feel hurt. Then you act on it; per haps you lash out
with blame and accu sa tions, or you shut down by with draw ing. These
are both actions. Alter na tively, you might do noth ing about the hurt
and sim ply notice it for what it is (not for what your mind says it is).
You focus on doing things in your life that mat ter to you, even if that
means tak ing the hurt along for the ride. Either way, you’re doing
some thing. But your choice of actions, in a very real sense, helps define
who you are and what your life will be about.
Con trol works extremely well when you apply it to your actions.
For instance, if you want to clean up your yard, you can go and get a
rake and get started. If you want to per form an act of kind ness, you can
do some thing nice for some one. If you want to change the color of the
walls in a room in your home, you can paint them. You may decide to
recon nect with an old friend by pick ing up the phone and call ing or
send ing an e-mail. You can exer cise reg u larly and watch what you eat
and drink to pro mote your health and well-being. You can take an
aspi rin for a head ache, see a doc tor for an ill ness or injury, and take
time out to relax. The com mon ele ment in these life exam ples is this:
They all involve actions—what you do with your hands, feet, and, at
times, your mouth. Other peo ple can see what you do and hear what
you say. This is a crit i cal point in terms of your anger.
You know how dif fi cult it is to con trol the feel ing of anger. You
may also have dif fi cultly con trol ling anger behavior. Impulses to act are
strong, and it’s easy to feel over whelmed by them. But even an impulse
to act is still a feel ing. There is a split sec ond between the impulse and
the action when you can inter vene, deter min ing what you’re going to
do and how you’re going to respond. You can step back and ask your -
self, “Is it really nec es sary to act on this emo tion [or this thought]?”
You have con trol in this moment, no mat ter how pow er ful the anger
feel ings, hurt, and impulses to act.
Ask your self what has cost you more, your anger feel ings or your
anger behav ior. If you were born on this planet, your anger behav ior
has cost you far more than your anger feel ings. Nobody else knows
what you truly think and feel inside. Your anger only man i fests itself to
oth ers through what you do with your hands, feet, and mouth. You’ve
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 67
paid for your actions, not your thoughts or feel ings. Your actions are
what have got ten you into trou ble. This is where you need to take
charge and make changes.
You Can Control Your Destiny
Con trol ling your des tiny is the real prize. The cumu la tive effect of
your choices and your actions will deter mine what your life will
become—in other words, your des tiny. This does not mean that the out -
come of your choices and your actions will always be what you desire;
remem ber, you can’t con trol what oth ers do, think, and feel. And there
are many events in life, both good and bad, that occur outside your con -
trol. What most peo ple hope for is that the cumu la tive effect of their
choices and actions will yield a sense that their life was well lived. Every -
thing you do from here on out adds up to that. Choice is des tiny.
68 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Fig ure 1. “Emo tional Avoid ance Detour” was con cep tu al ized and illus trated by Dr.
Joseph Ciarrochi and Dr. David Mer cer, Uni ver sity of Wollongong, New South
Wales, Aus tra lia. Reprinted with per mis sion of the authors.
CHOICES AND ACTIONS—
MY LIFE AND MY DESTINY
Imag ine you are driv ing through life on a long road toward a moun tain.
Let’s call this moun tain your “Value Moun tain.” It rep re sents every -
thing you care about in your life, and what you want to be about as a
per son. This is the place you want to go. You are driv ing hap pily along
the road toward your Value Moun tain, and sud denly anger jumps out
and blocks the road. You slow down and try to avoid hit ting anger.
You quickly turn right, and find your self on the “con trol and emo tional
avoid ance” detour. But this detour sim ply goes round and round in a
cir cle. You stay there because the anger, pain, hurt, and shame are still
block ing the road. So you go round and round, wait ing, hop ing, but
get ting nowhere. You feel bad about get ting nowhere. You feel mad at
the anger and shame for block ing the road. You watch as your life
seems to be tick ing by.
This is what hap pens when peo ple engage in a strug gle with their
unpleas ant thoughts and feel ings. They feel stuck, going round and
round in cir cles and get ting nowhere. Nobody wants their life to be
about driv ing on the con trol-and-avoid ance detour. And yet it’s so
easy to get caught in this detour when anger and pain show up.
But there’s an alter na tive. You can take the anger, pain, unpleas -
ant thoughts, and phys i cal sen sa tions with you on your ride through
life with out act ing on them. You can choose to drive for ward with
them—in part because choos ing the alter na tive costs you. The first
and most impor tant task here is to make a choice to do something
fundamentally dif fer ent about your hurt, pain, and anger. The sec ond
part requires that you be will ing to take what you’re think ing and
feeling with you as you engage in actions that move you for ward.
Unless you do, you’ll con tinue to feel stuck and trapped by your anger.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 69
Recognizing the Struggle for Control and Letting It Go
Let ting go of the strug gle for con trol is not as hard as it may
seem. It begins with you mak ing a deci sion to do so. The hard est part is
putt ing your deci sion into action. One of the chief bar ri ers to action is
fail ing to rec og nize the dif fer ence between what you can con trol and
what you can not con trol. Fall ing back into the old con trol agenda
where con trol is not pos si ble is a sure fire way to stay stuck and to allow
anger to side track you from what you want your life to be about.
To get unstuck and stay that way, you’ll need to develop greater
ease in the early detec tion of sit u a tions where con trol is pos si ble in
your life; those are the places where you need to spend your time and
effort work ing. The exer cise below is designed to help you to do just
that. You can think of it as a sort of review and prep a ra tion for the
hard work to come.
DISCRIMINATING BETWEEN
WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT CONTROL
Read each state ment and then, with out much thought, cir cle the
number next to each sit u a tion you believe can be con trolled by you.
Don’t cir cle the num bers where you think the sit u a tion is out side your
con trol.
1. What some one else is think ing
2. The choices I make
3. Oth ers being on time
4. How I respond to other peo ple
5. What other peo ple value and care about
6. What I say in a sit u a tion
7. The thoughts I may have from time to time
8. The direc tion I want my life to take
9. How oth ers respond to me (my choices, actions, and
expressed thoughts and feel ings)
70 ACT on Life Not on Anger
10. How I behave with respect to other peo ple
11. The choices oth ers make
12. How I speak with other peo ple
13. The behav ior of pets (mine and oth ers’)
14. How I respond to my thoughts and feel ings (pos i tive,
neg a tive, neu tral)
15. Whether other peo ple fol low rules or stan dards
16. Whether I am on time and fol low through with
com mit ments
17. What oth ers do
18. Whether I fol low cer tain rules or stan dards
19. Whether other peo ple like me
20. Whether I pre pare for tasks and do my best
21. What I feel at any point
22. What I do with my pre cious time on this earth
23. Expe ri ences in life that do not involve me directly
(weather, equip ment fail ures, polit i cal deci sions)
24. My val ues and what I care about
Now go back and look at the num bers you cir cled. All the
odd-num bered state ments rep re sent sit u a tions where you have abso -
lutely no con trol. You may imag ine oth er wise; but if you go back and
think care fully, you will see that you truly do not have con trol in any
of these sce nar ios.
Your mind may say you do or “should have” con trol of some of
these odd-num bered situations. This is part of the prob lem. Remem ber,
when you strug gle to con trol what you can not con trol, you will only
end up feel ing hurt, angry, and dis ap pointed. Anger needs this strug gle
to grow. When these sit u a tions show up, you need to rec og nize them
for what they are, stop, and then look for places where you can exert
con trol over your choices and actions with an eye on what you want
your life to be about.
Controlling Anger and Hurt Is the Problem 71
The even-num bered situations rep re sent a sam pling of life
circumstances where you do have con trol. They share one thing in
com mon: they represent your actions, what you say or do.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
The path out of anger is learn ing to rec og nize the dif fer ence between
what you can and can’t con trol. This entire book is about learn ing to
live out this impor tant dis tinc tion. You can not con trol your emo tional
reac tions or what other peo ple do. You can con trol your choices and
actions, what you say, and what you do, includ ing how you respond to
your anger, to your pain, and to other peo ple. You can con trol your
efforts and con tri bu tions toward life and the wel fare of oth ers, both at
home and at work. You can choose how you respond to your thoughts,
mem o ries, feel ings, phys i cal sen sa tions, and choices you’ve made. You
can con trol how you respond to other peo ple—with out try ing to con -
trol them. The chal lenge for you will be to drop the rope in your
tug-of-war with anger in sit u a tions where con trol won’t work, while
learn ing to focus on areas of your life where you do have con trol. All
the remain ing chap ters are about fos ter ing your ability to choose, take
action, and move for ward in your life. They are about max i miz ing
control where you have it.
72 ACT on Life Not on Anger
WEEK 4
Try ing to con trol the uncon trol la ble
is the prob lem
Point to pon der: Con trol is often illu sory. The trick is to
recognize what you can con trol—your choices, your actions,
your des tiny.
Ques tions to con sider: Where do I need lessly try to apply
con trol in my life? What have my vain attempts at con trol cost
me? Am I will ing to give up try ing to con trol what I can not
con trol so I can move for ward with my life?
Chapter 5
How Your MindCreates Anger
Thinking that gets us into trouble: “Other people must
treat me considerately and kindly and in the way I want
them to treat me. If they don’t, they deserve to be
blamed, damned, and punished for their inconsideration.”
—Albert Ellis
We are hardwired to eval u ate every thing that hap pens to and around
us. Our minds must decide if an expe ri ence is dan ger ous or safe,
harmful or benign. We’ve sur vived as a spe cies by iden ti fy ing things
that threaten us and avoid ing them. So far, so good. These built-in
responses help keep us alive. They lead us away from pain and dan ger,
while push ing us toward nour ish ment and safety.
Another func tion of our minds is to assess whether some thing
falls in the cat e gory of plea sure or pain. We’re con stantly mon i tor ing
events to make this sim ple, black-or-white eval u a tion. The gen eral
idea is to max i mize our plea sure and to min i mize our pain. And there’s
the rub. Our minds orga nize our expe ri ences into what is good or bad
for us. Our minds also use this same strat egy to set up good/bad dichot -
o mies for eval u at ing other peo ple and their behav ior. When we listen
to that and fol low what our mind is tell ing us, we end up going down
the road to judg ment and anger.
HOW THE MIND MANUFACTURES ANGER
The prefrontal cor tex—that part of our brain that uses lan guage to
eval u ate expe ri ence—can lit er ally man u fac ture anger by using the fac -
ul ties of judg ment, attri bu tion, and assumed intent. Here’s how these
func tions work to gen er ate anger feel ings and behav ior.
Judgment
Judg ment is the nat u ral spillover of the mind’s ten dency to
categorize expe ri ence in black-or-white terms. With judg ment, your
mind is using the same strat e gies it has used to eval u ate expe ri ences as
plea sur able or pain ful, safe or dan ger ous. Now, though, it’s judg ing
other peo ple and their behav ior as right or wrong. This is a crit i cally
impor tant shift. With judg ment, your mind is declar ing some thing or
some one to be abso lutely and objec tively good or bad. When the mind
makes judg ments, expe ri ence is no lon ger about sub jec tive feel ings of
plea sure and pain; it is about the intrin sic moral worth of your expe ri -
ences and the peo ple around you. You com pare them to a stan dard of
what should be. And if they don’t mea sure up to your standard, you
may begin to get angry.
Bill and Emma’s Story
Bill and Emma are an exam ple of how sim ple plea sure/pain
eval u a tions can be trans formed into good/bad judg ments—
and a pile of anger. Emma was work ing a lot of over time on a
research and devel op ment pro ject at her lab o ra tory. Bill
74 ACT on Life Not on Anger
missed her and felt lonely on the nights she worked late. It
was a lit tle pain ful rat tling around the house by him self. Plus,
Bill sensed that he and Emma were n’t as close as they used to
be; their rela tion ship was start ing to feel seri ously dis con -
nected.
At first, none of these eval u a tions made Bill angry.
They some times made him feel sad, anx ious, and fear ful of
los ing her. But then he started turn ing them into good/bad
judg ments, think ing it was wrong of Emma to self ishly put
her career above her rela tion ship with him; that she
shouldn’t have agreed to all the over time; that she was wrong
to let their relationship “die on the vine.” Bill’s pain ful lone li -
ness was trans formed through judg ment into moral out rage,
fault find ing, and blame. Even tu ally Bill had it out with Emma
for “destroy ing their lives,” and threat ened divorce.
Black-and-white judg ments force you into the psy cho log i cal
strait jacket of a good/bad uni verse—the right way, the only way. You
then can’t see beyond it, because judg ment masks your abil ity to con -
nect with other dimen sions of real ity. The mask of judg ment blocks
your abil ity to rec og nize the com plex needs, fears, and hopes that
motivate other people—needs, fears, and hopes that are not very
different from your own.
Toxic Label ing
A sec ond form of judg ment is called toxic label ing. Here your
mind trans forms the very nor mal pro cess of rec og niz ing and label ing
expe ri ence into a series of global judg ments: people are stu pid, incom -
pe tent, crazy, lazy, and so on. Toxic labels are, at the core, an indict -
ment of worth used to legit i mize anger and revenge. They are dif fi cult
to shake once applied.
George and Emilio’s Story
George and Emilio offer an exam ple of how our minds will
con vert some thing that’s merely pain ful into anger-crank ing
toxic labels. The two men repair under ground phone lines, but
Emilio has started com plain ing that George always seems to
assign him self the eas ier jobs. So Emilio told George, “We got
How Your Mind Creates Anger 75
to be more fifty-fifty, man. You got to get down in the hole
more, get a lit tle dirty. I don’t wanna be the only one in the
hole, man.”
George felt hurt, and a lit tle ashamed. But his mind
turned the pain into a judg ment about another per son.
“Emilio’s a con trol ling asshole. He’s got a big mouth, always
run ning it about some thing. Screw him.” Once George turned
Emilio into a big mouth, he could get angry and dismiss him.
Attribution—The Blame Game
Our mind is struc tured to attrib ute under ly ing causes to events.
We seek to dis cover the why of things. This drive is the basis of
scientific thought and work. For exam ple, Ben Frank lin’s desire to
under stand elec tric ity led to his famous exper i ment with light ning, and
even tu ally the entire power grid.
The nat u ral ten dency to make cause-and-effect con nec tions can
go sour when we have a pain ful expe ri ence (effect); our minds work to
fig ure out why and then look for some one to blame (cause). Instead of
think ing “Some thing’s wrong, I’ll find the source and fix it,” we get
trapped in the blame game. “Some thing’s wrong (I’m in pain). I’ll find
who did this to me, then I’ll attack them till they fix it.”
Notice how blame keeps you help less, because you’re now
depend ing on the other per son to solve your prob lem. And you may
use anger flow ing from the blame game as a tool to coerce other
peo ple.
Blam ing is a major source of human mis ery. It does n’t undo the
past, nor does it fix the pain. What it does do is keep you stuck and
alien ated from the very peo ple who could help you live a better life. So
the prob lems—and your pain—con tinue. And your anger grows from
epi sodic to chronic.
Escap ing from the blame game requires that you take respon si bil -
ity for your self. When you’re in pain, you need to be the agent of
change. Look ing around to see who’s respon si ble won’t help here. You
and you alone are respon si ble for your expe ri ence. Blame keeps you
from see ing this sim ple fact. It leaves you wait ing to be helped, want -
ing, des per ate to be res cued and vin di cated. All of this fuels more
blame, because the source of help and respon si bil ity begins and ends
with you.
76 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Assumed Intent—Becoming Mind Readers
Since we’re wired to orga nize expe ri ence into cause and effect, we
hate ambi gu ity. We are espe cially dis turbed when other peo ple do
things we don’t under stand. Our minds try to solve these mys ter ies
with some thing called “assumed intent.”
Assumed intent is our effort to explain ambig u ous behav ior in
oth ers by try ing to guess their inten tions, feel ings, and motives—essen -
tially mind-read ing. The trou ble is we’re often wrong. And since the
inten tions and motives we guess at are usu ally neg a tive, we get angry
for nothing.
Lenny and Shir ley’s Story
Lenny and Shir ley are an exam ple of where mind read ing can
lead us. Lenny was spend ing more and more time in his study
work ing on his com puter. He said he was work ing on a pro -
ject, but Shir ley sus pected he was play ing Karmageddon or
one of the other equally “stu pid” games he has loaded on his
hard drive. Three weeks into the “pro ject,” Shir ley con cluded
that Lenny was delib er ately with draw ing and pun ish ing her
because she bought a table he thought was too expen sive.
She even tu ally con fronted Lenny, say ing, “This is just a
bullshit manip u la tion, just because you did n’t get your way.
Why don’t you grow up?”
At that point, Lenny handed her a stack of prints. “I
loaded them on Photoshop,” he said. “Our trips for the last
five years. I’ve been learn ing to crop and enhance the shots;
now I’m arrang ing them in albums. It was going to be a
sur prise.”
The assump tion of intent can turn into a real night mare when we
get it wrong. And get ting it wrong is exactly what we often do.
How the Compulsion to Evaluate Affects Communication
Bar ri ers to healthy com mu ni ca tion are a direct out growth of the
mind’s ten den cies to judge, blame, and assume intent—col lec tively,
How Your Mind Creates Anger 77
the com pul sion to evaluate. These ten den cies put up walls and turn
peo ple who are sim ply dif fer ent from us, or who dis agree with us, into
adver sar ies. The mind wants to label them as wrong and/or bad. The
mind tells you they are mis guided, stu pid, sinful. You may feel com -
pelled to show them their errors. Whether the issue is sex ual behav ior
or polit i cal con vic tions, or some thing as benign as wash ing the dishes,
the out come is the same: peo ple who are dif fer ent, who do things dif -
fer ently, or who dis agree arouse anger and must be van quished, beaten.
In a right-ver sus-wrong uni verse, there is lit tle room for much else,
includ ing the pos si bil ity that you (not they) may be mis taken or wrong.
The angry mind is a closed mind that leaves lit tle space for doubt,
second thoughts, and other possibilities.
The com pul sion to eval u ate is the source of all defen sive ness.
Instead of explor ing and seek ing truth, your words are like sol diers
trying to hold the per im e ter. You fight off the assault of new ideas. You
machine-gun the mer est hint that you’ve got it wrong. Con ver sa tions
are about win ners and los ers. Being right means being the win ner, and
so you use any kind of ver bal pyro tech nics to avoid defeat. Los ing in
this sys tem would mean you are mis taken, vul ner a ble, or worse—that
at the very core you are bad.
There are two addi tional impacts that fol low the com pul sion to
eval u ate. The first out come has to do with the fact that eval u a tion, by
def i ni tion, involves wear ing emo tional blind ers. These blind ers leave
you so con sumed with defend ing your ter ri tory that you likely miss
what’s really going on. You don’t see when oth ers are hurt or need ing
val i da tion or try ing des per ately to con nect with you. You ignore vital
infor ma tion, includ ing your own deeply felt pains and hurts, because it
has noth ing to do with win ning.
Take Stew art, for exam ple. He was so busy try ing to con vince
Monica that her friend Tammy was “trailer trash,” that he did n’t hear
this impor tant communication: “At least Tammy likes me. She thinks
I’m some thing. She thinks I’m cool.” Oops! Stew art was n’t lis ten ing to
Monica’s need for validation. She dumped him three weeks later.
A sec ond way eval u a tion hurts your rela tion ships is that it keeps
you from see ing life through another per son’s eyes. Your sense of per -
spec tive is greatly dimin ished or skewed. You’re unable to con nect with
what other peo ple know and under stand, includ ing what you may learn
from them via their life expe ri ences, pains, hurts, dis ap point ments, joys,
and per spec tive about the world. The blind ers keep all of this from view.
Why? Because the other per son is dif fer ent. So your mind sim ply makes
78 ACT on Life Not on Anger
him or her wrong. This ulti mately hurts your abil ity to con nect with
peo ple, learn from them, and be sup ported and nur tured.
How the Compulsion to Evaluate Creates Resentment
Judg ing, blam ing, and assum ing are men tal hab its that are made
worse by rumi na tion. When you rumi nate, you get stuck in cog ni tive
loops, end lessly recycling the past through the same good/bad judg -
ments, the same toxic labels. Over and over, you play tapes in your
head of what some one did or said, blam ing them for hurt ing you. The
result is chronic resent ment and a grow ing need for revenge. You feel
righ teous, strong. You imag ine jus tice finally being done.
But what comes of this? Does the pain or hurt ever really get
better? Is the rela tion ship some how healed? In real ity, noth ing
changes. The rumi na tion pro vides a moment of relief—an asser tion of
one’s right ness, a shin ing fan tasy of revenge. But the long-term emo -
tional con se quence is to feel hope less and stuck. The resent ment deep -
ens; the pain just goes on and over flows into other areas of your life.
How the Compulsion to Evaluate TriggersDestructive Behavior
The more we rumi nate, and the more we believe and buy into our
evaluative rumi na tions, the stron ger the impulse gets to hurt oth ers. In
truth, eval u a tions are just men tal con structs. They are no more real
than Darth Vader; no truer than a fan tasy of win ning the lot tery.
Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goeb bels, said if you tell a big
enough lie often enough, peo ple will believe it. Judg ments and blame
work the same way. If you keep rumi nat ing, keep repeat ing the same
thing to your self, you can come to believe just about anything.
As you deepen your belief in a neg a tive eval u a tion, when you
really buy into it the judg ment, it then takes on a life of its own. It
starts to require action. Some thing must be said to set the offend ing
per son straight; some thing must be done to slap them awake so they’ll
finally see the error of their ways. A phe nom e non psy chol o gists call
emo tional rea son ing starts to take con trol.
Emo tional rea son ing goes like this: “If I feel pain, some one must
have done it to me. If some one did this to me, I have to hit them back
How Your Mind Creates Anger 79
so hard that they never hurt me again.” This is school yard logic, the
same kind of think ing that gets a lot of kids beat up. It’s the same logic
that moti vates drive-by shoot ings and destroys friend ships and
marriages: “I’m hurt, you did it, you’re bad, and I’ll pay you back.”
When the mind decides that oth ers are bad and wrong, when the
mind obsesses about revenge, there’s often no end to it. You can end
up with sit u a tions like the street fights in Bei rut, the hatred and
violence between Prot es tants and Cath o lics in North ern Ire land or
between Hamas and Jews in the Mid dle East, and the war in Iraq. The
will to inflict dam age goes on and on, and it can quickly get out of
control. Inflict ing dam age becomes all that mat ters, all that moti vates.
The costs are high and the suf fer ing is huge.
WHAT TO DO
Your mind eval u ates and labels things to assign sig nif i cance to events
in your life. This is what minds do. It is a nat u ral, nor mal pro cess and
often quite help ful. The trick is to take your mind less seri ously, to
watch it work with out believ ing every thing it says. This is eas ier said
than done.
When your mind speaks with judg ment, it speaks loudly. And
when you try not to lis ten, it speaks even louder. It would be naive to
assume that sim ply tell ing you to stop believ ing what your mind says
would work to help you take your mind less seri ously. You may have
even tried this already.
One of the keys to becom ing less ruled by what your mind tells
you is to learn the skill of watch ing your mind. You can do it, but it
takes time and prac tice. Your mind did n’t start throw ing eval u a tions at
you overnight. It’s been going on for a long life time. The skill of watch -
ing your mind will take prac tice and com mit ment, but it’s a pow er ful
tool for chang ing your expe ri ence of anger.
To get you started, we rec om mend that you go through the four
exer cises described below: mind watch ing, sep a rat ing thoughts from
anger feel ings, rid ing the wave of anger, and com pas sion in the dark.
Each exer cise will help you detach from the com pul sion to eval u ate
80 ACT on Life Not on Anger
and believe those eval u a tions. We sug gest you do them one at a time
to see which ones work best for you.
It’s impor tant to give your self enough time with each exer cise.
These exer cises are not magic bul lets. They require prac tice. A good
start ing point is to set aside at least ten to fif teen min utes each day to
prac tice an exer cise. Give each of them a few days of prac tice before
mov ing on to the next. A bit later on we’ll talk about applying some of
the skills learned from these exercises in your daily life.
MIND WATCHING
Mind watch ing requires you to be a true observer of your con scious -
ness. Here’s how you do it.
Start by tak ing a series of slow, deep breaths. Keep this up
through the entire exer cise. Imag ine that your mind is a medium-sized
white room with two doors. Thoughts come in through the front door
and leave out the back door. Pay close atten tion to each thought as it
enters. Now label the thought as either judg ing or nonjudg ing.
Watch the thought until it leaves. Don’t try to ana lyze or hold
onto it. Don’t believe or dis be lieve it. Just acknowl edge hav ing the
thought. It’s just a moment in your mind, a brief vis i tor to the white
room. If you find your self judg ing your self for hav ing the thought,
notice that. Do not argue with your mind’s judg ment. Just notice it
for what it is and label it “judg ing—there is judg ing.” The key to
this exercise is to notice the judg men tal thoughts rather than get -
ting caught up in them. You’ll know if you’re get ting caught up in
them by your emo tional reac tions and by how long you keep the
thoughts in the room.
Keep breath ing; keep watch ing; keep label ing. A thought is just a
thought. And you are much more than that thought. Each thought
does n’t require you to react; it does n’t make you do any thing; it
doesn’t mean you are less of a per son. As an observer of your thoughts
as they pass in and out of the white room, let them have their brief life.
They are fine the way they are, includ ing the judg ing thoughts. The
impor tant thing is to let them leave when they are ready to go and
then greet and label the next thought—and the next.
How Your Mind Creates Anger 81
Con tinue this exer cise until you feel a real emo tional dis tance
from your thoughts. Wait until even the judg ments are just a moment
in the room—no lon ger impor tant, no lon ger requir ing action.
SEPARATING THOUGHTS
FROM ANGER FEELINGS
This exer cise will help you learn to detach your thoughts from angry
feel ings.
Start by recall ing a recent sit u a tion where you felt angry. Try to
visu al ize what hap pened, what was said. Take some time to care fully build
a pic ture of the event. Now remem ber some of the thoughts you had dur -
ing the epi sode. As you recall what you were think ing, notice if the actual
feel ing of anger is start ing to return. If it is, that’s good. Let it hap pen.
Keep focus ing on the judg men tal or blam ing thoughts con nected
to the inci dent. Really get into them. And if your anger feels a lit tle
sharper, a lit tle stron ger, that’s fine, too.
Now go back to the white room. Imag ine that your anger is
hurling those judg men tal and blam ing thoughts through the front door.
Take a deep breath. Inhale slowly, then let your whole body relax as
you release the breath. Keep this up while you start watch ing your
mind. Observe and label the thoughts. Watch each thought from a
distance—with out believ ing or get ting entan gled in it. Don’t make the
thought big ger or smaller, don’t agree or dis agree. Just watch and
breathe, notic ing that the thought even tu ally leaves and a new one
takes its place. Keep this up until you feel a grow ing dis tance from the
thoughts—and per haps from the anger itself.
Your anger and judg men tal thoughts each tend to trig ger the
other, esca lat ing in a ris ing spi ral. But you can inter rupt that pro cess by
sim ply observ ing and label ing your thoughts. They will, after a while,
feel very sep a rate from the anger, detached. And they will lose the
power to make rage burn hot ter. What you can learn by prac tic ing this
exer cise is that you can become an observer of your thoughts. This will
help you see just how auto mat i cally your mind reacts to all that you
expe ri ence. It might also help you not get tan gled up so much in your
thoughts.
82 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Emotions Are Like Waves
Imag ine for a moment an ocean wave as it approaches shore. It’s
steep and tall, but has n’t yet crested into a breaker. Now imag ine the
wave near ing a lit tle group of gulls float ing on the water. The birds
don’t fly away. They sim ply ride up the fac ing slope, round the top, and
drift down the long back of the wave.
That’s what you can learn to do with anger. All emo tions are
wave like and time lim ited. They ebb and flow. They slowly build up,
and get big ger and more pow er ful. Even tu ally, the wave will reach its
peak and dissipate. Anger comes and goes in a sim i lar way. It does n’t
last for ever, even if it feels like it will.
We encour age you to ride the wave of your anger. You must
initially face the steep lead ing edge. At this point, the wave is tall and
scary. You may feel that it will go on for ever, that you may some how
drown. Finally the emo tion reaches its zenith; instead of get ting
stronger it starts to recede. You may feel your self slip ping down the
back of the wave, the anger quieting.
That’s how emo tions work if you don’t try to con trol or block
them, if you let the wave run its course. But if you try to fight the
wave, if you refuse to ride it out, some thing very dif fer ent hap pens.
You’ll never get over the top. You stay stuck on the wave’s lead ing
edge, and it keeps push ing you. Even tu ally—some times after hours or
days—the emo tional wave crests and crashes. Then you’re caught
churn ing help lessly beneath the sur face of the water, at the mercy of
the full force of the crush and undertow.
RIDING THE WAVE OF ANGER
Right now you have a chance to learn to ride the wave of your anger
rather than be tum bled about by it. Think of a recent sit u a tion where
you felt mis treated and upset. Visu al ize the scene; try to recall any
irritating things that were done or said. Notice your judg ing or blam ing
thoughts. Keep focus ing on the upset ting scene, as well as on the
judgments you made about it. Let your anger rise till it’s a four or five
on a scale of one to ten.
Good. Now go back to the white room. Observe your thoughts.
Label the judg ments. The thoughts aren’t right or wrong, true or false.
Acknowl edge their pres ence with out try ing to con trol or change them,
How Your Mind Creates Anger 83
without try ing to push them away. Breathe deeply; keep watch ing your
mind.
At the same time, notice the emo tional wave in the room with
you. Be aware of the point where your anger stops climb ing. Feel it
leveling off and start ing to dimin ish. Expe ri ence the slow ride down the
back of the wave. Accept wher ever you are on the wave. Don’t has ten
to get past it. It moves at its own speed—all you can do is let go and let
it carry you.
Just watch your thoughts enter ing and leav ing the white room,
and notice the prog ress of the wave, nothing more. Keep watch ing
until the anger has com pletely passed.
FINDING COMPASSION IN THE DARK
Imag ine that it’s night. You are in a field with hun dreds of unseen
people. On one edge of the field is a cliff—it would be an extraor di nary
and ter rifying fall. The cliff is really every one’s worst fear—death,
shame, failure, alone ness, loss, help less ness. No one can see it. No one
knows where it is.
Now imag ine that you and all the other peo ple in the field will
live your lives there. You must find food, love, and com pan ion ship in
the dark ness. You must keep mov ing yet some how avoid the cliff.
You’re always a lit tle afraid, always uncer tain, because the darkness
never lifts. And you must find all that you need to live with out fall ing
into the abyss.
This is our human con di tion. Peo ple cope in dif fer ent ways. Some
race head long; some hes i tate to make the small est step. Some cling;
some push oth ers away for fear of being dragged past the edge. Some
give up; some seek to under stand, for ever try ing to pierce the dark ness.
Some demand help; some com fort them selves by try ing to help oth ers.
Close your eyes and be in the field. Feel how we all strug gle there.
Feel how we try to move, to take care of our selves, while always sens -
ing the pres ence of the cliff. Every one walks that dark field; every one is
scared; every one is doing the best they can.
Now think of some one you care for (such as your part ner, your
child, or your best friend). Keep observ ing your thoughts and feel ings
while imag in ing that per son walk ing around in the dark field. They are
hop ing not to fall, just like you. Be aware of their fear and strug gle. As
you do so, the wish may arise in you to help them, to be by their side,
84 ACT on Life Not on Anger
and per haps to com fort them. That is all fine. Keep hold ing the image
while watch ing each thought and feel ing come and go.
Now think of some one who makes you angry; watch the
judgmental thoughts that start to form. Keep observ ing your thoughts
and feel ings while imag in ing that per son nav i gat ing the dark field.
They are hop ing not to fall, just like you and the per son you care for.
Be aware of their fear and strug gle. Is it dif fer ent from yours? Keep
hold ing the image of their fear and strug gle while watch ing each arriv -
ing thought and feel ing. This may be more dif fi cult to do, because you
don’t like that per son very much and you may keep get ting caught up
in judgmental thoughts. Still, keep hold ing the image of their fear and
strug gle while watch ing each arriv ing thought and feel ing.
Notice that your task in this exer cise is not to stop your anger or
your judg men tal thoughts. There’s no rea son to change what you expe -
ri ence. Your expe ri ence is what it is, and it does not harm you. But
what you are doing here is some thing extraor di nary that you may have
never done before: you are add ing com pas sion ate aware ness to your
expe ri ence, so that your anger is bal anced with full appre ci a tion of the
chal lenge of being human.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
The most impor tant thing we hope you take from this chap ter is that
your mind—those good/bad judg ments and toxic labels—has a pow er -
ful impact on your emo tions. But if you observe instead of try ing to
con trol your mind, if you watch instead of try ing to con trol your feel -
ings, your anger will par a dox i cally stop con trol ling you. Judg ments are
a nec es sary and ines cap able part of liv ing. They’ll always be there. But
you no lon ger have to be attached to them or believe them. They’re
ulti mately just thoughts to notice and let go.
How Your Mind Creates Anger 85
86 ACT on Life Not on Anger
WEEK 5
Learn ing about how my mind cre ates anger
Points to ponder: Minds will always do what minds do. I can
bring com pas sion to what my evaluative mind comes up with
and learn to ride the wave of anger.
Ques tions to con sider: Do I really have to believe all the
judg ments that my mind dishes up for me all the time? Am I
will ing to learn to see judg ments as thoughts and not act on
what they say?
Chapter 6
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance
Acceptance simply means willingness to see things as they
are, deeply, truthfully, and completely. This attitude sets
the stage for acting in the most potent and healthy way
in your life, no matter what is happening.
—Jeffrey Brantley
Many peo ple feel trapped by their anger, unable to retreat or with draw
once their anger feel ings are trig gered. It’s like being launched on auto -
pi lot into a tight space where there does n’t seem to be any room for
other choices or other ways of respond ing.
This chap ter is about mak ing room for other choices. The first
step to that end is for you to rec og nize the feel ings and fears that
under lie your anger.
ACCEPTANCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE
Although rec og ni tion is an impor tant start, it will not suf fice to get you
out of the anger trap. You will also need to learn a new way of respond -
ing to your anger: approach ing it—and the feel ings under ly ing it—with
accep tance and com pas sion. Tak ing the path of accep tance goes
against the grain; it’s counterintuitive when you’re feel ing angry. But it
can lib er ate you from remain ing stuck in the anger trap with all your
old behav ior pat terns that don’t work. Meet ing your pain with com pas -
sion cuts off anger at the root, leaving it unable to grow and spread.
Prac tic ing accep tance is an act of kind ness toward your self that allows
you to heal and move on with your life.
Passive Acceptance Is Resignation
There are two kinds of accep tance: pas sive and active. One is
about giv ing up and los ing, and the other is about action and doing.
Many peo ple asso ci ate accep tance with giv ing up, giv ing in, and los ing
out. This type of pas sive accep tance, or res ig na tion, is not what we want
you to do, because it keeps you stuck. Res ig na tion is when you let anger
(a feel ing you can not con trol) guide your actions (which you can con -
trol). Instead, we want you to mus ter the cour age to act and change.
Active Acceptance Is Compassion
Active accep tance is quite dif fer ent. We think of active accep tance
as com pas sion in action. It involves soft en ing your mind and heart to the
anger and hos til ity in you and con nect ing with them in the pres ent
moment. You do this by let ting go of the strug gle with your inner expe ri -
ence of anger, hos til ity, and hurt. You let go by bring ing kind ness and
gen tle atten tion to unwanted anger-related thoughts and feel ings, by
sim ply allow ing them to be there with out sup press ing, chang ing, or
88 ACT on Life Not on Anger
act ing on them. Our col league Jeffrey Brantley (2003) describes this pro -
cess as becom ing a friend to your self and to your anger.
Doing so is chal leng ing and will take a com mit ment on your part.
There is no quick way to get there, no magic accep tance pill. But you
can learn com pas sion in action grad u ally, over time, by prac tic ing the
exer cises in this book and stay ing com mit ted to learn ing this use ful
skill, even when you expe ri ence the inevitable set backs in your
progress.
Acceptance Makes Room for Choices
We focus on accep tance for prac ti cal rea sons: strug gling with
anger does n’t work, and accep tance cre ates space for new begin nings,
new ways of respond ing. When you stop wast ing time and energy try ing
to change anger-related thoughts and feel ings, you’re free to take con -
trol of what you can con trol—what you do with your hands, feet, and
mouth in response to what you expe ri ence.
CHINESE FINGER TRAPS
To get a sense of what we mean by cre at ing space, imag ine play ing
with one of those Chi nese fin ger traps that you may have played with
as a child. A fin ger trap is a tube of woven straw about five inches long
and half an inch wide. Per haps you can find one in a nov elty store and
do the exer cise for real. If not, just imag ine doing it.
Dur ing this exer cise, you pick up the fin ger trap and slide one
index fin ger into each end of the tube. After you fully insert your
fingers, try to pull them out. You’ll notice that the tube catches and
tight ens. You expe ri ence some dis com fort as the tube squeezes your
fin gers and reduces cir cu la tion. You may feel a lit tle con fused, because
pull ing out of the tube seems the most obvi ous, nat u ral way to respond.
Yet it does n’t work. The harder you try to pull your self out of the trap,
the more stuck you are. That is exactly how the anger trap that we’ve
been talk ing about through out this book works. Try ing to reduce anger
feelings by respond ing with anger behav ior con strains your life and
limits your space for mak ing choices.
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 89
As with the fin ger trap, our instinc tive solu tions to anger feel ings
(for example, lash ing out at peo ple who hurt us) often turn out to be
no solu tions at all. In fact, these so-called solu tions cre ate even big ger
prob lems. Pull ing away from anger may seem like a nat u ral and log i cal
way to free your self from the anger trap. But your expe ri ence with
anger tells you that this strug gle has only brought you more dis com fort
and life problems.
The good news is that there is an alter na tive that does work and
is sup ported by our research (Eifert and Heffner 2003). To get there,
you have to do some thing that goes against your instincts. Instead of
pull ing out, you have to push your fin gers in. This move will def i nitely
give you more space to move around—more wig gle room.
In the con text of anger, acceptance is doing some thing seem ingly
counterintuitive to get your self unstuck from where you are with your
life right now. It is lean ing into your pain and anger rather than pull ing
away from them. You do this by acknowl edg ing your dis com fort and
anger feel ings and making room for that dis com fort, allow ing it to be,
with out doing any thing about it or get ting involved with it, and with -
out try ing to make it go away. If you do this, you’ll sud denly find that
you have more room to move around and live your life.
THE FOUR STEPS OF ACCEPTANCE
Using accep tance, you’re going to meet the fire that fuels anger with
active com pas sion and kind ness. To get there involves a com mit ment
to learn ing four inter re lated steps: acknowl edg ing your anger; accept -
ing the sit u a tion as it is; iden ti fy ing the hurt, fear, and judg ment; and
respond ing with for give ness and com pas sion.
Step 1: Acknowledge Your Anger
First you need to learn to acknowl edge that you are angry when
you’re feel ing angry. If you don’t rec og nize or acknowl edge anger, you’ll
never find out what is fuel ing it. And, if you don’t know what is fuel ing
your anger, you will have no way to learn new ways of relat ing to the
source of anger within you. So, you need to start here.
90 ACT on Life Not on Anger
The next time you sense anger com ing—when you feel the emo -
tions surg ing and the evaluative mind in high gear—just acknowl -
edge, “There it is. There is anger. I’m angry and I need to take care of
it.” Tak ing care of your anger feel ing does not mean act ing on it.
We’ll show you exactly how you can attend to it in step 4. At this
point, it’s only impor tant to acknowl edge that you are indeed
angry—and that you stay with that feel ing. Don’t try to pull away
from it or make it go away.
Step 2: Accept the Situation as It Is
Learn to acknowl edge that the sit u a tion is what it is. Your mind
may not accept the real ity of what ever is hap pen ing; it may tell you
that things should n’t be the way they are. If you keep insist ing “But
things should be dif fer ent” or “But peo ple should treat me with more
respect,” you’ll get stuck wait ing for some one else to fix the prob lem.
You need to accept the sit u a tion as is and take full respon si bil ity to
make any changes you can.
To do so, you’ll have to rec og nize your mind machine at work.
You can rec og nize it more eas ily if you label what it’s doing: “There is
my mind, judg ing,” “There is my mind, blam ing,” “There is my mind,
schem ing to get even.” Remem ber, your mind is good at cre at ing anger.
It’s impor tant for you to learn not to believe or do what your mind is
tell ing you, or what your body appears to be tell ing you when you feel
like you’re about to explode.
You can learn to not to buy into your mind machine by rec og niz -
ing and acknowl edg ing your thoughts and feel ings for what they are.
For instance, when such thoughts pop up as “This jerk could have paid
more atten tion” or “She really should n’t have done that,” you can say
to your self, “I’m hav ing the thought that this jerk could have paid
more atten tion,” and “I’m hav ing the thought that she really should n’t
have done that.” In regard to feel ings you can say, “I’m hav ing the
feeling that I’m about to explode” or “I’m hav ing the feel ing that
[insert what ever you typ i cally feel].”
These admit tedly awk ward and cum ber some label ing and lan -
guage hab its will help you rec og nize thoughts as thoughts and feel ings
as feel ings. We will also use them in sev eral later exer cises. They help
you cre ate some space between your self and your anger thoughts and
feel ings so you can start becom ing response-able and changing what
you can change.
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 91
Step 3: Identify the Hurt, Fear, and Judgment
This step is about iden ti fy ing what is fuel ing the flames of
anger—the hurt and judg ment that under lie it—so that you can start
the pro cess of let ting go of them. It’s about dis cov er ing which of your
but tons has been pushed, what hurts you, or what’s scar ing you. It’s
par tic u larly impor tant to notice what evaluative state ments your mind
machine is com ing up with about you, the peo ple in your life, and the
cur rent sit u a tion.
Let’s look at the expe ri ence of David, a thirty-three-year-old
engi neer work ing for a con struc tion com pany. David made sev eral
impor tant dis cov er ies about his strug gle with anger.
David’s Story
I’ve always had anger, but lately I’ve come to see it as a prob -
lem. I get angry about every thing, and I fix ate on what ever
got me angry. I’m fum ing mad! It’s the lit tle things that tick
me off. It seems like not one day can go by with out me being
angry at some thing. I feel like I really hurt the peo ple around
me with my blowups. And doing that makes me feel bad
about myself. I’ve always dis liked angry peo ple, and it seems
like every thing I don’t like, I am. I don’t want peo ple to avoid
me or think of me as being mean because I can’t con trol my
anger. I’ve put so much effort into deal ing with my doubts
and inse cu ri ties about myself. For the last six years, life has
felt like a chore. I can’t get through a day with out feel ing sick
or scared. My life feels like a job because I’m always work ing
so hard at it. But I’m still alone and get paid only in
Pepto-Bismol. I’m angry because I don’t know where all these
bad feel ings come from. I’m angry because I don’t know how
to fix them. I’m also mad because I thought they would be
gone by now, given how much I’ve worked on them. Now I’m
scared that I’ll always have these feel ings about myself. When
will I be free?
This sad story may res o nate with the expe ri ences of many peo ple
who strug gle with prob lem anger. Yet David is ahead of the game in
one impor tant respect: he dis cov ered that being angry is very much
about him rather than other peo ple. Being angry has to do with his
92 ACT on Life Not on Anger
neg a tive feel ings about him self (for exam ple, doubts about his abil i ties)
and his ten dency to beat him self up for hav ing those feel ings and not
being able to resolve his anger.
The fol low ing exer cise is about help ing you rec og niz e what fuels
your anger so you can learn to accept the sources of your anger and
start tak ing better care of them. Be mind ful that the qual ity of pain
and hurt can change from anger epi sode to anger epi sode, from sit u a -
tion to sit u a tion, and from per son to per son.
This exer cise will take a bit lon ger than the pre vi ous ones. Since
you can’t read and close your eyes at the same time, we rec om mend
that you read through the fol low ing script a few times first. Then close
your eyes and fol low the instruc tions. You can also record the script on
an audio cas sette and play it back to your self while you prac tice.
THE ANGER ARMOR
Go ahead and get in a com fort able posi tion in your chair. Sit upright
with your feet flat on the floor, your arms and legs uncrossed, and your
hands rest ing in your lap (palms up or down, which ever is more com -
fort able). Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Relax. Allow
your body to rest with out drift ing off to sleep.
To get started, we would like you to re-cre ate a real image of
your self being angry. Think of a recent exam ple when some one pushed
your but tons and you got angry—per haps you can refer back to the
anger map exer cise in chap ter 3. Think of the moment. Notice the
anger com ing and all the surg ing bodily changes. Notice the trig ger
thoughts your evaluative mind comes up with. Enter into the whole
image as best as you can. Watch as the feel ing grows and notice how
quickly it is there in full force. Also notice how quickly you want to do
some thing about the anger feel ing, and what it makes you want to do.
For instance, do you have any impulses to speak out or act on your
anger? Be aware of the evaluative thoughts you’re hav ing about the
event or your self. Hold those thoughts clearly in your mind, put them
into sen tences, and watch them as if you were watch ing them in a
mirror. Keep focus ing on what you’re feel ing. Notice how your body
and mind harden, con sumed by anger. It’s every where.
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 93
Now imag ine for a moment that all these harsh, judg men tal
thoughts, intense anger feel ings, and strong impulses are con nected.
They form one big piece of armor—the kind of heavy armor that
knights used to wear to pro tect their whole body. You’re in it. Feel how
heavy it is and how hard it is for you to move.
Anger is like wear ing heavy armor. The armor masks the pain and
vul ner a bil ity we all have by sim ple vir tue of being human. Behind the
pain, there may be some thing you’re attached to, some thing you’re
hold ing on to. What is it in your case? See whether you can iden tify
what you’re try ing to pro tect or defend with your anger armor. There
might be feel ings of guilt . . . shame . . . hurt . . . fear . . . loss . . .
helplessness . . . rejec tion . . . inad e quacy . . . unwor thi ness. Or per haps
it’s your rep u ta tion, image, the approval of others, rules, beliefs, past
mis takes, missed oppor tu ni ties, or deci sions that did not go right. It
could also be that you fear los ing a per son, or a pos ses sion, or place, or
money. See if you can iden tify what exactly fuels your anger.
Every time the pain and hurt touch the inside of the armor, they
cor rode it. Your armor begins to weaken, pit, and rust from the inside.
And as it rusts, you begin to feel vul ner a ble. To keep your self
protected and safe, you’ve been fix ing the rusty parts and holes that
start to show through by weld ing new patches of metal onto the old
ones, so the armor gets heavier and heavier. It weighs on you, dragging
you down phys i cally, emo tion ally, psy cho log i cally, and spir i tu ally. You
don’t seem to be able to do much except clank around in your armor.
The bur den is tre men dous. Move ment is dif fi cult.
Next, imag ine your self step ping out of the armor and putt ing it
right next to you. Imag ine your self stand ing there just look ing at your
anger armor. If it helps, try to visu al ize look ing at your self and the
armor in a mir ror. You and any one around you can finally see who you
are. You’re stand ing there with your naked emo tions and imper fec tions
for every one to see. You’re exposed and vul ner a ble. See whether you
can stay with this feel ing.
Notice how much lighter you feel now. With out the armor, you’re
no lon ger tied down by all that weight. You can move more eas ily and
more quickly than before. Your hands, arms, and feet are free. By step -
ping out of the armor and just observ ing it, you have gained flex i bil ity
and free dom of move ment.
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The light ness that comes from accep tance won’t develop over -
night. It’s like learn ing to ride a bike—some times you will fall. You will
occa sion ally reach again for the armor and spend your time patch ing
and repair ing it, because it makes you feel safe when hurts show up. As
you learn accep tance, your need to hide from pain and hurt inside the
anger armor will grad u ally decrease. Accept ing your self and being
patient with all your flaws, weak nesses, strengths, and tal ents—the
whole pack age—involves tak ing many small steps in that gen eral direc -
tion. You’re on the right track as long as you keep prac tic ing and stay
com mit ted to that path.
Step 4: Respond with Forgiveness and Compassion
Accep tance is about open ing up to the pain inside you with kind -
ness, love, patience, and com pas sion. For this rea son, we need to
address the pains and hurts—what anger is help ing you pro tect. We’re
not going after your pain with cheap fixes or more patches. Instead,
we’re going to expose it for what it is and meet it with accep tance,
com pas sion, and patience.
Accept and For give Your self First
Accept ing your self is the most impor tant and often the most dif fi -
cult first step. It pulls the rug out from under neath your anger and
helps you focus your energy on what is impor tant to you and what you
can do and change. The prize here is a life—your life!
It’s use ful to acknowl edge hav ing feel ings of anger, worth less ness,
and fail ure, but putt ing your self down for them only leads to more
resent ment and self-hatred. That is never helpful.
Take the case of Jillian, a thirty-seven-year-old mother of two
daugh ters (seven and ten years old). Her father sex u ally and phys i -
cally abused her until her par ents sep a rated when she was twelve.
She went to col lege, majored in Eng lish, and started to work for a
regional news pa per where she met her hus band. They divorced two
years ago. Jillian came into ther apy after a social worker sug gested
she seek help with her anger prob lem if she did n’t want to lose
custody of her kids:
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 95
Jillian’s Story
I don’t under stand why I get so mad at my two daugh ters. I
love them and I don’t want to hurt them. I know what it’s
like to be beaten by a par ent, but I’ve hit my kids on sev eral
occa sions any way. And now I might lose them. So here I am
get ting mad at my daugh ters when I am the one who’s to
blame. I’m the one who should be beaten up. I could n’t give
my hus band what he was look ing for, and so he left me. And
to this day, I’m won der ing if I did some thing to make my dad
do what he did, because he never abused my youn ger sis ter.
Deep down, I have this fear that I am just no good; no good
as a daugh ter, wife, or mother.
You read what hap pened to David when he con tin ued to buy into
his evaluative mind. Now the same thing is play ing out with Jillian.
The story has changed, but the prob lem is the same. Jillian has come to
believe the harsh judg ments of her mind. Both David and Jillian con -
tinue to strug gle with what hap pened in their past. And they strug gle
with their pres ent thoughts and feel ings. It’s like an emo tional dou ble
whammy: First they strug gle with their fears and doubts about them -
selves. Then they get angry at them selves and beat them selves up over
the mere fact of hav ing all those unwanted feel ings, along with their
per ceived fail ure to con trol them.
Jeffrey Brantley (2003) wrote that we often don’t rec og nize what
our mind machines do to us. Our evaluative minds pro vide us a con -
stant sup ply of judg ments and self-crit i cal state ments. It may seem that
you’ve always had these thoughts. Most of the time you may not even
notice them, at least not until the feel ings or the com ments become
uncom fort ably harsh. Until you pay atten tion to them, you may not
know where they come from. But when you start believ ing those
comments and act ing on them, you become your own worst stressor.
If you want to break the vicious cycle of anger and aggres sion,
you must rec og nize that your mind machine is at work here (just like in
step 2). When you catch and observe the mind doing its judg ing,
you’ve taken the first step toward being kinder to your self and oth ers.
Rec og niz ing judg ments for what they are—thoughts and noth ing but
thoughts—will help you let go of judg ing and blam ing your self and
others. This is also the moment when you start accept ing your self as
you are, with your flaws and all that has hap pened to you. Remem ber,
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you can not stop your mind dish ing up evaluative state ments. What you
can learn is to see them for what they are and relate to them in a
different way.
How to Take Care of Your Anger Baby
You probably have some old wounds—from losses, unfair treat -
ment by oth ers, per haps even real abuse. The hurt may be old and the
wound may have a scab on it. When some one hurts you and pushes
your but tons, they’re rip ping that scab right off to expose the open
wound. It does n’t mat ter whether your mind says this was inten tional
or not. The wound was there any way. You are in touch with an aspect
of yourself that you may pre fer not to know. This is a golden oppor tu -
nity to embrace it with com pas sion and accep tance.
Jillian, in the story above, was frus trated over the fact that she
was treat ing her chil dren the same way she was treated by her father.
Peo ple who have been hurt them selves often con tinue to inflict pain
on oth ers because they have not taken care of their wounds. They
have not allowed their wounds to heal. If you don’t take care of your
wounds, you may pass them on to your chil dren, spouse, friends,
colleagues at work, and other peo ple in your life. Hurt and anger can
be recy cled many times.
Take a moment to think about what you do when some thing is
phys i cally wrong with you—like a scraped knee, or a prob lem with your
stom ach, your back, or your teeth. We sus pect that you stop what ever
you’re doing and attend to your injury or ill ness. And that is the right
thing to do.
We sug gest you do the same with your open anger wound, and
attend to all those feel ings of shame, fear, and guilt, all that blam ing of
your self and oth ers. Fur ther beat ing is not a good way to treat an open
wound and help it heal. You’d never treat a bleed ing knee in such a
harsh way. So if you want to break the cycle of anger, you have to start
by tak ing better care of your anger—by being kind to your self. You can
do this by no lon ger buy ing into all the judg ing and blam ing your mind
machine comes up with. Anger is not the enemy. Other peo ple are not
the enemy. Just like your phys i cal body, your anger and emo tional pain
are part of you. When you’re angry, you can turn your attention back
to your self and take good care of your anger. That is what we mean by
embrac ing anger with com pas sion.
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 97
You can learn to take care of your self, your anger, and your wounds.
You don’t need to rely on other peo ple to change first. Thich Nhat Hanh
(2001) devel oped a pow er ful and yet sim ple exer cise to help you prac tice
com pas sion with your self. It shows you how to take care of your anger as if
it were your sick baby in need of your love and atten tion.
GIVING YOURSELF LOVING KINDNESS
Remem ber when you were a lit tle child and you had a fever?
You felt bad. So a par ent or care giver came and gave you
aspi rin or other med i cine. This may have helped, but it was
noth ing like having your mom there. You did n’t feel better
until your mother came and put her hand on your burn ing
fore head. That felt so good! To you, her hand was like the
hand of a god dess. When she touched you with her hand, a
lot of fresh ness, love and com pas sion pen e trated into your
body. The hand of your mother is your own hand. Her hand
is still alive in yours, if you know how to breathe in and out,
to be mind ful. Then, touch ing your fore head with your very
own hand, you will see that your mother’s hand is still there,
touch ing your fore head. You will have the same energy of
love and ten der ness for your self. (Hanh 2001, p. 33)
Like in the fin ger trap exer cise, this is the time to take an unusual
step and be open to what may hap pen. Here is what you can do: Close
your eyes, touch your fore head, and think of your mother’s hands
touch ing you when you were young and sick. The kind ness of her hand
is alive in yours. And you can give that kind ness to your self right now.
If you did n’t have a mother who was kind to you in this way,
imag ine another per son who was kind to you as a child. Imag ine how
his or her hand felt.
ACCEPTANCE AND PATIENCE
Accep tance and patience are very much related because both are
about allow ing what is to be there with out judg ing or respond ing to it.
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If you expe ri ence anger and you accept it, you are patient with it.
Patience is the most effec tive anti dote to anger. You can look at it this
way: If anger is like poi son from a ven om ous snake, patience is the
antivenom that can heal you and keep you alive.
Let’s say that some one pushed your but tons and crit i cized you.
You feel the anger ris ing; your mind and body are quickly get ting ready
to defend, jus tify, blame, attack. What would being patient look like in
this sit u a tion? Pema Chödrön cap tures it well:
Patience has a qual ity of enor mous hon esty in it, but it also
has a qual ity of not esca lat ing things, allow ing a lot of space
for the other per son to say what they want to say while you
lis ten. You don’t react to what you’re feel ing, even though
inside you are react ing. You let the words go and just be
there. When you prac tice patience, you’re not repress ing
anger, you’re just sit ting there with it—going cold tur key
with the aggres sion. You will really get to know anger and
how it breeds vio lent words and actions. You will see the
whole thing with out act ing it out . . . and you will be cul ti vat -
ing enor mous cour age. (2005 p. 34)
You can see that being patient has noth ing to do with sup pres -
sion. Far from it. Patience means that you are hon est about the fact
that you are angry. At the same time, you’re doing noth ing to feed your
anger feel ings and thoughts. You don’t get involved with them or react
to them. You don’t argue with them. You also don’t blame or crit i cize
your self for hav ing them. You just let go of that whole inter nal
dialogue. Accep tance paired with patience forms an entry way into a
place where you can think about and react to your anger and other
unwanted expe ri ences in entirely new ways.
Acceptance Is a Difficult and Valuable Choice
Accep tance and patience do not come easy or nat u rally for most
of us. As we men tioned in chap ter 5, your mind, with its evaluative
lan guage, tends to color your world with ideas of what is right or
wrong. This is espe cially true when you’re prone to anger and tan gled
up in a web of self-doubt, what-ifs, shoulds, and pat terns of behav ior
designed to get you away from expe ri enc ing any of them.
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 99
You can, how ever, learn to be open to what is with out con -
taminating the expe ri ence with your eval u a tions, jus ti fi ca tions, and
rea sons for what ought to be. This will take time and prac tice, but it
will even tu ally move you in a new, pos i tive direc tion. So be patient
with your self while you’re learn ing about patience!
Accep tance and patience are ulti mately about choices you make
every day. We can guar an tee that an accep tance pos ture on one day
will not carry over to the next day. It’s a choice you need to make
again and again. After a while it may seem like almost every moment
of your life you’re mak ing a choice: to open or close, to harden or
soften, to hold on or let go (Chödrön 2005). If the old pat tern of
closing, hard en ing, and hold ing on to resent ment has not worked for
you, it’s time to open up, soften, and let go. There are exer cises in
chap ter 7 that will help you achieve this.
DEBUNKING SOME MYTHS ABOUTACCEPTANCE
Many peo ple at first mis un der stand what we mean by accep tance in
the con text of anger. Before mov ing on to more accep tance exer cises
in the next chap ter, we want to take a few moments to debunk some of
the most com mon myths about accep tance.
Myth 1: Acceptance Means Condoning Wrongdoing
This is prob a bly the lead ing mis con cep tion about accep tance.
Peo ple fear that when they accept, they give approval to what is hap -
pen ing or has hap pened to them. Accep tance is not about approv ing,
lik ing, or con don ing what is hap pening to you now or has happened to
you in the past. Accep tance is a mat ter of acknowl edg ing and expe ri -
enc ing what hap pened in the past and what is hap pen ing in the
present moment with out judg ing or get ting all tan gled up in that
expe ri ence.
Accep tance does not mean you sit still when some one harms you.
If any one harms you now, you have every right to pro tect your self from
fur ther harm and do what it takes to be safe. Yet, hold ing on to old
hurts about past sit u a tions will never resolve those sit u a tions. They are
100 ACT on Life Not on Anger
in the past, and you are in the pres ent. You can not change the past.
You can only change how you respond to the past in the pres ent.
You may ask, “Why should I let go of my anger and for give those
who harmed me?” The answer is sim ple and prac ti cal: For giv ing your -
self and oth ers is the only path to heal ing. If you don’t let go and
forgive oth ers for the harm they did, they and their deeds will con tinue
to haunt you, harm you, and have a hold on you. Every day you hang
on to your resent ment, you harm your self one more time. So by not
for giv ing, you hurt no other per son more than your self. It’s a form of
self- torture; it con tin ues to make the armor around you thicker,
heavier, and more con strain ing. This is why we focus on for give ness
here and later on, in chap ter 9. Accep tance means acknowl edg ing
what hap pened and let ting go of blame and resent ment. This is the
way to reclaim your life where you live it—right here and now.
Myth 2: Acceptance Is Weakness
Accep tance takes cour age and strength. It is the harder path
when com pared with the ten dency to give in or blow up. Notic ing
anger and the full strength of the emo tion with out act ing it out is like
rid ing a tiger. You may notice your mind crit i ciz ing and blam ing both
oth ers and your self. You may also notice feel ing guilty about blam ing
when you “should” be accept ing. It can be ago niz ing, because you feel
bad about being so angry at the same time that you really are angry,
and you can’t drop it (Chödrön 2005).
Sit ting with this energy and edg i ness with out try ing to sup press it
or mak e it go away is the oppo site of weak ness. Stay ing with the anger
and pain with out act ing on it or because of it is one of the most
difficult things you will ever do. This decision is cou ra geous, hon est,
open, com pas sion ate, and empow er ing because it is lib er at ing. When
we ask cli ents who have made this choice to describe how accep tance
feels to them, they often say things like “A bur den has been lifted” or
“I feel free and ready to move on.”
Myth 3: Acceptance Means Liking My Experience
It feels uncom fort able to expe ri ence anger, fear, inse cu rity, and
hurt. In fact, it is really unpleas ant. Accep tance is not about lik ing
those feel ings. It is a mat ter of no lon ger fight ing with your expe ri ence
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 101
or deny ing its real ity. It just means see ing it for what it is rather than
strug gling against it. Again, it’s like drop ping the rope in a tug-of-war:
Once you’re no lon ger fight ing the anger team, you free up energy—as
well as your hands and feet—to cre ate the life you want to live.
Myth 4: Acceptance Is a Feeling
When you accept your expe ri ence, you respond dif fer ently to it.
This is not just a feel ing—it’s a stance that will com pletely change your
point of view. It’s step ping back from your expe ri ence to develop a new
way of relat ing with it that’s guided by the kind ness you have tucked
away inside of you.
For instance, when you prac tice mind ful ness exer cises, you
observe your anger and other feel ings with out judg ing, sup press ing, or
get ting rid of them. It’s like look ing at your expe ri ences as if they were
play ing out in a movie. You’re not the movie. You are the observer of
what is hap pen ing in the movie. Such skil lful obser va tion of life in the
pres ent moment, with out judg ment and with com passion, is an active
response—just not in the way we usu ally think of being active (as in
the run ning, fight ing, strug gling, and so forth that we described in
chap ter 4). Accep tance is a new pos ture toward your experiences—all
of them—where you allow them to sim ply be as they are.
Myth 5: Acceptance Means Diminished Responsibility
Accep tance is the high est form of response-abil ity you can take.
By acknowl edg ing and allow ing your unwanted thoughts and emo tions
to be there rather than let ting them dic tate what you do, you actu ally
increase your response-abil ity—your abil ity to take charge of your life!
Myth 6: Acceptance Is a Clever Way to Manage Discomfort
Accep tance can not pre vent the pain of los ing a loved one or
getting hurt by another per son. Feel ing this type of pain is nor mal. No
human being can escape such pain. It hap pens to all of us and is sim ply
a func tion of liv ing.
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How ever, accep tance can pre vent pain from turn ing into suf fer -
ing. Pain turns into suf fer ing when you don’t accept the pain and hurt,
when you don’t acknowl edge your pain, or when you strug gle to get rid
of it by lash ing out at some one. Just as in the fin ger trap exer cise, the
dis com fort increases the more you try to pull away from it.
It is this unnec es sary suf fer ing that mind ful accep tance seeks to
end. By prac tic ing mind ful ness exer cises, you can grad u ally teach your -
self to be less reac tive to your evaluative mind and stay with emo tional
pain, rather than run ning away or try ing to fix it. When the pain of
anger shows up and you allow it in with out strug gle or reac tion, you
are free to act in ways that mat ter to you. The goal is to develop a
place of calm above the storm, to pro mote health and vital ity, and to
fos ter car ing kind ness toward your self first and then extend that to
oth ers.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
By approach ing anger thoughts and feel ings with com pas sion ate accep -
tance, you deprive your anger of the fuel it needs to burn. This will
ulti mately lower and cool the flames of anger. The prize for being more
accept ing, com pas sion ate, and patient is that you become more flex i -
ble. You will be on anger auto pi lot less often. Accep tance increases
your response-abil ity. It adds options to your life that are dif fer ent from
the same old pro gram ming you have grown accus tomed to. It changes
you by allow ing you to be who you are as you are and by mak ing you
aware that you have con trol over what you do. Whether pain and hurt
come or not is out side your con trol. How you respond to pain and hurt
is one domain where you have choice. By stay ing with, and being
patient with, your anger and hurt when they come, rather than run -
ning away from or attempt ing to fix them, you become free to focus on
the life you want to live.
Getting Out of the Anger Trap with Acceptance 103
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WEEK 6
Learn ing about accep tance
Points to pon der: Accep tance is a vital and cou ra geous activ -
ity. Patience paired with accep tance can lead me to a new
place.
Ques tions to consider: Am I will ing to accept myself with all
my flaws, weak ness, and vul ner a bil i ties? Am I will ing to for give
oth ers and myself so that I can move on and reclaim my life?
Chapter 7
Practicing MindfulAcceptance
On all the tragic scene they stare. . . . Their eyes mid many
wrinkles, their eyes, their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
—Wil liam But ler Yeats
In Yeats’s great poem “Lapis Laz uli,” three men on a high moun tain
watch all the pain and loss and vio lent con flict in the world. They
observe it and feel it. Yet in the face of all this strug gle, they see the
good. They know the gor geous par a dox of beauty and pain, loss and
love, reach ing and fail ing.
This is mind ful accep tance: watch ing the strug gle with out judg ing
it, feel ing the pain with out drown ing in it, hon or ing the hurt with out
becom ing it. Mind ful accep tance is not a feel ing or an atti tude. It
does n’t come from crys tals, or insight, or some emo tional apo the o sis.
Mind ful accep tance is a skill—some thing that takes work to learn.
The skill of mind ful ness, like any thing else you get good at, is
built on prac tice. It starts with easy steps and devel ops to include the
most dif fi cult sit u a tions in your life. Mind ful accep tance is best prac -
ticed at home as you begin, in a com fort able, safe envi ron ment. As you
get skilled at it, you can grad u ally expand to include more stress ful,
emo tion-trig ger ing sit u a tions, includ ing those that involve anger.
The prac tice of mind ful accep tance has three pur poses. First, you
learn to anchor your self in the pres ent moment, instead of in the hurts
and vio la tions of the past. As long as you live in the here and now,
there is very lit tle to be angry about. Sec ond, mind ful accep tance helps
you let go of old con trol and avoid ance strat e gies that only serve to
make your anger worse. Third, the dis ci pline of accep tance cre ates the
psy cho log i cal room to choose health ier responses to prov o ca tion.
Instead of the auto matic rage or blowup, you gain the flex i bil ity to look
for a response that does n’t dam age your life and rela tion ships.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR ANGER
It is impor tant to under stand that you are not your anger. Anger is
some thing you expe ri ence peri od i cally. It explodes into your aware ness
and, after a while, it recedes. You are not the anger. You—the per son
who expe ri ences and observes your life—are sep a rate from your feel -
ings of anger. Like every other thought or emo tion, your anger struts
for its moment on the stage, then slips into the wings. The only per ma -
nent, immu ta ble thing is you—the audi ence, the watcher of your life.
We encour age you not to take your anger so seri ously. It’s just a
moment in time, a wave on the sea of exis tence. You don’t have to
fight it—and you don’t have to join it, either. Your task, the work of
mind ful accep tance, is to dis en tan gle your self from your anger, not to
become your anger. Just let the wave of angry feel ing come and go.
Watch it from the safety of the shore—your strong, endur ing self.
Here’s another way to look at it: All your feel ings and thoughts
are pro jec tions. You are the movie screen on which they play. While
the screen never changes, the images change con stantly, and the movie
itself changes all the time, too. When an angry thought or feel ing
shows up on the screen, wait. It will morph soon. The screen does n’t
106 ACT on Life Not on Anger
fight or resist the pro jec tions. It merely pro vides the space for the
movie to play out and waits for it to end.
We talked ear lier about the met a phor of the chess board. You are
the board upon which the pieces move and the game is played. Each
game has its own char ac ter and strat egy, but the board never changes.
One board might host a thou sand strug gles; one board might hold the
mov ing pieces (thoughts and feel ings) of a life time’s chal lenges. But let
us be clear: the board is not the game. You are not your thoughts or
your feel ings.
Let’s review a moment: your core self, the piece of you that
observes every moment of your life, stands apart from all your thoughts
and feel ings. The same is true for each of your actions. The observ ing
self watches every thing you do but is not your behav ior. In par tic u lar,
your observ ing self is not your anger-driven actions—it’s not the
yelling, the name-call ing, the hissed threats.
Fusion
So if the thoughts, feel ings, actions, and your observ ing self are all
quite sep a rate, how come they all seem fused in an angry explo sion?
The rea son is that emo tions can drive—very quickly—a pat terned set
of thoughts and habit ual behav iors. And for a few moments, we feel
taken over by them. It’s as if our observ ing self went off on hol i day,
leav ing our life in the hands of some angry wacko who goes rag ing
around and makes a mess of things.
This appar ent fusion of feel ings, thoughts, actions, and self is an
illu sion that our mind cre ates. It’s time now to pull each ele ment apart
so your observ ing self can watch—with mind ful accep tance—your
anger expe ri ence as it really is.
WISE MIND: SEPARATING THE
PIECES OF EXPERIENCE
To get a clearer idea of how to sep a rate the pieces of your expe ri ence,
let’s look at Lacy’s story. She’s the cos tume designer for a regional
theater and fre quently gets upset by actors’ demands that she change
their cos tumes at the last min ute.
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 107
When first asked to explain the anger, Lacy saw no sep a ra tion
between her self and any of her thoughts, feel ings, or actions. It was all
crushed together in one upset ting expe ri ence. Here’s how it looked in a
dia gram. Notice all the cir cles are over lap ping.
Lacy’s ther a pist asked her to do a wise mind exer cise. She was
encour aged to take slow, deep breaths while focus ing her atten tion on
her dia phragm. Then the ther a pist drew a cir cle and wrote “Observ ing
Self” inside. Below it he drew a row of three more cir cles. In the first
he wrote “Thoughts,” in the sec ond, “Feel ings,” and in the third,
“Actions.”
“Keep your atten tion just below your breath,” he told Lacy. “This
is the place we call wise mind. It’s where you can see your self, watch
what’s really going on. Now, with your wise, observ ing mind, fill in the
other cir cles.”
Here’s what the exer cise looked like when Lacy com pleted it. As
you can see, the four cir cles aren’t over lap ping any more. Thoughts,
feel ings, and actions are now sep a rate and yet con nected to and in
touch with the observer self.
108 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Observ ing SelfThoughts: I can’t stand their super-size egos.
They only care about them selves.Feel ings: Pissed off, resent ful.Actions: Won’t return calls; tells them
angrily to sew it them selves.
Right now, we’d like you to do the wise mind exer cise with a
recent anger expe ri ence. Breathe deeply, focus ing on your dia phragm.
Wait until you feel cen tered. Then visu al ize the anger scene. From the
posi tion of wise mind, observe each ele ment of the expe ri ence. Sep a -
rate your thoughts, feel ings, and actions. Now, as Lacy did, write down
what you’ve observed in the dia gram below.
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 109
Observ ing Self(Wise Mind)
Feel ings:Pissed off, resent ful.
Thoughts:I can’t stand their super-size egos.They only care about them selves.
Actions:Won’t return calls; tells themangrily to sew it them selves.
Observ ing Self(Wise Mind)
Thoughts Feelings
Actions
There’s one more impor tant insight that can grow from the wise
mind exer cise: Your behav ior is sep a rate from your thoughts and feel -
ings. You can be awash with angry thoughts and emo tions and still
choose to act in ways that pro tect your rela tion ships. Your thoughts
and feel ings do not cre ate actions. You do!
The most impor tant thing to keep in mind is this sim ple
awareness: you truly can choose your actions. If you for get that your
behavior is a choice, you’re not likely to exer cise it. So here’s a man tra
to live by when you’re angry:
Learning Mindful Acceptance
Now comes the most impor tant part: dis cov er ing how to move
toward mind ful accep tance in your own life. We rec om mend five key
exer cises that can teach you how to do this. Mindful breathing will
start you focus ing on the pres ent moment. Leaves on a stream and
journaling the now will both teach you how to notice with out resis -
tance each part of your expe ri ence. The inner and outer shuttle will
help you see and accept expe ri ences inside and out side your body—
both pleas ant and unpleas ant. Finally, a softening to the pain exer cise
will help you to make peace with pre-anger feel ings you’ve tra di tion ally
tried to avoid.
MINDFUL BREATHING
The best way to start devel op ing mind ful accep tance is to learn mind -
ful breath ing. Start by tak ing deep, dia phrag matic breaths. Place one
hand on your chest and one on your abdo men, just above your waist.
Now begin breath ing so that only the hand on your abdo men moves up
and down. The hand on your chest should be nearly still. Keep direct -
ing your breath down ward to the very bot tom of your lungs. If it’s hard
110 ACT on Life Not on Anger
I can’t choose how I feel.
I can and will choose what I do.
to get the hand on your abdo men to move, press in with that hand.
Cre ate pres sure on your abdo men, then try to breathe so you push that
hand out.
After you’ve prac ticed dia phrag matic breath ing for a while and
you feel like you’re get ting it, move on to step two: becoming mind ful
of your breath. Notice the feel ing of the cool air as it rushes through
your nose, then down the back of your throat. Feel your lungs expand -
ing, expe ri ence what it’s like as your dia phragm stretches. Make
yourself aware of every sen sa tion, every nuance of your breath ing.
Good. Now add one more thing: a thought. On the in breath say to
your self: “Live this moment.” On the out breath say, “Accept this
moment.” That’s it: breathe deeply, observe your breath, say your man tra.
Prac tice this exer cise twice a day for at least a week. Get good at
it. Notice what it teaches you.
LEAVES ON A STREAM
For this exer cise, you again begin with deep, dia phrag matic breath ing.
After a lit tle while start noticing and labeling each expe ri ence that
comes up—thoughts, feel ings, sen sa tions, and desires or impulses. Pay
atten tion to what’s hap pen ing in your mind and body, then sim ply
name what’s going on. A pain in your foot is a sen sa tion, a judg ment
about your friend’s too-expen sive car is a thought, a moment of irri ta -
tion at strug gling with the exer cise is a feel ing. A sud den yearn ing to
quit and watch some tele vi sion is an impulse.
Okay. You’re watch ing and label ing each expe ri ence as it comes
up. Now do one more thing: Imag ine sit ting next to a stream. As you
gaze at the stream you notice a num ber of large brown autumn leaves
on the sur face of the water, drift ing along in the cur rent.
Now when a thought, a feel ing, a sen sa tion, or an impulse comes
along into your mind, put it on a leaf. Observe the leaf as it comes
closer to you, and then watch as it slowly moves away from you, even -
tu ally drift ing out of sight. Place each thought, each feel ing, each
sensation or impulse on its own large leaf and let them just float away
down stream.
You can also allow your self to take the per spec tive of the stream,
just like in the chess board exer cise. Being the stream, you hold each of
the leaves and notice the thought or feel ing or urge that each leaf car ries
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 111
as it sails by. You need not inter fere with them—just let them float by
and do what they do until they are even tu ally car ried out of sight.
This exer cise helps you prac tice observ ing and accept ing each
expe ri ence, then let ting go of it. Do this exer cise once each day for a
week. Notice how you can learn to be an observer rather than a
participant or player with a stake in the game.
JOURNALING THE NOW
This exer cise is an exten sion of the pre vi ous leaves on a stream
exercise. This time, instead of label ing each expe ri ence and visu al iz ing
it drift ing away, we’d like you to jour nal the pro cess in a nar ra tive
fashion. Use the new lan guage hab its we intro duced in the pre vi ous
chap ter to help you dis en tan gle your self from the con tent of what you
expe ri ence. Instead of writ ing “I am sad about los ing my friend” write
“I’m hav ing the feel ing of sad ness about los ing my friend.” When you
write “I am sad,” you and sad ness are one and the same—you and
sadness are in over lap ping cir cles. The truth is that you and sad ness are
not the same. Being sad is just one part of your expe ri ence. So is being
angry. Here’s an exam ple of a nar ra tive:
Now I’m hav ing the feel ing of a slight head ache or pres sure behind
my eyes. Now I’m hav ing the thought that the back stairs need
paint ing. Now I’m hav ing an impulse to get up and stretch. Now
I’m hav ing a thought about how hor ri ble my hand writ ing is. Now
I’m hav ing the feel ing of dis ap point ment that the 49ers keep los ing.
Now I’m hav ing the thought that the owner is an idiot. Now I’m
hav ing the feeling of tight ness—maybe hun ger—in my stom ach.
Now I’m hav ing thoughts about din ner, start ing to want food.
Notice how the nar ra tive careens from impulse to thought to
feeling, and so on. That’s how the eter nal pres ent really is, if we pay
atten tion. It’s just one thing after another, some times jump ing sud -
denly with out rhyme or rea son. Writ ing it down helps you appre ci ate
and accept the things that occupy your mind.
Keep journaling the now for about three min utes. Don’t worry if
every thing’s hap pen ing too fast and you don’t have time to write an
expe ri ence down. Just skip it and jour nal the next thing that comes up.
112 ACT on Life Not on Anger
INNER AND OUTER SHUTTLE
This mind ful ness exer cise will help you rec og nize and appre ci ate the
dif fer ence between inter nal bodily sen sa tions and exter nal sen sory
experience. What you do is shut tle your aware ness back and forth
between sen sa tions going on inside your body and sen sory expe ri ences
com ing from out side. Start your focus on one inter nal bodily sen sa tion
(how your stom ach, your shoul ders, or your ach ing feet feel). Then
imme di ately switch to an outer expe ri ence (the light com ing through
the win dow, kids scream ing in the next room, or the tex ture of your
arm chair uphol stery). Now, for three min utes, keep shut tling back and
forth—inner, outer, inner, outer.
There’s one more part to this exer cise. You may notice that some
of your inner or outer expe ri ences are uncom fort able. The room’s too
cold, there’s a noise that’s both er ing you, or some thing hurts in your
body. Good. Every time you notice some thing uncom fort able, take a
deep, dia phrag matic breath and acknowl edge the expe ri ence. Let the
sen sa tion be what it is. Don’t fight it. Rec og nize it for what it is—just a
sen sa tion—noth ing more, not hing less. Then, in a moment, let your
atten tion shift to the next par ti cle of aware ness.
We encour age you to do the shut tle exer cise once a day for a
week to max i mize your ben e fits from it.
SOFTENING TO THE PAIN
Now that you’ve been prac tic ing mind ful accep tance of uncom fort able
feel ings, it’s time for the final chal lenge. For this exer cise, you’ll visu al ize
a recent anger expe ri ence. Rather than just remem ber ing it, see if you
can get back to the pre-anger feel ings—the hurt, shame, fear, or guilt.
Visu al ize exactly what hap pened that trig gered those feel ings. In every
way you can, replay the events in your mind until the hurt or shame
feels real right now. Take your time. Lin ger over the details of the scene.
Here comes the most impor tant part: Stay with this pain ful
feeling and start your deep, dia phrag matic breath ing. Begin mind ful
breathing. Let your body soften around the pain ful feel ing. Keep
breath ing; keep focus ing on what it really feels like to breathe in and
out—and stay with the expe ri ence. See whether you can let go of the
anger by soft en ing to and stay ing with the pain in this moment. After
three min utes, shift your atten tion to some thing else and end the
exer cise.
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 113
Soft en ing to the pain is a cru cial skill, because it will teach you
how to stop resist ing feel ings—even very uncom fort able ones. We know
this is a hard skill to learn. So we will work on devel op ing it further in
chap ter 9. In the mean time, prac tice softening to the pain every time
you have an uncom fort able phys i cal or emo tional expe ri ence.
Your Daily Practice
The five exer cises you’ve just learned can be con densed into a
brief daily prac tice. We sug gest that you do it for ten min utes at a set
time each day. You could tie it to some thing you always do, such as
your morn ing shower, a meal, arriv ing home after work, and so on.
Here’s the pro cess: Begin by focus ing your atten tion on slow, dia -
phrag matic breaths. With each in breath, say to your self, “Live this
moment.” On the out breath, say, “Accept this moment.” Notice any
judg ment or fear thoughts. One by one, watch each thought arrive and
then drift away. Now notice your expe ri ence—what you see and hear,
what you feel inside your body. Next, notice your emo tions. Be aware of
any unpleas ant or pain ful emo tions—the ones you don’t like or want.
Soften to them by breath ing mind fully, and accept ing what ever you feel.
For ten min utes, keep breath ing deeply, keep watch ing your
thoughts, keep soft en ing to and breathing with any dis com fort, and
stay with the expe ri ence. That’s it. This daily prac tice grows more
powerful over time. It makes it pos si ble to watch your thoughts and
feel ings like horses on a merry-go-ground with out hav ing to ride them
in an end less anger cycle. Get in the habit of relax ing with your pain as
you allow it to be what it is, watch ing it from the dis tance and safety of
your observer self. This prac tice pre pares you to face life’s pain and
disappointments while find ing new ways to respond. When you no
longer fight the pain you don’t want, the pain loses its grip on you.
MINDFULNESS WHEN YOU’RE ANGRY:STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN
The pre vi ous exer cises are intended for prac tic ing before you get angry.
Below are two ways to use mind ful ness after you’ve got ten angry. They
114 ACT on Life Not on Anger
are a bit like the say ing “Stop, look, and listen . . . or you won’t see
what you’re missin,’” which your par ents may have repeated to you
every time you were about to cross the street as a young child.
The first tool, watch ing the flags, is a pro cess for stop ping and
notic ing the red flags that show up as you’re start ing to get angry. The
goal is to acknowl edge these red flags and stay with them with out
inflam ing them or act ing on them with anger behav ior. The sec ond
tool, watch ing your mouth, is designed to make you stop, look, and lis -
ten in on your ver bal behav ior when you’re angry. Chap ters 9 and 10
con tain addi tional exer cises and sug ges tions about how you can prac -
tice mind ful accep tance after you’ve got ten angry.
Watching the Flags
As soon as some thing occurs that you did n’t expect or want—
whether it’s an event, in a con ver sa tion, or the fact of some thing not
hap pen ing—stop what you’re doing and start watch ing the flags. These
are the red flags sig nal ing that you’re start ing to get angry: feel ing hot,
clench ing your jaw, throb bing tem ples, tight stom ach, point ing your
fin ger, mak ing fists, voice get ting high or loud, heart pound ing, feel ing
shaky, shortness of breath, and so on.
You watch the flags by look ing with mind ful aware ness at what’s
hap pen ing with your body (mus cles, breath, heart, tem per a ture), your
pos ture, and your voice. Make no attempt to sup press, reduce, or
change the sen sa tions. Just ride them out as in the wave exer cise
described in chap ter 6. Stay firmly in your observer self posi tion for as
long as the prob lem atic con ver sa tion or sit u a tion con tin ues.
Watching Your Mouth
Once you become aware of feel ing angry and you’re in a sit u a tion
with other peo ple, switch your focus to your words—both planned and
uttered. Stop and lis ten to the words in your head before they take
shape in your mouth. What is your anger push ing you to say?
If you’re in a social sit u a tion and it’s okay to do so, just be quiet
and say noth ing. In fact, if it’s socially appro pri ate, leave the sit u a tion
so you can be alone and stay with your surg ing anger. It’s best not to
talk to any one for as long as you’re angry. The rea son is that it’s vir tu -
ally impos si ble not to sound angry when you are angry and feel like
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 115
you’re sit ting on a vibrat ing keg of dyna mite. Even say ing some thing
like “I love you” may come out sound ing more aggres sive than kind.
Say ing noth ing or leav ing the sit u a tion does n’t mean sup press ing anger
or run ning away from it. Quite the oppo site: you’re actu ally stay ing
with and attend ing to your anger. That takes more cour age and is
much harder to do than to speak out in anger.
If you’re expected to say some thing or if it’s socially inap pro pri ate
to leave the sit u a tion, say as lit tle as pos si ble. Lis ten to each sen tence
as you start to say it. Each spo ken word is a choice you have that can
pro mote har mony or dis cord, pre vent wounds or make them, solve
prob lems or deepen them.
As in the pre vi ous exer cise, don’t try to sup press thoughts and
sen sa tions; just notice and acknowl edge them. Watch ing your mouth
allows mind ful obser vance of every thing your mouth does, or is about
to do. It’s your key to chang ing an impor tant part of angry behav ior.
Chang ing any thing requires inten tion. You have to decide to do
something new. Watch ing the flags and watching your mouth will only
hap pen with inten tion. Right now, you can make a com mitment to
your self to use these mind ful ness tech niques when ever some thing
happens that frus trates or dis ap points you. Prom ise your self that you’ll
con tinue prac tic ing mind ful ness, as best as you can, until the sit u a tion
is over.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
The five mindful acceptance exer cises described in this chap ter are
build ing blocks to a crit i cal new skill: embrac ing what you feel right
now with out run ning away from or block ing it. It’s impor tant to go
beyond read ing these exer cises. You need to do them. Accep tance
takes work and prac tice. But—and this is a guar an tee from us to
you—it will change your life.
116 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Practicing Mindful Acceptance 117
WEEK 7
Learn ing how to accept what I expe ri ence
Point to ponder: I can learn to watch the strug gle, feel the
pain, and honor my hurt with mind ful accep tance.
Ques tions to consider: Am I ready to sep a rate my thoughts
and feel ings from my actions so I can make better choices
about what to do when I feel anger? Am I will ing to prac tice
mind ful accep tance so I can learn to respond to anger in a
different way?
Chapter 8
Taking Controlof Your Life
Life is a choice. Psychological pain is not a choice.
Either way you go, you will have problems and pain.
So the choice here is not about whether or not to have pain.
Your choice is whether or not to live a meaningful life.
—Ste ven C. Hayes
In pre vi ous chap ters, we have talked a lot about what you can not
control. The remain ing chap ters are about what you can con trol. They
are about dis cov er ing or per haps redis cov er ing what is impor tant to
you. You can take charge of and reclaim your life.
STOP FEEDING THE ANGER TIGER
We often com pare anger to a tiger grow ing inside a person. It starts out
like a baby tiger. Each time you act on your anger feel ing, you feed the
tiger and he gets just a lit tle bit big ger. In the short term, it may not
seem this way. But, in the long run, this is what act ing on anger
does—it feeds your anger, and it crip ples your life.
We talked to one of our cli ents, Frank, a thirty-four year-old store
man ager, about the anger tiger and asked him to write down his expe ri -
ence. Frank gave us per mis sion to share his ther apy jour nal entry with
our read ers.
Frank’s Story
When this anger tiger first appeared, he was just a baby. In
fact, I was just a child back then, too. But it was nasty
enough that I wanted it to just go away. Some times I got so
enraged that I would hit even my best friends. That got me
into all sorts of trou ble. My anger tiger just kept grow ing
bigger and big ger the more I lashed out at the peo ple who
annoyed me. I’ve been get ting more upset all this time
because I see the car nage in my life. I feel out of con trol and
like I’m not get ting any where. The tiger is in charge of my
life, and it does n’t look like he’s plan ning on leav ing anytime
soon. I’m fed up with this and I want to take back my life.
If you’re like Frank, the anger tiger has been run ning your life.
The direc tions you take are cho sen not by your high est val ues, but
rather by who or what has pissed you off. Now is the time to ask a
critical ques tion: “Who is in con trol here? Who is choos ing? Is it me,
or is it the anger tiger?” You don’t have to devote your life to feed ing
the anger tiger. You have the power to choose a dif fer ent direc tion.
LIFE WITHOUT ACTING ON ANGER
Have you ever won dered what your life would be like if you were n’t
always strug gling against anger and rage? Sit back for a moment and
120 ACT on Life Not on Anger
think about what kind of things you’d do if your time was no lon ger
con sumed by act ing on your anger, going after every one who upsets
you, and try ing to win the end less bat tle against the peo ple who are
seem ingly out to get you and have wronged you. How would you spend
your day dif fer ently? And how might your rela tion ships be dif fer ent
then?
Now just pause for a moment. Go ahead and sit back, close your
eyes, and imag ine your new life for a min ute or so. Then come back to
read ing.
We sus pect that some of the images that came up in your mind
had to do with impor tant aspects of your life that you’re miss ing out
on, or may have even given up on, because of anger. We’d like to
recon nect you with some of those impor tant parts of your life, because
we know that you can reclaim them.
WHAT ARE MY VALUES?
To fig ure out what your val ues are, you’ll need to think about areas of
your life that are deeply impor tant to you. These are the things that
make your life worth liv ing, that you want to cher ish and nur ture, and
that you’d act to defend when nec es sary. These are the very things that
you might look back on at the end of your life and say—if you took
good care of them—“There was a life lived well.” What you value and
con sider impor tant may not be exactly what oth ers value and con sider
impor tant. This is fine and to be expected.
Val ues tend to fall within sev eral core areas or domains: fam ily,
inti mate rela tion ships, friends, work, edu ca tion, lei sure, spir i tu al ity, cit -
i zen ship, and health. Although we list them sep a rately, most domains
over lap. For exam ple, the value of health can lead you to join a yoga
group or sports club. Doing this can in turn lead to meet ing new peo ple
and being a good friend to peo ple in your life (another value), and
being around long enough to be a good par ent to your chil dren and
grand par ent to your grand chil dren (another val ue).
Taking Control of Your Life 121
Anger has a way of push ing val ues from view. If val ues are at the
core of the life you want to lead, then any thing—includ ing anger—
that gets in the way of your val ues is a prob lem.
Values Are Like a Road Map
Val ues serve as a map that guides the direc tion you want to move
in. With out val ues, you are directionless. Any thing that hides your val -
ues from view can keep you stuck, not know ing where to go. You can
end up spin ning your wheels through life, feel ing like you’re get ting
nowhere fast. You’ve prob a bly felt this way at some point when you’ve
been angry.
We want to help you stop spin ning and get mov ing in direc tions
that are impor tant to you. Val ues are the com pass that will help guide
you away from anger behav ior and back into your life. This is the real
prize and why it is impor tant for you to recon nect with your val ues.
When you start con nect ing with what mat ters in your life, you will
want more of your life to focus on that. Once those value-guided direc -
tions are clearer to you, you can begin to focus your efforts on mov ing
in those directions.
Values Help You Stay Focused
Work ing toward liv ing con sis tently with what you value will also
moti vate you to keep up with the exer cises in this book. We real ize this
is not easy and requires com mit ment. But the invest ment you make in
read ing and work ing with this book will pay off. As you start spend ing
more of your time liv ing con sis tently with what you value, your life and
every thing you want to be about will come into focus.
Peo ple who have prob lems with anger often have quite a lot of
energy. This energy is a gift. In fact, you can think of your energy as
being like a ham mer. You can use a ham mer to destroy things or to
build things. You can like wise focus your energy con struc tively or
destruc tively in your life, whether that means get ting even or being a
lov ing part ner, a good friend, an ath lete, or what ever else you desire.
As you explore your val ued direc tions in this chap ter, keep think ing
about this ques tion: “How can I use my energy wisely?”
122 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Values Give You an Alternative to Blowing Up in Anger
Val ues serve as a bench mark to eval u ate which actions are use ful
and which aren’t. This is espe cially impor tant when you feel angry and
won der what to do about it. Val ues guide you toward actions that
exem plify what you want your life to be about. You will learn a
response to anger feel ings that involves stop ping, observ ing, and then
con sidering your val ues along these lines: “Act ing on this anger feel ing
will prob a bly con flict with one of my values. It will hurt some one I
love. It can affect my sta tus at work.” You will know what to do and
what not to do by answer ing the fol low ing ques tion: “Does this action
move me closer to or fur ther away from my val ues?”
Val ues are not a dis trac tion from anger. Instead, they help you
decide what mat ters more: get ting even or liv ing a life you value.
That’s how work ing toward what mat ters to you becomes a via ble
alter na tive to blow ing up in anger.
For exam ple, let’s say you have cho sen being a lov ing hus band
as one of your val ues. One day your wife approaches you. She’s upset
and demands an answer to her ques tion of why you can’t be more
under stand ing about her sit u a tion as a work ing mother. Your val ues
help you ask your self the fol low ing ques tion: “What is mov ing me
closer to being a lov ing hus band: snap ping back at her right away and
defend ing myself (that’s what I feel like doing), or being quiet for a
while, strok ing her hand, and admit ting with a kind tone of voice
that she’s in a dif fi cult sit u a tion, and tell ing her that I’ll make an
effort to help her?”
One of our cli ents, Jim, would rou tinely fly off the han dle when
his daugh ter did n’t clean up her room. He would raise his voice and
ulti mately say some thing that left his daugh ter in tears. He would usu -
ally walk away fum ing. The last time this began to unfold, Jim took
stock of what he cared about—his rela tion ship with his daugh ter. This
time, he did n’t flare up and instead approached his daugh ter, hugged
her, and said that he cared about her and loved her. When he com mit -
ted to this way of inter act ing with his daugh ter, their rela tion ship
improved and she made an effort to keep her room clean because she
wanted to please him.
A life lived in the ser vice of anger is typ i cally not high on any -
one’s list of val ues. Jim came to this real iza tion, too, as he put his value
of a good rela tion ship with his daugh ter into clear focus.
Taking Control of Your Life 123
You’re at a crit i cal choice point in your life. You can choose to
live it in a way that upholds your deep est and most cher ished desires,
or you can choose the same old way of life ruled by anger. It’s up to
you.
You can think of these choices in this way: Imag ine life as a walk
down a long cor ri dor with many doors on either side. You have the
power to choose which doors to open and enter. One of those doors is
labeled “anger.” You have cho sen the anger behav ior door for so long
that you may have lost sight of other options in the corridor. You can
ven ture out and open up other doors. You can also choose to stay
inside the anger room.
What choice do you want to make? Stay ing locked behind the
anger door lim its your life. Anger pushes away the fam ily mem bers you
love and moves you fur ther away from hav ing a sat is fy ing fam ily life.
Anger also pushes away friends who are con cerned about you or could
help you. Now is the time to mus ter the cour age to explore other doors
in your life cor ri dor. Think about your life. Besides anger, what other
doors can you and would you like to open? Maybe there’s a door
labeled “love” and another sport ing a sign that says “phys i cal fit ness.”
There’s a door to pro fes sional sat is fac tion, and another that leads to
polit i cal activ ism. Yet another is marked “inner peace.” It’s a long
corridor with many, many doors.
IS IT A GOAL OR A VALUE?
It’s easy to con fuse goals with val ues. Goals are actions you can put on
a list, com plete, and then check off. Once you reach a goal, the work is
done, and you’re fin ished. Tak ing out the gar bage is a goal you can
check off, as are other goals such as los ing ten pounds, tak ing a vaca -
tion, get ting a degree, or mow ing the lawn. Even the act of get ting
mar ried fits our def i ni tion of a goal. Once that ring is on your fin ger,
your goal is achieved. So, you can tell if some thing is a goal by whether
you can do it and then get it off your plate.
Unlike goals, val ues are life long jour neys. You can’t answer the
ques tion “Am I done yet?” with val ues. Val ues have no end point.
Instead, they direct us through out life.
For exam ple, reach ing a par tic u lar goal (get ting mar ried) is just
one of many steps in a val ued direc tion (being a lov ing part ner). The
124 ACT on Life Not on Anger
value of being a lov ing, devoted part ner is not com plete the moment
you say, “I do.” Being a lov ing, devoted part ner is some thing you must
con stantly keep on work ing toward, and there is always room for
growth. Like wise, reach ing your goal of spend ing two hours of qual ity
time with your child every week end does not com plete the value of
being a good par ent. Val ues such as being a lov ing per son or a good
par ent are ongo ing com mit ments and actions you can not fin ish while
you’re alive.
Although val ues and goals are not the same, they are related. Just
think of one or two goals you have set for your self. Be open to the
seem ingly mun dane here too, like tak ing out the gar bage to please your
wife. To deter mine the value that under lies the goal, you can sim ply
ask your self, “Why am I doing this?” “What am I try ing to accom plish
in my life with this goal?” “Where am I head ing with this?” Answers to
these ques tions will point you in the direc tion of your val ues. You may
find the sim ple act of tak ing out the gar bage reflects a value of help ing,
being part of a fam ily, or being a sup port ive spouse.
Outcomes
Some times we hear peo ple say, “I want to be calmer,” or “It’s
impor tant for me to be happy.” Both state ments sound like val ues, but
they are really goals. Being calmer and happier are emo tional goals.
Essen tially, they are an out come, a result that may or may not hap pen
after you start mov ing toward your val ues. Remem ber, val ues are a
direc tion that must be lived out again and again by actions, large and
small, each and every day. In a nut shell, val ues are the cumu la tive
effect of what you spend your time doing, not what you think and feel
about what you’re doing.
If a Dead Man Can Do It, It’s Not a Good Goal
As you think about val ues, think about what you want to or can
do, not what you don’t want to do or can’t do. Exam ples of to-do goals
include call my best friend at least once a week, enrol in a music class,
attend church once a week, exer cis e thirty min utes daily, read to my
chil dren every night before bed, and so on.
Many of us have a ten dency to focus our time and effort on
not-to-do goals. These not-to-dos often show up after you’ve done
Taking Control of Your Life 125
some thing hurt ful, and when you let your feel ings and thoughts guide
your actions. Sara found her self doing quite a bit of this. She would fre -
quently spend her time tell ing her self “Don’t yell at the kids,” “Stop
crit i ciz ing Dan [her hus band],” or “Don’t get worked up when oth ers
are late.”
Any time you write or think “don’t,” “never,” “stop,” “quit,” and
the like, you are set ting what we call a dead man’s goal. Dead men
don’t yell at their chil dren or crit i cize their spouse. If you start to write
a dead man’s goal, ask your self, “What can I do instead?” This sim ple
ques tion helps reframe your not-to-do into a to-do. When you know
what to do, you have a direc tion and can start doing. So, instead of
say ing “Stop crit i ciz ing my part ner,” you might instead focus on behav -
ing in a more lov ing, com pas sion ate fash ion toward your part ner by
doing things that show you care. When you only know what not to do,
you are as exiled from life as a dead man.
Valuing Involves Action, Not Feeling
Many peo ple assume that val u ing is how they feel about a par tic u -
lar area in their lives. This is a poten tial trap. There are many actions
you take in life regard less of how you may feel at the time. You prob a -
bly go to work in the morn ing regard less of whether you feel irri tated,
sad, anx ious, or happy. Or you may have paid a visit to Aunt Edith
even if you don’t like her much. So, if you feel angry at some one you
love, you can still reach out to them and give them a hug or a gift even
though inside you feel resent ful. This is why we stress that val u ing is all
about action. You actu ally value with your hands, feet, and words. If
you say you value your career, then you should be doing just that:
work ing to build your career. If you don’t work to build your career,
then you don’t value it, regard less of how you feel about it.
WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO STAND FOR?
Have you ever thought about what you want your life to stand for?
Most peo ple don’t think about this until it’s too late to do some thing
about it. To help you avoid this sad out come, we’re going to walk you
through two exer cises: a funeral med i ta tion and writ ing your own
126 ACT on Life Not on Anger
epitaph. These exer cises are very pow er ful, per haps even a lit tle fright -
en ing. The pay off for doing them is that they will give you a clear
vision of what you want your life to stand for, and they’ll begin to
reveal what you truly value in your life.
Death is inev i ta ble. We can delay death, but we can never avoid
it. Although you can’t con trol when or how you will die, you can con -
trol how you live. The fol low ing exer cise will help you make con tact
with this sim ple tru ism in a pro found way.
FUNERAL MEDITATION
Go ahead and get com fort able. For this exer cise, imag ine that you’re
watch ing your own funeral. Visualize your self in an open cas ket. Smell
the fresh flow ers. Hear the soft music in the back ground. Look around
the room. Who do you see? Per haps you can see your loved ones, fam -
ily, friends, rel a tives, cowork ers, and acquain tances. Lis ten closely to
their con ver sa tions; eaves drop on what they are say ing about you.
What is your part ner say ing . . . your kids . . . your best friend . . . your
col leagues . . . your neigh bor?
Listen care fully to each of them as they say the words that, in
your heart, you most want to hear about yourself. This is how you want
the peo ple whom you care about to remem ber you. Your wis dom will
let you pick and choose exactly what you want and need to hear from
them.
Pause for a moment and con tinue to imag ine this sit u a tion. Stay
with this image for a few min utes. Then come back to read ing.
Think about the com ments you heard that touched and pleased
you. These will give you an idea of what you really want your life to be
about. Some of what you heard may have left you feel ing hurt and dis -
ap pointed. Per haps one per son said, “He was a cyn i cal, angry man,” or
“She was often quite bitchy.” The good news about this exer cise is that
your life isn’t over yet, and the pri vate con ver sa tions at your funeral
have not yet taken place. You still have time to do things so that you
will be sorely missed and remem bered as the type of per son you want to
be. You can start liv ing that way right now.
Taking Control of Your Life 127
WRITE YOUR OWN EPITAPH
Imag ine that one day the head stone in the draw ing below will be the
head stone on your grave. Notice that the head stone is blank. Your epi -
taph (a brief description of your life) has not yet been writ ten. What
inscrip tion would you like to see on your head stone? Think of a phrase
or sen tence that would cap ture the essence of the life you want to have
led. What is it you want to be remem bered for? Give your self some
time to think about these impor tant ques tions. If you find an answer—
or more than one—write them down on the head stone. This may seem
like another strange and some what scary exer cise. How ever, if you
stick with it and com plete it—even if you feel a bit queasy—it will help
you get in touch with what you really want your life to stand for.
This is not really a hypo thet i cal exer cise. What you will be
remem bered for, what defines your life, is up to you. It depends on
what you do now. It depends on the actions you take being con sis tent
with what you care about. This is one way you can help deter mine the
word ing of your own epi taph.
Now, we make no prom ises that peo ple will build a Lin coln-type
memo rial for you at the end of your life. Yet if you make pos i tive steps
128 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Here Lies
___________________
to take your life in the direc tion of your val ues, chances are that you’ll
be remem bered with warmth and love by all who know you.
Liv ing your val ues is a life long jour ney. Each day you live is a day
an oppor tu nity to move in a val ued direc tion while taking your pain ful
thoughts and feel ings with you. You write your own eulogy and epi taph
by the choices you make and the actions you take each and every day.
So what do you want your epi taph to say? What sorts of things do you
want to have peo ple mur mur ing at your memo rial? Answer ing these
ques tions will point you in the direc tion you want to go.
IDENTIFYING VALUED LIFE DIRECTIONS—
THE LIFE COMPASS
Iden ti fy ing your val ues and set ting goals are impor tant steps on the
road to liv ing the life you want to lead. To iden tify your core val ues,
you can ask your self a cou ple of sim ple ques tions: “What do I want my
life to be about?” “What really mat ters to me?” To get to the heart of
such ques tions, we encour age you to com plete the life compass. It will
take a while to com plete, but it’s time well spent because it will help
you fig ure out some impor tant things:
+ Which areas of your life are most impor tant to you
+ How you would like to conduct your life vis-à-vis the
things that mat ter most
+ How con sis tent your actions have been with your inten -
tions
+ Obsta cles or bar ri ers that stand in the way of pur su ing
your val ues
What Life Domains Do You Value and Find Important?
Take a look at fig ure 2 so you’ll have some con text for this exer -
cise. The first step in this exer cise is to con sider your qual ity of life in
each of the ten life domain areas. One aspect of qual ity of life involves
the empha sis you put on each of these ten areas. Start by rat ing the
impor tance of each area using a scale of 0 (unim por tant), 1 (mod er ately
Taking Control of Your Life 129
impor tant), or 2 (very impor tant). Write your impor tance rat ings into
the “i” box con nected to each value. Not every one will value all of these
areas, or value all areas the same. Rate each area accord ing to your own
per sonal sense of impor tance. Go ahead and do this now.
What Are Your Intentions?
Next, go back to each area you rated as either mod er ately impor -
tant (1), or very impor tant (2), and write down your inten tion. Your
inten tion is sim ply a state ment of how you would like to live your life in
that area (for exam ple, what is most impor tant to you in that area?).
Write that inten tion directly in the box. If you’re hav ing dif fi culty
coming up with an inten tion state ment because you’re unsure what a
par tic u lar domain is about, you can ask your self the fol low ing ques tions:
+ Inti mate rela tion ships: What kind of part ner would I
most like to be in an inti mate rela tion ship? What type of
mar i tal or cou ple rela tion ship would I like to have? How
do I want to treat my part ner?
+ Parenting: What type of par ent do I want to be? How
do I want to inter act with my chil dren?
+ Edu ca tion/learn ing: Why is learn ing impor tant to me?
What skills, train ing, or areas of com pe tence would I like
to acquire?
+ Friends/social life: What kind of friend do I want to be?
What does it mean to be a good friend? How do I behave
toward my best friend? Why is friend ship impor tant to
me?
+ Phys i cal self-care/health: How and why do I take care
of myself? Why do I want to take care of my body and
my health through what I eat, by exer cis ing, and by
being phys i cally fit?
+ Fam ily of ori gin: How do I want to inter act with my
fam ily mem bers? What type of sis ter or brother do I want
to be? What type of son or daugh ter do I want to be?
+ Spir i tu al ity: What are the mys ter ies of life before which
I stand in awe? What are the things larger than my own
130 ACT on Life Not on Anger
life that inspire me? In what (if any thing) do I have
faith?
+ Com mu nity life/cit i zen ship: What can I do to make the
world a better place? Why are com mu nity activ i ties (such
as vol un teer ing, vot ing, recy cling) impor tant to me?
+ Rec re ation/lei sure: How do I feed myself through hob -
bies, sports, or play? Why do I enjoy them?
+ Work/career: What do I want my work or career to be
about or stand for? What is impor tant to me about my
work (for exam ple, finan cial secu rity, intel lec tual
challenge, inde pend ence, pres tige, or inter act ing with or
help ing peo ple)?
Taking Control of Your Life 131
Fig ure 2. The Life Compass—a behav ioral com pass of impor tant life domains, inten -
tions in each area, and poten tial bar ri ers to reach ing those goals (adapted from Dahl
et al., 2004; Copy right (2004) by the Asso ci a tion for Advance ment of Behav ior
Therapy. Reprinted by per mis sion of the pub lisher.
Are You Doing What Matters to You?
After you’ve fin ished writ ing down your inten tions on the life
compass, please think about your activ i ties in the past week. How con -
sis tent have your actions been with your inten tions in each area? If we
call your activ i ties “your feet,” how con sis tent were your feet with the
inten tions you just wrote down? For each inten tion, rate how often you
have done some thing to move you for ward in this area dur ing the past
seven days. Use the fol low ing scale for your rat ings: 0 = no action, 1 =
one or two activ i ties or actions, 2 = three or four activ i ties, 3 = five or
more activ i ties. Write your rat ings in the “a” = (actions) box next to
the “i” box con nected to each value. We’re not ask ing about your ideal
in each area or what oth ers may think of you. Just rate how actively
you have you been work ing toward your inten tions dur ing the past
week.
What Stands in Your Way?
Now go back and look at your inten tions and actions. How well
do they match up for each domain you rated as impor tant to you? Take
stock here, par tic u larly of areas where the “i” is a larger num ber than
the “a.” Are you doing things that are impor tant to you? If you’re like
most peo ple with prob lem anger, you might see dis crep an cies between
impor tance and action rat ings. For instance, if you con sider fam ily very
impor tant and your action rat ing is low (0 or 1), you’re liv ing a life that
is quite dif fer ent from the one you want.
Dis crep an cies between your intentions and actions in val ued
areas are often related to bar ri ers. Bar ri ers are any thing that stands in
the way of you liv ing out your val ues. If you look deeply, you’ll see that
some of these are directly related to your hurt and anger. The flash of
anger can side track you from see ing your val ued inten tions and fol low -
ing through on them. In the next two chap ters, we’ll pro vide you with
some skills to iden tify and overcome these bar ri ers.
132 ACT on Life Not on Anger
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
You can take charge of your life by focus ing on what you can con trol:
what you do with your hands, feet, and mouth. Instead of giv ing in to
anger feel ings, you can iden tify what truly mat ters in your life and then
focus your energy on pur su ing goals that will move you in those
direc tions.
The val ues you choose are the road map for guid ing you in the
pro cess of reclaim ing your life from anger. They help you stay focused
on what mat ters. When you feel the anger sen sa tions surg ing in your
body, you can stop, observe the feel ing, and then lis ten to your val ues.
They will help you choose a course of action that moves you closer to
rather than away from your value-driven goals. This is how liv ing for
your val ues can become an alter na tive to blow ing up in anger.
Pur su ing your val ues is all about action. You can write your own
eulogy and epi taph through the choices you make and the actions you
take every day. Each day you live is a day to move in a val ued direc tion
and take your pain ful thoughts and feel ings with you.
Taking Control of Your Life 133
WEEK 8
Iden ti fy ing and think ing about my val ues
Point to pon der: Life is short. My val ues make my life
worth while.
Ques tions to con sider: Am I liv ing con sis tently with my val -
ues, or am I let ting my anger and emo tional pain get in the way
of my val ues? Am I ready to start mov ing in the direc tion of
my val ues and take anger, hurt, and joy along for the ride?
Chapter 9
Facing the Flame ofAnger and the Pain
Fueling It
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your
wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your
tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last
toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving
back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that
what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
—Fred er ick Buechner
Unforgiveness is the seed of resent ment and bit ter ness. It’s the key
ingre di ent in the feast of anger that trans forms emo tional pain and
hurt into suf fer ing and mis ery. Like a can cer, unforgiveness allows
anger to grow and your heart to harden, while breed ing judg ment, crit i -
cism, blame, ill will, and a host of harm ful behav ioral ten den cies.
When peo ple fail you in some way, the nat u ral ten dency is to feel
hurt, used, robbed, or wronged—like they owe you. This is what you
get when you don’t for give —an ever-pres ent debt to be repaid, with
you stuck as the vic tim. This is why for give ness is vital. “For give ness”
means “for giv ing,” the release of an imag ined debt: soft en ing up to the
pain and hurt you expe ri ence, giv ing it lov ing com pas sion and accep -
tance, and then let ting it go. When you choose for give ness, you cut
out anger at its root and allow peace to settle in.
Patience is about get ting smart and just stop ping, sit ting still, and
wait ing when the hard ness of the hot, noisy, pul sat ing, want ing- to-
just- get-even state of mind shows up. You can make a deci sion to cul ti -
vate patience in your life by learn ing to sit still with your pain, hurt,
and resent ment—and do noth ing. This sim ple and yet dif fi cult move
will help you take your life in direc tions you want it to go.
For give ness and patience are the most pow er ful anti dotes to
anger and aggres sion. And nei ther comes easy. Build ing on pre vi ous
exer cises, we’ll offer you more ways to nur ture and develop your capac -
ity for for give ness and patience. We’ll teach you how to for give your self
and oth ers, take care of your pain and hurt, and prac tice patience to
cool the flames of anger when they flare up.
Pema Chödrön (2001, 2005) has writ ten widely about the wis dom
of approach ing anger with mind ful accep tance and com pas sion, and
prac tic ing patience with anger. We have included many of her sug ges -
tions in the exer cises in this and the next chap ter. It’s best to prac tice
patience at home first, so that you can apply this vital life skill later in
those crit i cal stress ful sit u a tions when pain ful emo tions run high.
LEARNING TO FORGIVE
Most major reli gions tell us that for give ness is good, but they do not
teach us how to go about doing it. Many stud ies report that the
ability to for give improves health—phys i cal, emo tional and spir i tual
(McCullough, Thoresen, and Pargament 2000). Stud ies also show that
you can learn to for give. Those who learn this impor tant skill report
expe ri enc ing less hurt, stress, anger, depres sion, and ill ness, and more
136 ACT on Life Not on Anger
energy, hope, opti mism, com pas sion, and love, and a greater sense of
well-being. These are some of the con crete ben e fits of for give ness.
Just as with accep tance, many peo ple think for giv ing means con -
don ing or for get ting past wrongs, ignor ing hurt and pain; or else they
see it as a sign of weak ness. None of this is true. When the late Pope
John Paul II met with his would-be assas sin to for give him, he was n’t
con don ing the wrong that was done. Instead, he was extend ing mercy
and com pas sion. He was let ting go. The man who tried to kill the Pope
still sits in prison for his crime.
It is much eas ier to be angry than to choose for give ness. For giv ing
is the most cou ra geous and ben e fi cial thing you can do for your self. It’s
a gift to your self. To expe ri ence the ben e fits of for give ness, you need
no other per son than your self.
Four Steps to Forgiveness
Below we describe an exer cise that out lines four steps on the path
to learn ing for give ness:
1. Aware ness: Wak ing up to your hurt and pain as it is,
with out judg ment or denial
2. Sep a ra tion: Soft en ing to your expe ri ence using your
wise mind while invit ing heal ing and change
3. Com pas sion ate wit ness: Extend ing com pas sion to your
expe ri ence and that of oth ers
4. Let ting go and mov ing on: Releas ing the grudges,
resent ment, and pain, and then mov ing for ward in your
life in direc tions you want to go
Before begin ning this exer cise, we’d like you to find a quiet, com -
fort able place where you can set up a can dle. Light this can dle as a
sym bol of your com mit ment to for give. This can dle rep re sents some one
who recently caused you pain or hurt. You will be focus ing on the
flame as you go through each step.
This exer cise is likely to be dif fi cult for you at first. Steps 3 and 4,
bring ing com pas sion and let ting go as you extend for give ness to the
source of hurt or pain, are par tic u larly tough at first. Be gen tle with
your self if it feels like it’s too much or too dif fi cult. Your mind will give
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 137
you all sorts of rea sons why you should n’t do it. Acknowl edge those
doubts, appre hen sions, and uneas i ness about extend ing for give ness and
see whether you can be will ing to have them for the sake of liv ing the
life you want. It takes prac tice to cul ti vate for give ness. Give your self
time to get the hang of it. Spend at least fifteen min utes doing this
exer cise at least once per day. Tape-record it at a slow pace if that
makes it eas ier for you. Remem ber, this is for you, not for those who
have hurt you!
THE CANDLE OF FORGIVENESS
Go ahead and light the can dle, and then get in a com fort able posi tion
in your chair. Sit upright with your feet flat on the floor, your arms and
legs uncrossed, and your hands rest ing in your lap (palms up or down,
which ever is more com fort able). Allow your eyes to focus on the
candle flame and sim ply watch it.
As you watch the flicker of the can dle flame, bring your atten tion
to the gen tle ris ing and fall ing of your breath in your chest and belly.
Like ocean waves com ing in and out, your breath is always there.
Notice its rhythm in your body. Notice each breath. Focus on each
inhale . . . and exhale. Notice the chang ing pat terns of sen sa tions in
your belly as you breathe in, and as you breathe out. Take a few
minutes to feel the phys i cal sen sa tions as you inhale and exhale.
Step 1: Acknowledge the Wrong and HurtUnderneath the Anger
Now allow your aware ness to shift to a recent sit u a tion where you
became angry. See if you can allow your self to visu al ize the scene fully.
What hap pened? Who else was there? Watch the can dle as you
acknowl edge the anger sit u a tion unfolding in your mind’s eye. Focus
on your breath ing as you watch the sit u a tion unfold. With each slow
breath, see if you can slow the anger sit u a tion down, like a slow-
motion movie. As you do, bring your atten tion to any sen sa tions of
discomfort that show up. As best you can, bring an atti tude of gen er ous
allow ing and gen tle accep tance to your expe ri ence right now. See if
you can make room for the pain and hurt you had then and that you
may be reliv ing now. Soften to it . . . as you breathe in . . . and out . . .
138 ACT on Life Not on Anger
in and out. Don’t try to fight what you expe ri ence. Open up to all of it:
the hurt, pain, sad ness, regret, loss, and resent ment. Allow your self to
become more aware of your hurt and pain ful emo tions, and sim ply
acknowl edge the hurt you expe ri enced and the hurt you may have
caused. Don’t blame. Sim ply acknowl edge and become aware of your
expe ri ence.
Step 2: Separate Hurtful Actions from Your Hurt and Its Source
Visu al ize the per son who hurt you. As you begin to visu al ize that
per son, allow them to drift over to the can dle and become the can dle.
Focus on the can dle as the per son who hurt you, and remem ber what
hap pened. As you focus on the can dle, notice what your mind, the
language machine, is doing, and the sen sa tions that come up. You
might see your mind passing judg ment . . . blam ing . . . and lin ger ing
over feel ings of sad ness . . . bit ter ness . . . resent ment. As these and
other thoughts and sen sa tions come into your aware ness, sim ply label
them as you did in pre vi ous exer cises—“There is judg ment . . . blame
. . . ten sion . . . resent ment”—and allow them to be. Bring a gen tle and
kind aware ness to your pain and hurt as you breathe in . . . and out . . .
in . . . and out . . . slowly, and deeply.
Next, cre ate some space between the actions that made you feel
hurt and angry and the per son who com mit ted them. If it helps, you
can visu al ize the action that hurt you as the flame and the per son who
com mit ted the hurt as the can dle stick. Notice the dif fer ence between
the flame and the can dle. The flame is not the can dle stick. The
actions of the per son who hurt you are not the same as the per son who
com mit ted them. As you breathe in and out, give your self time to
connect with this dif fer ence. Bring each hurt ful action into the flame,
one by one, and notice it, label it, and then see the dif fer ence between
the hurt ful action and the per son who com mit ted it. Visu al ize what
was done, not who did it.
Then, after you spend some time notic ing each action, allow it
to dis ap pear up into the heat leav ing the can dle flame. Keep watch -
ing any ten sion, dis com fort, anger, hurt, or what ever else your body
may be doing. Make room for what you expe ri ence as you return
your atten tion to your body and your breath ing. Don’t change or fix
any thing.
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 139
Step 3: Bring Compassionate Witness to Your Hurt
Next, bring your atten tion back to the human being sym bol ized
by the can dle—the per pe tra tor of wrongs against you. Notice how he
or she is also a per son who is vul ner a ble to harm, just like you. At a
basic human level, the two of you are not that dif fer ent. See if you can
allow your self to take his or her per spec tive as a com pas sion ate wit -
ness—see what life might be like through that person’s eyes. Con nect
with his or her hard ships, losses, missed oppor tu ni ties, poor choices,
faults and fail ings, hurts and sad ness, hopes and dreams.
With out con don ing that person’s actions, see if you can con nect
with his or her human ity and imper fec tions as you con nect with your
own human ity and imper fec tions, hard ships, loss, pain, and suf fer ing.
As a com pas sion ate wit ness to this other human being, see if you can
con nect more deeply with that per son as another human being. Notice
the offender’s thoughts and feel ings, know ing that you’ve also expe ri -
enced sim i lar types of thoughts and feel ings. What might it be like to
have lived the life of the per son who offended you? As best you can,
bring an atti tude of gen er ous allow ing and gen tle accep tance to what
you expe ri ence now.
Step 4: Extend Forgiveness, Let Go, and Move On
Now see if you can bring into aware ness what your life would be
like if you let go of all the neg a tive energy you are hold ing on to—your
griev ances, grudges, bit ter ness, and anger. Con nect with the rea sons
behind why you want to be free from anger and the desire for revenge.
Allow your self to visu al ize an alter na tive future full of the things you
have missed out on or given up by not offer ing for give ness. See if you
can con nect with your future with out amne sia about what has
happened in the past, and with out car ry ing the weight of bit ter ness,
anger, and resent ment toward the per son who hurt you.
Allow your self to take the cou ra geous step for ward in your life of
let ting go of your anger and resent ment. Per haps you can feel the
burden and weight of past hurts and unre solved anger begin to lift from
your shoul ders. Take time to really con nect with this relief as you
imag ine your self sep a rat ing from the resent ment and bit ter ness you
have car ried for so long. Allow all of it to drift away with each out
140 ACT on Life Not on Anger
breath, and with each in breath wel come peace and for give ness.
Continue to breathe in . . . and out. Slowly. Deeply.
When you’re ready, bring into your aware ness how you have
needed other peo ple’s for give ness in the past. Imag ine extend ing that
for give ness to the per son who hurt or offended you. What could you
say to that per son now? As you think about this, notice any dis com fort
show ing up and how your mind is reacting. If the thought “The per son
does n’t deserve that” shows up, just notice that thought and gently let
it go. Return your focus to your breath ing as you remind your self that
kind and gen tle acts of for give ness are for you, not for oth ers. Imag ine
the weight of the bur den being lifted from you as you choose to give
for give ness. Allow your self to con nect with the sense of heal ing and
con trol that comes along with this. As you give the pow er ful gift of for -
give ness, notice some bud ding feel ings of soft ness where before there
was only hard ness, hurt, and pain.
Embrace this moment of peace as you return to the image of the
per son who offended you. Gently extend your hands as you say, “In
forgiving you, I for give myself. In let ting go of my anger toward you, I
bring peace to myself. I invite peace and com pas sion into my life and
into my hurt and pain. I choose to let go of this bur den that I have
been car ry ing for so long.” Repeat these phrases slowly as you extend
for give ness.
Stay with and sim ply observe and label what ever thoughts and feel -
ings come up as you extend this act of for give ness. Sense the emo tional
relief that comes when the bur den of a grudge is melt ing away. See if
you can notice the peace and feel ing of inner strength that comes about
as you extend com pas sion and for give ness in this moment. Then, when
you’re ready, bring your aware ness back into the room, to your body, and
to the flicker of the can dle flame. Fin ish this exer cise by blow ing out the
can dle as a sym bolic ges ture of your com mit ment to for give and let go,
and your readi ness to move on with your life.
Barriers to Forgiveness
A recent Gal lup poll showed that 94 per cent of Amer i cans
believe that it is impor tant to for give, and yet only 48 per cent reported
that they rou tinely prac tice for giv ing oth ers. Some thing is get ting in
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 141
the way of peo ple offer ing for give ness as often as they’d like to. The
chief bar ri ers to for give ness are men tal—the same kinds of mind
chatter that seem to pro tect you from hurt and pain but actu ally help
fuel your anger and keep you stuck and hurt ing. You’ll need to face
each of these bar ri ers squarely and rec og nize them for what they are if
you want to release your self from the grip of prob lem anger.
Larry’s Story
Let’s look at how this played out with Larry, who recently
attended an anger and for give ness work shop. About two
months before the work shop, Larry learned that his wife of
fif teen years had lied to him about some thing that had a
major impact on their future. He had sus pected that his wife
had lied to him in the past about fairly impor tant finan cial
mat ters, but now the full extent of her decep tion was
revealed. Even though the rev e la tion came to light two
months pre vi ously, Larry was still strug gling with feel ings of
hurt and betrayal, and he wanted to learn how to deal with
them. His anger and hurt were as vivid as they’d been when
he’d first unearthed the lie. Larry loved his wife, but he had
qualms about for giv ing her. He asked him self these
ques tions:
+ If I for give my wife, am I con don ing her decep -
tion?
+ How can I for get that she blew most of our
savings?
+ How can I stop obsess ing and fum ing over this?
Larry learned over the next sev eral weeks a few simple
facts: Just because some one hurt you does n’t mean that you
have to suf fer end lessly. For give ness did not mean excus ing
or gloss ing over his wife’s decep tion. It did not mean naively
trust ing her, and it did n’t even nec es sar ily mean that they’d
stay together. For giv ing sim ply meant choos ing to let go of
his resent ment. Larry also learned that there is no such thing
as try ing to for give. You either for give or you don’t.
142 ACT on Life Not on Anger
TRYING TO FORGIVE VERSUS FORGIVING
“I’ll try” was Larry’s first response when asked whether he was will ing
to for give his wife and let go of his anger and hurt. Per haps you’ve
also tried to for give some one. Maybe you’ve said some thing to your -
self like “I tried to for give, but [he or she] does n’t deserve it” or
“Why should I for give what hap pened when I suf fered so much
because of it?” Maybe what hap pened was so hor ri ble that you feel
you could not pos si bly for give the per son who harmed you.
This brief exer cise is a pow er ful way for you to con nect with the
fact that for give ness is some thing you do for yourself—and it’s also an
all-or-noth ing action: You do or you don’t; it’s not some thing you try
to do.
To get a sense of what we mean, go ahead and have a seat at a
table and place a pen in front of you. Now, we would like you to try to
pick up the pen. Try as hard as you can. Go ahead and try it. If you
find your self pick ing up the pen, stop! That is not what we asked you
to do. We want you to try to pick it up.
After some effort, you’re prob a bly think ing, “Well, I can’t do that.
Either I pick it up or I don’t.” You’re right. There is no way to try to
pick up the pen and at the same time pick it up.
Try ing is actu ally a form of not doing. This is why we never want
you to try any thing. You must first make a choice about whether you’re
will ing to do some thing. If you are willing—if you are com pletely will ing,
rather than just a bit will ing—then go ahead and do it. And if you
aren’t will ing, then don’t do it.
Doing is not about get ting it right or meet ing fail ure. For
instance, you could decide to pick up the pen and then find that it
slips from your fin gers and drops to the floor. Your mind might say,
“You tried, but it did n’t work.” Yet your expe ri ence tells you that you
could still bend over and repeat the act of pick ing up the pen, if that’s
what you’re com mit ted to doing. Some activ i ties in life sim ply require
per sis tence; you may need to do them over and over again before
you’ve accom plished your goal.
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 143
Fail ure is a subjective eval u a tion by what we like to call your
mind machine. Such eval u a tions need not stop you from doing what is
impor tant, even if that doing is a trial-and-error pro cess that is played
out over time.
For give ness is a pro cess that fits this bill. For Larry, for give ness
was a pain ful pro cess that led him to con front two crit i cal ques tions
about the use ful ness of resent ment: First, did being upset and angry for
the past eight weeks change what had hap pened? Sec ond, would
choos ing to hang on to his resent ment in the com ing months and years
change what had hap pened? Larry, of course, knew the answers. He
loved his wife and fam ily deeply and did not want to ruin the next
months and years of his life, mar riage, career, and fam ily. So he was
will ing to for give and let go. (And he and his wife went into mar riage
coun sel ing to deal with their com mu ni ca tion prob lems.)
For give ness takes hard work and cour age, because you need to be
will ing to con front your pain and hurt with renewed com pas sion,
gentleness, and patience. Larry did this by mak ing space for his hurt
and dis com fort and by choos ing not to buy into his evaluative mind.
You can do this, too, by open ing up, observ ing, soft en ing to, and
appreciating all of what you expe ri ence, both the plea sures and the
sorrows, the good times and the dif fi cult times. How you act in all
these life situations is up to you: this is some thing that you can con trol.
FACING YOUR ANGER AND HURT
Behind all anger is unre solved and often hid den pain and hurt. The
exer cises below are designed to bring you into close con tact with your
hurt and emo tional pain. Prac tice them at home first, so that you can
apply the skills later in sit u a tions where your anger gets trig gered. The
long-term goal is to develop a will ing ness to be in con tact with your
anger and sit still with it.
When you learn to wit ness and accept your pain and hurt, you
remove the fuel from anger—and you make room for com pas sion and
for give ness. In the pro cess, you’ll learn sev eral new things:
1. You’ll develop greater hon esty about your expe ri ence.
You’ll learn to acknowl edge anger, rage, fear, guilt, rejec -
tion, and hurt when you feel them.
144 ACT on Life Not on Anger
2. You’ll develop the cour age to do noth ing, to just sit with
your anger. This part is crit i cal. You’ll learn to stop run -
ning from your self, and you’ll develop com fort in your
own skin. There is sim ply no way to be com pas sion ate
about your expe ri ence while you’re busy run ning away
from it.
3. You’ll develop an observer’s per spec tive on your expe ri -
ence. Watch ing with out judg ing will allow you to dis en -
tan gle your self from what your body and mind are doing.
This will give you the con trol to act in ways that mat ter
to you, rather than react ing with out con trol. It will free
you to let go and move for ward in your life.
Doing these exer cises is likely to be scary at first. But if you stick
with them, you will find that your anger is far more harm ful and dam -
ag ing than the hurt and pain beneath. It’s the anger that’s ruin ing your
life, not your capac ity to hurt and feel emo tional pain. Whole heart edly
practicing these exer cises daily is extremely impor tant to your prog ress
toward get ting out of the anger trap and into your life. Do not attempt
the exer cises if you merely feel like try ing them. Wait until you’re ready
to do them, and then find a quiet place and fol low through.
The next exer cise is one of the most impor tant ones in this book.
Set aside ten to fifteen min utes for doing it. As before, with the anger
armor exer cise, we rec om mend that you read through the script a few
times first. Then close your eyes and fol low the instruc tions. You can
also record the script on an audio cas sette and play it back to your self
while you prac tice.
SITTING WITH YOUR ANGER AND
DIVING INTO YOUR HURT
Once again, get in a com fort able posi tion in a chair. Sit upright with
your feet flat on the floor, your arms and legs uncrossed, and your
hands rest ing in your lap (palms up or down, which ever is more com -
fort able). Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Relax. Allow
your body to rest with out drift ing off to sleep.
Now bring into your aware ness a recent sit u a tion where you felt
anger. Really work to bring this expe ri ence into your full aware ness and
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 145
right into the room with you. Make it as real as pos si ble. Con tinue to
visu al ize the sit u a tion until you can really notice a wave of unpleas ant
changes sweep ing over your body and mind. Allow your self to con nect
with the expe ri ence. Relive every bit of it as best as you can. Keep
doing so until you’re at a point where you feel taken over by feel ings of
anger and a strong desire to do some thing about it.
Now we want you to go more deeply into this expe ri ence. Imag -
ine that you have a large bub ble wand like kids some times play with at
the beach or in the park. Go ahead and fill the wand with soap, get ting
it ready to form a giant bub ble. Then, look within your self and notice
all the ele ments of the anger expe ri ence. Start by locat ing judg ments
and blam ing thoughts. For each one, take your bub ble wand and sweep
it through. Trap each thought in a giant bub ble. Then, one by one,
notice each thought in its bub ble. Label each one as you watch it drift
upward in the gen tle breeze: “There goes judg ing . . . blam ing . . .
criticizing.” Keep watch ing as all of them go higher and higher until
they’re out of sight. Then, take a few slow, deep breaths.
Next, notice the phys i cal sen sa tions of anger in your body: heart
pound ing in your chest, feel ing shaky, trem bling hands, short ness of
breath, feel ing hot, feel ing sick to your stom ach. There is ten sion every -
where. You feel like explod ing. As you feel impulses to respond, label
them one at a time: “There is my impulse to shout . . . make a fist . . .
lash out . . . point my fin ger.” Your task now is both sim ple and dif fi cult:
Do noth ing! Sit with these sen sa tions and impulses. Feel the rest less ness
of the energy in this sit u a tion. Sit ting still and doing noth ing is the last
thing you want to do, and it is the wis est thing you can do. Say nothing.
Do noth ing. You want res o lu tion now, and there isn’t any.
The energy of anger works like the big ocean wave we described
in chap ter 5. Con tinue to sit still with the energy you feel in this
situation, and let the anger wave run its course. Watch as it crests,
stay ing strong and pow er ful for a while until it even tu ally loses force
and dissipates.
Now, gently return to the anger sit u a tion and take a final inven -
tory. What are you left with? What do you see? We pre dict that there
are only two things left. You still have the pain and hurt that fueled
your anger to begin with. And you still have your val ues—although
they might feel a bit bruised and beat up by the anger. First, turn your
atten tion to the pain and hurt. As you did in the anger armor exer cise,
find a label to identify each feel ing. Take a moment to really take
stock.
146 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Per haps you can see hurt, fear, aban don ment, lone li ness, feel ings
of inad e quacy, loss, guilt, or shame. There is no need to deny or hide
these feel ings. They are part of you and belong to you, with out being
you or defin ing who you are. Just allow them to be, and see if you can
make space for them. Treat them like an open wound: take care of
them by bring ing kind ness, care, and com pas sion to your expe ri ence
and to this moment. For give your self for bury ing and reject ing your
pain for so long, for act ing in ways to push it from view.
If at any time you feel like stop ping and step ping back inside the
anger armor, thank your mind for that option, and sim ply return to
your expe ri ence. If you notice judg ment or resent ment pop ping up
again, place them into their own bub bles and let them go, float ing
upward.
Next, gently turn your atten tion to your val ues, which are lying
close by. Which ones do you see? Pick one or two that are par tic u larly
impor tant to you. Now ask your self this impor tant ques tion: “If anger
and hurt stand between me and mov ing in the direc tion of those
values, am I will ing to own them and still do what mat ters to me?” If
you’re willing, anger will no lon ger be a bar rier.
Think of a sit u a tion where anger has got ten in the way of act ing
in accordance with your val ues. Then, go ahead and imag ine your self
doing what you value in this sit u a tion while bring ing your hurt and
pain with you. That prob a bly feels strange; and it will also feel vital,
because you’re mov ing toward what you care about in life. You’re
exert ing con trol where you truly have it. Take time to really con nect
with this concept. Feel ing your anger, your hurt, and your pain while
act ing to pro mote your val ues is what it’s all about!
Then, when you’re ready, grad u ally widen your atten tion to take
in the sounds around you. Take a moment to resolve to bring a sense
of com pas sion and for give ness into the pres ent moment and to the rest
of your day.
Doing this exer cise isn’t easy. You may at first have prob lems
taking an observer’s per spec tive and bring ing some kind ness to this
expe ri ence. Don’t beat your self up over this; don’t judge those dif fi cul -
ties as failures. Com pas sion does n’t require perfection. Just stay the
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 147
course, be patient, and relax with your self. Sim ply com mit to doing the
exer cise again tomor row, and again the next day. Do the best you can.
We sug gest that you con tinue to go over the same anger epi sode
once a day until you can more readily adopt a wise mind per spec tive as
you stay with the neg a tive energy and hurt you feel. Then, move on to
dif fer ent anger epi sodes and cycle through the same pro cess as before.
Con tinue prac tic ing until you can stay with the bodily dis com fort and
hurt with com pas sion and for give ness, with out judg ing (let ting your
judg men tal thoughts come and then let ting them drift away). This will
take weeks, not days. The key is to stay on the path!
Practice Patience When Anger Is Hot
In many of the pre ced ing exer cises, you imag ined being angry but
you were at home, prob a bly alone in a room, and you brought on the
anger expe ri ence delib er ately. That is not how anger usu ally occurs. It
flares up when you may not have expected it, catch ing you off guard.
This is the tough est chal lenge: What do you do when the anger is hot,
right there, rag ing inside of you?
One of the rea sons why you prac ticed the pre vi ous exer cises—
and par tic u larly the last one—is to pre pare for those times when anger
gets ignited quickly in real-life sit u a tions. Of course, you can bring any
of the new skills you’ve been prac tic ing into the moment when anger
flares up. Yet in the heat of the moment it’s some times dif fi cult to
remem ber what exactly you’re sup posed to do. So let’s keep it sim ple:
Do noth ing and prac tice patience. Step back. If you can sit down at that
moment, do so, and sit still with what you expe ri ence in that moment.
Here are spe cific guide lines for what you can do:
+ Say and do noth ing. It may not feel like it, but you do
have a choice here. You can do what your mind and
body tell you to do. As in the past, every thing’s push ing
you to act: you want to be right, and you want to
straighten things out. You could do that—and what does
your expe ri ence tell you about that choice? Or you can
make a choice that seems as ridic u lous and unnat u ral as
push ing into the fin ger traps: you can choose to act with
patience. You stop, shut up, sit still, and wait until the
hard ness of the stir ring, rau cous, and sear ing energy
grad u ally soft ens and cools. You aren’t sup press ing here.
148 ACT on Life Not on Anger
You’re just hon est with the fact that you’re angry, or
hurt, or sad, or lonely, or fear ful, or what ever you’re
expe ri enc ing at the moment. And you stay with it,
without feed ing it or react ing to it.
+ Watch the mind machine as an observer. We guar -
antee that the mind machine will be in over drive doing
its blam ing. Don’t get tan gled up in what it’s doing;
don’t respond to it. Just watch what it’s doing from the
compassionate observer per spec tive, and prac tice gen tle
accep tance.
+ Ride the tiger. This is really tough. Sit ting with the dis -
com fort and doing noth ing while you feel like explod ing
is like rid ing a wild horse or a wild tiger; it’s very fright -
en ing. In that moment, bring atten tion to the phys i cal
expe ri ence of anger. Is there pres sure? Is there tight ness
or con trac tion? Where, spe cif i cally, do you feel it? Does
it have a shape? Observ ing your feel ings will help you see
them as sep a rate from you.
Here, per haps for the first time, you can make a choice to sit and
stay with the juicy energy that you have for so long acted to push out
of view. And you can do so in your daily life. Once you are still, you
can bring com pas sion and curi os ity to the energy and pain. Look
deeply into your expe ri ence with out attempt ing to resolve it, fight it, or
sup press it, and with out act ing on it. Just let it be. As you look, see if
you can find the pain. Once you locate the pain, as in the pre vi ous
exer cise, look more deeply behind it for some thing that you are
attached to or that you are hold ing on to. The attach ments will be dif -
fer ent for every one. If what you find seems too big, start with the lit tle
attachments that are also there.
Approach this act of patience with soft ness and curi os ity. You do
have a choice to hold on here or let go. This qual ity of patience is very
much like the prac tice of extend ing for give ness.
We men tioned res o lu tion and relief ear lier, and that what ever
you do in anger will bring no relief. As you prac tice patience, you may
very well find that let ting go of your attach ments and resent ments can
bring a sense of enor mous relief, relax ation, and con nec tion with the
soft ness and ten der ness of your heart. Patience breeds con nec tion with
oth ers; anger does the oppo site.
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 149
Nurture Comfort in Your Own Skin
Emo tional pain and hurt will show up in many areas of your life.
The sug ges tions below are about fur ther expand ing your response-
ability when faced with pain and hurt. Each builds on skills out lined in
ear lier exer cises. All take you into your pain and dis com fort, and help
you develop com fort in your own skin. The pay off is this: Your emo -
tional pain will no lon ger be fer tile soil for your anger. It won’t have
the capac ity to side track you from mov ing in direc tions you care about.
We sug gest that you take the per spec tive of wise mind and com pas -
sion ate wit ness for each exer cise. They will help you choose to open up
to and embrace these pain ful expe ri ences when they show up and learn
to bring com pas sion and for give ness to them.
Fac ing Your Fear
Start by mak ing con tact with the dan ger ous or pain ful thing you
are afraid of. What is the night mare or worst-case sce nario? Notice the
bodily sen sa tions that accom pany these thoughts. Be spe cific. You may
fear being exposed as incom pe tent or being embar rassed, humil i ated,
crit i cized, or deval ued. Or per haps you fear the emo tion of fear itself.
The prob lem here is not the emo tion, but what you do about it and
how that action gets in the way of doing things you value. Adopt an
observer per spec tive and watch your fear-related thoughts, wor ries,
bodily sen sa tions, and images. Sep a rate them out using the wise mind
tech nique, and stay with them. Don’t try to resolve or fix them. Sim ply
watch, as you’ve been prac tic ing.
Fac ing Guilt
Start by ask ing your self this ques tion: “What is the rule for how I
am sup posed to be or act that I vio lated when I started feel ing guilty?”
You may have one rule that emerges again and again (such as, I must
never miss an appoint ment or fail to fol low through with what I said I
would do); or there may be other rules that get in the way of you
moving in the direc tion of your val ues. As you con tact these rules,
notice the hard and rigid qual ity of each of them, the feel ing that to
break them is to be bad. Also notice how each rule stands in the way of
some thing that’s impor tant to you. Now exam ine the rule for what it is.
Does this rule come from your own expe ri ence? Is the rule life affirm -
ing? Has it worked for you? Is this rule get ting in the way of some thing
150 ACT on Life Not on Anger
you cher ish and hold dear? Within cul tural bound aries, you need to
decide whether fol low ing the rule is more impor tant than what you
value in this sit u a tion. Are you will ing to let the rule go if that means
doing what is impor tant to you? If so, then let go and get going.
Fac ing Loss and Grief
Peo ple run from grief because they resist pain and fear being over -
whelmed by pow er ful feel ings. This run ning, in turn, tends to be life
con strict ing. Have you allowed your self to grieve and expe ri ence the
nor mal pain that goes along with loss? If not, you need to do just that.
Your work here is to expe ri ence the pain of loss and then allow your self
to let it go. To do this, allow your self about half an hour each day to
rem i nisce, appre ci ate, and expe ri ence regret. At the same time, let in
the feel ings of sad ness that come along with giv ing up the lost person
or object. Trust that the waves of pain will pass before their inten sity
over whelms your abil ity to stay with them.
Fac ing Hurt
The active work of fac ing hurt is to acknowl edge it—openly,
directly, and hon estly, with out blame or accu sa tion. Focus on what
hurts and how that hurt is get ting in the way of aspects of your life that
are impor tant to you. Focus on com mu ni cat ing the feel ings of hurt
directly to your self and oth ers who may have brought these feel ings on.
For instance, you might say “I feel hurt when you joke about my cook -
ing.” Don’t look for apol o gies to resolve your hurt. Sim ply acknowl edge
it, bring com pas sion to it, and let it go with the gift of for give ness. As
with all the other exer cises, doing it once will not be enough. You need
to prac tice repeat edly. Over time, you will get better at fac ing your
hurt with com pas sion.
Fac ing Help less ness with Response-Abil ity
Many things in life occur out side of our con trol. It’s vital that you
detect the dif fer ence between what you can and can’t con trol. As you
learned in chap ter 4, try ing to meet uncon trol la ble cir cum stances with
con trol only buys you frus tra tion, anger, and a sense of help less ness.
Feel ings of help less ness almost uni ver sally redi rect our atten tion from
what we can con trol to what we can not con trol. Acknowledge feel ing
stuck; then choose to be response-able. Focus on what you can con trol
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 151
to have your needs met and to keep you mov ing for ward in direc tions
you care about. These are both things you can con trol and do some -
thing about. Be spe cific here: write down a plan that keeps you mov ing
for ward, even in the face of adver sity.
Feel ings of Emp ti ness and Lone li ness
Most peo ple will go to great lengths to block feel ings of emp ti ness
and lone li ness from their aware ness. It’s impor tant here, as with the
other pain ful emo tions, to sep a rate blame from the pain. You need to
expe ri ence your own lone li ness directly with out link ing it to the faults
and fail ings of oth ers. To encour age the feel ing and to develop com fort
with it, you could take a brief walk in a quiet place, sit alone for ten
min utes with the TV and radio off, or resist the impulse to call some -
one to fill the void, and instead notice what it’s like to post pone
contact for ten min utes or so. These lit tle exer cises will make you
aware of your lone li ness; and, some what par a dox i cally, they may gen er -
ate a sense of calm and inner peace. The most impor tant ele ment of
these exer cises is to notice and embrace what it feels like to be alone
with your self instead of run ning away from emp ti ness and lone li ness
and fill ing these voids with anger and blame.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
Pain and hurt are facts of life so long as one is liv ing. Anger and
unforgiveness feed off unre solved pain and hurt. This is why we are
show ing you the path way into your own pain and hurt, so that you can
douse the fuel that drives your anger.
It’s impor tant to remem ber that fac ing pain and hurt is not about
self-tor ture. As Pema Chödrön (2001) noted, stay ing with pain with out
lov ing-kind ness is just war fare. This is why most of the exer cises in this
book have a soft and gen tle, rather than a con fron ta tional, qual ity to
them. Self-com pas sion and cour age are vital. By learn ing to develop
com pas sion and lov ing-kind ness for your expe ri ences, rather than stuff -
ing them or run ning away from them with anger and aggres sion, you
are exer cis ing con trol where you truly have it!
Become mas ter ful at bring ing com pas sion to your expe ri ences—
all of them. Then com mit to extend ing com pas sion, for give ness, and
kind ness to oth ers, regard less of how they respond. This is about you
152 ACT on Life Not on Anger
and for you—for give ness is the most cou ra geous, hon est, and lov ing
gift you can give to your self. Expect big changes as you work with these
exer cises, but don’t expect changes overnight. Con tinue to work with
the exercises daily. Stay com mit ted to the prac tice. Stay on the path.
The out come will take care of itself.
Facing the Flame of Anger and the Pain Fueling It 153
WEEK 9
Fac ing my hurt with for give ness
Point to ponder: Prac tic ing for give ness and patience are the
most pow er ful anti dotes to anger. They are for me, about me,
and given by me.
Ques tions to con sider: Am I will ing to choose the path of
for give ness and extend kind ness to myself and oth ers? Am I
will ing to face my emo tional hurt and pain with patience,
compassion, and kind ness so that I can move on with my life?
Chapter 10
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no
loss of enthusiasm. Until you are committed, there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. The moment
you definitely commit yourself, then providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help you that would never have
otherwise occurred. Whatever you can do or dream you can do,
begin it! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
—Sir Winston Chur chill and W. H. Murray
Pre vi ous chap ters pro vided you with fun da men tally dif fer ent ways to
respond to your anger and hurt. You are now get ting to a place where
you’ve never been before. This place affords you more pro duc tive and
vital options when faced with hurt. If your val ues are the com pass
points that guide you through your life’s jour ney, then your goals are
the road map that can lead you there (Hayes and Smith 2005). The
next step is to take con trol of your actions and start mov ing in
directions you want to go.
We’ll help you put your val ues into action in ways that can
profoundly change your life for the better. The won der ful thing about
val ues is that you can live them. The key to liv ing out your val ues is to
break them down into incre men tal steps. You must com mit your self to
tak ing those steps by set ting goals and fol low ing through with action.
Liv ing a rich life is all about tak ing steps, how ever small or large, each
and every day toward achiev ing your goals and liv ing your values. By
tak ing charge of your behav ior, you take charge of your life.
Bar ri ers are bound to show up as you jour ney out of your anger
and hurt into the rest of your life. The risk of get ting side tracked by
these bar ri ers is great. So we’ll also help you learn to move with the
inev i ta ble bar ri ers that will spring up along the way, and how to
approach set backs and slip-ups with gen tle for give ness.
SETTING AND ACHIEVING GOALS
Go back to the life compass you used in chap ter 8 to explore your val -
ues. Now is the time to decide which of these val ues you want to start
enact ing in your life right now. Choose a value that is impor tant to you
and rep re sents an area of your life that you have been putt ing on hold
until now (you might choose one with a low action score). Per haps you
put this aspect of your life on hold because of anger-related bar ri ers. If
you sense that this is a domain where you’re not yet ready to con front
the bar ri ers, choose a dif fer ent one first.
At this point, we just want to walk you through one area to give
you an idea of how the pro cess works. Later you can go through the
same steps for the other domains on your life com pass. Once you’ve
cho sen a value, write it down on the top line of the val ues and goals
worksheet that appears a bit later in this chap ter. You may want to
make sev eral pho to cop ies of this worksheet so that you have plenty of
blank cop ies for other val ues that you will want to work on later.
156 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Our col leagues Michael Addis and Chris Martell (2004) devel -
oped a behav ioral pro gram with six man age able steps for achiev ing
goals. Let’s go over them one by one:
1. Clearly define the goal.
2. Iden tify the steps nec es sary to achieve the goal.
3. Arrange the steps in a log i cal order.
4. Make a com mit ment to each step.
5. Take each step, no mat ter how you feel.
6. Pat your self on the back after you com plete each step.
Identify Concrete and Achievable Goals
As you start think ing about goals, you’ll find that some are short-
term goals you can attain in the near future. Oth ers are long-term
goals you’ll only be able to attain fur ther down the road. Both types of
goals are impor tant, and achiev ing one may lead you to the next.
For instance, sup pose you value your health and want to increase
your fit ness level. So, you com mit to walk ing each day. Your long-term
goal might be to walk to a tele phone pole one mile up the road from
where you live. Between your house and that pole are a num ber of
other poles all spaced about the same dis tance apart. A short-term goal
here might be get ting to the first pole. The next day you com mit to
get ting to both the first and the sec ond pole, and so on. Ulti mately,
you need to go past all the inter me di ary poles to reach the long-term
goal of reach ing your one-mile marker. This is how short- and
long-term goals work—they get you mov ing on a val ued path.
In the space below (or on a sep a rate sheet of paper), write down
some goals related to the first value you chose on your life compass:
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
It’s impor tant that your goals meet cer tain cri te ria to avoid end -
ing up on a dead-end street. Ste ven Hayes and Spencer Smith (2005)
give some good advice in this regard:
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 157
Set ting goals is all about workability. If you don’t make your
goals work able in the con text of your life, it’s unlikely you’re
going to get very far down the path of your val ues. Choose
achiev able, obtain able out comes that can real is ti cally fit with
your life. Doing this makes it much more likely you’ll actu ally
be able to live your val ues every day. (p. 182)
We sug gest that you start with up to three goals. One of those
goals should be a short-term goal—something you can start work ing on
this week. Ask the fol low ing ques tions for each goal to make sure it’s
achiev able:
+ Is the goal con crete, prac ti cal, and real is tic?
+ Is it obtain able (some thing I can do and have con trol
over)?
+ Does it work with my cur rent life sit u a tion?
+ Does this goal lead me in the direc tion of my value?
If you can answer yes to all of these ques tions for a goal, write it
into the left-hand col umn of the val ues and goals worksheet later in
this chapter. If nec es sary, revis e and clar ify the goal until you get a yes
answer to each ques tion.
Identify Steps and Arrange Them in Logical Order
Hav ing set tled on goals, you’ve put the first guide posts on your
road map. Now focus on the incre men tal steps you need to take to get
you there. Start with the short-term goal and break it down into
smaller inter me di ate steps. Think of each step you need to take to
attain your goal. Then write them down in the space below (or on a
sep a rate piece of paper):
Now think about a log i cal order for the steps. What needs to
happen first before the other steps can fol low? If no par tic u lar order is
nec es sary, then start with the eas i est step. Copy the steps into the
158 ACT on Life Not on Anger
values and goals worksheet in the order in which they need to be
completed. Put the first one at the top. You can go through the same
pro ce dure for other goals you’ve iden ti fied. Put them in log i cal order
and write them on the worksheet. You may want to make a few pho to -
cop ies of the worksheet first or use addi tional blank sheets if nec es sary.
Let’s look at two exam ples. Say your goal is to change jobs and
even tu ally become man ager in a larger cor po ra tion rather than the
small out fit you’re cur rently work ing for. This goal, in turn, includes
smaller spe cific actions such as check ing rel e vant news pa pers and
Internet sites for post ings of man a ge rial jobs, net work ing with oth ers in
your field, updat ing your resume, set ting up an infor ma tional inter view
at a com pany that inter ests you, and mak ing a job appli ca tion to a
poten tial new employer.
For another exam ple, let’s say you want to work on spend ing
more qual ity time with your spouse or part ner. This goal may be
approached via sev eral steps, such as doing some thing once a week
with your part ner that you both enjoy such as going to a movie or the
the ater, din ing out, going away for the week end, or tak ing a bike ride
together. It is impor tant that you do these things regard less of how you
feel at the moment.
Make a Commitment and Take the Step
Now it’s time to make a com mit ment to step num ber 1. Are you
will ing to accept what ever dis com fort your mind and body will give
you? Are you will ing to com mit to the val ues explored in chap ter 8 and
to the behav ioral and life changes they imply? Are you ready to
commit to fol low ing through?
If so, com mit to a day and time to begin step 1. Tell some one else
that you have done so. Then, no mat ter how you feel at that time, do
it. This is all about action and doing some thing dif fer ent with your life.
Unless you take action, noth ing will change, and you’ll con tinue to get
what you always got.
Write the date when you achieve each step. Put a gold star on
the chart if you want to. Make sure to con grat u late your self; give your -
self credit for what you’ve accom plished, no mat ter how small the step
was. Review this worksheet fre quently. It gives you valu able feed back
on how you’re pro gress ing, and it will encour age you once you start
checking off your goals.
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 159
Values and Goals Worksheet
My Value:
The goal I wantto achieve
Steps towardachiev ing mygoal
Barriers Strategies Dateachieved
Goal 1: 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
160 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Goal 2: 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 161
Here’s how Harry, a forty-four-year-old mechanic and father of
three, com pleted a sec tion of his val ues and goals worksheet.
Values and Goals Worksheet
My Value: Being a good dad with my kids
The goal Iwant toachieve
Steps toward achievingmy goal
Barriers Strategies Dateachieved
Goal 1:Spendmore timewith mykids
1. Set aside time eachday to spend with eachof my three kids. Get a daily planner for timewith kids and toremember importantdates like birthdays,sporting events, family trips
Stress fromwork—hard forme to unwindand have timefor myselfduring the week
Use the plannerto make time formyself. Get upearly to havesome time alone
2. Be available for thekids. Be around thehouse more often,especially on weekends
Old habits afterwork justplopping myselfdown in front of the TV with abeer
Tape the news.Keep the TV offafter I get home, and watch TVonce the kids are in bed
3. Brainstorm funactivities that I can do with the kids—go swimming at thelake, go see a movie,go to the carnival, play flashlight tag, card games
Noise—kidsyelling andscreaming (I’drather be alone)
Use a wise mind perspective when the kids aregetting to me.Remind myselfthat kids arekids, and that Iam responsiblefor what I do
4. Practice patiencewith them. Work onenjoying the time withthe kids for the sake of it
Anger—whenthey don’t listen to me, Iwithdraw andwant to be bymyself
Use the calendar to remind myselfof my values—having a goodrelationship withmy kids as a dad
5. Show them that Icare about them—say “I love yous more”; give out more hugs,even when I don’t feellike hugging; be willingto do what they want to do, even if that’s not exactly what I wantto do
So many thingsto do aroundthe house afterwork
Try to involve the kids in some ofthe houseprojects—havethem be my littlehelpers. A goodway for me toteach them some skills and for usto spend timetalking.
162 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Moving with Barriers and Setbacks
As you embark on your jour ney of accep tance, putt ing your
values into action, you will find the road to be full of bar ri ers. Some
bar ri ers are exter nal, such as lack of money, time, oppor tu nity, phys i -
cal space, geo graph ical con straints, or even weather. You can work
through some of these bar ri ers by brain storm ing alter na tives and
perhaps talk ing with a good friend about them to get some fresh
ideas. Yet by far the most frequent and tricky bar ri ers that you face
are those nagging inter nal barriers that have also slowed you down in
the past. These may be difficult anger-related thoughts, feel ings,
bodily sensations, or impulses.
That’s what the pre vi ous chap ters have mostly been about—
getting you ready for all the moments when bar ri ers are going to show
up in the form of thoughts you’ve believed in, along with the pain,
hurt, feel ings, and sen sa tions you’ve been try ing to avoid. This is the
time to employ some of the strat e gies you’ve learned in this book: the
observer, mind ful ness, and accep tance strat e gies. If you can’t remem -
ber these, flip back through the book to remind you what they are and
how to do them.
We are brought up to believe that when a bar rier comes up, we
should just get rid of it, over come it. The prob lem with this strat egy is
that get ting rid of and over com ing entails strug gle. As you may have
found out in the costs of anger exer cise in chap ter 2, this kind of
struggling with your anger does n’t tend to work well. These are the
times when you need to lis ten to and trust your expe ri ence, not your
mind!
You don’t need to over come bar ri ers on your road to liv ing your
values. The key is to accept and move with the barriers—take them
along for the ride! You can deal with the obsta cles, set backs, and anger
slip-ups you’ll undoubt edly expe ri ence in the same way you deal with
your evaluative mind and your anger feel ings. You don’t push them
aside; instead, you make room for all the unwanted stuff that has been
stop ping you from doing what is best for you. You acknowl edge that
stuff, stay with it, watch it from the wise mind observer per spec tive,
and keep on mov ing in the direc tion you want to go—all at the same
time.
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 163
DRIVING YOUR LIFE BUS
You can think of your self as the driver of a bus called, “My Life.”
You’re headed north toward your Value Moun tain, [insert one of your
val ues here]. Along the way, you pick up some unruly pas sen gers, like
these blam ing, crit i cal, anger-related thoughts that your mind comes
up with. Other pas sen gers on the bus trav el ing with you are the
feelings of pain and hurt that you con tacted in ear lier exer cises. These
pas sen gers are loud and per sis tent. They frighten and seem ingly bully
you as you drive along your cho sen route.
After a while, you real ize that when you turned around while
trying to argue with these other passengers and calm them down, you
missed a road sign and took a wrong turn. Now you find your self about
one hour out of your way, headed south. What do you do? You are, in
a sense, lost, but you’re not directionless. You could stop the bus and
focus on get ting your pas sen gers in line. What would it cost you to do
so? Thoughts and feel ings can not pre vent you from turn ing your bus
around and head ing north again toward the mountain—unless you
164 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Fig ure 3. “Tak ing the Bul lies with You to Value Moun tain” was con cep tu al ized and
illus trated by Dr. Joseph Ciarrochi and Dr. David Mer cer, Uni ver sity of Wollongong,
New South Wales, Aus tra lia. Reprinted with per mis sion of the authors.
give them that power. If get ting to the moun tain is impor tant to you,
then what you need to do is stay in the driver’s seat of the bus and
keep on driv ing north toward the moun tain, no mat ter how much
noise those other pas sen gers are making.
The uncom fort able pas sen gers are still on the bus with you. You
can’t get rid of them. As you get back on the road to your Value
Moun tain, they creep for ward and scream, “Pay atten tion to us! Turn
around! Go back! Take this detour—it’s safer, eas ier—it’ll make you
feel better.” What will you do? Stop ping won’t get you to the moun -
tain, and nei ther will the detour. Only you can take your self to where
you want to go—and you have no choice but to take the whole crowd
with you.
Those pas sen gers on your bus will grab every oppor tu nity to steer
you off course. They’ll try to con vince you that you don’t feel like
doing this any more, that it’s all too much, too dif fi cult, not worth it . . .
and you keep on mov ing north.
You are in con trol of your life bus. You con trol the steer ing wheel
with your hands and the accel er a tor with your feet. You can’t con trol
what kinds of feel ings, thoughts, or fears will ride along with you. But
you can deter mine where you’re going. That is what you truly can
con trol.
Don’t Let the Mind Machine Trap You
The mind machine won’t stop its chat ter just because you’ve
made a com mit ment to act with com pas sion. Some times you will fall
short of being accept ing. Your evaluative mind may scorn you: “Stop
all this accep tance and for give ness BS. You just can’t do it. The only
thing you should accept is that you’re a fail ure at accep tance!” When
your mind is throw ing this and other curveballs at you, it’s impor tant
not to get tan gled up in all that chat ter. This is just another exam ple of
your mind doing what minds do all the time: eval u ate. It’s just more
“blah, blah, blah” from your mind.
Do you really need to argue with blah, blah, blah? Or can you
make room for what ever your mind comes up with and let it be? This
will free you up to move on with your life, no mat ter how strong or
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 165
pow er ful the feel ings are, no mat ter how loud the thoughts yell at you.
These are the times when you need to watch and expose your mind
machine in action as you’ve learned to do in pre vi ous exer cises. The
prac tice is always the same: you sim ply acknowl edge and observe your
mind’s doings with out strug gling against or believ ing them. Instead of
fall ing prey to a chain reac tion of vil i fi ca tion of oth ers, anger behav ior,
and self-scorn, you can grad u ally learn to drop all the story lines your
mind is com ing up with.
Flex i bil ity Cre ates Response-Ability
It’s really impor tant to be flex i ble when you encoun ter bar ri ers.
Look at Anna’s sit u a tion. When all the Ivy League col leges she had
applied to rejected her appli ca tion, she felt sad and angry at all those
“stuck-up admis sions peo ple.” Her mind told her, “You have to go to
an Ivy League school.” She lis tened and ended up spend ing her time
and money reap ply ing, get ting rejected, reap ply ing, and so on. Anna
ended up not going to any col lege for two more years. She’d allowed
her feel ings and her mind chat ter to keep her from get ting a col lege
edu ca tion—one of her val ued goals—by rig idly insist ing she had to go
to an Ivy League school. She’d let her sad ness, anger, and events that
were mostly out side her con trol keep her from apply ing to state
schools. The more flex i ble your behav ior is when obsta cles crop up, the
greater your abil ity to respond with inten tion and in accor dance with
your val ues. Flex i bil ity nur tures response-abil ity—and makes it ever
more likely that you’ll achieve your goals.
Are You Mov ing For ward or Back ward in Your Life?
When ever you encoun ter bar ri ers and you’re unsure whether
your planned action is good for you, ask your self one sim ple question,
“Is my response to this event, thought, feel ing, worry, or bodily sen sa -
tion mov ing me closer to or fur ther away from where I want to go with
my life?” Below are some vari a tions of this crucial ques tion:
+ If that thought (emo tion, bodily state, mem ory) could
give advice, would the advice point me for ward in my life
or keep me stuck?
+ What advice would the value of [insert a per ti nent value
here] give me right now?
166 ACT on Life Not on Anger
+ What would I advise some one else or my child to do?
+ In what val ued direc tion have my feet taken me when I
lis tened to this advice?
+ What does my expe ri ence tell me about this solu tion?
And what do I trust more, my mind and feel ings, or my
expe ri ence?
Ask ing ques tions like these when faced with adver sity and doubt
is far more help ful than lis ten ing to what your unwise anger mind
comes up with, or what the surg ing impulses seem to be tell ing you.
The answers will remind you that past solu tions have not worked. You
now have the oppor tu nity to choose to do some thing dif fer ent, per haps
even rad i cally dif fer ent.
Break ing Com mit ments and Recommitting to Action
Bring ing com pas sion to your expe ri ence and prac tic ing patience is
dif fi cult. When you make a com mit ment to an activ ity, or to prac tice
com pas sion, it’s impor tant that you have a clear under stand ing of what
com mit ment means. We’re pretty sure that the pas sen gers on your bus
are going to be yell ing and scream ing at you, “You’ll never make it!”
“You’ll just make a fool of your self!” “You’re going to get hurt!” Know -
ing that you’re bound to expe ri ence dis com fort and doubt, are you still
will ing to com mit to this activ ity 100 percent and go through with it?
Remem ber, com mit ment is not some thing you can merely try or do
half way. You either make the com mit ment or you don’t.
We’re not ask ing you to com mit to a par tic u lar result or out come
(“being in a steady rela tion ship by July 1” or “feel ing better and less
angry”). Par tic u lar out comes are beyond your con trol. We’re only ask -
ing whether you’re will ing to com mit to doing some thing that will work
for you and take all those pas sen gers with you on your life bus. Will
you do that and mean it?
The com mit ment is that you fully intend to fol low through, not
that you never fall short. In fact, we pre dict that you will fall short at
some point. Your com mit ment is that if and when you do break a
commitment, you will recom mit and mean it once again. You will do
what ever you can to stay on the path of com mit ment, mov ing in the
direc tion of your val ues.
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 167
Choice and action deter mine how we deal with bar ri ers and
setbacks. At times, every one of us fails to live con sis tently with our
val ues. Yet, every day we can make a renewed com mit ment to take
actions that move us in life direc tions that we care about. A bar rier or
an anger slip-up does not mean that anger will take over your life
again—unless you allow that to hap pen. It’s your choice to either give
up or recom mit to small actions that make your life mean ing ful—and
then put those actions into prac tice. So long as you do that and keep
mov ing, you will be truly liv ing a life that expresses your val ues. Our
aim in this book is to help you make choices—every day and every
moment of your life—that will keep you mov ing in the direc tion of
those val ues.
PRACTICE ACTS OF TLC AND KINDNESS
Being kind to your self and oth ers is also a value—and it’s directly
related to anger. Anger and kind ness are two oppos ing forces. When
one shows up, the other gets pushed aside. Prac tic ing acts of kind ness
toward your self and oth ers is a behav ioral anti dote to anger. It’s a
simple thing you can do to bring peace and joy to your life. Be mind ful
that you may not always get kind ness in return. The point is that you
are tak ing charge by being kind. This is some thing you can do,
regardless of the out come.
How to Be Kind to Yourself
Per haps you’d like to be kinder to yourself, but you don’t know
how to start. We sug gest that you begin by mak ing a com mit ment to
prac tice at least one act of kind ness toward your self every day. Start
each day with this com mit ment. Think about some thing you could do
to be kind to your self. These acts are par tic u larly impor tant when what
we call “TLC” issues arise—when you feel Tired or stressed, Lonely,
and Crav ing (for example, for food, stim u la tion, nur tur ing, or praise).
Our expe ri ence shows that at least 50 percent of all anger epi sodes are
in some way asso ci ated with TLC prob lems. When peo ple are irri ta ble
and needy, anger is eas ily pro voked.
You can attend to TLC prob lems by nur tur ing Tender Loving
Care toward your self. This might involve tak ing time to prac tice
168 ACT on Life Not on Anger
med i ta tion, read ing a good book, going for a walk, lis ten ing to music,
gardening, or pre par ing a good meal. Being kind can also include prac -
tic ing accep tance and com pas sion toward your own feel ings, mem o ries,
and hurts. You could give your self the kind ness of your mother’s hand,
as we described in chap ter 6.
Val ued liv ing and being kind to yourself are related. When ever
you do some thing that moves you closer to one of your val ues, you’re
also being kind to your self. Return to your life compass in chap ter 8
and the val ues and goals worksheet in this chap ter, and iden tify some -
thing you can do, how ever small, in the service of one of those val ues.
Then com mit your self to doing it. Make giv ing your self TLC every day
a pri or ity.
Put Kindness Toward Others into Action
Be mind ful of any chance you get through out your day to act in a
kind and com pas sion ate way toward oth ers. These acts of kind ness
could take many forms. You might prac tice say ing, “please,” “thank
you,” and “you’re wel come” more often. You might open a door for
some one or offer a help ing hand. You could let a driver merge into
traf fic instead of mak ing it impos si ble for them to do so. You could
extend a smile to a stranger. Give a hug or a kiss to a loved one.
Convey under stand ing, com pas sion, and for give ness when you feel
hurt, anger, and the urge to strike back.
The point of these activ i ties and other ran dom acts of kindness is
that you are doing some thing pos i tive and per son ally uplift ing for the
sake of doing so—“just because.” You are express ing the value of kind -
ness and com pas sion. Doing so may feel con trived at first, but don’t let
this feel ing get in the way of your com mit ment to act ing kindly. You
need not feel peace ful and lov ing first to act in a kind and lov ing way.
You can just do it regard less of what you feel.
With prac tice, acts of kind ness will become auto matic and bring
with them an increased sense of peace, love, and trust. You’ll find that
peo ple will be more likely to grav i tate in your direc tion when you
practice acts of kind ness. This out come can only enrich your
rela tion ships.
Regard less of the tar get or the out come, kind ness is fun da men -
tally about you! Nur ture it. Develop it. Make it the core of your being
and how you choose to live.
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 169
Make a Twenty-Four-Hour Commitment to Act with Compassion
We’re not sug gest ing that you make a com mit ment not to feel
hurt or anger. “I won’t get angry today” makes no sense, because you
can’t con trol whether you feel angry. What we are sug gest ing is that
you make a com mit ment to act with com pas sion toward your self and
oth ers by act ing in a car ing and lov ing way. Remem ber that com pas -
sion is not a feel ing. It con sists of many acts of kind ness and car ing for
your self and oth ers. Write this com mit ment down on paper; or, better
yet, share it with some one you care about. Here’s how to make it work:
+ Tell peo ple. Share with every sig nif i cant per son in your
life that you are 100 per cent com mit ted to behav ing in a
lov ing and com pas sion ate way between [time] and
[time]. Explain that this means that you won’t shout at,
swear, hit, blame, attack, or den i grate any one (includ ing
your self). No excep tions or excuses. Let them know that
you’re going to be on your guard for dis agree able,
aggressive behav ior through out this day as part of your
com mit ment to make com pas sion a reg u lar part of your
life.
+ Decide what you can do and are will ing to do.
Compassion can take many forms. You’ll need to decide
on clearly vis i ble acts of com pas sion for your self and
others that fun da men tally go against the grain of your
old pat terns of act ing with cyn i cism and anger. So think
pos i tive and brain storm here. Acts of com pas sion need
not cost one penny. They are free and can be freely
given—a help ing hand, smile, hug, kiss, or lis ten ing ear
when you feel like strik ing back; kind words instead of
gos sip, sar casm, or crit i cism; express ing grat i tude and
appre ci a tion for what oth ers have done; time alone with
those you care about; tak ing time out for your self to
relax; or mak ing time to prac tice the exer cises in this
book. Be cre ative. Do some thing pos i tive and uplift ing
for your self and those around you.
+ Ask for help. There’s a good chance that keep ing this
com mit ment won’t be easy—espe cially if you expe ri ence
170 ACT on Life Not on Anger
fre quent, unpre dict able anger. It will prob a bly feel a bit
strange. Ask oth ers to let you know when they notice
your acts of com pas sion. Don’t be seek ing approval or
kudos here. Just look for acknowl edg ment that you are
doing what you intended to do. Also ask them to
remind you when they notice you slip into old pat terns
of express ing your anger, either toward your self or
others. You could come up with a hand ges ture or a code
word to sig nal anger behav ior.
Practice Patience and Compassion One Day at a Time
Sit ting still with your anger after it’s been ignited is one of the
tough est parts of prac tic ing patience on a day-to-day basis. So is let ting
go of the inter nal dia log and strug gle with your self. Over time, you’ll
get more skilled—so long as you keep prac tic ing lov ing-kind ness
toward your own slip-ups, lim i ta tions, and all-too-human inabil ity to be
perfect.
Begin each day with this com mit ment: “Today, to the best of my
abil ity, I’m going to act with patience.” In the eve ning, go back and
exam ine your day with lov ing-kind ness. Don’t beat your self up if your
day ends up filled with the same old things you’ve always done.
Instead, bring lov ing-kind ness, com pas sion, humor, and for give ness to
your eval u a tion.
Com pas sion, soft ness, flex i bil ity, and cour age are vital. Rec og nize
that you’re only human, and that you’re going to make mis takes and
expe ri ence set backs. You’re never going to be able to be patient and
accept ing all the time; still, you keep mov ing in that direc tion, one day
at a time. What mat ters is that you are tak ing steps to bring accep -
tance and com pas sion to your self and your expe ri ences. The small
steps even tu ally add up. Sooner or later you’ll find that lov ing-kind ness
and patience will become a habit in your life.
Use the Energy of Anger
Pema Chödrön (2001) describes an intrigu ing way you can use
the energy of anger con struc tively. Emo tions typ i cally pro lif er ate
through our inter nal dia log—that is, our evaluative thoughts. If you
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 171
label those thoughts as “think ing” when you notice them, you may be
able to sense the vital, pul sat ing energy beneath them. This energy
under lies all of your emo tional expe ri ence, and there is noth ing wrong
or harm ful about it.
The chal lenge is to stay with this under ly ing energy—to expe ri -
ence it, leave it as it is, and, when pos si ble, put it to good use. When
anger arises unin vited, let go of your blam ing, crit i cal thoughts, and
con nect directly with the energy under ly ing it (as you learned to do in
chap ter 9). What remains is a felt expe ri ence rather than a sub jec tive
com men tary on what is hap pen ing. If you feel, and can stay with, the
energy in your body—neither act ing it out nor sup press ing it—you can
har ness it in the ser vice of actions that will move you for ward toward
achiev ing your goals. The raw energy of anger is fuel. You get to
choose how to use it.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
To change your life, you’ll need to com mit your self to chang ing what
you do, pure and sim ple. Accep tance, com pas sion, and kind ness are
never more impor tant than when you deal with bar ri ers. In the past,
you’ve prob a bly shied away from the dif fi cult feel ings, unwanted
thoughts, uncon trol la ble impulses, sit u a tions, peo ple, and per sonal ene -
mies that tend to trig ger your anger. You can choose to con tinue to do
that, and you know where that will lead you. Or you can choose to
take a dif fer ent path, one that you can travel on side by side with the
best teacher you’ll ever have:
I must empha size again that merely think ing that com pas -
sion, reason, and patience are good, will not be enough to
develop them. We must wait for dif fi cul ties to arise and then
attempt to prac tice these qual i ties. And who cre ates such
oppor tu ni ties? Not our friends, of course, but our ene mies.
They are the ones who give us the most trou ble. So if we
truly wish to learn, we should con sider ene mies to be our best
teacher! (Dalai Lama 2003, p. 62)
172 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Commit to Take Positive Action in Your Life 173
WEEK 10 (and beyond)
Putt ing my val ues into action
Points to pon der: I can live my val ues and take my anger and
my hurt—all of me—along for the ride. My great est bar ri ers
are those that my mind cre ates. I need not let them stand in
the way of where I wish to go with my life.
Ques tions to con sider: How can I put my val ues into action
every day? How can I best move with my bar ri ers toward a
valued life? Is what I am doing now mov ing me for ward or
back ward in my life? Is what I am doing now what I want to be
about?
Further Readings,References, and Other
Resources
Besides the mate ri als we’ve used for writ ing this book, we’re includ ing
sug gested read ings for learning more about the ACT approach to
anger. We par tic u larly rec om mend the book by Steve Hayes and
Spencer Smith for more exam ples and sug ges tions on how to use ACT
in your life. We also rec om mend the book by Pema Chödrön—a great
source of strength, cour age, and prac ti cal advice on how to approach
anger with its most pow er ful anti dotes, com pas sion and patience.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s book con tains prac ti cal advice on trans form ing
your self through mind ful ness and water ing the pos i tive seeds in
yourself and oth ers, while starv ing the neg a tive seeds.
FURTHER READING
Chödrön, P. 2001. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in
Difficult Times. Boston: Shambala Pub li ca tions.
Hanh, T. N. 2001. Anger: Wis dom for Cooling the Flames. New York:
Berkley Pub lish ing Group.
Hayes, S. C., and S. Smith. 2005. Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life:
The New Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy Guide. Oak land, Calif.:
New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.
McKay, M., P. D. Rog ers, and J. McKay, J. 2003. When Anger Hurts. 2nd
ed. Oak land, Calif.: New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.
REFERENCES
Amer i can Psy cho log i cal Asso ci a tion. 2005. Con trol ling Anger Before It
Controls You. APA Online, Pub lic Affairs. Retrieved on August 9,
2005, from www.apa.org/pubinfo/anger.html.
Addis, M. E., and C. R. Martell. 2004. Over com ing Depression One Step at
a Time. Oak land, Calif.: New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.
Brantley, J. 2003. Calm ing Your Anxious Mind. Oak land, Calif.: New Har -
bin ger Pub li ca tions.
Bry, A. 1976. How to Get Angry With out Feel ing Guilty. New York: New
Amer i can Library.
Chödrön, P. 2001. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fear less ness in
Dif fi cult Times. Boston: Shambala Pub li ca tions.
———. 2005. The answer to anger: The cour age to do noth ing. Shambala
Sun 13(March):32-36.
Chodron, T. 2001. Work ing with Anger. Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Pub li ca -
tions.
Dahl, J., K. G. Wil son, and A. Nilsson. 2004. Accep tance and Com mit -
ment Ther apy and the treat ment of per sons at risk for long-term dis -
abil ity result ing from stress and pain symp toms: A pre lim i nary
ran dom ized trial. Behav ior Ther apy 35:785-802.
Dalai Lama (Four teenth), Tenzin Gyatso. 2003. A Dalai Lama trea sury.
Shambala Sun 11(Sep tem ber)63.
176 ACT on Life Not on Anger
DeAngelis, T. 2003. When anger’s a plus. Mon i tor on Psy chol ogy
34(March):44-55.
Eifert, G. H., and M. Heffner. 2003. The effects of accep tance ver sus
con trol con texts on avoid ance of panic-related symp toms. Jour nal of
Behav ior Ther apy and Exper i men tal Psy chi a try 34:293-312.
Fried man, H. S. 1992. Hos til ity, Cop ing, and Health. Wash ing ton, D.C.:
Amer i can Psy cho log i cal Asso ci a tion.
Hanh, T. N. 2001. Anger: Wis dom for Cool ing the Flames. New York:
Berkley Pub lish ing Group.
Hayes, S. C ., J. Luoma, F. Bond, A. Masuda, and J. Lillis. (in press).
Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy: Model, pro cesses, and out -
comes. Behav iour Research and Ther apy.
Hayes, S. C., and S. Smith. 2005. Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life:
The New Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy Guide. Oak land, Calif.:
New Har bin ger Pub li ca tions.
Hayes, S. C., K. D. Strosahl, and K. G. Wil son. 1999. Accep tance and
Com mit ment Ther apy: An Expe ri en tial Approach to Behav ior Change.
New York: Guilford Press.
Hokanson, J. E. 1970. Psychophysiological eval u a tion of the cathar sis
hypoth e sis. In E. I. Megargee and J. E. Hokanson (eds.), The Dynamics
of Aggression. New York: Harper & Row.
Lerner, J. S., and D. Keltner. 2001. Fear, anger, and risk. Jour nal of Per son -
al ity and Social Psy chol ogy 81:146-159.
McCullough, M. E., C. E. Thoresen, and K. I. Pargament. 2000. For give -
ness: The ory, Research, and Prac tice. New York: Guilford.
Purdon, C. 1999. Thought sup pres sion and psychopathology. Behav iour
Research and Ther apy, 37:1029-1054.
Siddle, R., F. Jones, F. Awenat. 2003. Group cog ni tive behav ior ther apy
for anger: A pilot study. Behav ioural and Cog ni tive Psy cho ther apy
31:69-83.
Smith, T. W., and L. Gallo. 1999. Hos til ity and car dio vas cu lar reac tiv ity
dur ing mar i tal inter ac tion. Psy cho so matic Med i cine 61:436-445.
Suarez, E. C., J. G. Lewis, and C. Kuhn. 2002. The rela tion of aggres sion,
hos til ity, and anger to lipopolysaccharide-stim u lated tumor necro sis
fac tor (TNF) by blood monocytes from nor mal men. Brain, Behav ior,
and Immu nity 16:675-684.
Further Readings, References, and Other Resources 177
Tavris, C. 1989. Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (rev. ed.). New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Wegner, D. M. 1994. Ironic pro cesses of men tal con trol. Psy cho log i cal
Review 101:34-52.
INTERNET RESOURCES
ACT-Related Books and Materials
www.ACT-for-Anx i ety-Dis or ders.com
This Web site for our anx i ety dis or ders book pro vides infor ma tion on
how to con tact us, and addi tional infor ma tion about our other ACT
books and the ACT approach in gen eral. We also pro vide infor ma -
tion on our lec tures and workshops.
www.acceptanceandmindfulness.com
This Web site con tains infor ma tion on New Har bin ger books, includ -
ing some of our own, in which accep tance and mind ful ness
approaches are applied to a vari ety of life prob lems.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
www.acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy.com
This Web site has many use ful resources for those inter ested in learn -
ing more about ACT, as well as those actively engaged in ACT
research and appli ca tion. There is also an exten sive col lec tion of
research sup port (for instance, you can find updated lists of empir i cal
stud ies on ACT—and many of them can be down loaded directly from
the Web site).
Bruderhof Forgiveness Guide
www.forgivenessguide.org/for give ness/sites/index.htm?rs=0/62/-59
This Web site con tains sev eral use ful resources and links to sites that
help you nur ture and develop your capac ity for for give ness.
178 ACT on Life Not on Anger
Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care,and Society at UMASS Boston
www.umassmed.edu/cfm/
This is the Web site for the Cen ter for Mind ful ness in Med i cine,
Health Care, and Soci ety. The cen ter is ded i cated to fur ther ing the
prac tice and inte gra tion of mind ful ness in the lives of indi vid u als,
insti tu tions, and soci ety through a wide range of clin i cal, research,
edu ca tion, and out reach ini tia tives. One of these ini tia tives is the
Stress Reduc tion Pro gram—the old est and larg est mind ful ness pro -
gram in the coun try based at an aca demic med i cal cen ter.
Pema Chödrön
www.shambhala.org/teach ers/pema/#
On this Web site, you’ll find infor ma tion about Pema Chödrön’s
teach ings, addi tional exer cises, and her forth com ing books and
lectures.
Further Readings, References, and Other Resources 179
Georg H. Eifert, Ph.D., is pro fes sor and chair of the depart ment of
psy chol ogy at Chap man Uni ver sity in Orange, CA. He was ranked in
the top thirty of Research ers in Behav ior Anal y sis and Ther apy in the
1990s and has authored over 100 pub li ca tions on psy cho log i cal causes
and treat ments of anx i ety and other emo tional dis or ders. He is a clin i -
cal fel low of the Behav ior Ther apy and Research Soci ety, a mem ber of
numer ous national and inter na tional psy cho log i cal asso ci a tions, and
serves on sev eral edi to rial boards of lead ing clin i cal psy chol ogy jour -
nals. He is also a licensed clin i cal psy chol o gist.
Mat thew McKay, Ph.D., is a pro fes sor at the Wright Insti tute in
Berke ley, CA. He is the author and coau thor of more than twenty-five
books, includ ing The Relax ation and Stress Reduc tion Work book,
Thoughts and Feel ings, Mes sages, When Anger Hurts, Self-Esteem and The
Self-Esteem Guided Jour nal. He received his Ph.D. in clin i cal psy chol ogy
from the Cal i for nia School of Pro fes sional Psy chol ogy. In pri vate prac -
tice, he spe cial izes in the cog ni tive behav ioral treat ment of anx i ety,
anger, and depres sion.
John P. Forsyth, Ph.D., is asso ci ate pro fes sor of psy chol ogy and direc -
tor of the Anx i ety Dis or ders Research Pro gram in the Depart ment of
Psy chol ogy at the Uni ver sity at Albany, State Uni ver sity of New York.
He has pub lished numer ous arti cles on accep tance and expe ri en tial
avoid ance and the role of emo tion reg u la tory pro cesses in human
suffering. He has been doing basic and applied work related to accep -
tance and com mit ment ther apy (ACT) for more than ten years. He is a
clin i cal fel low of the Behav ior Ther apy and Research Soci ety and a
licensed clin i cal psy chol o gist in New York. He serves on the edi to rial
boards of sev eral lead ing clin i cal psy chol ogy jour nals, and is asso ci ate
edi tor of the Jour nal of Behav ior Ther apy and Exper i men tal Psy chi a try.
He is coau thor of Accep tance and Com mit ment Ther apy for Anx i ety
Dis or ders.