Healthy Aggression. How To Deal With Aggression And Use Aggression To Grow?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-18 02:26

How to translate your aggression into a healthy one? How to start expressing it, stop suppressing it?

In fact, this is a rather individual issue that is best dealt with seriously, one at a time. However, first you need to understand what is worth paying attention to.

Aggression is not always anger. If we look at the animal world from the point of view of evolution, aggression emerged as a survival tool for our human species, so that we can adapt and live as comfortably as possible. What are the functions of aggression in the animal kingdom?

1. Territory protection. In our case, it's about protecting security and resources (the more resources I have, the better I feel).

2. Protection of oneself and offspring in critical situations from attacks, from the outside world, from other people, from other dangerous situations. If we draw a parallel with the real world - the situation with lockdown, quarantine and coronavirus forces us to mobilize aggression in order to protect ourselves as much as possible (somewhere ask a person to retreat to the prescribed distance, somewhere to make more efforts to protect himself, put on a mask, use disinfectants etc.). There is also another aggression here, but it is rather frustration that this is happening, that we cannot go anywhere, that this whole situation has dragged on. So, it is important to understand the aggression that we can now experience with frustration and disappointment. If you understand why you are upset, it relieves the level of aggression to a large extent.
3. Support and regulation of the status by a given individual in a group - none of us wants to feel like an unpleasant and unworthy person whom no one respects. Accordingly, aggression is also designed to protect your ego.

According to zoopsychologists, aggression is one of the four main instincts (along with hunger, sex and self-preservation). Aggression is important, so we like it or not, but aggression is in each of us from birth (in someone more, in someone less), and we manifest it in different ways.

Why are there problems with aggression? Often, due to the fact that in childhood we were taught that aggression is bad, being angry is bad, suppress your feelings and be silent. Mom, dad, grandfather or grandmother do not want to hear anything, please keep everything to yourself! We are forced to learn to restrain emotions, to hide them in ourselves. And here a dilemma appears - on the one hand, we have needs associated with aggression, and on the other hand, there are restrictions associated with the world, law and society. And the more time you accumulate emotions, show absolutely nothing, do not allow yourself anything, the more violently the aggression tries to find a way out, to free itself in various possible ways (through passive aggression, aggressive fantasies, unexpected outbursts of anger and negativism, causeless irritation, including anger on the offenders who hurt you a long time ago and it's time to forget about the situation, but the anger at them remains). All these are signs of unreacted aggression, and then a self-destructive process of auto-aggression begins, suicidal thoughts, depression, drug addiction, alcohol dependence (the latter option is a mild version of suicide, aggression against oneself). Psychosomatic illnesses are also considered signs of autoaggression - ulcers, type 2 diabetes, cancer, etc.

And the main question is where will our aggression break through? The problem is colorfully shown in the movie "Joker", where the main character kept everything to himself, was a "punching bag", and then took a pistol and began to shoot everyone. This is how our aggression breaks through - sometimes outward, sometimes inward (but being shot inside is self-destruction).

What to do? You can work with temporary techniques that will allow you here and now to calm the aggression a little, if you really get angry.

1. Beat something inanimate - a pear, a pillow, a bed. Just be sure to protect yourself so as not to harm yourself (for example, take the softest pillow and put it on the bed so that the blow with your hand does not fall on a hard place). In sports, sparring and boxing work well, when you learn to do everything correctly. When the blow comes from the hand, the aggression comes out well through the hand. This temporary method will not allow you to completely control yourself and control the situation, but it will allow you to feel contentment, to feel control over your aggression and the outside world in your hands.

2. To take control of your aggression, to be able to manage the world and people, to defend and defend yourself in time, somewhere to ask for what you need, and somewhere that is not needed, you need to be able to listen to yourself very carefully. If you are characterized by outbursts of anger, you will understand this only in the outbreak itself, but even at this moment the brain simply turns off, and everything works instinctively. Be sure to ask yourself after all this has happened to you: “So, what was that? What am I so angry about? " Perhaps the extreme point was some insignificant event (for example, you broke a cup and - "That's it, I'm tired of it! So much happens in life!"). However, you did not tell anyone about anything that was emotionally charged in your life before, you didn’t share your emotions with anyone, somewhere you swallowed, somewhere you kept silent in response to what you didn’t like. Learn to react to your anger before it becomes an affect, you need to recognize your anger even in the period when it is dissatisfaction and irritation - and react in time to these feelings. So your job is to ask yourself over and over again, “What am I unhappy with? What's wrong with me?".

Depression is also self-directed aggression, so ask yourself what need you are not satisfied with. When you make it clear for yourself which need is repressed, then you will perfectly understand what to do, to whom to say, and with whom to remain silent.

It so happens that it is quite difficult to say to a loved one who reacts hard to aggression: “You know, I didn’t like your behavior last time!”. Here, too, aggression is needed, but this is the form that will allow you to get closer to a person sooner or later, to understand him, and he will understand you.

Another important question is what aggression has come to defend? Try to perceive your aggression not as something that you need to get rid of, something disgusting ("Fuuuuu, you cannot be such a person!"), But as something that has come to protect you (as an ally, partner, part of yourself, like that something important and necessary). When you call on aggression to your aid, sit next to you, then you will be able to understand what and how to do in this situation with your aggression.

The most important thing you can do is to figure out the reasons for your aggression, then your brain will figure out what to do on its own.

Another rather difficult aspect that will help you show your aggression is as useful as possible for you (without destroying relationships, family, children, etc.) - always evaluate your actions, the appropriateness of your aggressive reactions (every time you try some a new step with aggression). For example, did you say too loudly whether you have offended the person too much? However, there are some nuances here - those people whose aggression was prohibited are likely to blame themselves and scold themselves for raising their tone, even for the usual answer "I don't want this tea!" they will gnaw themselves inside ("God! Well, why did I say? Now they will hate me, they will never be invited to visit!"). People in whose family it was customary to show passive-aggressive behavior or not at all to show aggression will perceive themselves as very terrible at the moment when they try some steps towards aggression. Accordingly, you need someone nearby to assess the situation. Do not be afraid to go up to someone who saw your reaction and ask: "Do you think it was very terrible?" If you know how to take feedback, always use this great tool. From the outside, everything does not always look as awful as it seems to you - you exaggerate, because in childhood you were attacked in response to aggression. Evaluate yourself and through others.

At the same time, people in whose family it was customary to scandal and swear when they raised their tone do not feel that somewhere the reaction was terrible.