Books on Dealing With Stress/Anger
November 24, 2019 7:38 AM
Looking for recommendations on books that give practical advice on dealing with stress/defusing anger.
My partner and I are dealing with a lot of stress these days. We have two young kids (1 and 3), so there's not a lot of sleep going on, and with the usual commitments of work/school/daycare/etc. etc., we're both feeling a bit overwhelmed.
For my partner, stress often turns very quickly into anger, and the anger tends to need an outlet, which is often me. They're aware of this tendency, but in the moment, have trouble defusing it. As an example: partner has a shower, kid steals a toy from other kid, both kids start crying, partner comes out of shower mad at me for "not having a moment of peace." What my partner would like is a book that gives them practical advice on how to not get so wrapped up in the moment--to defuse the stress or prevent it from turning into anger. Any suggestions?
My partner and I are dealing with a lot of stress these days. We have two young kids (1 and 3), so there's not a lot of sleep going on, and with the usual commitments of work/school/daycare/etc. etc., we're both feeling a bit overwhelmed.
For my partner, stress often turns very quickly into anger, and the anger tends to need an outlet, which is often me. They're aware of this tendency, but in the moment, have trouble defusing it. As an example: partner has a shower, kid steals a toy from other kid, both kids start crying, partner comes out of shower mad at me for "not having a moment of peace." What my partner would like is a book that gives them practical advice on how to not get so wrapped up in the moment--to defuse the stress or prevent it from turning into anger. Any suggestions?
Feeling Good literally changed my life and I absolutely recommend it, but with one big caveat -- it took me a long time to find the value in the chapter that deals with anger, because it was written in the 1970s and reads as unintentionally misogynist. There's a section about finding empathy that talks about how a woman whose husband cheated on her learns to understand his oh-so-delicate feelings, and a section about focusing on, and rewarding, a person's positive behaviors that uses as its example a woman who'd been abused, cheated on and left winning her husband back. It's dryly humorous to me that in another section Burns would anticipate the anger of a (presumably male) reader being told to lower their expectations about a carpenter doing a shoddy job, but couldn't imagine a reader like me being angry at the idea that a woman devoting her life to winning back an abusive man was a positive thing. It's a major weakness of the book, and I'd like to see it changed in future reprints.
That said, once I got past my feelings about the examples, that chapter was one of the most valuable things I've ever read. Like a lot of women I've been socialized to not even acknowledge my own anger; I could admit to feeling irritated, annoyed, or grouchy, but anger was so dangerous that I didn't even know that's what I was feeling. The first time I realized, "no, I'm not just annoyed, I'm angry" was a revelation. With Feeling Good's exercises, I have a system for recognizing, honoring then dissipating my anger -- not burying it, not pretending it doesn't exist, but genuinely defusing my own anger and calmly looking for other solutions to my problem. This system takes some time and space to work through, but it does work for me.
1) I write down what I'm angry about, and what led to that anger. I rate my anger on a scale of 1-10.
2) I state the injustice I'm reacting to. Feeling Good holds that anger is usually a reaction to some injustice, and at its best, is an emotion that helps us make major changes (although it can also be spectacularly destructive). Sometimes the injustice is a product of your own distorted thoughts -- that is to say, you're overreacting -- and sometimes you're reacting to the situation appropriately. In this case, the injustice might be "I only wanted twenty minutes to take a shower in peace, and my partner can't make that happen for me." Or, boiled down to something less specific, "My partner should care about my happiness, and it's not fair that it's not a priority for them."
3) I write down my 'hot thoughts,' or the angry things I'm thinking. In this section, I do not self-censor, try to convince myself I'm overreacting, or spend time thinking about the other person's point of view -- I let paragraphs of anger, self-pity and f-bombs spill out all over the page. For me, this step is honoring what I'm already feeling, acknowledging it, and allowing myself to feel it all through myself without trying to repress it. At its core, I'm responding to something feeling unfair, and it helps to accept those feelings of frustration and hurt.
4) I list the emotions I'm feeling. This starts the process of going from this deeply emotional, hurt state to thinking about my feelings in a more analytic way.
5) I run the thought through the major cognitive distortions. This list of cognitive distortions isn't exactly what's in Feeling Good, but it's close enough. With anger, I usually find that I'm indulging in black and white thinking ("my husband doesn't care about me"), magnification and minimization (focusing on how annoyed I am at him for this one thing, and ignoring all the loving things he does for me every day), labeling ("he's an insensitive jerk"), and should statements ("He should be more sensitive towards me.") After I go through the list, I usually see that my anger may have had some justification, but in most cases it was overblown and was making it hard for me to think clearly.
6) I substitute each "hot thought" with a cool thought. For example, "He's a fucking idiot" might get substituted with something more like "He's a human being who made a mistake, as we all do, and as I certainly do."
7) I revisit the injustice I'm reacting to. A lot of anger comes from feeling like people should act differently, or situations should be different. If you can accept that your standards were unreasonably high, you can rewrite the injustice. "My partner should care about my happiness, and it's not fair that it's not a priority for them" might get rewritten to "It would be nice if my partner always made my happiness a priority, but there are times where they'll have their own concerns or problems, or when they won't be thinking about me."
8) I think about what I actually want, and how I could get it. Most of the time, even after examining my thoughts and assumptions and calming down, there's still something at the core of what I'm reacting to that's a problem. In your case, the problem might be "how can your partner have some time in their day that feels peaceful and refreshing?" They might ask you to take the kids on a walk around the block while they shower, or make an extra effort to engage the kids during this time.
This process takes a while, so it is a good tool to have but doesn't help much in that moment of being angry. If I feel angry and can't take the time to go through this, it helps to remember that I'm responding to something I think is unjust, focus on identifying the injustice, and identifying how I think things 'should' be, then thinking about if those shoulds are reasonable and how I can get what I want. Long-term, some change has to happen; a lot of that change happens in my own head as I adjust my expectations, but acknowledging my anger has also led me to realize when parts of my life aren't working and I have good reason to be angry.
posted by shirobara at 2:53 PM on November 24, 2019
That said, once I got past my feelings about the examples, that chapter was one of the most valuable things I've ever read. Like a lot of women I've been socialized to not even acknowledge my own anger; I could admit to feeling irritated, annoyed, or grouchy, but anger was so dangerous that I didn't even know that's what I was feeling. The first time I realized, "no, I'm not just annoyed, I'm angry" was a revelation. With Feeling Good's exercises, I have a system for recognizing, honoring then dissipating my anger -- not burying it, not pretending it doesn't exist, but genuinely defusing my own anger and calmly looking for other solutions to my problem. This system takes some time and space to work through, but it does work for me.
1) I write down what I'm angry about, and what led to that anger. I rate my anger on a scale of 1-10.
2) I state the injustice I'm reacting to. Feeling Good holds that anger is usually a reaction to some injustice, and at its best, is an emotion that helps us make major changes (although it can also be spectacularly destructive). Sometimes the injustice is a product of your own distorted thoughts -- that is to say, you're overreacting -- and sometimes you're reacting to the situation appropriately. In this case, the injustice might be "I only wanted twenty minutes to take a shower in peace, and my partner can't make that happen for me." Or, boiled down to something less specific, "My partner should care about my happiness, and it's not fair that it's not a priority for them."
3) I write down my 'hot thoughts,' or the angry things I'm thinking. In this section, I do not self-censor, try to convince myself I'm overreacting, or spend time thinking about the other person's point of view -- I let paragraphs of anger, self-pity and f-bombs spill out all over the page. For me, this step is honoring what I'm already feeling, acknowledging it, and allowing myself to feel it all through myself without trying to repress it. At its core, I'm responding to something feeling unfair, and it helps to accept those feelings of frustration and hurt.
4) I list the emotions I'm feeling. This starts the process of going from this deeply emotional, hurt state to thinking about my feelings in a more analytic way.
5) I run the thought through the major cognitive distortions. This list of cognitive distortions isn't exactly what's in Feeling Good, but it's close enough. With anger, I usually find that I'm indulging in black and white thinking ("my husband doesn't care about me"), magnification and minimization (focusing on how annoyed I am at him for this one thing, and ignoring all the loving things he does for me every day), labeling ("he's an insensitive jerk"), and should statements ("He should be more sensitive towards me.") After I go through the list, I usually see that my anger may have had some justification, but in most cases it was overblown and was making it hard for me to think clearly.
6) I substitute each "hot thought" with a cool thought. For example, "He's a fucking idiot" might get substituted with something more like "He's a human being who made a mistake, as we all do, and as I certainly do."
7) I revisit the injustice I'm reacting to. A lot of anger comes from feeling like people should act differently, or situations should be different. If you can accept that your standards were unreasonably high, you can rewrite the injustice. "My partner should care about my happiness, and it's not fair that it's not a priority for them" might get rewritten to "It would be nice if my partner always made my happiness a priority, but there are times where they'll have their own concerns or problems, or when they won't be thinking about me."
8) I think about what I actually want, and how I could get it. Most of the time, even after examining my thoughts and assumptions and calming down, there's still something at the core of what I'm reacting to that's a problem. In your case, the problem might be "how can your partner have some time in their day that feels peaceful and refreshing?" They might ask you to take the kids on a walk around the block while they shower, or make an extra effort to engage the kids during this time.
This process takes a while, so it is a good tool to have but doesn't help much in that moment of being angry. If I feel angry and can't take the time to go through this, it helps to remember that I'm responding to something I think is unjust, focus on identifying the injustice, and identifying how I think things 'should' be, then thinking about if those shoulds are reasonable and how I can get what I want. Long-term, some change has to happen; a lot of that change happens in my own head as I adjust my expectations, but acknowledging my anger has also led me to realize when parts of my life aren't working and I have good reason to be angry.
posted by shirobara at 2:53 PM on November 24, 2019
Seconding Pema Chodron's books and also Thich Nhat Hanh's Anger.
posted by 6and12 at 5:08 PM on November 24, 2019
posted by 6and12 at 5:08 PM on November 24, 2019
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*Comfortable with Uncertainty: Pema Chodron provides short, practical ways to stay in the moment and learn to deal with your reactions/emotions. Meditation is helpful, but not required. Follow-up to this: When Things Fall Apart.
*The Daily Stoic: As it says, a book of daily quotes from classic Stoics with modern commentary on applying the philosophy in real life. Gamechanging idea: concern yourself only with those things you can control, and let the rest go.
Reading a page from each of these books every day helps provide me perspective when I feel like I'm flailing down in the trenches.
(Another recommendation: Feeling Good. While its focus is on dealing with depression, it's really useful for analyzing your thought patterns, and anger is one of those things that tends to fall down the negative thought rabbit hole.)
posted by sazanka at 10:22 AM on November 24, 2019