Letting go of Anger

Set up a Workshop
We can arrange a Transforming Anger workshop that is tailored to address the needs of your group. To inquire about setting up a workshop, contact Len Scheff at scheff@transforminganger.com.

Our workshops are based on four working hypotheses and provides an opportunity to experiment with them. Those hypotheses are:

• Anger is almost always a destructive emotion.
• The first person damaged by your anger is you.
• You can, if you chose, reduce the amount of anger in your life. As you reduce the amount of anger, your quality of life improves.
• When you act out of anger, your actions are likely to be irrational and ineffective.

The participants are not asked to accept any of these as true. They are asked to experiment with them by reexamining examples of anger from their own lives. If the process appears to be true for them, to continue experimenting after the workshop.

Workshops will consist of part lecture, and part experiential exercises. The exercises are simple and designed to allow the participants to experience some of the points made in the lecture. No one is required to participate in the exercises. In the course of the workshop, participants will be invited to share their reactions and experiences. However no one will be obligated to do so. This workshop is not intended to be an encounter group or psychotherapy, except to the extent that as Fritz Perls said, "Awareness is therapy per se."

While the basis of this workshop comes from the teachings of the Dalai Lama, we believe that what is taught in the workshop is compatible with virtually every religion and spiritual quest. John Tarrant Roshi recently described Buddhism as not a religion but "the technology of happiness." Therefore the teachings of the seminar do not compete with individual religious beliefs. Hopefully it will make a Christian a better Christian, a Hindu a better Hindu, an atheist a better person and so on. The participants are invited to share insights based on their beliefs with the group.

Dealing with Anger

In our culture, there are three generally accepted ways of dealing with anger:

1. First: We can suppress it or, in today's idiom, "Stuff it." When a spouse or our boss makes us angry, we are expected to grin and bear it. This causes stress and tension which can lead to high blood pressure, heart attacks and other physical ills. In the workplace it leads to lower productivity through discord and absenteeism.
2. Second: We can acknowledge the anger and act on it vicariously. This includes expressing our anger in other contexts or, as recommended in therapy, beating on a pillow later on. Unfortunately while this feels good at the time, it does not deal with the cause of the anger. This means that the anger will return again and again and remain an ongoing problem.
3. Third: We can blindly act out our anger by punishing the imagined cause with physical violence, whether it be our spouse, children, a friend or stranger. Much of law enforcement time today is spent dealing with the results of acting out anger. Spousal and child abuse is a major problem in our society. Employers and employees all too frequently are confronted with another employee who has suddenly gone out of control. Road rage stalks our streets.

The object of the workshop is to offer two important additional options;

• The reduction of the occasions for anger.
• The transformation of anger into compassion.

A significant feature of the workshop, is that the participants can benefit from an understanding of part of the teachings without accepting or understanding everything that is taught. The information offered can be generally divided into four categories:

1. Becoming aware of when we are angry.
2. Becoming aware of the cause of anger.
3. Becoming aware of the price of anger.
4. Techniques for transforming anger.

Generally people leave the seminar doubting the value and validity of their anger. They come to realize that their anger in effect can cause them to act stupidly or as someone said, "Anger is as good at solving problems as a fan is at stacking paper." They also realize that even in those cases where anger seems effective, that there are undesirable consequences of anger beyond the immediate transaction. As the doubts about their anger begin to undermine the belief in the value of anger, there seem to be less occasions for anger and we begin to rely less on anger as a way of relating to other people.

What is taught is straightforward and simple. The workshop participants have ranged from students to executives. The response has been overwhelmingly positive.

A 15 minute videotape of a portion of the seminar is available on request.

The workshop is available in two formats. One is a three hour basic teaching. The second is a six to eight hour format which can be done in one or two days. In the longer format there are several topics added and there is more participant involvement and discussion.

Experience has shown that for the maximum benefit there should be no less than eight participants. The maximum number of participants per workshop is 40.

The workshop may be facilitated by:

* John Tarrant who holds the title of Roshi in the Zen tradition, has a PhD in psychology and is a well known Zen Buddhist teacher.
* S. Leonard Scheff is an attorney, a Zen Buddhist, an experienced teacher and workshop leader. His experience as a trial attorney provide skills for the teaching of this workshop.

Contact Us today to learn more!