Emotional First Aid by Winch Guy

Author:Winch, Guy [Winch, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self
ISBN: Emotional First Aid
Publisher: Exisle Publishing
Published: 2008-12-31T14:00:00+00:00

2. Anger Inflation: How Rumination and Venting Fan the Flames of Fury

Another emotion that tends to elicit powerful ruminative urges is anger. Many of us replay experiences that elicit our ire over and over in our heads. As with the self-reinforcing cycle that gets triggered with sadness, the more we ruminate about our anger and the more we discuss anger-provoking thoughts and experiences with others, the angrier we feel as a result and the stronger our urge to ruminate about these feelings and problems becomes.

Carlton, a young man I worked with a few years ago, fell prey to this very dynamic. Carlton’s father had come from modest means, but after making a fortune in the stock market he insisted his son want for nothing. For example, after graduating from college, Carlton expressed an interest in moving to New York. His father promptly put him up in a newly purchased penthouse apartment and gave him a generous monthly allowance because, as he told Carlton many times over the years, “Nothing but the best for my son!”

Carlton tried his hand at several careers, landing one plum job after another with the aid of his father’s connections. However, since he had neither the experience nor the qualifications to succeed in these positions, Carlton usually spent less than a year in each of them before being gently advised by his superiors to “try something else” or to “move on.” The suggestion that he wasn’t performing adequately caught him by surprise more than once.

“I kept assuming these companies would never offer me a job I was unqualified for. But they were just doing my dad a favor,” Carlton explained when we first met. “Since they figured I wouldn’t be there for long, they never told me what I wasn’t doing well or what I could do to improve. They’d just ask me to leave. You have no idea how humiliating it was each time it happened!” Carlton’s nostrils flared at the memory. “I didn’t ask my dad for the apartment, I didn’t ask for the allowance, and I never asked for help getting a job, not once. I’d just mention I was interested in something and the next thing I knew I’d get a call about a possible opening. No one told me these positions were over my head. Good ol’ Dad just kept setting me up for failure. Nothing but the best for my son!” Carlton added in a bitter imitation of what I assumed was his father’s voice.

When Carlton was twenty-five he met Solana, a marketing professional. They married a year later. In the fall of 2008, a few months after their wedding, the world entered a global recession and Carlton’s father was hit hard. He was forced to sell the apartment in which Carlton and Solana were living and to cut off every penny of his allowance. Carlton was between jobs at the time and he and Solana found themselves having to manage with Solana’s salary and the small sum of money Carlton had left in the bank.

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