Anger Management

I never thought anger was something I dealt with as I'm not an angry person at all, at least in the commonly held view of what anger is.  I don't explode or get mad at people and have always fancied myself to be a very laid back and even keeled person, at least when it comes to the emotion of anger.  Yesterday in group we talked in depth about the different kinds of anger and how they manifest based on the book Letting Go of Anger by Ron and Pat Potter-Efrom.  I found myself identifying with a couple of those kinds and started to realize that I deal with anger in very different ways than maybe most people do.  I won't go into all ten of the identified anger styles from the book, but would like to touch on the two that really seem to apply especially to me.  The first is anger avoidance. Anger avoiders like myself don't like anger and don't feel anger when something is wrong.  They lack assertiveness skills and often feel guilty about speaking up.  These are the door mats the people can walk all over and are often plagued with the need to be good or nice rather than showing anger to others because they believe that it's bad to do so.  I can really relate to this anger style.  People who are anger avoiders often don't get what they want and lose part of themselves.  Anger gets turned inward and often manifests as depression and physical illness.  The second style that is really applicable to my own situation is shame based anger.  Google defines shame as a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.  This type of anger manifests through negative self talk such as not being good enough, not belonging and/or not being lovable.  I am starting to learn that I have an unhealthy combination of these two styles, turning my anger inward rather than expressing it in productive and healthy ways.  The material we covered suggests that combating these styles includes learning to be more assertive and correcting the erroneous beliefs in order to gain a more proper perspective of one's place in the world.  I know that I'm not an assertive person and have difficulty asking for what I want or need in life.  I'm too worried about what others might think or how they might react and find myself basically going along to get along.  I'm starting to identify things that have made me angry and am coming to the realization of how that anger has impacted my sense of self-worth and self-esteem.  I have a biased belief that I'm not good enough and not worthy of being loved which leads to the expectation that people won't like or accept me for who I am.  I perceive people judging me harshly and interpret these feelings to mean that I'm not welcome in society.  I remember the judgement of others and those who have abused me in various forms and taken advantage of me.  I need to learn to let this anger go so that I can start appreciating my own value and embracing those who do love and accept me as I am.  I have to keep telling myself that I am good enough and worthy of that love.  The anger turned inward has prevented me from being able to truly appreciate what I have to offer.  It's going to take some work to begin to let go and retrain my brain to focus on the positive but I think I'm on the right path.  Like any of the coping skills I've been learning, practice makes perfect.  The only person I'm hurting by holding onto and focusing on the anger is myself.  I need to start channeling the anger into a more productive and positive force rather than letting it defeat me.