Don’t Look Back In Anger

By Luis Frozman

I grew up in what is traditionally referred to as a broken home. My mother left my abusive father when I was 6 years old. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing him try to force his way into the front door of our apartment, with my mother pressing her weight against the kitchen door, trying to hold it closed as best she could and screaming for him to leave. I can still remember seeing him being arrested through the living room window, wondering why the police would be arresting my dad, and if I’d ever see him again. It’s one of my earliest memories.

The following years were filled almost to the brim with the anger of a child left behind. My dad wasn’t sentenced because my mom couldn’t bring herself to press charges. Still, my father only rarely came around. I don’t know if it was too painful having to see my mother, or even my brother and I, but to a child it feels like you’re unlovable. It leaves a scar when you realize that your father doesn’t want to see you. Somehow over time I wasn’t worth his time anymore.

Eventually, when my mother started to see other people I was dumbfounded. To me it was simple: she was my mom and she loved my dad. It didn’t make sense for a mom not to love a dad. It didn’t even really seem possible that she could love anyone else. She met a man that would eventually become my step-father. Another abusive man, although less physically and more mentally abusive.

He was a person filled with insecurities, and a deep broiling rage to guard them. He used to tell me that he was my father now, and tried to force me to accept that of him. I never let go of the idea that my father was still out there.

I don’t know why she stayed with him. I am aware of some quasi-good reasons; mostly based on the idea that love can conquer all, or that some ideal family dynamic was achievable once all the anger had blown over. It never did. In fact it only worsened with time.

As I grew older, when he was abusive and unreasonable it became my sole purpose to see him stopped. In my head, I was standing up to the man who was tearing what was left of my family apart. If my mom couldn’t do it, then I would have to be the protector. And so I was.

I like to say that I saved my family. I want the narrative to be that after 10+ years of abuse, I finally stopped him. That is sort of true. We had an argument to top all before it on Christmas day in 2005 (which is a long story) that ended with him leaving us, and never coming back.

He left something else too. He left behind his deep broiling rage, in me. He left behind a slew of insecurities in my mother, brother and I. He left non-physical wounds on all three of us. Some of which we’re still tending to this very day. As if to add insult to injury, it wasn’t very long after my step-father leaving, that my real father passed away.

It’s not easy to go back and think about all the things that happened afterward. The way that I took all that anger and turned it inward without even realizing what I was doing. The way my family slowly drifted apart as we tried to tend our wounds and heal ourselves. I had spent my childhood trying to be a protector. I had served that purpose to the best of my limited abilities and in doing so had built up a reserve of furious resolve, which had no purpose once my step-father had finally left. Then, after my father died, the lightning rod left for all my anger was gone. There was no one to blame. Suddenly, my misery was because of myself. It was a part of something that had started when I was six years old and had grown with me while I grew. My core of rage leaked into everything I was, even my own internal dialogue. I started to hate myself, my life, everything. I lost friends because they didn’t want to be around someone so thoroughly morose and quick to temper. I stopped caring about goals, the future, love, which day it was, or anything. I was livid that I had to play with the hand I was dealt and nothing else mattered. Life wasn’t what I was promised it would be when I was a kid.

I didn’t know at the time but this period in my life became a turning point. I can even pinpoint the exact moment that everything changed. The very second that I stepped off the path to hateful self-destruction and onto that of mindfulness meditation was when my brother told me I had become apathetic. I don’t know why, I had been feeling a numb rage inside myself for weeks, but his words hit me in exactly the right way at exactly the right time.

My mother was pleading for my attention, trying to find a word for the way I had been acting. My brother walked through the room nonchalantly saying “apathetic.” It was a breakthrough moment. It was the first time in my life that I had recognized that I was at the root of my overall mood. That who I am is not necessarily the summation of my experiences but also the direction in which I was heading. This moment, this realization, was pivotal in defining me as a person. I had a choice to make. I could blame everything I was on the things that had happened in the past, I could wallow uselessly in self-pity until my rage consumed everything I was or I could look forward and consciously build myself up to be everything I wanted to be.

The following weeks were a blur. I hit the “books” (I.E. google) and learned everything I could about the best ways to overcome extreme emotions while vacillating wildly between said emotions. I found a slew of online self-help articles and I tried everything. Nothing seemed to help, from the law of attraction, to therapy, to medication, to community outreach, if it was said that it could help, I tried it. Most often, whatever I tried failed with little headway made. Frustrated, I found mindfulness.

It was something I could practice on my own, without judgment from others, so I had to try. I loved it immediately despite a difficult start. Mindfulness is about being present, and accepting what you are experiencing in the present. That included my thoughts and accepting a lifetime habit of constant self-defeating mental chatter. It wasn’t something I did well at first. As I learned more and more, I began to realize I should accept my thoughts. Yes, even the negative ones! I should be able see myself for who I am in each moment. That is the only way to let go of the negative things from the past. I had to learn to accept that I was angry in the first place. I had to learn to forgive myself for the anger I raised in my house. Not all things that are taken easily.

I began a regime of daily mindfulness meditation. It wasn’t long before I realized that using my breath as a focus for about 5-10 minutes each morning greatly decreased my stress throughout the day, which led to less and less frequent flare ups of intense anger. They still happened, and eventually mindfulness led to the tools I needed to handle that too.

A common misconception about mindfulness is that the goal is to suppress emotions, or even to not feel negatively at all. That simply isn’t true. I still get flare ups of anger, it’s natural. When that happens I now know there’s more available to me than a reactionary unleashing of emotion or even suppression of emotion. When my rage rises up I can exist with my anger.

I am prone to road-rage, so let’s say while I’m driving someone cuts me off or almost hits me. Now, with mindfulness (instead of screaming profanities at them) I shift my awareness to the processes unfolding inside me at the moment. When my attention is on my body and the anger’s presence in me, I can provide myself a moment to make a decision. Those of us who regularly feel rage understand that a moment can be the critical difference between violence and compassion.

When I recognize the anger I welcome it mindfully. I notice the blood rushing to my face, the tightness in my chest, the rapid beating of my heart and my shallow breath. I will take these cues as a reminder to tell myself that it is time to breathe level breaths; each one slowly releasing some tension.

Usually at this point, I can either ride the emotion to its end until I naturally feel something else or mindfully choose to express my anger in a healthy way; such as working, exercise, or singing songs.

The important thing to note is that anger is a form of emotional energy; you do not want to train yourself to express it violently (for example; punching a pillow.) We should learn to mindfully accept the presence of anger in ourselves during each moment and to not rebel against it because it is a healthy part of who you are. Learning to express your feelings without violence or profanity opens up new avenues in communication that are generally blocked the second you allow the anger to explode.

There is, of course, a breaking point. This is the point where the anger is too great to contain, and will explode in a way that will release it as fast as possible, usually with undesired results. Over time, by practicing mindfulness meditation every day, we can learn the inner signs within that indicate we are reaching that point. Which is when I remove myself from the situation.

If you are practicing mindfulness as a way to cope with excessive anger, like myself, know that you are not alone. You will not always come out on the side of reason and, almost definitely, you will find yourself falling back into the old habitual way of expressing anger. Understand that this is a process of many layers and lessons. Forgive yourself and take it as reminder of why you set out on this path in the first place. I know it is possible because I have done it.

I spent ten years building up a fountain of red-hot rage, and another ten years after that practicing mindfulness. I can tell you, while standing at the second half of this journey, mindfulness has been much more enlightening, enjoyable and rewarding than any of the preceding chaos. Fairly often I tell people that mindfulness saved my life. I’m not sure that I am even capable of expressing how deeply I feel when I say that. The path I was on before the intervention of mindfulness was a long and dark path leading to an even darker more twisted version of me. After mindfulness entered my life, I have the tools to move through overwhelming experiences without becoming entrenched in anger. Now every day I can express my gratitude for mindfulness and how it turned my life around. I am still me, but I am a more content version of me. Now instead of righteous fury my mind is filled with contemplative joy.

MY journey is far from over. I intend to make the best of whatever I have left of this life. While I am sure that I have more to learn from mindfulness, I am also sure that I will be grateful for each lesson as I discover it along the way.

Find Luis on Twitter: @LFrozman or at his website: http://www.masteryofmindfulness.com

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