7. The Art of Venting
I used to have issues sleeping unless I told someone exactly why I was mad or how they screwed me over. It would literally give me anxiety if I held my anger in, so I thought I was "taking care of my mental health" by yelling at people. It's pretty selfish of us to try to make ourselves feel better at the expense of others.
One of the biggest misconceptions we have is that we think we need to tell people exactly what's on our mind. This assumption leads to us exploding on people and then feeling bad. Speaking of assumptions, I'm assuming that you're reading this book because you feel bad about some of the things you do out of anger. What I learned was that anger is like this bull in a China shop that just destroys your brain via rumination until you let it out. The thing is, you just need to open the door to let it out, but maybe you should open up a different door instead of you blowing up on someone.
What I eventually learned was that I just need to vent some how or some way. I learned this when I just started opening up to my friends about my angers and frustrations. I'd vent to them about my mom, or my baby mama or other random things that irritated me with the world. Every time I did this, I felt better as though a thousand pounds was lifted off my shoulders. The crazy part is that most of the time my friends didn't even respond to me. All they did was listen. Once I realized this, I had my "a-ha" moment.
It's not healthy to hold anger in. We need to let it out, but we don't need to let it out at that person all of the time. This is one of the reasons why you should always have a support group who is there to listen to you vent, and if you don't have that, get a journal.
I can't tell you how many times I was outraged when nobody was around, and all I did was whip out my journal or open up a document on my computer and just start venting. I'd free write all of my anger and frustrations. Sometimes, I'd write that person a detailed letter about how angry I was and everything I wanted to say, and this always made me feel better.
NOTE: If you do the angry letter method, destroy it. Don't send it. Don't hang onto it because you may cause more harm later. Our goal with our mental health is to not cause harm to others or ourselves.
