Personal Growth: Healthy Expression of Negative Emotions

 Personal growth, like healing, is not a linear process. 

Learning how to express negative emotions in a healthy way can be one of the most challenging parts of your healing journey. It takes conscious thought and intention to build new healthy patterns of behavior. It means having to deal with situations you wish you could avoid and making a commitment to doing better. Sometimes you will "get it right" and other times you will fall back into old patterns.

Where do you start?

To break a pattern of behavior, you first have to recognize it and decide you want to change it.

"I got out of my relationship with my abusive ex and sort of stumbled into the relationship I had with J. It wasn't really something we planned on and I hadn't put any thought into what behaviors I needed to work on at all. A couple years in, we got into an argument and I threw a wooden spoon at him. He caught it and set it on the floor telling me that was unacceptable. 

It was the first time I had to really consider that how I handled my anger was not appropriate. I had grown up watching my mom throw things when she was angry and I had only really been in a relationship where violence was always a possibility. 

I decided then and there that I didn't want to be that kind of angry. I wanted to be the sort of person that my partner felt safe talking to or arguing with. I didn't want to be like my ex. It was not a good feeling but it motivated me. I still had to work on yelling and learning how to communicate my anger but it was where the change started." - D.M.

Once you have noticed the pattern and decided to change, you need to decide how you DO want to handle things moving forward. This is now your goal and it is going to take practice.

Also weird is not necessarily bad if it works and doesn't create an unhealthy pattern. (i.e. coloring on yourself instead of self harming)

"Anger is hard. Learning to sit still and be quiet and measure my own voice when I feel the rage rolling off me has been a huge part of my journey. There have definitely been occasions where I was just too tired or stressed to manage myself and ended up screaming at people I love. I then had to own that action, apologize and make amends.

Likewise, I have had to learn to rationalize out feelings of guilt and shame rather than resorting to self harm. The impulse is still there but this year I celebrate twenty years since I last cut myself. Its easier these days because they have more awareness and they even have apps for it like Calm Harm. " - D.M.

What if I mess up?

You own it. Apologize and make amends if necessary. Forgive yourself and try to do better next time. 

What if I can't do it by myself?

That's okay too. 

Therapy and Anger Management Classes are tools you can utilize to help you on this journey.