“Ma va fan culo!" we would say with an elaborate gesture of the hand. As if the hand could add on all the extra obscenities that the words “go f*ck yourself” or literally what “go F yourself in the A” couldn’t say.
People would abruptly stop their car on the cobblestoned roads, ignoring the honking blocked cars behind theirs, and step out of their vehicle to personally tell off the guy behind you that he’s riding your bumper and being an asshole.
A few hot headed words and a lot of hand gestures would ensue between the two. Pedestrians would stop in their tracks to take in the scene and take sides, gesticulating to which party they decided to support in the public street.
The loud energetic uproar would finish with the driver saying “Ma va” with a backhanded gesture as if you’re pushing hair off the side of your head, except about 3 inches further away. Meaning, “whatever, get outta here.” And head back to his car and continue driving. Just a normal day.
Italian Traffic Scene
Man, those Italians can really tell stories with their hands. What words need multiple phrases to articulate, one hand gesture can capture the entire essence.
I’ve been accused of being a “hot headed Italian” in the negative sense to be clear. Never would I imagine that being an emotional being would be used as ammunition in the domestic conflicts of who’s right and who’s wrong.
I’m the one who got angry, raised her voice and used a swear word. Hence I will be eternally wrong on this side of the American west coast.
During the 10 years I lived in Italy, we were yelling, laughing, gesturing and involved in everyone else’s business. Conversation was a public affair for all to throw in a joke or an exaggeration. It was the game of who could be bigger, louder and funnier. All who happened to be in the vicinity could jump in on the game.
Anger was a short lived affair, it blew up, sizzled out and next thing you know, they’re walking arm in arm to the nearest café for an espresso.
In California, when I use emotional intensity to express a point it can be off putting. I can be seen as a bit over the top, uncontrolled, maybe threatening.
I tend to be the one who breaks the enchantment of the spiritual bubble that encompasses the Californian lingo. The best is the sharing part after a yoga class, women’s circle or breath work course. Everyones’ like “I feel love, bliss, connected.” “I felt a ray of light come through my heart that permeated the whole circle.” Etc. etc.
Then we all hold hands and sing I love you, You are special, we look in each other’s eyes and hug each other.
My turn to share is often less rosy. I swear I’m not the doom sayer, I’m just honest. Either it starts with me admitting “I hate women’s circles because everyone talks about what cycle of the moon they’re bleeding on.”
Or in a more articulated fashion, “ at first I experienced irritation because the music was so loud I couldn’t hear the facilitator, then I noticed my nervous system did not feel safe enough to fully go deep with y’all.”
No, I don’t feel safe to go deep because all that feels ok to express is rainbows and unicorns and light emotions.
No, I don’t want you to fix me or repair me if I’m feeling irritated and pissed off.
I actually got asked if I wanted to be swaddled the last time I expressed feeling a bit exposed in an unsafe emotional space.
Do I want to be swaddled by a group who can’t hold space for emotional intensity!? No. Absolutely not.
Would swaddling help push down the anger and make it go away so it doesn’t rear it’s ugly head? First, my anger needs to be acknowledged.
Anger can make people very uncomfortable.
The relationship to anger for many may have consisted of an abusive parent, a fight in school or a traumatic incident.
They din't get the experience of healthy anger that isn’t meant to harm or hurt the receiver, simply an expression of an energy that is alive in the body that needs to be let out and can then move on.
The problem is we don’t have that habit. As a therapist I have clients that say I have so much anger and I don’t know how to let it out, then they smile, shrug their shoulders and laugh.
That is WHY!
We dumb down the validity of anger, we are ashamed of our own anger, the more repressed it is, the more if ferments into poison in our own bodies. It eats away at us, all the unsaid things, the unvoiced thoughts, the repression of expression. No! we should not be angry.
The rage room. What a wonderful idea and quite funny.
For all that repressed anger, you can pay to go to a room where you can break shit, yell and let it all out. Then you pack up your stuff and go home, your anger is out of sight, in a safe place and no-one has to know that you had an angry ferocious beast inside of you who just wanted to break everything.
breaking TV
Why do I find this funny? I’m applauding the inventors who managed to find an outlet for a societal problem and get paid good money to have people simply break stuff.
That’s awesome. (More about rage rooms here)
The problem is: Well what's next?
Can you really just keep building up anger like a pressure cooker and pay to let it out in the rage room weekly or monthly?
Rage rooms are great for immediate release but do not deal with long term anger management.
The car is a fairly safe place to let out our anger. Screaming at the top of your lungs at the wheel is a favorite of mine.
Road rage. Go ahead, ride that bumper, flash those brights, swerve around that traffic, get that pent up frustration out through your car. Oh yeah.
No, Please don’t.
You might earn the title of a big A-hole.
Comments on social media are great too.
Welcome to the absence of accountability. You can be a hater to anyone all the time, just vent out the most negative comments, scorn the ones who have opinions you disagree with, click harshly on the unsubscribe button, send the hatred out on the evil doers of the world.
Lash out against politics, consumerism, prices, complain, complain, complain.
As long as we can let that shit out as if it’s not about us and our life, we can mask our true subconscious needs, as we attempt to get that energy moving through the body in some way or another.
The problem with this method is it negatively impacts everyone you send that energy out to in a way that does not support mutual humanity, connection or understanding. It removes the human behind the digital device and can truly be damaging for everyone.
Excercise helps. How many people only feel better after running or pumping as hard as they can?
Exercise helps transform that high energy Catecholamine cocktail of anger(adrenalin and noradrenaline and dopamine + others) into a healthy channel that produces the good feeling hormones of endorphins and serotonin.
The energy is moving and you haven’t harmed anyone in the process, but you haven’t necessarily voiced or clarified or learned how to work with the cause of what you’re upset about.
But at least the gym can stay successful and you feel better each time after you’re done until the next urgent need to get it out.
Some people get it out through masturbation or sex. A nice release of dopamine and oxytocin which helps release cortisol levels (stress hormones).
If I remain in the chair of the anger researcher and how to deal with it, I observe that telling my partner to fuck off when he doesn’t hug me might be counter productive..
I really just wanted to express how I was terribly hurt and felt desperately alone.
How I wish that all those courses in non violent communication could surpass the fire that rises up in my body in those moments, but instead I yell “all I asked is for you to sit by me and hug me! Fuck off!" and I storm out. Literally the opposite of what I want.
In my ideal world he wouldn’t take it personally. He’d be a nominee supporter of “hot headed Italians” and not take my words for more than what they were. Fuck off doesn’t really mean I hate you or get away from me. It just means I’m upset.
He would come after me and say in a beseeching Italian voice and a hand gesture “Dai, Carly, vieni qui! (Come on Carly, come here…) then he’d grab me and pull me close to him, I’d melt and tell him how much I loved him and we’d tumble into a passionate non-italian French kiss. (technically neither of us have Italian or French blood.)
Then there’s the opposite. Households where all they do is yell and swear at each other. It’s not healthy anger, it’s intense, it’s charged, it can be hurtful and violent. Oftentimes children are in the vicinity and it can be terrifying.
I wonder if I learned that yelling was ok from the way my parents fought. I would hear them yelling. It wasn’t ok, it wasn’t healthy, I was scared.
Where is the healthy middle ground?
How to know when the words become knives and not just expressions of letting off steam?
How do you know which words hurt and which ones won’t?
For an Italian, “fuck off” can be a daily affair, thrown around like a frisbee.
For others with a history of trauma and witnessing anger, “fuck off” can be the trigger of a dangerous situation.
Their nervous system might respond to anger with one of the 4 F’s. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
Anger is almost always the expression of an unmet need. The needs could be multiple; love, affection, warmth, understanding, participation, acceptance, etc.
The body gets hot, the heart beats faster, the belly might contract and anger rises, it is saying “mayday! mayday! a need is not being met here, I need your attention urgently.”
The intensity of our emotions may or may not be in direct correlation with the intensity of the need, but rather the value we place on it or the prospect of it being able to be met.
If my need was empathy and compassion when I was feeling down. That could have been solved by a hug in the quickest way, or perhaps an expression of genuine concern and a question of “hey, are you doing ok?” With a willingness to listen.
When the strategy of “a hug” to meet my need for empathy, closeness and understanding was not met, I noticed anger begin to rise.
It escalated when my partner did not grasp the urgency, he stayed far away and I felt more distance, which created more frustration and desperation. The further he couldn’t understand my request, empathize with my emotion or attempt to meet it, the more disconnection I felt. Top it off with the stark contrast between this distant figure and the one I normally go to for love and connection. I was thrown into a deep sense of abandonment.
A pressure cooker of emotion ready to explode.
If only I had had the capacity to see all that in those 45 seconds of exchange.
In relationship, often the emotional fire of accusations is met with another fire that counters the accusations, which fuels a bonfire of blame and disconnection.
There is no time for breath as each one tosses the hot potato back and forth. The words spew out like lava, burning, the other responds defensively or offensively. The finger points at the other, "it’s your fault that I am angry!" when underneath we are crying "Please hear me! Do I matter?"
We attempt to justify with the narrative of why they're wrong, but in the end, it is a desperate cry to be seen.
Can you see that I need support, can you see that I want more connection and love, can you see that I want to feel understood, can you see I want to matter?
For us, our latest venture is establishing conflict agreements.
What agreements do we have when we fight? Can we say that fuck off doesn’t mean, I hate you or disown you, rather just an expression of anger?
Do we have a safe word if things escalate and the nervous system is overwhelmed?
What does the safe word mean? do we back up, take a pause, take a break, come back to it, set a timer?
What are our boundaries?
These agreements are made outside of the conflict.
In the end, I don’t know if the Italian way is actually the best way, but it is an example of a culture that has a large capacity for emotional variety and intensity.
It may not work for everyone. Having 8 people all expressing their opinion loudly and letting off steam without validation might not be ideal, but neither is repressing it and saying “I’m fine” until you hit up the rage room.
Living in Italy gave me the permission to voice much of what was pent up inside me in a way that didn't perpetuate judgment. It was even a fun way to express anger at times.
I could exaggerate with some emotional intensity without the heaviness “Hey! Sta’ attenta a-o (Watch where you’re going!) I’d throw on my best Roman accent and launch a brusk straight handed gesture.
I do miss Italian gesticulating.
As I continue, in this American culture, I will continue being the black sheep of the women's circles and voicing my honest truth even if it appears that only flowers and rainbows are welcome.
If I become a weather forecaster, I have learned that thunder, lightning and dark clouds are part of an ecosystem of being and necessary for rain to fall, flowers to grow and rainbows to illuminate our hearts.
Learn more about the physiology of anger and a few ways to work with it in this extremely informative article here:
Blessings for you all in our common journey of being human. Carly
Double rainbow shot near my house in Hawaii
