[Herbwifemama]

Originally Posted by ArmsOfLove

((((Allison))))

it's so important to remember that anger is a secondary emotion--it only comes out when primary emotions are stuffed. When we learn how to address and express our primary emotions we don't need to progress to anger

Tell me more. How can we identify our primary emotions? What are common primary emotions when you feel anger? I can definitely see frustration, as defined by Allison, and possibly stress- which I"m not quite sure is technically an emotion, but it's a trigger for my anger and depression.

I remember in college when I said "I'M MAD!" I went "I'm MAD!" It was so freeing to be able to acknowledge it. My mom is NOT a validater- she is a suppressor, don't-rock-the-boater. And her typical response to something that upsets me is, "Oh well". NOTHING makes me madder than that now. I have a hard time telling if I've actually got a reason to be mad about or I"m just being a brat. I've gotten stuck there though. I don't know what to do once I know I"m mad. I fall back on the stuff my dad did- yell and hit stuff (not people).

Allison, thank you. It gives me a lot of hope to see someone has gotten THROUGH this anger thing. I thought I was doing so good. DD said the other day, "Why are you mad all the time?" I thought that I was doing so good, not having a temper tantrum for weeks. The day after that, I DID have a bad day. Anyway, I have hope. Can you (or someone else) script something for me to say? When I'm mad or when dd is mad?

---------- Post added at 03:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:42 PM ----------

Originally Posted by allisonintx

Ok. This morning is a good example.

We cleaned quite a lot this week. The kids worked in the Family room for days, because it was such a disaster.
They had friends sleep over Friday night, and they trashed the room. I went in there and saw the floor. Oh my word, I was furious. Mad. Seeing Red.

What I would have done before: Scream all the children's names, call them on the floor, yell at them about how trashed the room was and ORDER them to get busy making it right, with no little guilt and shame to go along with the instructions.

What actually happened:
I took a deep breath and had a big sigh. I was actually hurt because the room was a wreck, and frustrated because we had worked so hard to make it nice, and also frustrated because, now, I was going to have to be the Mean Mommy and make them come back and work until it was clean AGAIN. I validated my own feelings about the mess in the room, my hurt and frustration, and was able to just call the kids and say,

"you guys thrashed this room. I feel hurt that you left it this way after we worked so hard. Leaving it like this was disrespectful to me and to yourselves and all the hard work we did together. You need to fix that. You may go back outside to play once it's put to rights."

15 minutes later, the solution had been affected, and the girls went back to play

You did two things: you identified the feelings behind the anger. And you validated your emotions. And I can prolly figure out my own feelings. I'm an intrapersonal genius. I know myself really well. But I need a script for validation. What do you say?