Anger control.

They come to the workshop to pound on pillows with their fists. They twist and bite towels. They scream and yell. Why? Because they want relief from the anger that they too often feel. They get that relief by releasing their anger, by allowing themselves to physically express it, safely and harmlessly.

Weeks later, many write or call the workshop leader, expressing delight with the results: "1 don't have migraines anymore." "My back pain is gone." "1 feel serene and confident most of the time instead of upset and confused."

Most conventional psychologists would say that expressing your anger in any fashion, including physically, just leads to more anger. They might add that anger is really a self-deluding mask over deeper emotions, such as sorrow and fear. In this view, the best way to deal with anger is by getting underneath it to understand your true feelings.

Well, those conventional psychologists are wrong, says John Lee, director of the Facing the Fire Institute in Asheville, North Carolina. Lee, a veteran workshop leader, has trained more than 10,000 therapists and counselors and received thousands of letters and calls from people whom he taught to use his alternative, "body-centered" psychotherapeutic techniques. Anger is an energy that gets into your body in many different ways, says Lee. It got into your body in the past when Mom or Dad yelled at you, for example, and you felt angry but didn't express it. It gets into your body in the present when a car cuts you off in traffic, for example, or you get four telemarketing calls during dinner.

If you don't get the anger out, it can poison your thoughts and feelings. It can even cause physical illness, from headaches to back pain to heart disease.
If you release your anger, however, you'll experience profound physical, mental, and emotional relief, Lee says. You get that relief not by yelling at or in any way hurting another person or yourself but by doing safe, energetic exercises that get anger out of your body. Here's how.

POUNDING A PILLOW: Let Your Anger Have It
Find a place where you can be alone and undisturbed. Then punch a pillow or hit it repeatedly with a tennis racket while yelling and cursing and moaning and hollering. Do it for as long as you feel like doing it. "The sounds that you let out are very important," Lee says, "because they help articulate the preverbal anger and pain that you carry from deep in your childhood."

SCREAMING IN YOUR CAR: Perrfect for a Traffic Jam
"Get in your car, roll up the windows, and scream as loudly as you can," says Lee. Keep screaming for as long as you have the energy for it. Lee uses this exercise himself to release the anger that he stores in his throat and gut.

"1 scream until I don't feel the need pressing on me to scream any more at that time, because that wave of anger is used up," he says.
What should you scream? "When you're screaming in a car, it's completely appropriate for you to say anything that you need to say to get your anger out." Lee says. "Use blaming, hurtful, or accusatory words, obscenities, curses-whatever."

TWISTING A TOWEL: Wring Out the Anger
"Take a bath towel in both hands and twist it as tightly as you can," says Lee. "As you twist your anger into the towel, let out any sighs, moans, or grunts that come up. Or repeat 'I'm angry.'"

DON’T VENT ANGER ON OTHERS.
The remedies in this chapter are all about releasing your anger, but aiming your anger at another person is something else entirely. john Lee, director of the Facing the Fire Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, says that 10 such inappropriate expressions of anger are shaming, blaming, demeaning, name-calling and put-downs, demoralizing. criticizing. judging, preaching. teaching. and analyzing. Such inappropriate behavior might surface when someone "pushes a button" about something that made you angry in the distant past. And, Lee says. there are actually physical signs that your anger is based on past emotional experiences: a dry mouth; a knotted stomach; shoulders thrust up to your ears; sweaty. clammy, cold hands; and a lump in your throat. If you notice one or more of those signs, do the techniques in this chapter to release your anger. Finally, says Lee. it's crucial to understand that rage--a verbal or physical attack-is never an appropriate way to release anger. In fact, rage is not even the same as anger. "Rage is an action and a behavior used to cover up and numb other, painful emotions," Lee says. "Anger is simply a feeling in the body that needs to be expressed:'
A "rageoholic" who regularly vents anger on other people should see a professional instead of using the remedies in this chapter. says Lee.



AEROBIC ANGER: The Secrets Are Focus and Speech
"Any form of exercise will release anger if the exercise is consciously done with that end in mind," says Lee. You could hit a racquetball as hard as you can, for example, while focusing on how angry you are and saying what you need to say. Or you could ride a stationary bicycle, pumping hard, all the while saying, "I'm angry, I'm angry." BREATHING: Make Lots of Noise
To use breathing to release anger, breathe in slowly and deeply through your nose, filling your entire torso from the lower abdomen to the upper chest, and exhale through your mouth, sighing and groaning.

"Breathing is crucial to emotional-release work," says Lee. "By itself, breathing is often sufficient to release mild, present angers. If you're hitting every traffic light, or if the man ahead of you in the 9-item express line at the grocery has 13 items, try breathing in and out deeply a few times (you can skip the groaning and sighing in public) and see if your anger doesn't seep away."

Three Flower Essences for Three Types of Anger
It's thought that flower essences work by increasing your selfawareness, by revealing mental and emotional patterns that you don't ordinarily notice so that you can see them, understand them, and choose to outgrow them. "I believe that flower essences have many of the attributes of good psychotherapy," says Patricia Kaminski, cofounder and codirector of the Flower Essence Society, based in Nevada City, California. For each of the following essences, take four drops four times a day for about a month.

HOLLY: Break Down the Barriers
Holly is a unifying essence that helps break down the barriers between you and another person. That allows you to stop seeing the other person as an enemy and to start seeing and even appreciating his point of view, says Kaminski. "It is quite specific for anger, hostility, envy-for all the ways in which we oppose or separate ourselves from another person," she says.

SCARLET MONKEYFLOWER: When You Keep Your Anger Inside
This remedy is for sensitive and loving people who don't know how to express anger appropriately and let it build up inside until it explodes, says Kaminski. And after they do explode, they usually feel worse about themselves. They think, "I really hurt that person, II or "I let the demon out"
"This type of person is typically unable to communicate his needs," says Kaminski. Scarlet monkeyflower helps you express why you're angry in an appropriate way and then simply and without hostility ask for what you need, whether it's having a teenager turn down loud music or having your spouse remember to put the cap back on the toothpaste tube.

BLACK COHOSH: For the Angry Person and the Target
. Kaminski recommends this remedy when two people are "locked in a pattern of victimizer and victim, with one person using anger to have power over another, to actually make the other person afraid of his anger. II In this case, both the angry person and the one who is more typically passive should take the remedy.