I've had this discussion with a friend who has been sceptical of NVC because they felt that it promoted intellectualising anger and express your needs only, which leaves out the expression of the strong feelings. So I'm happy to hear you talk about this now and looking forward to more reflections on this topic! More on anger please :) both expressing and receiving! Thanks!
Anger is a top cover feeling ! Marshal was giving this idea that there is more important feelings under the anger. But we have to express it in order to get there.
It is really hard when we're in the middle of anger. I mean, for years the only option I saw was to repress it and keep it hidden. It's not a very good idea though but I didn't know any better. As far as I understand it now, emotions are like an energy that is given to you so you can meet your needs. I mean, expressing anger would only bring you real, long-term relief if expressing it met your needs. I know a lot of people who don't have any trouble with expressing anger but it doesn't make them better because their needs still aren't being met. So they feel and express even more anger but keep ending up feeling miserable. So it's more about meeting the need behind than solely expressing emotion. I'm a bit radical about anger. Personally I don't believe there is such a thing as healthy expression of anger in relationships. Anger exists as a last resort to protect life from immediate danger. If something is attacking your children you want to get very angry so you're able to kill it. Anger is here to give us ability to destroy in order to protect. If you don't want to kill or destroy someone then you don't want to express anger towards them. Now, we keep feeling lots of anger in our relationships because of how normalised it is in our society to abuse each other. For example corporal punishment. Children react to it because they believe they're in danger and need to protect their lives. They give up on anything they were trying to get previously. You can get a lot of things from people if you're pretending that you're trying to kill them. That's why there's so much anger. But do you really want your child to believe that you (even for a second) intended to kill them? It's like pulling emergency brake in the train to get off in the exact place where you want to get off. It does work. But it has it's consequences. There's going to be fear and powerlessness involved. There's going to be resentment. People won't get safety that they need from us in order to form a deep connection. So what Rosenberg was trying to say, I believe, is that you're going to much better off if you transform your anger into something else. It's not about repressing it or intellectualising it. He even described something as "enjoying jackal show". You just do it in private and express transformed emotion. Because relief comes from our needs being met and not from giving up to certain kinds of strategies. Just for the record: I'm still getting angry quite often. I'm not writing from a point where I have dealt with my anger. I'm just sharing what's most convincing to me and how I want to go about it. I hope someone might find it useful (at least in parts).
I think you're spot on with this, Marianne. A few years ago I had anxiety so severe that I eventually ended up in the emergency room because I could barely breathe and was having heart palpitations frequently. The doctor told me I was having a panic attack and that I needed to work on resolving the stress that was causing it. I realized I was having a LOT of unexpressed anger at some unresolved conflicts in my family, and that I didn't feel emotionally safe in my own home. I learned that I needed to speak up for my needs for peace and quiet, solitude, and respect. When my family wasn't home, I did a lot of yelling, cussing and "attacking" my family members verbally, saying all the things I wouldn't allow myself to say to them for real: all the hurtful and abusive comments that I would never want them to hear. Sometimes when you have so much rage built up, you just have to express it in primal, aggressive ways. I find growling especially helpful, too. Then when you're done, you feel empty of anger, like you've been through catharsis. And then you can communicate about it calmly in appropriate ways. By the way, I've also used Emotional Freedom Technique to process anger that won't resolve, and it's been very effective.
I can totally relate to your experience, my anxiety went so far this year repeatedly that I had also severe health issues and uncontrollable reactions despite meditation and other relaxation techniques. I was afraid of releasing the anger trapped since early childhood consistently.
😎😎😎 I’d love more videos on anger expression. It’s an important feeling to express but it must be expressed either wisely or not at all, which is why so many people sit on theirs. Thanks for this! 🙏
Well, I'd say you can express it 'unwisely' as well as long as the other person either isnt there, or is knowing what they are getting into and willing to look beyond the anger (and very little people are)
I have never considered this, I've always associated feeling anxious to spending to much time thinking about the future with worry and fear. Appreciate this share and speaking to the expression of emotion and locating it in the body, so good and so needed!
Thanks for making this video. I stumbled upon this looking for a solution to a new problem of mine. I have spent my life up until the last few years or so staying quiet and complacent with all kinds of crossed boundaries and unkind behavior. I turned the rage that would have been appropriate inward and self harmed. I have been working on myself and studying philosophy and Eastern spiritual ideas and have felt a lot better and more positive but the last several months i have been incredibly anxious. I used to have recurring dreams about screaming angrily at my parents and siblings and sometimes even hitting and kicking them. Now all that rage is pouring out of me and it's harming my two young children. The idea of feeling and expressing anger while not even really directing it at anyone just realizing it's a normal function and also the connection between anxiety and repressed anger makes so much sense to me. I want so badly to teach my kids how to protect themselves and express healthy anger but first I have to teach myself.
This topic is fantastic! I noticed a similar thing in myself linking anxiety and dread with unexpressed anger. This past year I began allowing myself to throw temper tantrums and it has made a noticeable difference in my overall wellbeing. I look forward to hearing more as you explore this! Thanks for sharing:)
LOVE the term temper tantrums! Yes! why would we only allow toddlers to have those ;-) . Of course with care for the environment, but that is already what NVC is good at.
I need to express lots of anger, but not just expressing but more so making sure its released. Its a very toxic and heavy emotion. The reason we struggle with releasing anger is becaused we have been wronged for doing so by parents or caregivers negating our feelings, and therefore causing us to subconsciously repress it.
Outbursts of anger are often followed by regret that pain was caused to others & relationships have been damaged. I’ve found my anger to be a selfish display of a poorly thought out event, facts that were manipulated into a story I retold in my brain placing me as a victim to someone else. My few outbursts have become very mild/less threatening since learning NVC but are always followed by feelings of regret, shame, & cause me to withdraw from social activities. I truly hate the idea that my actions could be the catalyst to worse events that may follow.
Thank you, Marianne.🙏🏻 I also tend to repress anger and it both hurts me and my relationships. I am learning through this to express my needs, but I also need to recognise them first!
Really interesting hearing about the anger/anxiety relationship! Would definitely appreciate hearing more about connecting to and expressing anger. I find that if I'm in a setting where I don't feel comfortable immediately expressing the anger, I have trouble connecting with it again later.
In most talks Marshall describes anger as stemming from jackal thinking. I do experience this type of anger and find that NVC is helpful in diffusing it. There are, however, many situations in which I experience a different type of anger, one that stems from frustration / hopelessness in situations where I cannot get my basic needs met. This type of anger seems very primal to me, a part of the fight-flight response, it cannot be talked away. Does NVC address frustration or hopelessness specifically? Because I feel that a lot of my anger as a woman is the result of my futile efforts to meet basic emotional needs (safety) in a society that does not value connection and limits my autonomy. How do I deal with the anger I feel when my government makes abortion of non-viable pregnancies illegal, basically forcing women to carry deformed fetuses to term,to watch them die suffering? I find that NVC fails in contexts where there are systemic issues that make it very hard for people to meet their needs. I'd love to hear someone who is versed in NVC talk about that.
Emotions want something. Anger wants to change something. Once you find out what it is, find a way to use your agency to make some kind of change and the anger will be reduced and/or easier to dissipate.
I remember attending a webinar on emotions and the presenter described anger as 'a powerful energy' in a sense that if it doesnt get expelled outwards (in a form of physical activity) it hits you inward (which is what we may experience as anxiety or even internalise and end up with an illness like IBS). It may be why when an argument gets heated some people need to walk out of the flat (walking is a physical activity). Anyway, it'd love to hear more from you on repressed anger. It's quite an important topic since i feel like once you become adult it's no longer ok to get angry, or express it physically and we don't have anywhere to put it 😉 Thanks a lot for the video!
I am fascinated by your discovery that anxiety could be a result of repressed anger, because I don't enjoy the level of anxiety & longing for safety that I have. It makes sense to me that when I shut down my protection mechanism, or my "allarm system", that I may feel a lack of safety! Thank you! I agree that anger could have more attention in NVC. Recently i have been leading my NVC Practice Group through anger, guilt, shame and depression exercises (because these feelings are treated differently in NVC to other feelings). I know at least one trainer who puts expressing anger (not just talking *about* it) at the forefront of his work. I suspect there are a number - and often there's not time in more general trainings to go deeply into it. I'm looking forward to your future videos on this, that you say about in your video. Sarah
Thanks for your input Sarah! And yes, im sure there's a difference between the model as it was laid out by Marshall and how people are teaching it, indeed.
I think anger is the top emotion that I repress. I just discovered that Making vocal growls really helps me too. I wish this would be more normalized for people to in company with others.
Interesting reflections, thanks for this. Can we consider the "repressed anger" (e.g. from that email) has left you carrying some pain and so in need of empathy, and needing to take some time before you are ready to apply the NVC process? My understanding of NVC regarding anger is something like.... Never act out of anger, as you are disconnected from your needs and will almost certainly not get your needs met. Is your anger due to a judgement you are making? What is that judgment and can you translate it to a non-judgmental observation. Then ask yourself how you feel about that observation. Then search for your unmet need (which is actually the source of the anger). Now you have the need, what help do you want and from whom to get the need met? Has your anger now gone away?
thank you :) anger is the most difficult emotion to express. The problem is that it's very violent if you really express it to someone else (not just talk about it, because this is still suppressing you). So, we need to find a way to move it, discharge it on our own and this is very hard for me.
30 years ago this was well-known in the Recovery Movement. What happened? Boredom can also be connected to repressed anger. Getting it out of your body is important. The primitive method, of course, is some sort of physical or verbal violence. Fight or flight. So, there are stress chemicals involved. Some of those can be metabolized by pumping iron. And if you don't have access, try push ups. As many as you can do. Exhaust yourself. You can feel the difference immediately. Same with fear. Push ups before speaking in public can really chop stage fright down significantly. But in terms of verbal practice, NVC is one of the best tools we have. It's easier to keep the language clean if we've done the physical work first. But pay attention to where the target is. It's not the person. It's the behavior. And the behavior might be motivated by something we know nothing about, so leave room for that. If it's clear that their intent was to hurt/harm you, have a good exit strategy. And if you don't yet have a meditation practice, start one. Bless you for making this video. I'm actually quite tired from telling people about this and being ignored. You have more social capital. 💜💙💚🙏
I usually take a long run & think through events & how to approach them with others. Sometimes journaling allows me the same sorting of my thoughts & responses. I feel free to express anger in my journal with all the lousy & threatening language that I used to verbalize & usually end up crying b/c of the anger. I, too, often see that there is usually pain involved with the person that I feel created the anger inside me which pulls on my compassionate side - my feel good side. This often reminds me of Marshall Rosenberg’s video discussion of sharing a cab with a person expressing his anger towards the Jewish people. I still have so much to learn.
@@lisacee3237 Yes! Journaling is great! I use it to slow my thinking down so I can use my calm brain instead of my lizard brain and use the skills I get from NVC to pull apart what is me and what is them. In the heat of the moment, I can't do this because I have CPTSD. So, I need help with all that stuff. I think I may have first heard of this phrase from Bessel van derKolk, but when someone's behavior is so absurdly destructive, I try and remember to ask, *_What happened to you?_* instead of "What's wrong with you?" I wish I could feel empathy all the time. 💜💙💚
This is great actually, I've dablbed a bit in NVC and yet always struggling with expressing - even in words - that I'm angry. I am now coming out as a anger repressor. Theres a distinction to be made though. As an anger RE-pressor I can't really access the emotion - that's the actual repression. Others may be able to access the emotion of anger, and yet fail to give it some expression (which may lead to anxiety as in your case). That's SU-pression. Likely due to inhibition of the anger response in early childhood, a pattern has been set in place in me, where the anger is no longer available (other than in rare circumstances which can then be explosive), In order to access the visceral sense of anger, one needs to get in touch with the unconscious programming that prevents the anger from surfacing. This happens through internal messages in one's mind that tells us that it is not safe to feel and/or express anger, and usually goes back to a dynamic in our childhood, with our primary caregivers. A type of inquiry one might bring up - when seeing the image of one's parents - is: "I can say and do whatever I want before them". The body will let you know whether that's true or not. If there's an internal 'No' then you're likely repressing emotion.
Thanks you! I have been ill and on top of that moved four times this year, it's been absolutely mad! Was devoting time to paying clients but cant wait to get back fully and put more energy into videos!
Maybe it is important to express anger. I appreciate your words about anxiety and anger it got me thinking and connecting the dots of NVC and other perspectives I've looked into. When I get anxious again I will look into this connection/observation you made here. My guess is you are correct in some cases. I will have to check i out. When I focus on my anger only thoughts/beliefs related to jackal language comes up. "Beliefs" around blame, shame, judgement, punishment... Dwelling on anger for me just reinforces these beliefs. I listened to Marshal recently about anger. He said something to the effect: 31:33 Anger - it may be the 1st thing [feeling] we are aware of but it's not the 1st thing that happens. Jackal thinking makes us angry. From (Marshall Rosenberg Making Life Wonderful 2 4 Nonviolent Communication NVC - you can find it on youtube) This may be to heady to say for some practitioners of NVC. All Jackal thinking/beliefs are false so why give it any power to express. This comes up in "A Course In Miracles" Get to the heart of it "the universal need" that is missing in your life. Why express (give power) falsehoods (jackal thinking/beliefs). If anger is only rooted in unreal thoughts/beliefs/knowledge then transform it with the heart. Heal the root chakra or child within with what it is missing - the heart. It seems to me it would be better to short circuit this negative recording/programming and put your energy where we want our reality to be - in the heart. I ask myself - what serves life. Anger seems to be just another unreal program in need of weeding/transforming/transmuting. ~Aloha (live love)
This hits home for some things. I do feel anxiety and avoidant to my anger and I feel that in discussing them with NVC tactics I haven't been able to be understood or like I am properly expressing myself. I feel a lot of anxiety around the idea of physically expressing my anger but, shouldn't it be expressed too? Just.. how? Me and many of my friends grew up with toxic masculines in our lives. Raised voices, throwing things, punching holes in walls. Probably that's a line to not cross but it makes my stomach do flips thinking of stomping my foot or raising my voice to someone. Outside of like, defending myself while being physically attacked. Maybe I'll try making an effegie and growling and saying stern things to it heh.
I learned how to feel and let go of negative emotions from the David Hawkins books. I try to use his framework for navigating my internal world, as I use NVC to navigate the external world.
Hi Marianne, I would like to share a scene from my favorite book "Friday, or, The Other Island" (in French: Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique) 1967 novel by Michel Tournier in link with what you're describing in the video - it's about 2 guys on a Island - on of them is wild - the other super civilised. At one point the wild guy, who became more or less the slave of the civilised one, start to be really pissed that the civilised guy exploits him. So what he does, he makes a puppet with alguas and random things he find on the beach, that end up looking more or less like the civilised guy, then he brings the copy puppet in front to the real guy and he starts to beat the hell out of the puppet in front of him. It's not portrayed as a threat - more like a way to express anger and show how much he suffered from the build up of frustration. Then he smiles, shakes hand and goes on a walk, leaving the destroyed puppet behind. I don't think I've ever done something like this (also cauz, as you predicted, being one of your follower, I resort more easily to self harm) but I love the principle. Next time i am really upset with someone, i could propose to make fast puppets of ourself and express our needs and feelings to them so if physical violence is needed at least it's not going to be skin damage but fake plastic fur :) Hope you enjoy this
I love that story thank you!! I can still imagine it could be disturbing for the other person, but very much depend on the individual..but doing it without them could work!
Although slightly shifting from the focus on anger, I’d like to hear more about how NVC might help with anxiety. I have read a fair amount about anger in NVC. I do find your suggested link between anger and anxiety of interest. However the wider theme of responding to anxiety as a whole (i think it is seen as an indicator of jackal thinking) is something I’d love NVC to expand upon on more. Especially as I suspect it is a very widely shared contemporary emotion. Thank you for your contribution to this area.
Yes! And my point is that 'recognizing' is not always enough..I sometimes need expression in a more free way, to really release the energy, if only for a minute. And then indeed, finding a need can be helpful!
Nvc really needs more discussion about anger. I do think the standard nvc info about anger is mostly correct but it doesn't always fit into my own authentic experience.
It's also important to express your fear. Anger is expressed by growling , kicking and stomping. Sadness is expressed by crying. But how do you express fear? Trembling! Lay on your bed, pull up your legs and let your body tremble and shake. You DO it but then your body will take over, so the trembling becomes almost automatically. It releases a lot of tension.
