Counselling Men to Manage Anger

Healthy Meaning of Power

It is a sad fact that in our society good meaning of power is completely lost, blurred and difficult to identify it. When power is twisted by the ego, unhealthy anger shows up, which is the result of inner shame manifested through moral and physical aggression: violence. Tragically, violence becomes the way for many men to show their strength and the way to equalise their inner unprocessed pain. This is due to the lack of acknowledge of their own wounds, as not many men would not know what to do with it. As a result, unhealthy anger becomes highly intoxicated giving men the wrong sense of power.

Competition, Power and Aggression

Paradoxically, the way to deal with power is exactly through powerlessness. It is hard to process powerlessness as it should, as it makes most of the men feel defeated by the capitalistic and individualistic system we live in . Therefore, a man must compete and fight using anger and aggression to compensate the sense of powerlessness by making money, acquiring possessions and becoming successful.

Transformational Counselling: From Anger to True Masculinity

Anger, shame and aggression can lead to the path of the inner work. The work to deal with the wound, the inner pain. It is only through the pain, the wound will become sacred . It will become a gift to offer to the community. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with anger. You shouldn’t get rid of your anger until you understand what you are actually angry about. To understand your anger and what’s causing it, you need to own it and work through it. Aimless anger helps no one, least of all the person feeling it. Feel anger, learn what it has to tell you; but do not identify with it, or it will kill you” teaches Rohr (p. 142, 2010). Ownership and acknowledgment makes one to feel the heat of one’s own anger. It requires courage, and is the wisdom path that transforms the wound, teaching precious lessons about the Self - or True Masculinity.

10 Metaphors to Awaken the Men’s Soul

Fox (2008) wrote a book about the ‘Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine’. In there, he describes ten archetypes that inspire the masculine soul to deal with shame and aggression, making use of them for the development of the male soul. I will finish this article with a long paragraph below, where Fox explains really well what the work of processing shame and anger can do by using the concept of the archetypes. There it is:

“Real men deal with their own wounded masculinity, with their male issues of shame and aggression. They take in the archetypes named in this book and ask: How am I doing? Which of these speaks deepest to me? Where am I strongest? Where am I most lacking? To belong again is the great healing. It puts shame to flight and with it a great deal of frustration and anger: to belong to the universe again (Father Sky); to belong to the Earth and its varied creatures again (the Green Man); to belong to community again (hunter-gatherers); to belong to a tribe of courageous people defending Earth, women and children (spiritual warriors); to belong to one’s sons and daughters in active listening and communication (Icarus and Daedalus); to belong to our own divine and joyful sexuality (the Lover); to belong to our holy and amazing bodies (our temples); to belong to our capacity for expanded consciousness (the Blue Man); to belong to our fatherly selves (Earth Father); and to our elder and grandfatherly selves (Grandfather Sky). All this makes real the development of men and of masculinity. It puts shame, anger, and misplaced aggression to flight. It results in peace, an inner peace that gets projected onto our institutions, politics and religions” (Fox, 2008, p. 294).