Deepak Chopra reputedly said "Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future." These are very wise words for recovering people who can get trapped by old ways to handle familiar problems.
Just the other day I was talking to one of my patients about anger and how it can be measured on a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is having no emotion of anger and 10 is the absolute, out of control behavior of rage. At the moment he placed himself at a 7 and said he was there most days. I told him it is no wonder that he so easily flips tables, pounds walls and physically attacks people given that he has very little room to experience and express the emotion of anger in his life...all he really does is express the behavior of rage. He said he understood and we worked on ways to lower his anger on the scale. He said he understood how to do that as he reported he had moved down to a 4 during our talk.
Within 30 minutes, this young man had a fellow patient in a headlock and was thrashing him about the room because he was reacting to that peer's comment about his ethnic heritage. A seemingly innocuous comment from someone threw him into a rage, and he reported he could not remember what he had done, but quickly justified his behaviors as necessary to "protect myself". Unfortunately, this young man was soon discharged from the treatment center and had to go back to the family that had taught him how to be so enraged.
I learned from this episode. We know that we are a species that has built-in sensors for when we think we are in danger and need to either fight it out or run like hell. This mechanism is a reflexive self-preservation response. I wondered for a long time why, since everyone has this capacity within our brains, all people do not turn to rage when provoked by some stimulation that looks to be life-threatening. After all, the world may not be necessarily a safe place these days, but few people defend themselves with all-out violence in order to protect themselves. I've concluded that what keeps most people in check about this is judgment...the capacity to make fine distinctions among events in their lives to decide what and how they will respond to people, places, things and situations that threaten them. This judgment is a thinking process. With it we are able to discern true danger from meaningless annoyance. Without it, we are subject to the unpredictable results of powerful chemicals coursing through our brains that are designed to save our lives. That young man gave himself permission (through his flawed judgment process long before this "attack" came) that it was alright for him to use rage to protect himself from the slightest aggravation. In other words, he had always reacted that way before so it was OK to react that way now: He was trapped like a prisoner in the past.
The AA Big Book teaches us that we cannot afford the luxury of a resentment, which is anger about the past that rules our present, much less rage. Addicts and alcoholics use resentment to fuel their use of drugs. "After all", we say, "if you had the problems I have, you'd drink too." We have a tendency to use old tools to fix new problems. We have a need to be on top and superior to those around us so we look 100% good, 100% of the time. And, when we fail at handling problems successfully, we lapse into a self-pity that justifies getting high to cope with the humiliation, shame and self-loathing. What a mess.
The fix for this is very simple, and I have written about this is an earlier posting here on February 15, 2010. When I accept life on life's terms as being exactly the way it ought to be at this moment, I obtain a serenity that allows me to suffer through what used to cause me to act out in rage. No longer do I see threats around every corner or in every person who slights me. No longer do I feel the need to protect my very life from the tiny wounds that life is able to inflict on any person today. And, no longer am I trapped in the past with old, worn-out ways of dealing with problems. Today, I've learned how to live as a pioneer in the future instead of a prisoner of the past. That is why I reach out to people and ask for help in dealing with many of life's problems. That is why I remain open to new solutions. That is why I am very unlikely today to just have simple insight into problems without the accompanying judgment to use the information I have been given. I feel better knowing that I have this capacity for it allows me to express the emotion of anger through my words rather than the behavior of rage through my fists. I am very grateful for this today.
All the best, Roger W.
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