Author: Kimberly Dias | Nov 17, 2015
Our lives are made up of myriad stories. These stories shape who we are and who we choose to become. When 7 year old, Rohan came in to meet me, he was most upset about his schoolmates teasing him. The teasing brought about sad feelings and behaviors that he wasn’t very proud of. He said that it made him very angry!
This anger was named ‘Angry Anger’ by Rohan. By naming the anger, we were able to externalize the emotion and this allowed Rohan to view the problem more objectively, as a problem outside of himself rather than being within himself.
Angry Anger made Rohan hit his classmates back and say bad things to them. However, it did leave him with feelings of regret and fear that they might tell the teacher about his behavior which would result in some form of punishment. Angry Anger always made an entry during this anxious time, forcing Rohan to write untidily, if punished. Sadly, this only resulted in Rohan getting scolded at, again, after which Angry Anger was at the winning end!
When Rohan and I finished chalking out this story, he suddenly became very quiet and said he was bored. So I gently asked him, ‘Are you feeling bad about how Angry Anger makes you do bad things but never gets caught for it? Did you suddenly realize that it’s only you getting punished when it actually should be Angry Anger?’ He then smiled shyly and nodded his head indicating a ‘yes’!
Rohan was able to see how much trouble Angry Anger got him into and wanted to stop him. He tried keeping him away by taking deep breaths to calm down but it wasn’t always very useful. He felt rather powerless until he decided to bring in some fantasy into the picture. Rohan wished he could be like ‘Bumble Bee’ from the movie, Transformers. We explored that idea. Rohan decided that by secretly having Bumble Bee with him, he could defeat Angry Anger in the beginning itself when the teasing started, by walking away, taking deep breaths or by going and telling the teacher. Rohan was reminded that he is a brave person and that only he has the power to defeat Angry Anger. He was very excited about defeating Angry Anger along with his secret hero, Bumble Bee.