How To Make Our Anger Result in Action

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There are lots of things for us to be angry about, but new research shows we often don’t do anything about it.

A new study out of Carnegie Mellon University reveals that we typically become angry about two types of injustices. First, when a bad thing happens to a good person and second when a good thing happens to a “bad” person despite their bad behavior. 

In the first instance—such as when a natural disaster devastates a town—the research shows that we have a desire to help, but usually only in a nominal way. Dr. Jeffrey Galak, an associate professor of marketing in the university’s Tepper School of Business states, “When a hurricane happens, we want to help, but we give them 10 bucks. We don’t try to build them a new house.” 

While donating $10 can be meaningful and helpful, our reaction to this type of injustice usually does not result in action on a grander or more effective scale.

Likewise, when we react to the second type of injustice—when a good thing happens to bad people—the research demonstrates that more often than not we don’t do anything at all. According to Dr. Galak, “That’s because people often feel that the forces at play in creating the unfair situation are beyond their control, or would at least be too personally costly to make the effort worthwhile.”

So how do we use our anger to take action in a way that leads to effective change?

1. Take it to God—First and foremost, take your anger to God. Tell Him how you are feeling and even what you would like to do about the situation. Then listen. Allow God to direct your response in a way that glorifies Him and leads to an appropriate response to the circumstance.

2. Address your concerns. If you have a problem with someone—a problem that is causing you to view that individual  as a bad person—it is best to address your concerns with that person in a respectful and clear way. Be honest with the individual—but not blaming—about your feelings. Share with them what you need to heal and feel supported. Moreover, it is best to talk through small problems before they become big problems.

3. Don’t let your anger consume you. When you are feeling overwhelmed by anger make an effort to focus on the blessings in your life. Make a list of three things you are grateful for each day and thank God for those happy blessings. 

For more on how to deal with infuriating people or situations check out “God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts!” and “God Help Me! This Stress Is Driving Me Crazy!”

Men, Keep the Ball in Play!

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Guest blog post by Dave McClow, Pastoral Solutions Institute.

Fighting that works!

Ever been in conflict and not known what to do?  Some men like a fight, some avoid it at all costs.  Too many of us drop the ball during a conflict….But first, let’s look at the bigger picture.

The Ball

When I taught a marriage class at a local Catholic high school, I held up a 10-inch playground ball and said, “This ball is going to teach you about the deep mysteries of life, relationships, marriage, and the Trinity.”  Yes, I went big!  I threw the ball back and forth with volunteers in each class.  I asked them what they learned about the Trinity from this.  They understood immediately that it reflected mutual self-giving, or extending and receiving, between the Father and the Son, which becomes the Holy Spirit.  I explained that the body speaks this same language in sex—males extend and females receive, bringing forth new life—babies and/or bonding.

The Infinite and Primordial Liturgies

Extending and receiving is the basic movement of life and love.  This movement within the Trinity I called the “infinite liturgy,” defining liturgy as a ritual and routine that communicates love and creates communion.  God uses liturgy to remind us who we are in God, to form our identity—think the liturgies of creation, the seventh day, and the Mass.

On a psychological level, this movement is seen in all our communication, starting with hello.  “Hello” is an extending; and if the other replies, “Hello,” the cycle, the liturgy, is complete, bringing new life to the relationship.  Deeper exchanges increase both our risk and rewards, while no response causes a little death.  Since our human extending and receiving was from the beginning, in the Garden, it could be called the “primordial liturgy.”

In the domestic church, the family, the primordial liturgy is our expression of love and the bedrock of our identity.  Without love, St. John Paul II says our lives become senseless and incomprehensible.  Without love, we live in fear.  Even more, these liturgies are the very structure and movement of love which casts out fear.  In fact, I think this extending and receiving should be the foundation of all spirituality, especially a lay spirituality—the micro-level of Therese’s little way.  Families should not imitate a monastic spirituality, carving out hours of time for prayer and feeling like failures when life interferes.  Instead, what if every interpersonal exchange, where extending and receiving is completed, is considered a prayer and a gift, directly reflecting the Trinity’s love?  That’s a liturgy we could practice all day long!

Fear, the Ball, and Bad Liturgy

In the class, I talked more about fear, explaining that while love moves us towards others, St. Augustine says sin (or fear) curves us back in on ourselves.  I then demonstrated our fear reactions of fight, flight, and freeze, or as we call them in our counseling practice, tantruming, pouting/withdrawing, and expert mode.  When my volunteers threw me the ball, I smacked it to the ground—tantruming on the receiving side.  And I faked a hard throw that made the first rows jump—another tantrum, but on the extending side.

Next, my volunteers threw me the ball, and I caught it and walked away.  This was pouting/withdrawing, or flight.  Expert mode happens when one person has a wonderful solution for the other person (extending), but the other is not interested (not receiving).  To represent this, when they threw me the ball three times, I let it hit my chest and fall to the ground.  Teasing, I told the kids I was sure they never did this to their parents.

Satan’s Anti-Liturgy

The tantruming, pouting/withdrawing, and expert modes are fear responses and always disrupt the primordial liturgy.  They are Satan’s plan for relationships and illustrate the literal meaning of his names: Satan—to accuse, and Devil/Diablo—to separate.

Conflict: Rally Ball vs. Ping-Pong

In conflict, we tend to forget love, the extending and receiving, and respond in fear—we “drop the ball” in some way.  The primordial liturgy is disrupted.  We start playing ping-pong, where we try to outsmart the other person to win.  But rally ball is the model needed during a conflict, where the object is to keep the ball going back and forth as long as possible.  If the ball is dropped, you simply start over.  The ideal in conflict is to receive the other’s hostility with empathy while not allowing yourself to be destroyed.  But sometimes this can be difficult, and you may need to end the argument with, “I am too upset to continue this conversation,” so you don’t move into ping-pong.  More on this in upcoming articles.

The Trinity, with its extending and receiving, the infinite liturgy, is the new foundation for a lay spirituality. Reflecting the Trinity in the primordial liturgy of the domestic church can make every interaction between persons a connection with God.  Men, radiate the Father’s love by living the extending and receiving in your families—and keep the ball in play, even in conflict!

 

For more about Dave McClow and Pastoral Solutions Institute, visit us at https://www.catholiccounselors.com

New Year, New Mindset – How to Effectively Practice New Years Resolutions

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It’s that time of year again where we are starting to work on our New Year’s resolutions. While resolutions can bring hope for a happier, healthier year ahead, they can also cause unnecessary stress. We might start out strong for the first few weeks or so, but as we get back to our normal, busy schedules it often becomes more difficult to fit in that daily workout, consistently eat healthy meals, or remain positive while our co-worker is getting on our nerves or when we are trying to get our children out the door on time.

Furthermore, the way we set our resolutions can unconsciously cause us to have more negative feelings about ourselves or our current state in life. For example, while many of us make a resolution to lose weight in 2018, phrasing it this way tells our brains that we are overweight, we don’t look good enough, etc. causing us to become demoralized even before we start.  So how can we more effectively execute our New Year’s resolutions to create a truly happier year ahead and actually achieve our goals?

New research conducted at Florida State University tells us that to most effectively form our resolutions, we have to change the way think about them and phrase them for ourselves. Researcher and Professor, Pamela Keel, gives an example by saying, “Consider what is really going to make you happier and healthier in 2018: losing 10 pounds or losing harmful attitudes about your body?”

Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of our bodies that we want to change through diet and exercise, Keel and research scientist, Eric Stice, suggest that individuals should focus on the things we appreciate about our bodies. These positive attributes can be about the look or even the function of our bodies, such as, “’I really appreciate the way my legs take me wherever I need to go,'” Keel said. “‘Every day without fail, they get me out of bed, to the car, up the stairs and into the office. I don’t have to worry about walking.’ It can be that kind of functional appreciation of what your body does for you.”

This mindset can be brought into every resolution we make by simply focusing on positive aspects instead of focusing on the negative things we want to change. For example, instead of saying “my closets are a mess, I need to get more organized this year,” we can say “this shelf looks really nice, I’m going to strive to make other parts of my home look as nice as this.” Focusing on the positive aspects helps us to feel more hopeful and allows us to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the things we want to change.

While this positively focused mindset can influence the resolutions we have made for this year, working to utilize this mindset throughout our daily lives can be a resolution itself. When we order our thoughts in a healthier manner, we automatically begin treating ourselves and others in a healthier way as well. “When people feel good about [themselves], they are more likely to take better care of themselves rather than treating [themselves] like an enemy, or even worse, an object,” Keel said. “That’s a powerful reason to rethink the kind of New Year’s resolutions we make for 2018.”

For more information on how to learn to make graceful change in your life, check out Broken Gods: Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart. And be sure to tune in to More2Life
— Monday-Friday at 10am E/9am C on EWTN Global Catholic Radio, SiriusXM 139.