Anger is an energy – scary to touch but with a gift to give

Dammit! We golfers have a strange relationship with anger.

We all feel it, but we sure don’t like showing it. Yet, sometimes to our embarrassment, a club is suddenly airborne, a ball is drowned, or an expletive reverberates through the forest.

Like most of the emotions we consider ‘negative,’ we just want to get over being angry, make it go away, and hope it stays away.

But to quote John Lydon, formerly Johnny Rotten, I agree “anger is an energy” that shouldn’t be ignored. Like all our feelings, there’s some damn good reasons we feel what we feel, and there’s some gifts for us if we look at what’s going on.

Unfortunately, there are folks who make everyone around them miserable by being perpetually whiny and cranky, and there are rage-aholics who leave a trail of emotional and sometimes physical destruction behind them.

However, most people work hard to manage their anger. We don’t want to be that person.

I’m not advocating you spontaneously combust. I like the ’10 second’ rule, in which you have a limited license to vent, exclaim, even thump a club—provided you don’t damage the peace or the course—and then move on.

I’ll admit, I’ve plunged a few offending irons into the ground for punishment this season. Over the years, I’ve bent, dented, and even decapitated clubs. (Don’t be shocked. With apologies to Bill Shakespeare, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”)

On our Swing Thoughts podcast, my partner Humble Howard Glassman has recounted some epic meltdowns, including when he dragged his under-performing 5-iron along the pavement—while driving—causing sparks to fly.

But as golfers, we’re not supposed to get mad. If you’re read one article in your life on the mental game, it likely said anger makes you play crappy. DUH.

There’s even a golf adage that comes with an inferred scolding: “You’re not good enough to get mad.”

For most recreational golfers, it’s true. Unlike a touring golf professional, our job security or mortgage isn’t on the line.

But I don’t care if you’re the Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle, or Mother Teresa, if you have golf in your soul, you’re going to get pissed off from time to time. Mother Teresa’s go-to shot was a soft draw, but when she occasionally pulled the ball OB, you didn’t dare talk to her.  (Thanks, Humble for that one.)

It’s OK to get steamed. As humans, we’re messy.

But … we don’t like it. There are various reasons we try to repress anger. Some people are ashamed. Many were trained by their parents.

Some, like me, are afraid that releasing their anger is dangerous. I grew up in a chaotic household with four siblings and a father who didn’t do chaos well.  I’m pretty sure I decided early on ‘Stuff your anger—it’s safer.’

Part of our resistance is a realization that we might have to face a truth about ourselves that we’d rather not.

Through the years in the ManKind Project, I have facilitated men through anger. In almost every instance, a man will feel his anger bubbling up, but immediately repress it. Ironically, some men will start smiling as they wrestle with the discomfort of finally touching the boiling cauldron deep within them.

I’ll invite the man to focus on what’s happening in his body, and to stay with the feeling. In most cases, it’s like the man eventually falls off the edge of a volcano into the hot lava of his feelings and thoughts. What pours out can be loud, profane, ugly, deeply sad—sometimes with pounding fists and flying snot.

Once that energy is released and exhausted, the man feels spent but peaceful.

With the calmness after the storm comes clarity.

He sees the parts of himself he must own, and the responsibility he has to himself and others. He knows there is action he must take.

This was the gift that I described in my last newsletter. After four-putting during my club championship, I was livid. In the midst of my tantrum in the parking lot, I ran into my former neighbour Tim Casarin, a firefighter who survived an explosion that broke 41 bones and nearly killed him. Talk about instant perspective.

During the ensuing days—with some coaching—I investigated what was fueling my anger.

Underneath it was sadness and disappointment. That once again, I failed to maintain a commitment to myself. I had committed to trust myself and feel my swing, rather than think. Instead, I defaulted to an old pattern of over-thinking everything.

Moreover, I concluded that I failed to maintain commitments in other parts of my life this year. (Ironically, commitment is a major theme in my coaching and in an accountability workshop that I deliver to businesses. I coach this stuff because it’s my work too.)

So, rather than rationalize that it’s just normal to get mad over a bad shot or round—or anything else—I invite you to look underneath your anger and investigate what’s fuelling it. When you go down there, I’m convinced you’ll find a gift.

In the next blog, I’ll share a practice that will allow you to take a good look at your anger.

Relax. You won’t have to worry about flying snot.

To read more articles by Tim O’Connor, click HERE.