B0038M1ADS EBOK (32 page)

Unfortunately, when the feeling of anger isn't expressed or acknowledged in some way, it's more likely to fester. Think about a child who grows
up in a home where anger isn't permitted for any reason. It would be very
unusual in such a circumstance if the child didn't slowly fill up with rage
and hostility as he grows older. If the warrior doesn't find a healthy way to
acknowledge and express legitimate feelings of anger, then the deep anger
that may be present upon return from deployment can rapidly become a
permanent condition of rage and hostility. When this happens, situations
that might otherwise trigger a brief verbal expression of anger instead end
up in extreme hostility, passive-aggressive behavior, confrontations, and
actions that cause problems.

Healthy Expression of Anger

The skill is to distinguish between the normal feeling of anger and any behaviors associated with these other emotions. Rage, fury, loathing, etc. are all in
some ways similar to depression, a morass that a person can fall into and wallow in. All of these, including depression, can result from unacknowledged
and unexpressed anger. If you find yourself wallowing in hostility or the need
for revenge, then your LANDNAV skills have faltered, and the goal is to navigate yourself back to a healthy expression of this important emotion.

Consider the traditional image of the samurai warrior. The samurai
remains completely relaxed until the split second that he has to respond or
attack, atwhich time he commits himself in the present moment with all of his
intention, force, energy, and skill. Then immediately he returns to a relaxed
state. He doesn't hold on to the energy that he discharged at his enemy.

A healthy expression of anger generally involves recognizing and
expressing it, along with indicating what the source of the anger is, and any
other emotions tied to it. It's helpful to think of two types of situations: those
in which you would expect anger to dissipate rapidly after being expressed,
and those that may involve more-prolonged expressions of the emotion.

There are many situations in which the expression of anger resolves
the feeling immediately, while holding on to it leads to bigger problems. With a healthy expression of anger, many people will have little recollection a short time afterward about what made them angry. If you stub your
toe and yell "Ouch!", that expresses the anger. If you stub your toe and
add it to a long list of other aggravations in your life, or destroy the piece
of furniture you bumped, then you've moved from the angry feeling to
the behaviors associated with resentment and rage. If you get stuck in traffic or your boss denies your leave request, and you say to yourself, "That
pisses me off!", you express how you feel. However, if you start getting on
yourself for taking the wrong turn or adding this to a long list of things
you hate about your boss, this can lead to festering resentment. If you're
camping and someone starts to shake your tent violently like they want to
tear it down, you'll probably come running out of the tent angry as hell.
However, when you discover that it's a bear pushing on your tent, your
anger will magically evaporate, and turn into fear, surprise, and "Uh-oh."
Good luck if you hold on to your anger with the bear.

If a child's misbehavior results in an immediate, short, sharp reprimand, the anger is expressed; if this behavior is instead considered further proof that your child isn't living up to your expectations, then you're
holding on to it. Imagine your child crossing a road, and suddenly a car
appears out of nowhere. You immediately respond by yelling, throwing
yourself at your child, and doing whatever is necessary to avert the disaster, after which, assuming that both you and your child are okay, your
initial emotion of anger (mixed with shock and fear) rapidly dissolves. If
someone you're supervising makes a serious mistake through their own
negligence, you'll immediately do whatever is necessary to correct the
situation, discipline them, and ensure that the same thing doesn't happen again. But if instead you hold back your reaction, don't give your
subordinate the immediate feedback he or she needs to correct the mistake, and start mistrusting other subordinates, then you're holding on to
the anger and letting it smolder.

If someone smashes the windshield of your car, it would be normal to
become extremely angry (here it might be appropriate to say "enraged"
or "furious"). You may yell or curse, but after a short period of time, it
won't do you any good to hold on to it, and you'll focus on cleaning up the glass and getting a new windshield. Expressing a momentary feeling of being furious or enraged isn't the same thing as letting fury or
rage build up inside over time. If you hold on to your anger, blame your
spouse for where the car was parked, or spend days trying to track down
the individual who did this in order to exact revenge, it has turned into
behaviors of rage.

These examples illustrate that there are legitimate expressions of
anger, and that when the anger is expressed in a short, pointed (and appropriate) manner, it dissipates rapidly and is unlikely to become a problem.

What about more serious situations? For example, you're fired from
your j ob without any warning, you discover your spouse is cheating on you,
or you get stop-lossed after two deployments (or mobilized again), just at
the point where you've made major life plans or your career is starting to
take off. It would be natural to be extremely angry, and this could come
and go for quite a while. However, in these situations, anger is only one
layer included with other emotions, such as hurt, frustration, worry, fear,
sorrow, demoralization, or betrayal. These situations require that you be
aware of your feeling of anger, as well as any other emotions that exist with
it. You'll feel a strong need to express your feelings by acknowledging them
to yourself and those you're closest to, and perhaps rail at the unfairness of
the situation. However, the goal is to put space between your feelings and
any actions that you might later regret. The goal is to express anger in a
healthy and beneficial way, and avoid getting stuck in the morass of rage,
or turn venting and railing into a full-time occupation.

Whenever anger is acknowledged and expressed verbally, it dissipates.
In some situations it may come back quickly, but it doesn't remain constant because there are other emotions also present. Acknowledging your
feelings and being aware of the distinction between feelings and behaviors
of rage, resentment, or hatred are important. If you turn the anger onto
yourself or another person with thoughts like, "What did I do to deserve
this?", "Why did I get into this situation?", "I'm worthless like this", "Why
didn't I see this coming?", "Why did she/he lie to me?", "What the fuck
is wrong with that person?", then the anger stews, and becomes a much
larger problem.

Here are more difficult examples: You lose a close friend in combat, or
someone breaks into your home and seriously injures a loved one, or your
child gets abducted, or you get violently assaulted or raped. Anyone in this
situation will be intensely angry (enraged, furious, murderous thoughts),
and this will be mixed with grief, loss, sadness, helplessness, fear, and other
emotions. The anger will not dissipate. It will come and go with high levels
of intensity over a long time. The anger and other emotions need to be
acknowledged. Holding on to feelings in the form of anger at God, hatred,
survivor's guilt, self-blame, depression, loathing, or disgust with your life,
slowly turns the anger into a solid mass of despair, pent-up rage, hostility,
or behaviors that can have serious consequences. It also locks up the grief
and makes it harder to express this essential emotion.

"Rageaholism"

When anger turns into blaming, hostility, rage, loathing, or passiveaggressive behavior, it becomes habitual, compulsive, and addictive.
Anger, which is associated with an adrenaline high that is helpful to warriors in combat, may turn into a "craving" after returning home, much
like a craving for tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. But the adrenaline also
increases heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety; disturbs sleep; and
causes various other physical changes in the nervous system and body.
Anger isn't something that you, a warrior, can afford to hang on to.

Persistent rage and hostility, labeled "rageaholism," has many telltale
signs. These include frequently flying off the handle or repeatedly getting into heated arguments with people, having ongoing trouble at work
because of temper outbursts, going over scenarios in your mind for hours,
or lying awake at night thinking about what you should have said or done
to someone, frequently saying things you regret, being verbally abusive to
people, thinking of ways to get even, and getting so angry that you throw,
smash, or break things or get physically violent.

Blame, "Fault," Responsibility, and Accountability

An important manifestation of rage, hostility, loathing, and resentment is
when the anger is displaced or projected onto someone it has no relation to. This happens all too frequently. For example, exploding at a loved one
or blaming them for something, when the real issue is pain, feeling hurt,
frustration at work, or other worries; picking a fight at work, when the real
issue is anxiety concerning financial trouble or marital difficulties.

A common problem is blaming others for one's difficulties; blaming
someone for something they weren't responsible or accountable for. This
often comes up in arguments in which the hostility is expressed by accusing someone that something they did was their "fault." Blaming in this way
is usually a personal attack and implies that there's some "fault," something personally "wrong" with the other individual. This is almost always
hurtful.

To understand this in greater depth requires an examination of
responsibility, accountability, and "fault." Responsibility is generally used
in the same way as accountability; here however, responsibility refers to the
ability to respond appropriately to something or someone (e.g., responsible for picking up the groceries); accountability refers to being held to
account or answerable for your actions, i.e., the cause of the event (e.g.,
accountable for drinking and driving). If you're responsible you may also
be accountable, but if you're accountable you had to be responsible.

For example, by owning a car you accept responsibility for it-for its
road-worthiness, insurance, registration, and how you drive it-but you
also have to accept responsibility for driving and knowing that there are
all sorts of people with different types of personalities and varying levels
of driving skill, including student drivers, new drivers, sick drivers, sleepy
drivers, drunk drivers, police/fire/ambulance drivers, truck drivers, unlicensed drivers, etc.; and this means recognizing their possible impact
on you and accepting the responsibility for driving among them. So, if
you're in a car accident, you'll always be responsible but you might also be
accountable, i.e., you may have caused the accident.

If while approaching a stop sign you properly apply the brakes but
they fail to function and you hit someone's car, various causes and therefore different possible accountabilities exist. If you had a brand-new car
and the brakes failed because of a manufacturing or part's defect, you
would not be accountable. If you had owned the car for a long time and kept up routine maintenance and repairs and a part failed, then the part
manufacturer and/or the mechanic would be accountable but again, you
wouldn't be. If you had owned the car for a long time but didn't keep up
routine maintenance and repairs and a part failed, then you would be
accountable. If someone sabotaged your brakes, you wouldn't be accountable. If you were looking for a street address while driving and failed to
apply the brakes, you're accountable.

However, "fault" is entirely different. If you hit someone they'll probably "blame" you and say it's your "fault." But could the accident have been
your "fault"? No! Why? Because it presumes that you could have made a
different "choice" to do something differently. Since every "choice" you
make depends on who you are (your genetics, brain function, knowledge,
experiences, perceptions, memories, thoughts, feelings, values, physical
characteristics, etc.), then to make a different "choice" would require you
to be different, to be a different person. What you and I (and everyone
else) experience as "choice" is really the illusion of choice.

So, it wasn't your "fault," it could never have been your "fault," and it
can never be your "fault"; and of course, this also applies to everyone else.
But this doesn't mean there aren't any consequences for your actions. If
you're accountable (the cause), then you have to face whatever the results
may be (paying damages, going to jail, etc.). You're responsible and
accountable for your actions, but they're not your "fault."

You can act differently in the future because you (and everyone else)
will be at least a little different. We learn and therefore can do something
else when a similar situation arises. You'll always be in some way responsible and may also be accountable, but your actions are not your "fault."
People often get very hurt when they're told, "It's your fault!" It changes
the examination of facts into a personal "fault" finding pursuit of accusation and blame, where the intent is to hurt the other person and avoid
acknowledging and resolving whatever the real issues are.

To summarize, the bottom line is that acknowledging and expressing
your anger is necessary, but you have to swear off the more prolonged or
addictive emotional conditions or behaviors having to do with hostility,
rage, blaming, or hatred. There are several steps involved in doing this:

Steps to Deal with Anger

• For most day-to-day situations, if anger is necessary, follow First Sergeant
Schindler's advice to keep the frequency, intensity, and duration of any
verbal expression of it to low, mild, and short, and only to the level that
is required. "Ouch, that hurts!" "Damn, I wish that hadn't happened!"
A short, quick reprimand to a misbehaving child (not physical). Sharp,
direct, and immediate verbal (and/orwritten) feedback to a subordinate
who is negligent. Keep the expression of anger very brief and verbal,
and it will immediately dissipate.