“With clear insights and easy-to-follow exercises, this innovative

book teaches how to develop self-compassion so that anger can be

transformed into a more peaceful state of mind.”
—Kristin Neff, PhD, author of Self-Compassion and
associate professor of human development and culture
at the University of Texas at Austin

“In The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Managing Your Anger,

Russell L. Kolts provides us with a novel approach to managing
anger: compassionate mind training. Pointing out that we may not
have a choice about how our brains react to provocation, Kolts
skillfully shows that we do have a choice of how we respond. By
calling upon our ability to experience compassion and empathy for
others, he provides a number of helpful techniques that can turn
anger around.”
—Robert L. Leahy, PhD, director of the American
Institute for Cognitive Therapy and clinical professor
of psychology at Weill-Cornell University Medical
College

“This intriguing book will bring a sigh of relief to anyone

struggling with anger. It’s not your fault that you experience anger,
yet there is a lot you can do about it. Why do we get angry? What
happens within us when we’re angry? Why is it so sticky? Russell
L. Kolts gently escorts the reader to a deep, comprehensive
understanding of anger and offers revolutionary new strategies for
taming this common affliction. There is much here to inspire and
illuminate both professional and non-professional audiences.”
—Christopher K. Germer, PhD, clinical instructor at
Harvard Medical School and author of The Mindful
Path to Self-Compassion

“Cultivating compassion for ourselves and others can bring balance

and harmony to our lives in a way we never dreamed of. Russell L.
Kolts tells us how to do this with the gentleness, humor, and
patience of someone who practices his own advice and, from first-
hand experience, knows it works.”
—Thubten Chodron, Buddhist teacher and author of
Working with Anger

“With his compassion-focused approach to anger management,

Russell L. Kolts has produced an important book that will be of
interest both to the general public and to mental health
practitioners. Kolts shows us how to use compassion as a
motivating force to care for others, improve ourselves, and make
relationships better. The chapters are filled with very useful thought
questions and exercises that quickly increase self-awareness. Kolts
writes in an appealing manner that makes the book an easy read.”
—Howard Kassinove, PhD, ABPP, professor of
psychology and director of the Institute for the Study
and Treatment of Anger and Aggression at Hofstra
University

“In this wonderful, kind, and compassionate book, Kolts reaches

out with true heartfulness to those who struggle with problematic
levels of anger. In a strikingly nonjudgmental, wise, and warm
tone, he offers a path of loving-kindness and self-forgiveness that
can directly lead you to a far better relationship with anger. This
can open up remarkable new possibilities in life as you walk
forward with ever-greater self-compassion and self-regulation into
a world of improved relationships, diminished stress, and mindful
awareness. This is more than anger management—it is an avenue
toward personal transformation.”
—Dennis D. Tirch, PhD, author of The Compassionate-
Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety

“Full of useful information and practical suggestions. Kolts has

created a powerful blueprint to help readers to develop a
compassionate mindset, make better life choices, and foster more
fulfilling relationships. He makes the case for compassion as an
antidote to the loss and suffering that anger creates in our modern
world.”
—Raymond Chip Tafrate, PhD, professor and chair in the
department of criminology at Central Connecticut
State University and coauthor of Anger Management
for Everyone
 Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold
with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional
services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2012 by Russell L. Kolts
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
First published in the UK by Constable. An imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer; Cover design by Amy Shoup; Edited by Carole Honeychurch; Text design by Tracy Carlson;
Cover photo by Ron Watts / GettyImages
Epub ISBN: 9781608828715

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kolts, Russell L.
The compassionate-mind guide to managing your anger : using compassion-focused therapy to calm your rage and heal your
relationships / Russell L. Kolts ; foreword by Paul Gilbert.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-60882-037-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Anger. 2. Compassion. 3. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. I. Title.
BF575.A5K66 2012
152.4’7--dc23
2012008369
This book is dedicated to the men of Airway Heights Corrections Center, who dare to
cultivate compassion behind bars.

And to Lisa Koch and Dylan Kolts. My heart lives with you.
 Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Anger: Introduction and Overview
• Types of Anger • A Closer Look: Steve’s Story • What Do We Mean by “Anger”? • Dissecting the
Anger Experience • How We Feel It: Anger in the Body • Attention: The Spotlight of the Mind •
Things We Tell Ourselves: Thoughts, Reasoning, and Rumination • Playing It Out in Our Minds:
Imagery and Fantasy • Driven to Act: The Power of Motivation • Things We Do: Angry Behavior •
Conclusion
2. The Compassionate-Mind Approach to Understanding Anger
• Finding Ourselves Here • Old Brains and New Brains • A Model of Emotion • The Three Circles •
The Threat and Self-Protection System • The Drive and Resource Acquisition System • The Soothing
and Safeness System • Calming Down the Threat System • Conclusion
3. When Things Become Unbalanced
• Evolved Brains in the Modern World • Chasing Imbalance • Why Me? • If You Didn’t Get What
You Needed • Learning To Be Angry • Implicit Memory and the Construction of “Reality” • Triggers
• Fault and Responsibility • Conclusion
4. The Case for Compassion
• The Heart of Compassion • So What Exactly Is Compassion? • How Compassion Organizes Our
Minds • Attributes of the Compassionate Mind • Skills Training • Warmth • Conclusion
5. First Steps
• The Courage to Change: Compassionate Motivation • David’s Example • Using Compassionate
Attention with Arousal: Soothing-Rhythm Breathing • The Compassion Practice Journal • Conclusion
6. The Cultivation of Mindfulness
• Mindfulness: A Workout for the Brain • Mindfulness of the Breath • Mindfulness and Working
with Anger • Conclusion
7. Compassionate Imagery: Developing the Compassionate Self
• Using Imagery • Cultivating the Compassionate Self • Considering Self-Compassion • The
Compassionate Self in Action • Using Imagery to Engage Your Safeness System • “Don’t Think of a
White Bear!” • Your Ideal Compassionate Image • Compassion Flowing into Us • Bringing
Compassion to Pain • The Safe-Place Exercise • Conclusion
8. Working Compassionately with Anger: Validation, Distress Tolerance,
and Exploring Your Emotional Self
• A Case Example: Sheila and Josh • Getting to Know Your Anger Response • Compassionate
Validation of Anger as a Threat Response • Tolerating Distress and Discomfort • Distress-Tolerance
Strategies • Exploring Emotions Behind Your Anger • The “Two Chairs” Technique • Conclusion
9. Working Compassionately with Anger: Mentalizing, Compassionate
Thinking, and Problem Solving
• Mentalizing • Learning to Pause and Ask Yourself Questions • Working Compassionately with
Angry Thinking • “What Would My Compassionate Self Think?” • The Compassionate-Thinking
Flash Card • “What Would My Compassionate Self Do?” • Conclusion
10. Compassionate Behavior: Relating Compassionately with Others
• Assertiveness • Expressing Emotions and Desires • Working with Your Limitations • Expressing
Disagreement • Reconciliation • Apologizing • Forgiveness • When Things Don’t Go the Way You’d
Like • Positive Interactions: The Building Blocks of Good Relationships • Conclusion
11. Bringing Compassion to Your Experience of Others
• Compassionate Recognition of Our Common Humanity • Cultivating Empathy • Deepening
Empathy with Mentalization • Sympathy • Bringing Empathy to Your Angry Interactions •
Compassionate Imagery: Bringing Compassion to a Challenging Other • Conclusion
12. Full Circle: Bringing Compassion and Kindness to Yourself
• Compassionate Behavior: Self-Care • Broadening Your Perspective • Conclusion
13. Moving Forward: Approaching Anger and Life with Compassion
• Organizing Your Approach to Anger: The RAGE Model • Conclusion
Appendix
Useful Books and CDs for Working with Anger • Useful Websites
Notes
 Foreword
We have always understood that compassion is very important for our
well-being. If you are stressed or upset, it’s always better to have kind,
helpful, and supportive people around you rather than critical, rejecting, or
disinterested folk. However, it’s not only this common sense that tells us
about the value of kindness and compassion. Recent advances in scientific
study of compassion and kindness have greatly advanced our understanding
of how compassionate qualities of the mind really do influence our brains,
bodies, and social relationships, as well as affect our health and well-being.
Yet, despite this common sense, ancient wisdom, and modern knowledge, we
live in an age that can make compassion for ourselves and for others difficult.
Ours is the world of seeking the competitive edge, of achievement and desire,
of comparison to others who may be doing better, of dissatisfaction, of self-
disappointment, and of self-criticism. Research has now revealed that such
environments actually make us unhappy and that mental ill-health is on the
increase, especially in younger people. As Dr. Russell Kolts helps us to
understand, frustration, irritability, and anger are very common symptoms of
the environments we’re living in today. Be it irritation with long lines, overly
complex gadgets we can’t work out how to use, traffic jams, whining
children, or what we see as incompetent politicians—the list of things that
wind us up seems endless.
If feeling angry or irritable and stressed is not enough, we can act on
these emotions and then justify our actions: “They had it coming to them;
they shouldn’t have done X or Y.” And, of course, we label the people we’re
angry with as “dumb,” “stupid,” “a pain,” or “thoughtless and unfeeling.”
There can also be subtle messages in society that anger is about being macho
—a “no-nonsense” person. In fact, that kind of attitude can lie behind serious
violence, in which people feel they have a need to save face, get their own
back, and not be humiliated or disrespected. In some sectors of society, the
fear of humiliation is so profound that explosive anger and violence are part
of everyday life.
In fact, it can be easy to confuse aggressiveness with assertiveness, and
when we do so, we can cause much hurt and upset to others. As Dr. Kolts
points out, anger is a volatile, impulsive, and not very clever emotion. If we
just go with its flow, we can regret acting on it in the days, weeks, or years to
come. Anger also has a habit of being quite “sticky,” in the sense that we tend
to ruminate about the things that made us angry—we go over and over them
in our minds. We don’t stop to think what that process might be doing to our
heads and bodies. For some people, feelings of anger can be quite
frightening, so they seek to suppress these emotions in order to avoid
conflict. Others can become self-critical and judge themselves for becoming
angry or irritable and for not being nice or lovable people. So, we’re critical
of ourselves and think that by being angry with ourselves, we will stop being
angry! Indeed, our society has a habit of blaming and shaming if we seem to
be struggling with our emotions.
So why are we so susceptible to frustration and anger, and why are they
seemingly on the increase in modern-day society? Dr. Kolts uses his wealth
of knowledge and experience to guide our understanding and to help us
recognize that, actually, many of our emotions are the result of a very long
evolutionary history. The emotions we experience today were really designed
to deal with immediate threats in the jungles and savannas of our ancestors’
environment and aren’t so well-adapted for the modern world. Nor do our
emotions do so well when our angry minds use our new brains’ capacity for
thinking and rumination, locking us into anger. Humans are the only animals
that have the capacity to sit under a tree ruminating about how angry they are
because of some event or other, planning vengeance or just keeping
themselves in an angry state. We can even be angry about what we feel—
angry about feeling anxious, angry because we feel depressed, angry because
we feel tired all the time, angry because we’re just exhausted. So the way we
think about and ruminate about the stresses in our lives can really do a
number on us. Understanding this and being able to stand back from our
emotions allow us to see that our vulnerability to anger is not our fault at all.
After all, we didn’t design our brains with their capacity for emotions like
anxiety and anger. Nor did we design our capacity for complex thinking,
which can actually make our experience of anger and frustration all the more
intense. And we didn’t choose our backgrounds or our genes, both of which
can make us more susceptible to anger. This is a very important message in
compassionate-mind training and compassion-focused therapy, because
compassion begins with developing a deep understanding of just how tricky
our brains are and a recognition that their functions may be stuck in past
ways of operating. These two realizations may seem strange at first. But once
we recognize how difficult our emotions can be, we can stand back from
them and feel compassion for the difficulties we experience.
So, given that our brains have been designed by evolution and shaped by
the environments we grew up and live in (none of which we choose), what
can we do to help ourselves when we become angry? First, we can learn to
pay attention to how our minds work, and become mindful and observant of
the feelings associated with anger. In this helpful book, Dr. Kolts shows how
people have learned to be very sensitive to the situations that can trigger our
anger, such as frustrations and minor criticisms.
If we are to face anger and to really work with it, then the relationship we
have with ourselves is very important. If we are critical and harsh with
ourselves, then our inner worlds are not comfortable places to inhabit.
Feeling ashamed and being self-critical, self-condemning, or self-loathing can
undermine our confidence, making us feel worse. People who generally feel
confident and like themselves are much less prone to anger than those who
feel unsure about themselves, are easily victimized by others, and are
vulnerable to rejection.
In addition, of course, anger isn’t just directed outward; it can be directed
inward, toward ourselves, and this really does cause difficulties. Sadly, many
people today are self-critical, and when things go wrong or they make
mistakes, rather than try to be helpful and supportive of themselves, they
react by becoming frustrated and angry with themselves. This is not a good
way to deal with anger because, as Dr. Kolts outlines, we are actually adding
more fuel to the fire of our threat system. In contrast, self-compassion is a
way of being with ourselves and all of our emotions (uncomfortable as they
may be) without self-condemnation. Instead, we learn to experience them
with support and encouragement. Research shows that the more
compassionate we are toward ourselves, the happier we are and the more
resilient we become when faced with difficult events in our lives. In addition,
we are better able to reach out to others for help and feel more compassionate
toward other people as well.
Compassion can sometimes be viewed as being a bit “soft” or “weak”; as
if it means letting your guard down or not trying hard enough. These notions
are a major mistake because, on the contrary, compassion requires the
strength to be open to and tolerate our painful feelings, to face up to our own
problematic emotions and difficulties. Sometimes it’s anger that hides us
from more painful things and it is compassion that gives us the courage to
face them. Compassion does not mean turning away from emotional
difficulties or discomfort, or trying to get rid of them. It is not a soft option.
Rather, compassion provides us with the courage, honesty, and commitment
to learn to cope with the difficulties we face, and alleviates our anger and
other difficulties. It enables us to do things for ourselves that help us to
flourish (however, not as a demand or requirement). Compassion enables us
to live our lives more fully and contentedly.
In this book, Dr. Kolts brings to bear his many years of experience as a
clinical psychologist, long-time meditator, and psychotherapist working in
Washington state with people experiencing a variety of different emotional
difficulties. He has a special interest in working with people in prison for
anger-related behaviors. He also brings his experience of using compassion-
focused therapy in the treatment of anger. In this book he outlines a model of
compassion that seeks to stimulate and build your confidence so that you can
engage with your anger. You will learn how to develop a supportive
friendship with yourself that helps you when times are difficult. Dr. Kolts
guides you to develop compassionate motivations, compassionate attention,
compassionate feelings, compassionate thinking, and compassionate
behavior. You will learn about the potential power of developing
compassionate imagery, focusing on creating a compassionate sense of
yourself, and drawing on your own inner wisdom and benevolent qualities.
These are the qualities you are most likely to feel when you’re feeling calm
or are showing concern for others. Learning breathing techniques that help
you slow down and engage with these qualities can be very helpful when
frustration, anger, and rage wash through you like a storm. Using different
compassionate images, you will discover that your compassion focus can be
visual or aural (for example, imagining a compassionate voice speaking to
you when you need it), and it can be especially useful in enabling you to get
in touch with your internal compassionate feelings and desires at times of
distress.
The approach that Dr. Kolts takes is called a compassionate-mind
approach because, when we engage compassion, it can influence our
attention, thoughts, feelings, and behavior—all the functions of the mind. The
compassionate-mind approach outlined by Dr. Kolts draws on many other
well-developed approaches, including those of Eastern traditions such as
Buddhism. In addition, compassionate-mind approaches—especially those
that form part of compassion-focused therapy—are rooted in a scientific
understanding of how our minds work. Undoubtedly, over the years our
understanding of the science will change and improve. One thing that doesn’t
change, however, is the fact that kindness, warmth, and understanding go a
long way toward helping us. In these pages you will find these qualities in
abundance, so you, too, can learn to be understanding, supportive, and kind,
but also engaging and courageous when working with your anger.
Many suffer silently and secretly with a whole range of anger and
frustration problems. Some people are ashamed of these emotions or angry
about feeling them; others can be fearful that anger and frustration will get
the upper hand. Sadly, shame stops many of us from reaching out for help.
But by opening our hearts to compassion, we can take the first steps toward
dealing with our difficulties in new ways. My compassionate wishes go with
you on your journey.

—PAUL GILBERT, PHD, FBPSS, OBE AUGUST 2011

 Acknowledgments
I feel grateful to many people who contributed to my development as a
person and psychologist, and who, in this way, contributed to the book you
now hold. Among the most important teachers and mentors in my life have
been Debra Keil (Riddle), Tom Lombardo, Sandy Brown, David Thomas,
John McQuaid, and Gail Hicks. These mentors, through direction and
example, gave me exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it. Special
thanks also go to the many colleagues I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating
with in the past, including Phil Watkins and Arif Khan. I’d also like to thank
my wonderful colleagues at Eastern Washington University, who have
created the perfect environment for me to grow personally and professionally,
and the numerous students who have worked so hard as members of my
research team over the years, with particular thanks to Aryn Ziehnert.
My journey in working to apply compassion in my clinical work is a
direct result of the instruction and inspiration of several Buddhist teachers,
most notably Lama Inge Sandvoss of Padma Ling in Spokane and His
Holiness the Dalai Lama. I have also benefited greatly from the work of
Thubten Chodron, Pema Chodron, and Jack Kornfield.
It’s also important to acknowledge the many people involved in
compassion movements around the world. Specifically in the inland
northwestern United States, I want to acknowledge the inspiring work of all
at Sravasti Abbey, the Spokane Friends of Compassion group, and the
Eastern Washington University Compassionate Interfaith Society. Thanks
also to Crystal Contreras, my cotherapist in our prison anger-management
groups; Lou Sowers; and all in the Washington State Department of
Corrections who have helped to make this work possible.
I have tremendous gratitude for Professor Paul Gilbert, who developed
compassion-focused therapy and taught me to use it. Paul is a great scientist
and teacher, a masterful clinician, and an inspirational friend. His work is
cited frequently in this book, and his influence and ideas are present
throughout. It would make for an impossibly cumbersome text to credit him
as he deserves, because he would be cited multiple times on nearly every
page. My colleague and dear friend Dennis Tirch has provided invaluable
feedback and inspiration as I’ve written, and I’ve also been shaped by my
interactions with the CFT community, in particular Michelle Cree, Chris
Irons, Deborah Lee, and Ian Lowens. In crafting this work, I have stood on
the shoulders of giants. If you derive any benefit from reading this book,
please direct your gratitude to them. All errors are my own.
Great thanks are also due to Fritha Saunders, my editor at Constable and
Robinson. I can’t imagine having a better guide as I write my first book. I am
also very grateful to Kelly Falconer, my copyeditor, whose edits greatly
improved the quality of the text. Thanks also to all at New Harbinger who
helped make the U.S. version of the book a reality, including Tesilya
Hanauer, Lo Merino, Julie Bennett, Tracy Carlson, Jesse Burson, Michele
Waters, Carole Honeychurch, and Amy Shoup.
This book would not be possible if not for the many clients I have had the
honor of working with over the years. The strength and courage you have
shown in our work together has been an inspiration. Special thanks go to the
men participating in the Compassion-Focused Therapy for Anger groups at
Airway Heights Correctional Center outside Spokane, Washington. Your
successful efforts to cultivate compassion in the hardest of circumstances
inspired this book.
My never-ending gratitude goes out to my wife, Lisa Koch; my son,
Dylan Kolts; my grandmother, Shirley Kolts; my parents, John and Mary
Kolts; my siblings, Jason and Michelle Kolts; my extended family; and my
second family: Don, Sandy, Robert, and Emily Koch, and Karen and Robert
Winchell. All of you helped teach me how to work hard, love harder, and
understand the things in life that are truly most important.
Finally, I want to thank you, the reader, for making the choice to work
compassionately with your anger. I hope this book serves you well.
 Introduction
This book presents a new model for thinking about and working with anger.
It is based upon an approach developed by Professor Paul Gilbert, a noted
British psychologist. Dr Gilbert’s compassionate-mind approach is based
upon several important ideas, one of which is that in order to work effectively
with these minds of ours, we need to understand something about how they
work. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT), the therapy model that flows from
this approach, provides us with powerful strategies for working with difficult
emotions like anger and for developing ourselves in ways that can help us
have happier, healthier lives.
We’ll discuss compassion a great deal in this book, but at its core is the
recognition that we all want to be happy and to avoid suffering. This
recognition, combined with sensitivity to the occurrence of suffering and a
motivation to help alleviate it in ourselves and in others, provides the basis of
a compassionate way of being in the world. Compassion has long been at the
heart of various spiritual traditions, most notably Buddhism. However, it has
historically held a much less formal position in the world of psychology than
we might expect, given that mental health professionals spend most of their
time helping patients work with suffering.
Many people involved in the mental health professions are beginning to
understand that compassion can play a role in helping us to work with
difficult emotions. Furthermore, research emerging from collaborative efforts
between Western psychologists and Buddhist monastics reveals that
compassion can also potentially help to strengthen parts of the brain that are
important for emotion regulation. Specific therapies are emerging that apply
the cultivation of compassion for ourselves and others in helping people to
1
cope with life’s difficulties.
This book uses CFT to help you cope with anger, which is based in our
brains’ response to real or imagined threats and to our early learning
experiences. My aim is to help you learn how to stop feeling ashamed of your
difficult emotional experiences and to instead take responsibility for them.
Together, we’ll help you find ways to work with these emotions and learn
strategies to help you cope with your anger. We’ll look at many practices that
can help you transform your relationship to your emotions, to your life
experiences, and to other people. You will learn to be kinder to yourself and
to others and to work with your anger to prevent it from getting in the way of
how you would like your life to be.
Compassion-focused therapy draws upon compassion-focused practices
that have been used for thousands of years, but it also benefits from a
scientific understanding of the way the mind works. It draws upon
evolutionary psychology, which considers the way our brains function given
our evolutionary history (how we are in relation to how we got this way) and
helps us make sense of some of the more frustrating aspects of our emotions
and behavior. CFT also benefits from what is called affective neuroscience,
which helps us understand our emotional experiences in relation to what is
happening in our brains. In combining these understandings, the
Compassionate-Mind model (upon which CFT is based) makes a case for
compassion that is both unique and powerful: not only is the cultivation of
compassion good for us, as the Dalai Lama suggests; it is also the only
response that makes sense when we observe the difficult fit between the way
our brains have evolved to deal with certain threats and the way we live now,
in a world that presents us with very different sorts of threats.
In the first three chapters of this book, we’ll take a close look at anger
through the lens of compassion focused therapy. We will begin to understand
it as the product of emotion-regulation systems that have evolved over
millions of years, and we’ll explore how these ancient systems can interact
with our abilities to think and fantasize to trap us in cycles of anger and
hostility. We will also explore other emotion-regulation systems that can help
us to balance our anger with other emotions and gain control over the way we
think and feel. Later, I’ll introduce the concepts of compassion and the
compassionate self, and a variety of exercises for working with your anger to
cultivate a calm, confident, wise, and compassionate mind.
Some of the practices and approaches used in this book are unique to
CFT, and some of them may be recognizable to you already. For example,
assertiveness training and techniques for changing how we think are drawn
from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The idea behind CFT is not to
reinvent the wheel. Rather, it seeks to provide us with a way of transforming
ourselves that is compatible with powerful and established methods of
change, while also adding something new—a compassionate understanding
of how our minds work. My goal in this book is to help you develop your
compassionate self so that you can cope with life’s challenges in a way that
allows you to manage your anger instead of being controlled by it.
My introduction to this subject came about through my efforts to work
with my own anger. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to teach a
variety of university courses in psychology, and there are a few points that I
try to sneak into any class that I teach. Many of my students have told me
they intend to be parents one day, and I frequently reply, “If you want to be a
good parent, become the person you want your child to be. Cultivate in
yourself the characteristics you want them to end up having.” If you want
your child to be kind, learn to treat others with kindness. If you want your
child to cope well with difficult circumstances, learn to be able to face them
yourself. The idea is that children learn how to cope with life by interacting
with and observing those who are close to them. How we behave toward and
around our children has much more influence on their character than if we
only tell them about how they should or should not behave. When my own
son was born, I began to notice that I behaved in ways that I wouldn’t want to
pass on to him, and most of the time this behavior involved being irritable
and angry. In learning to work with my own anger, I encountered Buddhism
and its practices of compassion, many of them thousands of years old. I
began to practice them myself, and when I experienced their power to
transform my own life for the better, I knew I had to find a way to integrate
them into my work as a psychologist. This led me to Professor Paul Gilbert’s
compassion-focused therapy. As I’ve said, my approach to this work is
influenced greatly both by traditional Western psychology and by my
personal experience with Buddhist mind-training techniques. But don’t worry
—my goal in writing this book is not to convert anyone to Buddhism. I don’t
even call myself a Buddhist, and as you read, you’ll find that this book is
definitely not religious in tone. However, I think it’s important to
acknowledge the influence of Buddhism. It has shown me the power of
cultivating compassion in our lives and has given us many powerful ways to
change the ways we think, work with difficult emotions, and respond to
challenging situations—strategies that have greatly impacted this book.
With this in mind, I’d like to conclude by referring once more to my
Buddhist teachers. One of the things I noticed when I first started attending
Buddhist teachings was the emphasis on motivation, which helps us reflect
on why we are engaging in this activity at this time. What is our purpose for
doing this, whatever “this” is? My teachers suggested that the outcome of an
activity is very much related to the motivation we have while doing the
activity, and that motivation is something that we can choose and develop.
I’d like to borrow from these teachers, then, and ask you to do your first
exercise of the book: take a moment to reflect on your current experience of
life in this present moment. Notice the environment you find yourself in.
What do you see? Hear? Feel? What’s the temperature like? Is it warm or
cool?
Now be aware of your body. What does it feel like? Is it relaxed or tense?
Are you sitting or lying down? How does it feel to be doing that?
Comfortable? Uncomfortable?
Now extend your awareness to your emotions. How are you feeling right
now? Interested? Excited? Irritated? Bored? What thoughts are you having?
Finally, consider your motivation for reading this book. Why did you pick
it up, open it, and start reading? Was it curiosity? Have you struggled with
anger and are perhaps looking for something that could help? Maybe
someone gave this book to you and asked you to read it. Maybe you’re
reading it because you know someone else who struggles with anger—a
friend, family member, or, if you are a mental health professional, a client or
patient—and you’re hoping to learn how to help them.
Consider your motivation and see if you can work with it. See if you can
approach this activity—reading this book and doing the exercises it contains
—with the motivation to be better able to understand yourself and others, and
to be able to help yourself. Imagine doing this so that you can learn to cope
more effectively with the difficult emotions that you will experience during
your life, so that you can exist in the world in a way that is kind and helpful
both to yourself and to everyone you encounter.
This is a perfect way to start.
 1

Anger: Introduction and Overview

As I prepared to begin writing, I sat down and switched on the television,
aiming to find an interesting story about anger. I was looking for an example
that would grab your attention and hold it fast—giving you the feeling that
you really want to read this book. I didn’t think it would be difficult to find
an example of anger on television (or on the Internet) that most readers could
relate to, and sure enough, finding an example of anger wasn’t a problem at
all.
The problem was choosing which example to use. I wondered: should I
write about the previously beloved celebrity caught on tape screaming racist
abuse at someone who isn’t even a member of that race? The star athlete
placed on suspension for hitting a player on another team? The talk-show
guests who colorfully insult one another’s equally colorful outfits or
lifestyles? I mean, I thought those boots were a bit gaudy myself, but really…
Ultimately, feeling a bit overwhelmed by all these examples of mismanaged
anger, I decided to try to use them all.
Sometimes it seems as if anger is all around us. We flip on the nightly
news to hear stories of domestic violence, violent crime, feuding celebrities
and politicians, road rage, and countless groups angrily protesting nearly
everything imaginable. The “letters to the editor” section of the newspaper
reveals more anger, with diatribes and hostile written attacks on politicians,
public figures, and other letter writers. My local weekly entertainment paper
even features a “Jeers” section, designed to give us a chance to publicly stick
it to people who’ve ticked us off—in fifty words or less! Our political parties
have noted the power of anger and fear, and sometimes it seems as if they
purposefully stir these emotions in us as they angrily attack one another in an
endless election and debate cycle, perhaps hoping to channel our outrage into
votes for their causes and candidates. Examples of anger were amazingly
easy to find.

Types of Anger
Anger takes many forms as it plays out in our lives. There is the frustration
we feel when we’re thwarted and our goals are blocked—when we work hard
and yet things just don’t turn out the way we want them to. Anger can hide
just under the surface when we are feeling irritable, ready to respond to the
smallest frustration. There is the impulsive anger we feel when we lash out. It
can be so quick and powerful that it almost leaps from us with a life of its
own. There’s self-righteous anger, which emerges when we’re faced with
injustice or feel that we have been wronged or unfairly criticized. Anger can
also come from a sense of powerlessness, from feeling unheard, when all we
want is for someone to notice and listen to us. There are different names for
the various types of anger, terms like “frustration,” “irritation,” and
“outrage,” but these experiences are all reflections of the same systems in our
brain—systems aimed at helping us respond to threats—and they’re all part
of the same family of emotions.
Those of us who are easily frustrated may be having a wonderful day
until we don’t get what we want or something gets in our way, and then we
have a burst of discontent. These various outbursts and feelings relate to
something called “frustration tolerance.” This tolerance can be pretty low for
some people and, as a result, can cause problems. Our ability to tolerate
frustration can be especially low when we are under time pressure or have too
many things to do, a significant feature of many modern workplaces. It’s
interesting that, even though we know how frustrated it can make us feel, we
often put such time pressures on ourselves and take on too many things.
If our anger takes the form of irritability, it can function more as a mood
or an ongoing state of mind, particularly when we’re stressed or depressed.
We can find ourselves going through the day with our anger primed and
ready to go, simmering just beneath the surface. These are the days when we
find ourselves snapping at our family and friends or responding sharply rather
than with kindness when our children ask us to play.
When it becomes even more entrenched, anger can seem to become a part
of our personality itself, taking the form of hostility. Those of us who have
deeply entrenched hostility can go through life as if it were a fight. We judge
situations and other people in negative and overly critical ways, and have
difficulty trusting and considering the feelings of others as they pursue their
goals.
Anger can have different levels (with irritation and frustration at one end
of the spectrum and rage at the other), can come on slowly or rapidly
(building and bubbling versus lashing out), and can last for different lengths
of time (chronic irritability and hostility versus short bursts of frustration or
rage). We also differ from one another in how we express our anger and
whether or not we express it at all. We may think of anger in terms of
embarrassing examples of “under-controlled” behavior—the inappropriate e-
mail, the snappish comment, the object thrown across the room. However,
many of us also experience anger that is “over-controlled.” This style
manifests when we don’t express our anger but spend hours seething about
“how horrible she was to me,” rehearsing arguments and fantasizing about
that knockout statement that would “really put him in his place,” or saying
nasty things about others behind their backs. On the other hand, some people
may believe that even feeling anger is unacceptable, and they can be very
frightened by their angry thoughts, desires, and fantasies. People like this
may approach life very passively, avoiding any disagreement or conflict even
1
when it creates problems in their own lives.
Like it or not, anger is a part of life, and entire systems in our brains are
devoted to it. It’s helpful to learn how to work with anger because,
unmanaged, it can have negative impacts on both our mental and physical
health. Poorly managed anger can damage relationships with our partners,
children, friends, and colleagues. It can wear us down over time and has been
linked to reduced immune-system functioning, hypertension, risk of stroke,
and even coronary heart disease. Over-controlled anger has been associated
2

with depression and anxiety. In my acknowledgments, I mentioned the CFT

groups I work with at a local prison. Members of these groups begin their
therapy by briefly introducing themselves and sharing their motivation for
learning how to deal with their anger. At least half the members of one of my
recent groups indicated that the crimes they had committed were related to
anger and the ways they had acted as a result of it.
Thankfully, our anger doesn’t usually lead to such dramatic consequences
as being sent to prison, but it can still have a huge impact upon our ability to
have happy lives. For example, think about the problems you’ve had in your
relationships with others. How many of these difficulties involved anger?
Often, these conflicts or problems may be rooted in how we experience anger
and our ability to express it (or lack thereof). The truth is that we all
experience anger in our lives, and we all live in a world that is affected by it.
In this book, we’ll explore ways of understanding and working with anger to
help us have better relationships, build happier lives, and contribute to a more
peaceful world.

A Closer Look: Steve’s Story

Let’s take a look at Steve, one of my patients who found himself struggling
with the consequences of his anger. As he spoke, Steve’s face reddened, and
his words took on a harsh, forced quality as he described the encounter that
might have cost him his job. He couldn’t recall exactly what his colleague
had said to him, but he knew that he’d been treated disrespectfully, and he
wasn’t going to put up with it. His anger had emerged automatically, so
quickly that it might have frightened him if he hadn’t been so caught up in it.
Like so many times before, he began to yell, and threats were flying from his
lips. Fists clenched, Steve didn’t attack the man, but he’d wanted to; only the
fear of jail kept him from doing so.
His colleague left, seeming both cowed and shocked at Steve’s reaction,
and Steve continued to seethe. His hands shook as he spoke: “No one treats
me with respect. Not the people I work with, not my boss, nobody. To hell
with them! I should have taught that jerk a lesson.”
Steve had lost a number of jobs due to encounters just like this. His
relationship with his wife and children was strained, and he could tell that
they avoided him and walked on eggshells so that they wouldn’t set him off.
He had never struck his wife, but he experienced a range of emotions as he
recalled the fear that sometimes filled her eyes as he was overwhelmed by
anger. During these interactions, he sometimes felt strong and powerful; but
in his recollections, this quickly gave way to feelings of shame, sadness, and
a sense of hopelessness. In truth, Steve rarely thought about his angry
explosions at all. He tended to push them out of his mind as soon as they
were over, much as he had learned to push out the memories of his time in
Iraq and the beatings his father had given him and his mother when Steve
was a child.
Although he avoided thinking about his angry explosions after they were
over, he felt almost constantly agitated. He thought other people were
“irritating, rude, lazy, and irresponsible,” that other drivers were “idiots who
shouldn’t be allowed on the road.” Steve felt that his wife and children took
him for granted, failing to appreciate the life he’d given them with years of
hard work at jobs he hated. When angry, Steve often thought about people
who had harmed him or treated him disrespectfully, and about the parts of his
life that hadn’t worked out the way he’d wanted them to.
Steve felt betrayed and frustrated by his reactions. He struggled to get to
sleep at night, and when he did sleep, he gnashed his teeth so forcefully that
his jaw ached when he woke. His stomach was constantly upset and he’d
been diagnosed with ulcers, which he tried to treat with the pocketful of
antacids he carried with him wherever he went. His body hurt all of the time
—his head, his back, his jaw. And he’d also recently had a heart attack,
which had led a physician to recommend therapy so that he could work on his
“stress.” This is how he found his way to me.
As much anger as he directed toward others, Steve judged no one more
harshly than he judged himself. In his more thoughtful moments, he admitted
to the overwhelming feeling that he was a failed husband, father, worker, and
man. Many of his fights with his wife happened after she criticized his
parenting—not that he was too harsh with the children, but that he often
didn’t discipline them at all—criticism that he knew was at least somewhat
true. Steve felt helpless. Didn’t she see that he stood back from parenting
because he was terrified to treat his children the way his father had treated
him? Couldn’t she see that he loved them, and that he wanted to spare them
the lessons he regretted learning from his own father? Steve was terrified of
his own anger and the loss of control that came with it. He felt he was losing
his family and didn’t know how to stop it. He hated himself for it.
Steve’s story is similar to that of many of us who struggle with anger. To
some of us, his life may seem extreme. On the other hand, those who have
lost marriages, families, or even their freedom due to under-controlled anger
may note his level of restraint. Like Steve, many of us may feel trapped by
our anger and want to do something about it, but also feel disheartened
because our best efforts haven’t been successful.

What Do We Mean by “Anger”?

One of the challenges of psychology is that even though many of the things
we study may seem very familiar to us (such as love, self-esteem, and yes,
anger), they can be somewhat slippery to define. Let’s spend some time
making clear exactly what we mean by “anger.”
 Anger is thought to be one of a few basic emotions, along with other
3

emotions like fear, disgust, happiness, and sadness. This means that it has
been observed in people across time and various cultures. Angry facial
expressions are understood everywhere, even in the animal world. The
experience of anger can also be related to what we call secondary emotions,
which reflect self-consciousness and include emotions such as shame, pride,
4

and embarrassment.
When we think of an emotion, we may quickly think of how we feel
when we experience that emotion. The feeling of anger includes lots of
experiences, including physical sensations, motivations, and ways of
thinking. Anger and other emotions organize the mind in specific ways and
affect our experience of life. This is consistent with how anger and other
emotions play out in our brains—there isn’t a specific place in the brain
where anger is found. Rather, the parts of the brain that influence when we
will become angry interact with many other areas of the brain and body, 5

which, together, produce an angry state of mind or brain pattern. In the

Compassionate-Mind model, we often use the “spider diagram” (figure 1.1)
to help explain how states of mind like anger can affect us. This diagram
6

shows how anger can change how we relate to ourselves, to other people, and
to the world around us.
When we look at how anger organizes our minds, we can begin to
understand that what we call “anger” is actually a progression that takes place
in our brains, kind of like a line of dominoes falling across the table on their
own once the first has been pushed over. By the time we even know that
we’re angry, our brains have already toppled that first domino, recognizing
the situation as something worth paying attention to and labeling it as
undesirable or threatening. The toppling of that first domino reflects the
brain’s activation of our threat-response system.
 Figure 1.1: How Anger Organizes the Mind

Specific parts of the brain, like the amygdala (pronounced “ah-MIG-duh-

lah”), determine when we will become angry. These parts are the primary
players in what is known as the threat system, which I mentioned earlier and
will discuss further in chapter 2. For now, it’s enough to know that the job of
the threat system is to detect threats and to quickly select responses to them.
As we will see, this system has evolved so that it is activated rapidly, because
defenses that come on too slowly may be too late. These parts of our brains
are efficient, and often we’re not even aware of what’s happening as they
activate us to respond to a real or perceived threat. The dominoes have begun
to fall before we are aware that anything is happening. So, by the time we
wake up to our experience, we’ve landed right in the middle of a very angry
spot—and we’ve missed much of the build up. This is why it can feel as if
anger emerges almost automatically.
It’s important for us to understand that the way this happens is not our
fault; it is simply the way our brains work. This brings up a key message that
we will return to many times: handling anger is not just a matter of willpower
or personal discipline. If you have difficulty controlling your anger, it does
not mean that you don’t want to change badly enough or that there’s
something wrong with you. Let’s look a bit more closely now at the
experience of anger.

Dissecting the Anger Experience

One of the aims of this book is to help you become familiar with the nature of
your anger and eventually be able to work with anger in a compassionate
way, based on wisdom and a sense of confidence and inner strength. A
compassionate approach to working with anger is not about soothing it away
or somehow getting rid of it. That would be impossible, because anger is an
intrinsic part of our human design. With this in mind, we will learn instead to
understand anger as part of what makes us tick—but not like a ticking bomb.
It’s like the ticking of a grandfather clock. A compassionate approach to
anger means taking responsibility for it and learning to work with it, rather
than letting it take over your life. We don’t help ourselves by ignoring anger,
hoping it will just go away, or by doing things that make it worse. So, let’s
revisit the aspects of anger depicted in the previous spider diagram. This will
help us get a good sense of the different factors that make up anger, factors
that can interact to organize our minds in ways that can trap us in a cycle of
angry feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that are neither productive nor
compassionate.

How We Feel It: Anger in the Body

First, anger is something that we feel. Our bodies are sensitive to potential
threats, and as I mentioned previously, there are parts of the brain (such as
the amygdala) that work to quickly recognize these threats and activate our
response to them. These parts exchange messages with many other areas of
our brains and bodies.
You are probably somewhat familiar with this process—just think about
how your body feels when you get really angry. This is the feeling of your
body preparing you to fight—your nervous system is activated and chemicals
such as noradrenaline are released into your bloodstream. Your heart starts
racing, your breathing rate increases, and your blood pressure goes up as you
become physically aroused. There are other bodily changes observable from
the outside as well, as your muscles tense up, your jaws tighten, and your
eyes open to a stare.
Now try an exercise to help you connect with how anger plays out in your
body.

Exercise 1.1: Anger in the Body

Try to remember a time when you were angry, then focus on it. Consider the way you
experience it in your body. What does your anger feel like?

What physical sensations were present when you were angry?

How do you know that you were angry? What sensations let you know that anger was
what you were feeling?

When angry, some people experience a feeling of tightness in their

stomachs or chests, or find it more difficult to breathe. Others report feeling
pain at the back of the neck or of anger bringing on a headache. There is
commonly a feeling of things “speeding up” and of wanting to move in a
more animated way.
In my own life and in my work with clients, I’ve observed that many of
us tend to ignore the ways that emotions play out in our bodies unless they
are actually painful. It’s important to understand that the arousal that builds in
our bodies provides fuel that can drive our anger. As we learn to recognize
and work with angry arousal in our bodies, we can begin to stop being caught
up by it and can work to take control of it.
All this arousal isn’t an accident, by the way. As we will explore in more
detail in chapter 2, anger is an emotion that evolved to help us deal with
setbacks, with things that thwart us from pursuing what we want, and with a
range of threats to our survival. Anger prepares us to engage—to force a
change—and it does this by getting our bodies ready for action. This process
can bring on an emotional experience that feels powerful, strong, and
energized. This, in turn, can make it hard for us to commit to reducing our
anger, because we may often enjoy feeling like that. Later in the book, we’ll
talk about how to understand and work with these feelings so that you can
stay motivated to work more effectively with your anger.
 Attention: The Spotlight of the Mind
One of the brain’s primary jobs is to filter through the amazing amount of
sensory information we receive throughout every day, and then to alert and
focus our attention on the information that is important for our survival. To
an extent, we have control over what we pay attention to, but our brains are
wired to focus very efficiently and powerfully when they perceive a real or
imagined threat. When this happens, our brains narrow our attention, bringing
our focus to threat-related information coming in from our senses as well as
thoughts and memories of other, possibly similar, experiences. In these times,
it can be difficult to refocus our attention away from the perceived threat.
Think of a time you were embarrassed, for example, and how easy it was to
become completely trapped in that experience. Experiences of threatening
situations have the power to overshadow our other experiences—our brains
prioritize them over other things that are going on.
This involuntary narrowing of our attention can be a powerful experience
—I know this firsthand. When I was doing my internship at the University of
California, San Diego, in the late 1990s, a few other interns and I would take
advantage of how close we were to the ocean, heading straight to the beach to
go bodyboarding as soon as the workday was done. These afternoons are
some of my most pleasant memories of that time: the warm water of the
Pacific, the smell of the ocean, the joyous rush of riding a wave in to the
shore, and the beauty of watching the sun set over the water.
However, one day we were paddling our way back out as the sun was just
beginning to set and was shining directly into our eyes. We couldn’t see very
well, but we were able to make out the shape of a fin coming out of the water
about fifteen feet away from our small group. Instantly, everything else faded
from our awareness—the beautiful sunset, the warm water, the fun of the day
—it all disappeared, like a wisp of smoke, with a single, panic-inducing
thought: Shark! My narrowed focus of attention and my body’s almost
instantaneous readiness to flee reflected the rapid activation of my threat
system.
Now, even after years of meditation designed to help me direct my
attention, I have rarely been able to experience such single-minded focus as
when I looked out at that shadowy fin. Luckily, that day the experience only
lasted a moment. As the fin moved out of the direct sunlight, we could see
that it was curved and that there were four others with it. Terror was replaced
with joy as we realized that this was no shark but rather a small pod of
dolphins. With the threat gone, my focus relaxed as well, and after a few
minutes I was again able to enjoy my surroundings and to consider the carne
asada burrito I planned to have for dinner at the taco shop just down the road.
When our threat system quickly narrows our attention, our thoughts
follow. This is one of the reasons we can feel trapped by our anger, why we
may make decisions that don’t seem to make sense when we examine them
later. We tend to lose perspective when our threat system takes over. It
becomes difficult to think flexibly and to gather information that isn’t directly
related to the perceived threat.
Sometimes anger also biases our attention. Most threats we perceive
aren’t as potentially life-threatening as a massive great white shark (okay, so
it was a few playful dolphins—but in my mind, that was one huge shark!).
We’re more often faced with not getting what we want, or with fears of being
embarrassed or of being seen negatively by others. In these cases, the overall
focus of our attention can still be fairly broad, but we only tend to notice
certain parts of what’s going on—the parts that fit with and fuel our angry
mood.
My own examples of this are easy to come by. For instance, I can recall
leaving my laptop at home one morning and having to turn around, drive
back to get it, and then rush back again to my university. I was concerned that
I’d be late to my Statistics class, and that my eager but caffeine-addicted
students wouldn’t hang around long before they filed out of the classroom
and headed to one of the many coffee shops nearby. As I rushed to campus,
my mind began to fill with thoughts of all the material I needed to cover
before the next exam, and I then began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to get
through it all.
As you might imagine, this left me feeling frustrated and angry. When I
had to stop at a long red light, what was my attention drawn to? The song on
the radio (that I really liked), or the person in front of me taking her own
sweet time getting moving once the light turned green? And as I pulled in to
the university grounds looking for a place to park, what did I notice—the
many cars that were parked considerately, or the one car that was parked so
that it took up two spaces instead of one? As I hurriedly walked to the
classroom, did I observe the refreshing smell of the morning air, the sounds
of the birds in the trees? Or was my attention drawn to the coffee stain on my
shirt, which I thought would cause me to look not only late but
unprofessional as well? Considering your own past, have you experienced
something similar?
When our minds begin to organize around the experience of anger, our
attention is drawn to the negatives—even the one small, irritating thing in the
middle of a sea of positive experiences. Our angry selves can interact with
twenty helpful people during the morning without even noticing; but if one
person treats us rudely, we can focus on it for hours! We pick out the parts of
our experience we don’t like, which fuel our angry mood, and we attend to
them while ignoring almost everything else (at least the good stuff).

Exercise 1.2: Anger and Attention

Recall a recent situation when you became angry.

Where was your attention focused? What did you pay attention to?

Consider the quality of your attention. Was it broad and open, or narrow and
blinkered?

Were there aspects of the situation that you weren’t aware of? Things you didn’t
notice?

Anger and other threat-related emotions shape our attention to focus on

information that reinforces the feeling of being threatened, so we tend to
overlook information that is inconsistent with this state of mind. In this state,
your brain is biased toward being angry. You don’t choose this process, and it
certainly isn’t your fault; it’s just the way your brain works.
In fact, the brain works this way on purpose: for our own survival, to
protect those we care about, and to help us defend our status or our
belongings. If there is a real threat to our survival, we want our awareness to
be single-mindedly focused and preoccupied with it, noticing aspects of the
situation that give us information about the threat so that we can respond in
the best possible way. If we’re standing on the tracks of a speeding train, we
want our attention focused on that train, not distracted by the pretty
wildflowers a few feet away.
The trouble is that we have more “late for class” experiences than we
have “shark” experiences. Think of recent situations when you became very
angry. What was the focus of your anger? What triggered it? Was it a
physical threat, or was it something else? Many of the threats we face in
modern life have little to do with our physical safety and more to do with our
jobs, social status, self-image, or relationships. We may also use anger as an
emotional defense against painful feelings such as loss, embarrassment, or
shame. If that weren’t enough, our brains are also capable of creating their
own “threats” in the form of thoughts, imagery, and fantasies.

Things We Tell Ourselves: Thoughts, Reasoning, and

Rumination
When angry, we tend to have lots of what psychologists call automatic
thoughts: thoughts that seem to automatically pop into the mind and that are
often related to things we don’t like. We also tend to take things very
personally when we become angry: This shouldn’t have happened! This
shouldn’t happen to me! They shouldn’t do this! They are taking advantage
of me! Why did this have to go wrong now?!
Angry thoughts are often linked to feeling threatened. For example, if
you’re in a new relationship and your partner doesn’t phone you at the time
you’d agreed, you may automatically think, He doesn’t care enough to call
me. Such thoughts are often linked to deeper concerns, frequently based in
our pasts. He doesn’t care enough to call me may be linked to a deeper issue
such as self-worth and, in turn, to various difficult memories from childhood.
This thought also reflects an angry reaction to a perceived threat to the
relationship. The interesting thing is that these automatic thoughts can often
be wrong, fueled by our hyperactive threat-detection system rather than by
the reality of the situation.
One of my favorite examples comes from the Venerable Thubten
Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who is abbess at Sravasti Abbey in the
northwestern United States. She is also a prolific author and teacher. A 7
number of years ago, I attended a talk she gave on working with anger. Early
on, she asked the audience about road rage—a topic that, in the United States
at least, had recently been in the news. Chodron asked, “Is there anyone here
who becomes really angry when someone cuts you off on the freeway?”
Immediately, about two-thirds of the audience raised their hands. She
then asked us to consider the thoughts we have when this happens, and a
number of people shared theirs. They usually involved negative thoughts
about the other driver—that he or she is outrageously stupid, of poor
character, or purposefully endangering the lives of other drivers for personal
fun and entertainment. That jerk! What an idiot! Doesn’t she have eyes? He’s
trying to run me off the road! I’d like to lob a bologna sandwich at her head!
Venerable Chodron did something next that I now realize was designed to
promote a sense of compassion and connectedness with other drivers: she
asked how many of us had ever cut off another driver. At this point, almost
all of us sheepishly lowered our gazes and slowly raised our hands into the
air (it was apparently an extraordinarily truthful bunch). She then asked us to
give reasons for our “reckless” behavior. No one shouted, “Because I’m a
jerk who cares nothing for the lives of others!”
Instead, there were murmurings of, “It was an accident,” “I was about to
miss my exit,” and “I didn’t see her.” The irritated tone in the room
evaporated, replaced with kindness and compassion for others as we mentally
placed ourselves in the position of other drivers. We then considered the
many potential reasons for their behavior that didn’t involve being stupid,
nasty, or selfish. We connected with the compassionate understanding that
sometimes it’s difficult to get around on the freeway, and that sometimes we
all do things that inconvenience others, purposefully or not.
Such compassion can be a powerful antidote to anger, and research has
shown that having sympathy for a person who insults you (for example)
reduces brain activity linked to anger. We can begin to manage our anger by
8

realizing the things we share in common, such as cutting one another off
when we’re driving. Angry and compassionate states of mind are both
associated with motivations: anger to hurt, compassion to help. Compassion
helps us gain a perspective that motivates us to slow down and give that other
car room to pull in front of us, rather than moving up to block its path.
Rumination

As you may have observed, anger can seem to take control of our
thoughts. Have you ever tried to do a complicated task at work, study for an
exam, watch a television program, or read a book when you were really
angry? It’s difficult to do because your mind tends to be drawn back to the
focus of your anger. Try as you might, your brain keeps thinking about that
insulting comment, playing out the situation over and over in your mind,
visualizing it again and again. We can spend hours ruminating about what the
other person said, about what we wish we had said, and rehearsing what we’ll
say the next time.
When we are angry, our minds tend to stay stuck on the perceived threat
—the situation that made us angry. We pick the situation apart, analyzing
every aspect of it. We ruminate, thinking about it over and over again. We
magnify and generalize it, so that the only aspects of the person or situation
that exist to us are the ones that make us angry. We may feel as if the other
person exists for the sole purpose of pissing us off, or that our whole job (or
relationship or life) is crap. In many cases, anger is related to having thoughts
and feelings of being disliked, isolated, taken advantage of, and not being
valued by others. As you’ll learn, the compassionate approach to working
with anger helps to counter this by helping us to feel connected with others,
to feel valued and supported—feelings that help reduce our anger.

Reasoning

Being in an angry state of mind doesn’t just impact the content of our
thoughts; it also impacts the way we reason and interpret information in our
environment. Our attention is already focused on the more threatening
aspects of our lives, and once we notice these things, what do you think we
do with them? When angry, as we do at other times, we make evaluations
about what happened and try to blame or make attributions about what we
discover: Who did it? Why did they do it? What is going on here? How
should I respond?
The answers we come up with are often strongly biased by and toward
our anger. As we saw in the road rage example, it shapes our thoughts about
others—when we’re feeling threatened, anger makes it personal. In the grip
of anger, we tend to demonize others and hold them responsible for our
discomfort. We tend to judge their actions harshly and make the worst
possible assumptions about their motivations, assuming that they are trying to
intentionally harm or inconvenience us. We feel disconnected from others,
isolated from them. In these situations, the ways we evaluate the situation and
others’ contributions to it can be both defensive and aggressive in nature.
That person isn’t just moving slowly in the grocery aisles; he is intentionally
trying to inconvenience me and ruin my day. That comment a colleague made
in the staff meeting wasn’t constructive criticism; it was an attack. The point
here is that when we’re angry, we not only tend to form negative opinions of
the other people in the situation and their motives, but we often do so in error.
We may even direct our harsh criticism and judgments at ourselves: I can’t
believe I did that! I’m so stupid! I can’t do anything right!
There are other problems with how we reason when we’re angry.
Research has revealed that, compared to other threat emotions like sadness or
anxiety, anger is linked with a feeling of certainty. When we’re angry, we
9

tend to feel very certain of the thoughts that we’re having, even if those
thoughts are unrelated to what we’re angry about, and even if they are dead
wrong. In fact, we may even be more likely to be wrong when we’re angry.
Research shows that the certainty of anger is linked with processing
information more superficially —we think less carefully when making our
10

judgments and rely more on stereotypes. 11

Under these conditions, it’s very easy to make bad decisions, the kind that
can potentially harm relationships and make our lives more difficult—
decisions like insulting a partner or embarrassing a colleague. Take a minute
to consider: do you recall any really terrible decisions (or at least ones you
regret) made under the sway of powerful emotions like anger? I sure can. If
you can’t, you likely have either a very poor memory or have good emotion-
regulation skills, which can give us the ability to resist making major
decisions when we are caught in the grip of strong emotions.

Exercise 1.3: Angry Thinking

Consider your thoughts and reasoning when you are angry.

 What are your thoughts focused on? What are you thinking about?

Do any memories come to mind when you’re angry? What kinds of memories?

Consider what happens to your thinking when you are angry. Do you ruminate? Do
your thoughts seem to come quickly? Are they easy or difficult to control?

Consider how your thoughts interact with your anger. Do they fuel it or calm it?

Playing It Out in Our Minds: Imagery and Fantasy

Our brains have an amazing ability to imagine and fantasize—to picture
something in our minds, such as a scene that plays out like a little film. The
ability to do so, however, varies somewhat from person to person. Some
people, like my wife, Lisa, can bring up visual or mental images at will.
When we were in graduate school together, she told me that while taking an
exam she could scan the pages of her notes in her mind to find the answer.
I’m more auditory, so while my visual imagery isn’t as good as hers, I can
name just about any popular song from the 1970s to the 1990s and can play it
to myself as if my mind were a jukebox. We can use our imaginations to
practice everything from assertiveness skills to running through guitar scales
—it works!
The reason it works is that by going through a situation in our
imaginations, we are lighting up many of the same cells in the brain (called
neurons) that are activated when we are actually in the situation. Parts of
your brain, such as your emotional centers (including anger), respond
powerfully to imagery and fantasy, and the content of your imagination is, in
turn, shaped by your mood. This is great news if you’re reminiscing or
savoring a positive experience, but it doesn’t work so well when your threat
system has taken over and starts to direct your imagination and fantasies. As
with rumination, we tend to imagine the situation that angered us, playing it
over and over again in our minds. We may visualize variations of the
situation, or fantasize about all the angry ways we could have responded or
things we could do in the future to really “stick it to them.” These fantasies
and imagery serve to keep our anger burning hot. It’s a vicious cycle: when
we’re angry, we tend to experience anger-related fantasy and imagery; then
these angry images and fantasies fuel our emotional response, keeping us
angry. This is just the way our brains and bodies work—they can’t always
tell the difference between the external world and the world we create in our
minds.
Our use of imagery affects our bodies and emotions all the time. You
don’t have to believe me though; check it out for yourself. The next time
you’re hungry, imagine a plate of your favorite food. How does it look? How
does it smell? Taste? Then, shift your attention to your body’s reaction. Are
you salivating? As sexual beings, we regularly use imagery and fantasy to
become aroused and keep ourselves “in the mood.” The images and fantasies
stimulate our pituitary glands to release the hormones associated with sex and
arousal.
Here’s another little mental experiment—have some fun with it. Start by
bringing to mind different memories of your life that are linked with feeling
certain ways, and see what happens (I’d recommend using happy memories!).
I’ll do it, too, as I write. First, I’m imagining attending a football game with
my college friends, and a comfortable smile spreads across my face. Next,
I’m picturing my son being born, and I feel a surge of love as I imagine him
nestling against my wife. Then, I imagine myself at my grandfather’s funeral,
and tears well up in my eyes. And just as we have physical and emotional
reactions to these happy and sad memories, so, too, can we have reactions to
angry scenes as they play out in the mind’s eye. I’ll refrain from doing that
one; it’s been an emotional paragraph for me. How has it played out for you,
as you’ve remembered certain things?
The good news is that you can learn to use the power of your imagination
and fantasies to create compassionate states of mind to help you feel safe,
confident, and connected with others—and to help you manage your
emotions more effectively. You can use these powers to practice skills that
will diffuse conflict rather than promote it. In this book, you’ll learn to take
control of your brain’s ability to create thoughts and imagery, and to use
these thoughts and images to gain control over your state of mind.

Exercise 1.4: Anger and Imagery

 Consider the kinds of things you imagine and the fantasies you have when you’re angry.

What sort of fantasies and imagery do you have when you are angry?
What are they like?

Consider the effects of your thoughts, imagery, and fantasies upon your mood.

Do they fuel your anger or calm it?

Do they make it easier to deal with the situation or more difficult?

Driven to Act: The Power of Motivation

One of the main functions of our emotions—love, anger, fear, joy, desire,
sadness, and attraction (to name just a few)—is to motivate our behavior.
Emotions like anger, particularly those involving lots of arousal, carry with
them a strong motivation to act: to couple, to flee, to fight, to seek out things
we want or need. These motivations are a defining part of what it means to be
angry. In the body, anger can seem a lot like fear: your heart races, your
breath quickens, your blood pressure increases, your muscles tense. However,
the motivations associated with anger are different from the motivations
associated with fear. With fear, you’re motivated to flee, to escape, to get
away from the source of threat. In contrast, anger tends to motivate you to go
toward the thing that angered you. You are driven to attack and insult, to
12

undermine, conquer, and dominate.

This motivation isn’t just an intellectual desire, like, “After thinking
about this, I’ve decided that I’d really like to knock your block off.” Instead,
it can be felt more as an urge, like the sensation of having an itch that you
really, really want to scratch. It’s important to acknowledge this sensation as
you learn to use compassion to help deal with your anger. It is also important
to understand that, when we are angry, we don’t often choose to have an
aggressive motivation; often, it’s just something we feel. Our responsibility is
to figure out how to handle it and to avoid engaging in behavior that lands us
in trouble or harms other people. As we’ve discussed, when we are in the
midst of an angry threat response, our bodies are activated for action and our
minds experience a motivation to fight off whatever we feel threatened by.
Our motivation is to defend ourselves, to retaliate, perhaps even to punish the
other person so that he will never, ever consider crossing us again. And with
a motivation like this, it’s easy to see how our anger can cause problems in
our lives, particularly in our relationships with others.
To work well with anger, you need ways to work with your motivation so
that you can broaden your focus and connect with a desire to be more helpful
to yourself and other people. As you’ll learn in the next chapter, the brain is
wired to respond to threat; however, it’s also wired to respond to caring and
to provide care. These motivations will help you activate your brain’s
compassionate responses and enable you to deal with difficult situations
without getting lost in anger.

Exercise 1.5: Anger and Motivation

Consider your motivation when you are angry. What do you want to do?

What does your angry self feel like saying?

What does your angry self feel like doing?

Things We Do: Angry Behavior

Toward the beginning of this chapter, we saw how anger-driven behaviors
can emerge when our threat systems are in control. These range from trying
to conceal and ignore our anger to actually committing violence. We act out
anger in many different ways, ways that are unique to us and that are related
to a number of factors. As you’ll read in chapter 3, these factors include
temperament, early relationships with our caregivers (including our
observations of their behavior when they were angry), social roles, coping
resources, and the myriad other situations that make up our lives.
Of the many ways that we act on our anger, aggression is perhaps the
most obviously problematic, particularly as it affects our relationships with
others. There are contexts (for example, at home or at work) in which we can
get away with acting our anger out aggressively, and other contexts in which
there would be dire consequences for doing so. For this reason, those of us
who learned to act out our anger in aggressive ways may end up taking it out
on the people who mean the most to us, because with them we can get away
with it. You may find yourself acting most harshly toward those who are
weaker or whose relationships with you make it unlikely that they will harm
you in return—toward your employees, partners, or children rather than
toward the boss who yelled at you unfairly or the police officer who wrote
you a ticket.
Aggression isn’t the only angry behavior that can create distance between
you and those you love. Instead of lashing out, you can pull in: denying
affection, stewing in resentment, giving constant signs of disapproval.
Ignoring or withholding love from our children can be as harmful as hitting
them, although in different ways. Quiet, constant criticism can destroy a
spouse’s self-esteem. It’s scary to think about what can happen when our
anger and threat systems are ruling the day.
As you read this, you may find yourself cringing a bit in remembrance of
the times you’ve harmed and been harmed in these ways. I am. Pay attention
to the hurt you feel when you recall these sorts of memories, because this
feeling can help you sympathize with others and fuel your compassionate
resolve to treat them better—because you know what that pain feels like.
All too often, we cover up that pain and the vulnerable feelings that go
along with it by giving in to anger, which can feel powerful in comparison.
But make no mistake: doing this is an avoidance strategy that allows us to
only temporarily escape difficult feelings. The problem is that this temporary
numbing of our pain is a high-cost, short-term strategy. Although you may
feel a bit less vulnerable now, using anger to escape from other emotions sets
you up to have more problems down the road. Compassion challenges you to
be stronger than that and helps you to use your pain as a way to better
understand and identify with others.
 It can be tough when we become aware of how our anger has harmed our
relationships. Many of the clients I’ve worked with have painfully admitted
that they have behaved the most harshly toward those they cared most about
—toward those who loved them enough to stick around even in the face of
such treatment or who didn’t have the resources to escape. This realization is
common, and it’s one reason that people finally decide to learn to work with
their anger more productively.

Exercise 1.6: Anger and Behavior

Consider your behavior when you’ve been angry. What did you do?

What actions did you engage in?

Did those actions reflect the person you want to be?

If you have children, do those actions reflect the sort of person you’d like them to
become?

Consider the consequences that your angry behaviors have had on your life.

How has your life been impacted by your angry actions?

How have your relationships been impacted by your anger?

I would argue that it should be a painful thing to become aware that we

are harming or scaring those we care about, that sometimes we make things
worse instead of better. These realizations are crucial (and tricky), because
how we respond to them makes all the difference. If we respond to them by
shaming ourselves—convincing ourselves that we are bad people—that just
makes things worse, and we are setting the stage for yet another retreat into
anger. The key is to commit ourselves to doing things better: to use our guilt
and regret as fuel for our motivation to work with anger in positive ways and
then to actually take the steps needed to become better parents, spouses, and
colleagues. You’re taking one of those steps right now.
Fortunately, there are many positive ways to respond to difficult, anger-
producing situations. You can learn to recognize when you’re angry and
work with your emotions directly by slowing your body down and observing
your thoughts. You can speak assertively and directly with the other people
involved in the situation, respecting both them and yourself. You can even
learn to observe this situation as an example of a pattern that comes up again
and again in the course of your life, and extend compassion to yourself and to
others, even as you deal with it. You can recognize that we are all human
beings who simply wish to have happy lives, and that there are powerful tools
and traditions to help us do this. The fact that you are reading this book tells
me that this is the road you’ve chosen to take, and I’m going to do my very
best to help you along the way. Your family, your life, and your future are
worthy of this effort.

Conclusion
In this chapter, we’ve explored the different forms that anger can take and the
powerful way that anger organizes our minds as our evolved brains work to
protect us from threats. It’s important to recognize that this process—the fact
that you experience anger—is not your fault. But regardless, you must still
take responsibility for it, lest your anger continue to create great difficulties
for you and the people around you. You can help yourself in this effort by
becoming more familiar with your threat system and how it operates in
response to anger, and by learning ways to work with this powerful emotion.
That’s how we’ll be spending the rest of this book.
 2

The Compassionate-Mind Approach to

Understanding Anger
In CFT, we recognize that anger is an emotion that evolved to help us
survive. It has alerted us to things we need to attend to or change, and
motivated us to defend ourselves when we’re in danger. However, we’ve also
seen that out-of-control anger can create real problems in our lives and
relationships. You can never get rid of your anger, any more than you can get
rid of your nose (actually, getting rid of your nose would be much easier, if
more painful). However, you can learn to understand your anger—why your
brain makes it so easy for you to experience it, how it feels in your body, and
how it can take control of your thoughts and behavior. You can learn about
the specific things that trigger your anger and work with your reactions to
these triggers. In this book there’s a lot of focus on learning how to step back
from your anger and take a compassionate approach to managing it. You may
not be able to always choose whether you experience anger, but you can
learn to choose what you do with it.
You’ll be doing a lot of work in this book to develop your
“compassionate self.” It may seem strange to suggest that when we begin to
deal with anger (which so often involves acting harshly or harmfully toward
others), the first place we need to learn to direct our compassion is toward
ourselves. However, once we understand where our anger comes from and
why it can be so difficult to manage, we may find that relating to ourselves
and our anger with compassion makes a good deal of sense.

Finding Ourselves Here

In the first chapter I used the example I’d learned from Thubten Chodron, a
Tibetan Buddhist nun. You’ll recall that she prompted the audience to
explore how we felt when someone else cut us off in traffic, and then how we
behaved and felt when we cut someone else off. This exercise prompted us to
shift our perspectives and put ourselves into the shoes of the people we might
otherwise have criticized. This is an example of empathy, a key part of
compassion that allows us to understand situations from other people’s point
of view—a perspective that isn’t driven by our experience of feeling
threatened. By learning to step back from your emotions and think about
yourself and others in kind, friendly, and understanding ways, you can free
yourself from threat-driven emotions like anger, see things more clearly, and
gain more control over your life.
One of the most important ideas in compassion focused therapy is the
recognition that we all just find ourselves here, part of the flow of life that has
emerged on this planet over millions of years. We’re all in it together, as they
say. You and I, like every other being on this planet, did not choose to be
here. We arrived here, at this particular time in history, in these particular
forms, with these particular brains, experiencing a whole range of
motivations, desires, and feelings. We all find ourselves here, born into
situations we had no control over, with bodies and minds that we didn’t
design or choose, surrounded by people whose company and characteristics
we didn’t select. We didn’t choose our coloring or any of our physical
features—our tendencies to be tall or short, thin or round, whether our teeth
would be straight or crooked, our hearts resilient or flawed. And we didn’t
choose our brains or design how they work.
Many of us are painfully aware of this, at least occasionally. Who
wouldn’t choose to alter something about themselves if given the choice? I’m
quite happy with my height and twenty-twenty vision, for example, but I
wouldn’t mind having a nicely chiseled jawline, and my meager typing and
guitar-playing abilities would benefit from replacing my short, sausage-
shaped fingers with long, slender ones.
There are things about our brains that we might wish to change if we
could. From one perspective, they are miraculously complex systems that are
capable of doing truly amazing things. They allow us to remember, learn,
plan, and negotiate the nuances of complicated social relationships. They
allow us to weigh options and consequences, such as whether or not to have
coffee with dessert, knowing that the caffeine may keep us up late. However,
a human brain is also something of an evolutionary patchwork quilt—a
stitched-together, complex, and varied system of structures and functions,
some of which date back almost to the beginnings of life itself. Our brains
have evolved with a host of extremely powerful emotions that are capable of
harnessing our thoughts and attention, often without our awareness. Further,
the way these emotions play out in us often seems suited to earlier times in
the human story. They prepare us to fight, flee, or lie down in submission
when we’d be better served by pausing and taking a moment to become more
mindful and perhaps to analyze, consider, or negotiate. So, while our brains
often serve us well, they also function in ways that we probably wouldn’t
have chosen or designed—ways we might change, given the choice.
Just as we don’t get to choose the way we look or the way our brains
function, we also don’t get to choose the situations we’re born into, and these
situations shape what our lives will look like. Our early environments play a
large role in determining how we will interact with the world around us, and
they shape our abilities to work with difficult emotions like anger. We all
emerge into the world with brains that contain preset systems that are ready
to be activated by how life treats us. Certain experiences in our lives can
literally “turn on” certain genes and modify the way our brains work. This is
one reason why early attachments are so important, as we will explore in
chapter 3. When talking with my colleagues about how we are shaped by the
situations we’re born into, I often hear such things as, “If I’d been born into a
drug cartel, chances are that I would now be a drug dealer, or possibly in
prison, dead, or a murderer.” It’s easy to mentally divide the world into
“good people” and “bad people,” but those distinctions aren’t real. When we
look more closely, we see the stories behind these people’s lives (and our
own), and the labels begin to fall away. We find that so many of the people
we may have looked down on were born into violent, hostile, abusive, or
neglectful situations—situations that can shape our personalities, and even
our brains, in ways that set us up to have great difficulties in life.
If we can connect with a compassionate perspective, we see that if we had
been born into the circumstances of those who irritate us, we could easily be
acting as they do. Our behaviors might have been similar, for better or for
worse. It’s easy to judge others (and ourselves), but we often don’t see or
credit the strength of character that actually may have prevented things from
turning out so much worse than they have. Had I been born into a neglectful
environment, it’s likely that the current version of me—the psychology
professor sitting here writing this book—almost certainly would not exist.
These reflections are important, because they help us recognize that we didn’t
choose the way our brains work or how they have been shaped and
conditioned by our lives. This realization also helps us to recognize the
challenges we face in life. These may include acknowledging that, although it
isn’t our fault that we have these tricky brains, we can claim responsibility for
our lives and learn to train our minds in compassionate ways that are focused
on our own well-being and that of others. Likewise, we can work to have
more understanding and empathy for those who were born into situations that
were much more difficult than our own, and for everyone else as well.

Old Brains and New Brains

When we study the human brain, we see that we share many basic drives and
motivations with organisms (like reptiles) that appeared long before we did in
1
the evolutionary chain. The lives of reptiles aren’t nearly as complicated as
yours and mine. They’re generally interested in the “four Fs”: fighting,
fleeing, feeding, and…reproduction. You may find that some of these
concerns occasionally enter your mind as well. From an evolutionary
perspective, as new species emerge into the flow of life, their brains aren’t
completely new; rather, they contain new abilities that make them unique and
many of the structures and characteristics that had been present in previous
forms of life. In rough terms, you could say that we each have an “old brain,”
which is still generally focused on the “four Fs” and is responsible for our
basic desires and emotions. This old brain is linked up to a new brain, which
is the part that makes us uniquely human—capable of fantastical and creative
thinking, imagination, rumination, planning, and so on.
In CFT, we think it’s important to recognize that this link between old
brain and new brain is very tricky. Think about many of the strong passions
you have had in your life, such as falling in love, having a relationship with
your children, developing friends and alliances, having a good sexual
relationship, seeking acceptance and avoiding rejection, getting angry and
having conflicts, getting anxious when there is danger around, and feeling joy
when things are going well for you. We can actually observe these behaviors
and experiences in many other animal species. You will see them enacted by
the family cat and dog, and by the chimpanzees at the local zoo. This is just
the way it works; these drives, motivations, and emotions are basic parts of
our psychological makeup. Think about the plots of most movies we watch.
They involve love, sex, violence, sacrifice, betrayal, and so on. These are the
themes that guide the flow of life.
Our old brains are in charge of these more basic processes and emotions
—those that help us take care of the things we need to do to survive and
reproduce. Old-brain structures keep our hearts beating and our lungs
breathing, and they regulate our sleeping, eating, and reproductive cycles.
Other old-brain structures help us interact with our environment in ways that
help us survive into the future and pass along our genes. They motivate us to
seek out the things we need and are responsible for our natural tendencies to
be attracted to suitable mates, to care for our young, and to respond
emotionally when aspects of our environment threaten us.
These old-brain tendencies evolved over millions of years and can be
seen in countless species of animals. For example, if we look at reptiles and
amphibians, we can see examples of aggression, fear, and attraction (mating),
but we also see that these species don’t nurture their young. However, when
mammals emerged about 120 million or so years ago, something really
important emerged with them: a psychology of caring for one another.
Mammals—and this category includes rodents, cats, dogs, monkeys,
dolphins, and eventually humans—nurtured and cared for one another. This
psychology of caring is the basis of the compassionate mind. You may have
observed this process in action with your family pet, watching the mother
carefully nursing, grooming, and comforting her young.
This nurturing behavior isn’t accidental—it is necessary for the survival
of baby mammals, which produce far fewer young than do species such as
reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Unlike these species, mammalian young are
nearly helpless at birth. The relatively few mammal offspring need to be
protected from dangers, fed, and comforted when distressed by having close
contact with the mother. They need to be cared for. Like the babies of other
mammals, human babies certainly need to be cared for and will die very
quickly if they aren’t. As we will see later, this caring relationship also has
profound effects on how our infant minds develop. On several occasions, I’ve
heard the Dalai Lama mention this innate capacity for nurturing as evidence
that we are “wired” for compassion. As babies, we are designed to seek out
and obtain care (this is why babies are so cute and good at drawing our
attention).
In addition to these old-brain functions, we also have the ability to
consider, fantasize, plan, contemplate, reflect, and assign meaning to events
occurring in our lives. These abilities are unique to us and to our “new
brains,” particularly the frontal cortex—the soft, wrinkly outer covering of
the brain located toward the front of the head. This new brain is the reason
that we are the dominant species on the planet: it enables us to develop
technology, build huge and complex societies, and have deeply nuanced
relationships. We have amazing brains!
Unfortunately, problems arise from the combination of the old brain’s
focus on the four Fs (particularly its strong focus on detecting threats) and
our new-brain abilities to create meaning, ruminate, and develop complex
mental fantasies. As you saw in chapter 1, when you’re angry, these new-
brain abilities can be harnessed by your threat system. Then, your thoughts,
reasoning, and fantasies all work to keep you angry. Our amazing brains also
allow our anger to be manifested in uniquely destructive ways—through the
development and use of weapons like swords, guns, and nuclear bombs. Our
inventive new brains can combine with the desires and motives of the old
brain to produce rather tragic consequences.
Let’s look a bit more closely now at how our brains work, so that we can
learn to use them to heal rather than harm.

A Model of Emotion
Our brains are made up of cells called neurons, and we have lots of them—
billions and billions. These cells are linked together by a breathtaking number
of connections, called synapses. Everything we experience (every thought we
have; everything we do; everything we see, hear, feel, smell) is reflected by a
corresponding pattern of activity in the brain. What this means is that every
time you think of something—say, an orange—cells in the brain “light up”
and allow you to “see” this object in your mind, to understand its shape and
color, to imagine its smell, the way it feels and tastes. Other cells light up that
allow you to recall whether or not you like oranges. And still other cells
allow you to bring up other memories and feelings, such as visiting an orange
grove with your beloved grandfather during a childhood holiday, and perhaps
even the warm feeling of being cared for at that time.
Just as the word “orange” can activate certain cells in the brain, so, too,
can anger and compassion; each lights up different brain pathways associated
with different emotional experiences, bodily reactions, patterns of attention,
and ways of thinking and behaving. We don’t usually think about all these
things when we talk about emotions; we just say “anger.” But as we’ve seen,
our emotional experiences organize our minds in a number of different ways
and turn on different light switches in our brains. Emotions, such as anger,
aren’t just about how we feel.

The Three Circles

In CFT, the complex world of human emotion is organized into three
2
emotion-regulation systems that help us with three types of situations:

Systems that help us detect and respond to threats and challenges.

Systems that help us be interested in seeking and obtaining resources,

that help us detect and respond to opportunities, and that reward us for
doing so.

Systems that help us settle into a state of calm, restfulness, and

openness when we aren’t faced with threats, challenges, or urgent
desires—when we’re satisfied. We’ll see that this emotion-regulation
system is closely related to experiences of affection and what we call
“affiliation”—experiences that soothe us and reduce the activity of
our threat systems.

Figure 2.1: Three Types of Emotion-Regulation Systems

 Reprinted from The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert (London: Constable and Robinson,
2009).

The “three circles” model in figure 2.1 was derived from a long line of
research showing that positive and negative emotions are processed
differently in the brain and affect different systems in our bodies. You’ll
recognize the threat system, which is involved in activating our fight-or-flight
response. It can also prevent us from doing either, leading us to submit or
freeze.
In the Compassionate-Mind model, we understand that there is a further
distinction: that there are different types of positive emotions. We focus in
particular on the differences between emotions that involve excitement and
energy, and those linked with feeling safe, calm, and contented. By
distinguishing between these two types of positive emotions, we can begin to
3
understand how compassion can help us deal with difficult experiences. The
reality of how our emotions work is complicated, and our model of emotions
is a simplified one; there are many different models that attempt to explain
how our emotions work. We use this one because it helps us understand
where our emotions come from, the relationships between our different
emotion-regulation systems, and the ways that they can organize our minds.

The Threat and Self-Protection System

Let’s examine these systems in more detail, beginning with the threat and
self-protection system, which we’ll shorten to “threat system” for
convenience.
The experience of threat is partly linked to our motives and goals, and it
has evolved to organize our minds around protecting ourselves. This system
is activated when the brain perceives a potential threat or danger to us or to
those we care about. (I say “the brain” rather than “we,” because sometimes
the brain can perceive and react to something as a threat even if we have no
conscious awareness that this has happened.)
When the brain perceives a threat, it sets in motion a cascade of reactions
(the dominoes we saw in chapter 1) designed to help us respond rapidly in the
face of danger and avoid potential danger in the future. We experience bodily
reactions and bursts of emotion, prompting us to act in response to the real or
imagined threat. Common threat-related emotions include anger, fear,
anxiety, and disgust, and each of these is associated with an urge to act. As
I’ve pointed out, in the case of anger, we feel the need to attack; with fear, the
desire to flee; with disgust, the desire to avoid contact with whatever it is that
happens to be grossing us out. If we think of things that commonly disgust us
—signs (sights and smells) of decay and contamination or things that could
cause us to be ill or sick—they tend to be things that could threaten our
survival. This is also played out in the way we experience disgust in response
to foods that have previously made us sick. For example, if you ate some
scrumptious shrimp at dinner but were up all night vomiting because you
caught a virus, it’s not likely that you’ll order shrimp again soon. In the
future, the mere sight or smell of shrimp may even turn your stomach. This is
an example of a type of learning called classical conditioning, which is a way
we acquire emotional responses to things and which we’ll discuss further in
chapter 3.

Figure 2.2: How the Threat System Organizes the Mind

So one way the threat system organizes the mind is by helping us to very
powerfully and efficiently learn associations between different things (for
example, connecting the way the food tastes and smells with the experience
of being sick). The threat system doesn’t just affect how we feel, it affects
what we learn and how quickly and easily we learn it. As the shrimp example
demonstrates, learning to associate threat emotions (like disgust) with
situations (like food) occurs unconsciously—it can even occur when we
intellectually know very well that these things don’t go together. For
example, when your roommate was sick and throwing up for two days before
you ever ate the shrimp: you know your being sick likely has nothing to do
with the food that you ate, but tell that to your stomach the next time you
smell shrimp! Threat-related emotions like anger can feel powerful and
uncontrollable because learning them often is uncontrollable, and so is
recalling them. Your brain recalls these associations without your choice or
awareness: the next time you see or smell shrimp, you feel sick, even if it had
been one of your favorite foods and you desperately want to enjoy it again—
even though you know that it probably wasn’t responsible for making you
sick.
Each of the three emotion-regulation systems is linked with physical
experiences. The threat system, in particular, involves the release of stress
hormones (such as cortisol) into the bloodstream. The various threat-related
emotions play out in our bodies in very different ways. Take a moment to
consider again how you’ve felt, physically, when you’ve been angry. In the
short term, you may tend to experience heightened arousal, the classic “fight”
response, with an increase in your heart rate and your breathing. This
response prepares you for action. However, if you’re in this response mode
for a longer period—for days, weeks, or months—this heightened arousal
gives way to other physical sensations such as muscle tension, stomach upset,
and headaches. Why? Because anger stimulates the release of stress
4
hormones even after the situation that angered us is over.
The emotion-regulation system also involves our attention, and this is
particularly true with threat-related emotions like anger, which operate on a
principle of “better safe than sorry.” As you read in chapter 1, threat emotions
like anger focus and narrow our attention, thoughts, and mental imagery on
the source of the threat. When feeling threatened, we tend not to notice or
attend to other things (such as alternative explanations for the situation),
because we’re so focused on the source of the perceived danger and on
reacting to it in an attempt to protect ourselves.
I imagine our threat systems to be like airport security agents who
examine each potential threat, perhaps by giving the threat an X-ray scan or a
rather intimate pat-down (do you get a cigarette after that one?). But usually
it’s best not to joke with airline security—they’re all business, all about
keeping us safe with no distractions—and the threat system works in a
similar way. It’s designed to override positive emotions. If you’re having a
wonderful lunch and the restaurant catches fire, you’d better forget about
lunch and get out of there ASAP (in an orderly fashion, of course). The threat
response can make us forget all about the positive things in our lives, keeping
our attention on the danger (real or imagined) and locked in on those threat-
related emotions.

Exercise 2.1: Examining the Threat Response

Try to remember a time when your threat system was in charge—when you felt that you
were being attacked or undermined, or that your progress was blocked.

What emotions were you experiencing? How did you feel? What physical sensations
did you have?

Consider your attention. What did you pay attention to? Where was your focus?

What were you thinking about? How did your thoughts relate to your emotional
experience?

What sort of imagery or fantasy were you picturing in your mind?

What was your motivation like? What did you want to do?

What sort of behavior did you engage in?

If we want to succeed in dealing with anger, it’s important that we learn

to recognize when our threat systems have been activated. As we’ve seen,
this system is good at hijacking the mind, leading to the domino effect of
experiences explored in chapter 1. The dominoes fall as you find yourself
feeling angry; your attention narrows to focus on the threat; thoughts race
through your head; you play the situation over and over in your mind; you’re
motivated to attack. With all of this going on, things can get out of hand
pretty quickly if you aren’t aware of what’s happening. The key is to
recognize this process as it begins and interrupt it before it takes over.
 The Drive and Resource Acquisition System
As noted previously, we have two very different types of positive emotion-
regulation systems. Western society tends to emphasize only one of these
systems, teaching us that in order to be happy, we must be “achieving” and
“doing.” The emotion-regulation system that reflects this is called the drive
and resource acquisition system, which I’ll sometimes shorten to “drive
system” for ease of discussion.
The drive and resource acquisition system evolved to help us seek and
obtain resources, things we need to survive and prosper. As such, it serves
two purposes: to motivate us to pursue desired objects and goals, and to
reward us once we’ve obtained them. If the overriding message from the
threat system is “Protect yourself!” then for the drive system, the messages
are “Go get it!” (before you get it) and “This is great!” (after you get it). The
drive system motivates and organizes our efforts to obtain things such as
food, sex, recognition, and various other things we associate with happiness
and comfort. This system can keep us working toward our goals and is
associated with emotions like excitement, desire, and pleasure.

Figure 2.3: How the Drive and Resource Acquisition System

Organizes the Mind

Like the threat system, the drive system organizes the mind in specific
ways. It motivates us and focuses our attention on obtaining the object or
experience we desire. This system activates and energizes us, causing our
thoughts to return again and again to the object of our pursuits. Think about
how you behave during a competition, the way an athlete or a chess player
behaves and focuses her attention during a match, or the frenzy of shoppers at
a preholiday sale. Recall the first time you fell in love. How often did you
find your thoughts returning to that other person? And, later, when we have
obtained the goal, won the competition, or received the recognition we crave,
we tend to experience excitement or a rush of pleasure.
Like the threat system, the drive and resource acquisition system involves
various chemicals in the brain. One of these chemicals is a neurotransmitter
called dopamine (a primary chemical messenger in the brain), which is
associated with experiences of pleasure, drive, and energy. We can
experience a flush of dopamine when we fall in love, have sex, ace a test, or
win an award at work. The emotions produced by dopamine are powerful in
their ability to harness our drives. Imagine winning the lottery and
immediately having an extra $200 million or so. When you found out that
you’d won, it’s likely that you would have a rush of dopamine in the brain
and would experience a surge of energy. You might have a hard time
sleeping and be alert to thoughts racing through your mind as you think about
everything you could do with the money. People who take cocaine and
amphetamines are, in essence, trying to simulate this feeling—to give
themselves a rush of energy, drive, and excitement. There are, of course, lots
of problems with using drugs to stimulate the brain in this way, including the
nasty comedown (which leaves you feeling worse than you did before you
started) and the fact that these drugs are highly addictive.

Exercise 2.2: Examining the Drive and Resource

Acquisition System

Try to remember a time when your drive and resource acquisition system was in charge.
Think about an instance when you were really excited about doing something, such as
pursuing a goal, or when you’d just succeeded at something important to you.
 What emotions were you experiencing? How did you feel? What physical sensations
did you have?

Consider your attention. What did you pay attention to? What were you focused on?

What were you thinking about? How did your thoughts relate to your emotional
experience?

What sort of imagery or fantasy were you picturing in your mind?

What was your motivation like? What did you want to do?

What sort of behavior did you engage in?

Just as the threat system organizes your mind around perceived threats,
the drive and resource acquisition system organizes your mind so that it
directs you toward your goals—directing your emotions, attention, thoughts,
fantasies, motivations, and behavior toward whatever it is that you’re
pursuing. We can also observe interactions between the drive system and the
threat system: if we’re being blocked from our goal, when we’re “on the
hunt” and something gets in our way or prevents us from getting the object of
desire. When this happens, the lines can blur, because our drive and threat
systems are activated at the same time. Competitors who are striving after the
same goal that we seek can be seen as threats, such as those shoppers lining
up for the rush of a Christmas sale, racing through stores toward the items
they seek, even fighting over the last item on the shelf. Sadly, this can also
lead to dangerously aggressive behavior. For example, in 2008, a temporary
worker at a Wal-Mart store in New York was trampled to death by holiday
5
shoppers frantically pushing to get in. The language we sometimes use
reflects the interaction between the threat and drive systems, reflected in
statements like, “You have to fight to get what you want!”
So if you’re pursuing something you want but are blocked from obtaining
it; your drives are thwarted or blocked, and this can lead to frustration, which
then can become anger. In fact, anger is intimately linked with the drive
system. Although it’s true that we can feel sad or anxious if the path to a goal
is blocked, anger tends to be the more usual threat-system response to such
obstacles. This makes sense when we consider that anger is an emotion that
encourages us to “approach”—to move forward and do what is necessary to
remove blocks, to overcome potential threats to our happiness or the
achievement of our goals.
In Buddhist psychology, grasping at or clinging is seen as a main source
of human suffering—we experience many negative emotions when we really
want something but can’t have it, or when we have it and lose it and can’t
bear to let it go. In CFT, when we’re dealing with difficulties, we often ask,
“What is the threat behind this emotion?” As we’ve seen, the threats that are
associated with anger often involve being stopped or thwarted: something
preventing us from getting what we want, threatening to take away what we
have, or preventing us from being in control. In the case of shame-related
anger, we experience a threat to how we see ourselves, to our sense of
personal identity, or to how we want others to think of us. In summary, anger
is often related to the threat of things not being the way we want them to be
and to our habit of continuing to grasp at our preferred view of reality,
regardless of how things actually are.
If you think about how we all go about the world, pursuing the things we
want, with brains designed to experience frustration and anger when things
don’t go our way—well, it’s easy to see how conflicts can arise. A
compassionate perspective can give us the power to stand back, observe, and
understand this process, and as a result to begin to take control of it and to
avoid having big conflicts over small things. We can learn to step out of the
cycle of anger by realizing that we all just want to be happy, that no one
wants to suffer, and that all of our grasping, fighting, and angry behaviors are
simply what happens when our old brains and our new brains conflict in the
effort to help us survive and prosper. With this understanding comes a
choice: do you just want to go on like this? Or would you rather use your
knowledge of how your brain works to find ways of balancing your emotion-
regulation systems so that you can build better relationships and a better life?
If you like that second option, keep reading, because we have one more
emotion-regulation system to discuss.

The Soothing and Safeness System

Luckily, we have a system that can help calm down the threat and drive
systems. We’ll call this third system the “safeness” system, and we’ll now
look at the ways this system makes us feel, the types of behaviors it’s linked
to, and the brain systems and chemicals that it involves.
With a few exceptions (sadness, for example), the threat and drive
systems tend to organize the mind in active and focused ways that involve
strong desires to either deal with a threat or to pursue a goal. In comparison
to these two other two systems, the safeness system organizes us more in a
“settling in” sort of way and is sometimes referred to as the “contentment
system.” It is associated with emotional experiences like contentment, peace,
serenity, and feelings of being safe and connected to others. While the threat
and drive systems often involve different kinds of striving and are largely
about changing the current state of things, the soothing system involves an
experience of being—of being grounded, being safe, and being comfortable
in the present moment. Instead of the urgency we experience when the threat
and drive systems are in charge, the safeness system promotes a slow and
settled experience (without being boring). Next to the “Protect yourself!” of
the threat system and the “Go get it!” of the drive system, the central message
of the soothing system is “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
We can understand the way the soothing system works by observing
animals, such as my dog, Sadie, who lies peacefully in the warmth of the sun
shining in through our porch window when she’s content and feels safe. Like
Sadie, when other animals are not threatened and are satisfied, when they
don’t need to achieve or acquire things, they enter into states of contentment
and peaceful well-being. Humans can too, and studies show us that when we
(both humans and animals) are in this state of contentment, our bodies behave
6, 7
differently. When our safeness system is activated, the stress-related activity
in the nervous system decreases, and we calm down and feel more at peace.
The safeness system is strongly rooted in the process of attachment, our
experiences of being accepted and valued, and of nurturing, which pertains to
both being cared for and caring for others. This is a major difference between
the safeness system and the threat and drive systems, in which relationships
are secondary to protection and pursuits. In the case of the threat system, our
interactions with others tend to involve overcoming, avoiding, or pacifying
those who are in our way. In the drive and resource acquisition system, the
relationship aspect may take the form of sexual desire or of competing
together or against each other in pursuit of goals. In contrast, warm
relationships with others are at the very center of the safeness system, which
has evolved as a response to our nurturing interactions with others and is
involved in the giving and receiving of kindness and love, and in feeling
valued and cared for.
Think of experiences when you felt completely safe, accepted, and cared
for (if you can’t recall an experience like that, try to imagine what it might be
like). A good example of these interactions can be evoked by the image of a
loving mother holding or nursing her infant child or an older couple holding
hands. Soothing interactions involve experiences of warmth and trust, and
lead to a sense of being safe and connected with one another. Like the threat
and drive systems, the safeness system is sensitive to cues from the
environment. Specifically, it responds to messages that we are valued,
accepted, and cared for.
Imagine that you’re at a new job, just finishing up your first week, and
that you’re a bit anxious because you still don’t know exactly what to do.
You’re wondering if you have the ability to meet expectations. Imagine that
your new boss calls you into his office, and notice how your body might feel
in this circumstance. In this situation, your threat system might be on edge,
and your pursuit system as well—it’s important that you succeed at this job,
and you want to do it well. Imagine that you sit down in your boss’s office
and that he smiles kindly and warmly, saying, “I just wanted to tell you that
we’re very happy to have you here. It’s a lot to learn at once, and you are
doing very well. We have to work as a team here, and you’re fitting right in
—everyone enjoys working with you. We’re happy to have you here.” Wow.
Imagine what it feels like to hear this from him, to know that you are liked,
accepted, and valued. Your safeness system would likely respond to these
positive messages, in part by working to reduce your arousal. This, in turn,
would help to balance out the activity coming from your threat system, and
you’d no longer feel as anxious.
It would be great if we had that kind of affirmation more often, wouldn’t
it? We benefit from these sorts of interactions, and we can provide them to
others. It doesn’t have to be as over the top as that example, either. Soothing
interactions can take many forms. A smile, a kind word, a pat on the back, or
a friendly squeeze to the shoulder can all communicate, “You’re safe with
me,” “I accept you,” “I like you.” The idea of warmth seems to be
particularly important here. Warm interactions are soothing and signal
8
interest, kindness, caring, liking, affection, and trust. These interactions—
particularly with those we love and trust—can stimulate our safeness systems
and help us feel less threatened.

Calming Down the Threat System

The ability of our safeness systems to calm our threat response is
demonstrated nicely by a study published in 2006 by James Coan, Hillary
9
Schaefer, and Richard Davidson. In this study, sixteen married women were
faced with the threat of a mild electric shock. Using functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI), which allows you to look at what parts of the
brain activate during specific situations, researchers were able to examine
what was going on in the women’s brains as they anticipated being shocked
—clearly a situation designed to stimulate their threat systems. During this
procedure, the women had varying levels of a specific form of social contact:
touch. Some of the time, the women’s husbands held their hands. At other
times, a stranger held their hands, and at yet other times, the women were
alone.
When they looked at what was going on in these women’s brains during
the experiment, the researchers observed that the parts of the brain associated
with emotional and behavioral responses to threat were much less active
when the women were holding hands with their husbands. The experience of
having physical contact with their husbands during the experiment actually
reduced their brains’ response to threat. The researchers also found that the
better the marriage, the greater the reduction in threat response. Physical
contact did reduce the response to threat when the women were holding
hands with strangers, but the reduction was less than when they’d been
holding hands with their husbands. This demonstrates the power of the
safeness system and its links to our experiences of attachment and feelings of
connectedness with others. It is an example of how the safeness system can
help reduce our experience of threat and help balance our emotional
responses.
Just as in the other systems, there are specific chemicals in the body that
are associated with the safeness system. You may have heard of opiates—
drugs that are abused because they can make us feel a sense of well-being
and happiness. Well, the chemicals in our bodies that we call endorphins are
examples of natural opiates that help soothe us with a sense of peacefulness
and connectedness.
 This soothing effect of the endorphins is no accident. You may remember
the amygdala, which I introduced in chapter 1 as a core part of the threat
system, rapidly identifying threats and activating us in response to perceived
sources of danger. Well, the amygdala is sensitive to the effects of chemicals
such as endorphins. These chemicals inhibit the activity of the amygdala and
help us feel calmer, safer, and less focused on threats.
Over the course of evolution, this safeness system has become intimately
linked with the process of attachment. So, for example, babies often become
peaceful when they are at the breast or lying gently in their mothers’ arms:
feelings of closeness create feelings of safeness. Later, children who are
distressed will return to a parent, often the mother, who may cuddle them,
kiss them, or stroke their backs. This contact helps to soothe and calm the
child. Such affection and affectionate relationships are linked to the release of
chemicals such as the endorphins and the hormone oxytocin, which is
involved with nurturing behavior and with the inhibition of stress, irritability,
10
and aggressiveness. While oxytocin has typically been associated with
physical contact, new research shows that this isn’t the only way to
experience the benefits of this hormone. In fact, the release of oxytocin and
the sense of comfort and safeness it gives can occur in response to a number
11
of activities, including being comforted verbally (even over the phone! ) and
mental imagery, which you’ll be using later in the book to help you deal with
your anger.
 Figure 2.4: How the Safeness System Organizes the Mind

In summary, when we’re neither threatened nor actively focused on

pursuing a goal, we can experience a sense of being safe, comfortable, and
content. You can experience yourself as lovable and worthy of kindness and
respect. Your attention broadens, and you can become aware of all the good
things that you’d overlooked when you felt threatened. When you’re at peace
and are comfortable, your mind can relax and begin to think flexibly and
broadly: to contemplate, consider options, and think more creatively. This
can help you discover new, more effective ways of handling difficult
situations, rather than being bound to the habits dictated by the threat system.
This is called response flexibility, and growing scientific evidence indicates
that the nurturing, attachment interactions that are at the core of the safeness
system may actually activate and promote growth in brain areas that help us
12
to have this flexibility.
Considering all this, we can see the safeness system as a balancing
influence in relation to the threat and drive systems. We can learn to stimulate
our soothing systems in order to slow ourselves down and consider situations
more broadly: “Am I really in danger, or are there alternative explanations I
haven’t considered?” This broader perspective allows us to consider whether
we really need that thing we’re pursuing and if it’s really true that we can’t be
happy without it. This system can help calm the storm of anger. It can give us
the freedom to consider not just the threat or desire of the moment, but also
larger questions: “What sort of person do I want to be, and how do I go about
becoming my best self?” “What can I do to take good care of the people I
love?” “How can I create the conditions in my life that will lead to these
things?”

Exercise 2.3: Examining the Safeness Response

Try to remember a time when you felt safe and completely comfortable. If you can’t
recall a time like that, close your eyes for a moment and imagine what it would feel like
to be completely at ease, content, and safe.

What emotions were you experiencing? How did it feel? What were your physical
 sensations?

Consider your attention. What did you pay attention to? What did you focus on? Was
your focus broad or narrow?

What were you thinking about? How did your thoughts relate to your emotional
experience?

What sort of imagery or fantasy did you see in your mind?

What was your motivation like? What did you want to do?

What sort of behavior did you engage in?

Contrasting the Threat and Safeness Responses

When we are under the influence of the threat system (for example,
caught up in anger):

We experience threatening emotions like anger and fear.

Our thoughts and attention are focused on sources of potential threats.

We have bodily sensations of arousal and tension, and when anger

lingers, we can experience pain, stomach upset, headaches, and sleep
disruption.

We see few options—our attention narrows, and we may feel trapped

or stuck on a track that we can’t get off of.

We have a hard time seeking aid from others, because we’re on the
defensive and may feel isolated.

When we are balanced and our safeness system is active:

We still experience negative emotions but are not overwhelmed by

 them.

We have a better, broader perspective and a sense of confidence about

being able to work with our threat and drive systems.

We can experience physical relaxation and are able to work with our
bodies to release tension.

We can think flexibly, seeing many options. We can consider

different ways of working with difficult situations and decide which is
best.

We feel connected with others and can access them for help or
support.

Conclusion
When we consider our emotions in terms of these three emotion-regulation
systems—the three circles—we can begin to understand anger from a broader
perspective. If we consider how these emotion-regulation systems evolved,
we can begin to understand why our emotions work the way they do. The
threat system works to protect us, so that we can survive in the face of
danger. The drive and resource acquisition system activates and rewards us
for pursuing resources, mates, and social status, and keeps us working so that
we can obtain what we need and fulfil our goals. Finally, the safeness system
shapes us to form close, nurturing relationships with our loved ones, helps us
to relax when threats are gone and the work is done, and works to balance the
effects of the other two systems.
Our problems with threat-related emotions like anger occur when the
systems become unbalanced. In chapter 3, we’ll look at how this can happen
and explore why some of us have difficulties with anger while other people
don’t seem to. We’ll explore the ways that we can differ from one another
that can impact our experience of anger. Understanding these differences can
help us let go of the shaming and blaming that often go with anger, freeing
ourselves up to deal with our anger more effectively—and with compassion.
 3

When Things Become Unbalanced

In the preceding chapter we explored the “three circles”: the threat and self-
protection system, the drive and resource acquisition system, and the safeness
system. We saw how these three emotion-regulation systems serve different
purposes and interact with one another to shape our experience of life and
how our emotional health depends on the balance between them. In this
chapter, we’ll look at a number of ways that the three circles can become
unbalanced, leading to problems with anger and difficulties in finding more
effective and positive ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving.

Evolved Brains in the Modern World

As we have seen, our threat system has a “better safe than sorry” default
setting that works to protect us and organizes our brains around defending
ourselves. The drive and resource acquisition system motivates us to obtain
the things we need to survive and prosper: to pursue mates, reproduce, and
acquire, accumulate, and defend our resources. In comparison, the safeness
system may seem to serve an important but often neglected role.

Chasing Imbalance
Research shows that we may be creating imbalances in our emotion systems
through the way we choose to go about our lives. Over time, rates of
depression and anxiety have increased in young people, and one explanation
for this shift seems to be that we are neglecting time to relax and engage in
1
meaningful relationships with others in favor of pursuing status and wealth.
Keep in mind that our feelings of safeness are commonly conveyed and
received when we experience connectedness with other people—when we
share and receive feelings of warmth and feel accepted and valued. Jean
Twenge and W. Keith Campbell wrote about this in The Narcissism
Epidemic: Living in the Age of Enlightenment, arguing that changes in mental
health and well-being are linked with reductions in community values and an
 2
increase in competitive, self-focused pursuits. It’s easy to get caught up in
chasing after more money, status, and material possessions, and there are
myriad cultural messages telling us that this is the way to be happy—what
Australian epidemiologist (someone who studies patterns of disease and
3
health in populations of people) Richard Eckersley calls “cultural fraud.” By
believing in these cultural messages and emphasizing achievement over
connectedness with those around us, we may be setting ourselves up for just
the sort of imbalances that can drive our anger problems.
One of the difficulties with the drive and resource acquisition system is
that it can be easily frustrated, which can send us right back into the threat
system. We can feel constantly under pressure to acquire and defend our
social position or to protect ourselves from criticism or rejection. It’s easy to
be worried about losing our jobs or about things going wrong for us,
particularly in troubling economic times. When our threat system or drive
system is running all the time, the safeness system, based on building and
experiencing good relationships with others, may not have much input into
the regulation of our emotions. Additionally, our culture has developed in
such a way that our threat and drive systems are activated by many
4
experiences that have little to do with our survival : we are constantly being
presented with potential sources of threat and advertisements that are
specifically designed to stimulate our desires. However, most of the threats
we face in modern life don’t physically endanger us. Many of us have also
learned to crave things that contribute little to our survival or happiness (a
fact my wife likes to remind me of when I’m eager to buy yet another electric
guitar). Many of our problems arise from having brains and bodies that seem
designed to deal with the world faced by our Neolithic ancestors. They seem
poorly adapted for life in the modern world, now filled with a much greater
variety of potential “threats”—threats that our old-brain threat systems are ill-
equipped to handle.

Why Me?
So far, we’ve explored where our anger comes from and how our threat and
drive systems can lead us to have difficulties with it. We may find ourselves
wondering why some of us have such difficulty managing our anger while
others don’t seem to. It makes sense to wonder: If it’s not my fault because
all our brains are constructed to turn on the light switch of anger under
certain conditions, why do some people struggle with anger while other
people don’t? Let’s explore some potential answers to this question.

Temperament and Our Early Interactions

We have explored how we have no choice or influence over many of the

factors that affect our emotional development and our abilities to regulate our
emotions. For example, you have no say over the characteristics you’re born
with, such as your temperament. If you’ve spent any time with babies, you’ll
know they can differ greatly in terms of how happy or irritable they tend to
be: some babies seem contented almost all of the time; others appear irritable,
fussy, and exhausting to be around.
Your temperament is colored by your genetic makeup, which influences
how you experience the world and how you interact with it. While the
scientific discussion of temperament is far from settled, it’s clear that we
differ from one another in many different ways that appear shortly after we
are born. Examples of differences include the ways our brains and bodies
work (our hormonal activity, heart rate, electrical activity in the brain), our
activity level (how active we tend to be), our level of self-control (how
patient or impulsive we tend to be), our ability to concentrate and focus, our
sensitivity and adaptability to changes in our environment, and the ways we
5
experience happiness and emotional distress, to name just a few.
Since babies have a difficult time telling us exactly how they feel, much
of what we know about them comes from observing their behavior. Some
babies get worked up over the slightest temperature change or frustration
over dropping a toy out of reach; other babies can seem fairly placid by
comparison. Some babies cry and fuss all the time, while others seem calm
and collected. Some seem impossible to comfort, while others snuggle in and
go right to sleep. Some are picky eaters, while others happily gobble down
anything placed in their mouths.
These traits immediately begin to shape the environments in which we are
raised. Imagine two babies, one fitting the “fussy” descriptions above and the
other fitting the “good-tempered” descriptions. Consider how the behavior of
these babies, acting out their given temperaments, impacts the world around
them. Which baby would be more likely to receive the most coddling and
nurturing, the loving contact that will stimulate their safeness systems and
help them learn that the world is a safe place and that their needs will be met?
Which would be more likely to be treated harshly, to have adults raise their
voices to them, set them down abruptly, ignore them, or otherwise activate
and shape their threat systems to become even more sensitive? Even during
the earliest moments in our lives, one set of factors that we have no control
over (our genetic makeup and related temperament) interacts with other
factors that we have no control over (how our caretakers react to us) to shape
the experiences of our lives, and even the ways that our infant brains develop.

Exercise 3.1: Exploring Individual Differences

Consider your own temperament and personality. Remembering that you don’t choose
many aspects of how you respond to the world, consider the following questions:

Are you easygoing or easily frustrated? What feelings emerge in you when things
don’t go your way?

Do you like it when there are many things going on at once, or are you easily
overwhelmed, preferring quiet time to yourself?

Do you like being around lots of people? Or do you prefer being with just a few close
friends?

Do you like to try out new experiences (for example, new dishes at a restaurant), or
do you prefer to stick with what you’re familiar with?

Would you say that you tend to be set in your way of thinking, or are you flexible,
thinking “outside the box”?

Do you like surprises, or do you prefer things to be stable and predictable?

These are just a few of the many ways that we tend to differ. By being familiar with your
own characteristics, tendencies, and preferences, you can be more aware of your
comfort zones and of situations that may tend to trigger your threat systems (and your
anger).
 The playing field is not level. Some of us are born with certain
temperaments that are more likely to have difficulty handling emotions like
anger, so we have fewer opportunities to acquire the skills and insights for
handling them. This doesn’t excuse us from needing to manage our emotions,
by the way; it just means we’ll probably need to put more purposeful effort
into doing so (for example, by reading this book). This is because we may not
have had as many opportunities as others to come by these skills naturally or
to acquire them by observing others. Our ability to regulate our emotions
largely develops through our relationships with others, in particular our
caretakers. This second factor, our relationships with our caretakers, merits
its own section.

Attachment and Emotion Regulation

Your early relationships are incredibly important in shaping your ability

6
to regulate emotions such as anger. Research shows that the relationships we
have with our primary caregivers have huge effects on our development,
particularly very early in our lives. These interactions stimulate our brains
when we are still only babies, when our young brains are growing and
developing at a phenomenally quick rate. An oft-repeated phrase in
neuroscience circles is “cells that fire together, wire together.” When we’re
stimulated in various ways (for example, being held and stroked by our
mothers), the cells in our brains fire together in particular patterns and form
connections that are strengthened every time the pattern is activated. What
this means is that the more often a particular pattern of brain cells is
activated, the easier it is for that pattern to be activated in the future. The
pattern becomes more “worn in,” sort of like a path in the woods that we
have walked on over and over. Our experiences, in combination with our
genetic tendencies, create paths of least resistance in our brains, shaping our
future reactions and perceptions of the world. In babies, this effect is
magnified by the fact that the basic organization of their brains is still being
shaped—the interconnections between cells in a baby’s brain are growing
rapidly in response to stimulation coming in from the outside world. This
stimulation (for example, from being nurtured) impacts the development of
key structures of the brain itself. One area of the brain that is influenced by
the affection and caring we receive as infants is the frontal cortex, which is
where we regulate the powerful emotions that arise from our old brains. It
also influences our ability to experience empathy—to understand our own
7, 8
emotions and the emotions of others.
For now, let’s imagine what is happening in a baby’s brain when her
mother is playing with her, perhaps making kind or funny facial expressions
that cause the baby to smile back or giggle. This baby’s brain is buzzing with
the activity of positive emotion, and pathways are lighting up that reflect this
experience and feelings of connectedness with her mother. Next, let’s
imagine that the baby is distressed and that her mother picks her up, strokes
her gently, and speaks softly to her—the baby begins to calm down. By
comforting and soothing her, the mother stimulates the child’s safeness
system, which begins to turn down the volume of her threat response. Over
time, the child will begin to form soothing mental representations of herself
and her mother as she is being cared for. She’ll also create representations of
help being available when she needs it. Both of these forms of representation
will be available to call upon when she needs to soothe herself. Research
increasingly shows that our brains are shaped and changed by the ways that
9
our parents care for and soothe us—or by the ways that they don’t.
Let’s consider another scenario. Imagine a depressed or irritable mother
who has a great deal of stress in her life and very little support. Imagine that
she doesn’t have much energy or interest in stimulating joyful interactions
between herself and her baby, perhaps because she’s exhausted after working
several double shifts to support their small family. Instead, she just wants a
moment of peace. When this mother hears her baby’s cry, she feels
overwhelmed and responds with frustration and irritation. We can imagine
that when her baby is distressed, instead of comforting him, this mother
might leave him alone or pick him up roughly. How might this baby’s brain
be stimulated in ways that are very different from the brain of the baby girl
we discussed previously, and what was she gaining that he might miss out
on? While she learned that comfort would be there when she needed it, he
learned that his cries would be ignored or met with harshness. While she
learned that she could call upon others to help soothe her when she’s upset,
he learned that no such help would be available. Her brain was stimulated by
the action of another person appropriately responding to her emotional
experience. He gained no such appropriate response and may have felt
punished for displaying his emotions at all. If we imagine the stories of these
children’s lives playing out over hundreds or thousands of similar
interactions, we can see how their brains and their emotional development
could be shaped in very different ways—ways for which each child is
entirely blameless.
The purpose of observing these differences in care and responsiveness
isn’t to blame or credit caregivers, who have also been shaped by their own
experiences and environments. We can understand the stress the second
mother faces—that it might make it almost impossible to give her son the
nurturing he needs and that, in fact, she needs such nurturing herself. We can
imagine how the differences in these parents’ own backgrounds shaped their
ability to connect with their children. Evidence shows that our own
attachment histories (and how we make sense of them in our minds) can
profoundly affect our ability to form nurturing, secure attachments with our
10
own children.
Secure-attachment relationships involve caretakers who give us warm,
loving, safe, and predictable environments and who engage us in ways that
mirror our own emotional responses. This sort of environment gives our
developing brains exactly what they need and sets the stage for us to be able
to handle difficult emotions in the future. Alternatively, when our early
relationships involve caretakers who are disconnected, overreactive,
underreactive, inconsistent or scary, it can affect the developing brain’s
capacity to help us regulate our emotions, potentially impairing our ability to
form healthy connections with others and to nurture our own children. Such
an environment can tune our threat systems so that they are almost always on,
and it can feel as if we are alone and vulnerable in a scary world, with no
reliable source of safety or help. There are a number of excellent books
devoted to this subject, and I have listed some of them in the appendix.
Next, there are some questions designed to help you explore your own
relationship history. Doing this may help you begin to understand yourself
better and understand a bit about the development of your anger; however, it
may also stir up painful feelings. If you find that the exercise is too difficult
right now, feel free to skip it and return to it later, after we’ve covered some
skills for working with difficult emotions. Sometimes, when we start digging
into our pasts, we uncover painful memories that can cause us great distress.
If this is the case for you, I’d like to encourage you to get support and
perhaps to even think about talking with a therapist. We all need help
sometimes, and knowing when to get it is an important part of working with
our emotions.

Exercise 3.2: Exploring Attachment

Consider your memories of your early relationships with your caretakers. How might
they have shaped your experience of life?

Whom did you feel close to while you were growing up?

What did you do when you were upset? Whom could you turn to?

Did your parents or caretakers help you to feel safe? Were they able to help you calm
down when you were upset?

Do you recall your parents or caretakers getting angry? What was it like when they
were angry? How did you feel at those times?

Did you have a consistent group of caretakers? Did the same people care for you
throughout your childhood, or were there changes in terms of the people who cared
for you?

How do you think that your experiences with your parents or caretakers may have
affected your adult personality?

If you plan on having children, how would you describe the sort of relationship you’d
like to have with them?

If You Didn’t Get What You Needed

As we’ve seen, anger is a threat response that has evolved to protect us and
that can take control when we feel as if we are in danger. To examine and
uncover the story behind your anger might be difficult and painful because
you may have grown up in environments where you rarely felt safe. You may
even have been abused or traumatized. You may have had caretakers who
weren’t able to handle their own anger, or who couldn’t respond to you in
ways that would help you feel safe, cared for, and valued. You may have
learned to use anger as a response to difficulty because that was how your
caretakers related to you. Likewise, you may have learned to push others
away in an effort to feel safe because there were no other options available
and no one else there to protect you emotionally. You needed a way to
protect yourself, and you found one: anger. You may feel a lot of shame
about different parts of your life, and you may find yourself using anger to
cover up this feeling of shame.
This realization can be heartbreaking. But if you can allow yourself to
experience the pain of the heartbreak, you may be able to see your anger as a
cry for help from the vulnerable part of you that desperately needs to feel
safe, secure, and valued. You’re going to learn how to help yourself feel safe,
to soothe your threat system, and to replace your angry, knee-jerk responses
to threat with compassionate responses that will help you to protect yourself,
have good relationships, and lead a happy life. This is hard work, and I want
you to know that my heart goes out to you. I respect the courage you’re
showing in doing this and the effort it involves. You are worthy of this effort.
You are worthy of compassion.

Learning To Be Angry
Now let’s look at three different types of learning.

Classical Conditioning

The human brain is a learning machine. As we go through our lives, our

brains are constantly linking different things together so that we learn to
associate different feelings with different situations, different behavior with
different perceptions we have. When you hear chirping from above, you
know it’s a bird. When you look out the window and see snow or rain, you
know to grab a jacket on your way out the door. Our brains are forming these
sorts of connections all the time; it’s the way they make sense of the world so
that we can function more efficiently in our lives. It’s also the way our
emotional lives work.
 We are very good at learning to associate particular sounds, sights,
smells, and feelings with emotional reactions. For example, a dog isn’t born
afraid of rolled-up newspapers. But if it’s been hit with one a few times, it
rapidly learns to fear them. Many things naturally provoke responses in us.
Seeing or smelling food we enjoy causes us to salivate. Seeing attractive
people can cause us to feel aroused. We naturally experience fear of, and
anxiety about, things that can harm us or threaten our social standing. And we
naturally experience anger when we’re faced with having our progress
blocked, when we’re challenged or perceive that we’re being attacked. When
these experiences are paired with people, places, and situations, our brains
link them together. When this happens, those previously neutral people,
places, and situations can acquire the power to provoke reactions in us—
arousal, anxiety, anger, and so on. This process is called classical
conditioning, and when it involves our threat system, it is a very efficient and
powerful form of learning.
With classical conditioning, our brains connect innocent aspects of our
experience—a song (even if it’s merely playing in the background), a phrase,
or an internal experience—with the emotions we feel at the time (terror,
anger, heartbreak). Then, the next time we come in contact with the song,
phrase, or experience, those same emotions come rushing forth. More often
than not, this type of learning isn’t conscious: we aren’t aware that we’re
learning associations between things. But whether we’re aware of them or
not, these connections are constantly being stored in our brains, shaping the
way we understand the world, and ready to be activated by our future
experience. If the same story gets written into the brain many times, it can be
pretty hard to erase it or to change it’s meaning.
This form of emotional learning can create real difficulties in our
relationships. For example, imagine that you are in a relationship that is
undergoing conflict and unsettling interactions—there will be periods of
difficulty in any long-term human relationship. The problem comes when the
two people involved have lots of negative interactions and very few positive
ones. We can think of it as a scale, with positive interactions on one side and
negative interactions on the other. When the relationship scale is consistently
tipped in the negative direction, over time we learn to associate the other
person with the negative emotions we feel during our conflicts. So, if you
have lots of angry interactions with your partner or with your child, your
brain learns to associate that person with the experience of anger. It’s as if
your old brain (in particular, the amygdala) puts a big sign on that other
person’s forehead that says, “Threat!” What’s more, we’re generally not
aware that this is happening or that it’s already happened. So when you next
see that person, even if it’s on an otherwise good day without any reasons to
have conflict with him, you can find yourself becoming angry.
Imagine that you have a thirteen-year-old son who has been acting out at
school and has become belligerent when you’ve tried to deal with the
situation—repeatedly. You’ve had lots of conflict with him recently, and he’s
begun to avoid you (as adolescents sometimes do avoid us), so you haven’t
interacted with him outside of the arguments. Imagine next that he comes
home one day, walks in the door, and says, “(Mom or Dad), I need to talk
with you about something.” Now, he could be about to talk with you about
anything, but how do you feel? What thoughts spring to mind? For many of
us, it would be easy to react automatically with anger, anticipating yet
another problem and perhaps sharply saying something like, “What is it
now?” You can imagine that the interaction would go downhill from there.
So, when you’ve had lots of negative interactions with another person and
very few positive ones, it can train your brain in a certain way—putting into
motion a cycle that sets you up for more difficulties. You learn to associate
that person with the angry conflicts, so that when you see him (or some other
aspect of your experience that you’ve come to associate with conflict), your
amygdala begins to activate your body’s threat response. Then, you start to
feel angry, even when there’s nothing to be angry about. And as your new
brain observes what is happening in your body, it looks for ways to explain
what’s going on. You start looking for reasons that will justify your anger—
and when you’ve been having conflict with another person, you can usually
find those reasons. The result? Yet another conflict, manufactured out of thin
air, which serves to strengthen the connection your brain has learned between
the other person and your anger. Over time, your son can become “that kid
who’s always causing problems” in your mind (even as you become “the
overbearing parent who’s always mad at me” in his mind). It can be a hard
cycle to break.
This is how our brains work. When we are in a relationship with
someone, she will learn to associate us with certain emotions, just as we will
learn to do with her. The only question is, what emotions will she associate
us with? As a parent, partner, friend, or colleague, do you want to stimulate
the other person’s threat system, or would you rather she learn to associate
you with feelings of safeness, acceptance, and kindness? Which do you think
gives you more power to affect that person’s life in positive ways? Which do
you think will bring about the sort of relationship that is more likely to
stimulate your own safeness system?

Modeling and Observational Learning

There are other types of learning that can occur without our being aware
of it. If we grow up in a situation where we see anger in action (for example,
with a parent who yells, screams, or becomes aggressive), we may learn to
respond in similar ways. Many of us intuitively know this, as we observe
ourselves acting out the same irritating behaviors our parents used to do (the
very things that drove us crazy when we were growing up!). This is called
11
modeling, observational learning, or social learning.
We learn by observing others, and this is particularly true when we’re
observing our caretakers, whom we look to as we attempt to discover how to
interact with the world. If our caretakers displayed lots of impulsive anger,
became easily frustrated, or were quick to become verbally or physically
aggressive—well, it’s easy for us to learn these behaviors too (and then to
pass them on to our own children). We can learn to respond with anger
simply by observing others doing so—we don’t even have to be involved in
the situation.
This is a common experience for people who have difficulties with anger.
Time and time again, I’ve listened to clients describe their parents’ anger:
yelling, screaming, hitting, and throwing things. In the next breath, these
same clients would look down to the ground as they described doing the same
things themselves. If you’re a parent, this can lead to a new problem: feeling
anxious about losing control and teaching your own children the angry
behaviors that you wish you’d never learned from your own parents. In one
of our anger management groups, the majority of men reported that the most
common criticism they’d received from their partners about their parenting
wasn’t about their anger or harshness—it was about their unwillingness to
discipline their children. Every single one of them said that they had fears of
disciplining their kids because they were afraid of teaching them the wrong
lessons. One man even said that he had decided to never have children: “I
know I’d just screw them up.”
In fact, this concern was the basis of my desire to work with my own
anger. I wanted to become the sort of person I hoped my child would grow up
to be—to use the power of modeling to teach my son things that would help
him as he makes his way through life rather than hinder him. We didn’t get to
choose the lessons our parents taught us, but we do have a choice about what
we teach our own children (and everyone else we come into contact with in
our lives, as we all learn through our interactions with one another). This is a
good reason to take responsibility for your anger; just as you weren’t able to
choose who your caretakers were, your children usually won’t get to choose
their caretakers, either.

Learning Anger through Consequences: Reinforcement and Punishment

Another reason that we may learn problematic anger behaviors is that

sometimes, in the short run, they work. If you sock the bully in the nose,
sometimes he leaves you alone. If you scream at your fussy child, she
sometimes becomes quiet. If you are aggressive toward critical colleagues,
they’ll sometimes back off. As children, we may find ourselves being praised
for lashing out by parents who have problems with anger themselves (“Oh,
he’s all boy!”; “You’re just like your mother!”). When we do something that
seems to work, even if it’s just in the short term (and despite the problems in
the long term), we will naturally tend to repeat the strategy. This is how
reinforcement works—behaviors that are followed by a reward will tend to be
repeated.
On the other hand, if your expression of anger is met with negative
consequences, you may learn to fear becoming angry. Behavioral
psychologist C. B. Ferster noted that if children are consistently punished for
being angry, they will learn to suppress angry behaviors rather than learn to
12
express anger in appropriate ways. In these cases, the child can learn to
associate the internal experience of anger (and the urge to act on it) with the
expectation of punishment and anxiety about being punished. Over time,
feelings of anger may automatically trigger anxiety and various behaviors the
child develops to cover up her anger (like fingernail-chewing or just shutting
down). When we’re caught in a cycle like this, we can end up being passive,
easily overwhelmed, and unable to behave assertively and stick up for
 13
ourselves when we need to.
Whether we learn to cope by acting out our anger or by locking it away,
over time these responses can become habitual, especially if they are the only
coping strategies we have. It’s like the old saying, “If all you have is a
hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” We keep trying to use that
hammer because it feels like it should work. But in the long term, these
habitual strategies can keep us from learning to deal with our feelings. We
don’t choose to use ineffective strategies; it’s simply that we’re using the
only ones we know. We cling to them because, sometimes, they seem to
work. But it’s time now to learn new strategies that work better.

Exercise 3.3: Exploring Anger and Learning

Consider what you learned about anger from interacting with your caretakers and from
your own experience as you were growing up.

What did you learn about anger from your caretakers?

What did you learn about when you should become angry?

How did you learn to behave when you are angry? How do you interact with others
when you are angry?

How do you feel after your anger subsides? What do you do when the situation is
over?

How has your anger worked well for you in the past? How did it benefit you?

How has your anger not worked for you? What negative consequences have you
faced because of it?

We can begin to see how problems can arise from difficult relationship
experiences with our caretakers combined with a learning history that shapes
us to feel anger easily and to express it in unhelpful ways. Wade was one of
the participants in our very first compassion-focused anger-management
group at the prison. He described his home life as being characterized by the
“beating of the day,” which was doled out for any reason or for no reason at
all. He grew up watching his father beat his mother and his siblings, and
Wade was often beaten himself. He was haunted and shamed by the fact that
he had been helpless to stop it. As you might suspect, Wade didn’t learn how
to regulate his emotions, and his threat system was poised on a hair trigger.
As he grew up, he began to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation,
violently attacking others just as he had experienced his father doing so many
times. To Wade, aggression sprang forth automatically—it didn’t even feel as
if he had a choice.
Wade’s anger ruled his life, and his prison convictions had all been for
violent offenses. At first he was reluctant to change, as his reputation for
violence meant that people left him alone. In this way his aggressive anger
seemed to work for him, at least in the prison environment. Wade ultimately
came to our group because he hoped to have a better life, to be a better father.
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison, and he didn’t want to
teach those lessons to his children. I remember Wade in the first session,
looking at me as if he thought I was crazy as I talked about compassion as a
way to work with anger. Now, Wade talks about compassion as a strength
and has made great changes in the way he is seen by others, in the way he
sees himself, and in the ways he handles his anger. We’ll learn a bit more
about Wade’s story later in the book.

Implicit Memory and the Construction of “Reality”

The automatic way that Wade’s anger seemed to take control of him isn’t
uncommon. Once all of the learning has taken place, the way it is stored in
our brains helps to shape the way we perceive and interact with the world.
This learning is largely stored as “implicit” memory. Next I’ll briefly define
that term and it’s opposite: “explicit” memory.
First, let’s look at explicit memory, which refers to memories of facts,
events, and ourselves. Also called “narrative” memory, recalling explicit
memories is something we’re aware of doing, and we can recount what it is
that we’ve remembered. When you say, “I remember ,” whatever comes after
the word “remember” is an example of explicit memory. You can remember
it and describe it, and you are aware that what you’re dealing with is a
memory.
 Implicit memory is a bit more difficult to describe. It involves a range of
experiences and associations that are stored in the brain, by the brain, so that
we can make sense of the world. Implicit memory includes things like the
emotional reactions and bodily responses that we learn (and which we
discussed a bit in the section on classical conditioning). When we sense the
same smell as the food we got sick on two weeks ago and then feel a bit
nauseated, that’s implicit memory. When we play a chord we’ve practiced on
guitar or piano and our fingers go straight to all the right places, that’s
implicit memory. When we see the person we argued with yesterday walk by
in the hall and our stomachs tense up, that’s implicit memory. All of the
examples we used in the classical conditioning section play out in terms of
implicit memory.
Unlike explicit memory, which we use when we intentionally remember
something, with implicit memory there is no sensation that we are recalling
anything—intentionally or not. It’s like when you ride a bike: you don’t have
the sense that you’re remembering how to ride (although that’s just what our
muscles are doing); you just have the experience of riding. When you get on
the bike, the parts of your brain that are associated with bikes are activated,
and this includes your memory of how to ride. So you climb on the bike and
take off, never aware that your ability to do so is an experience that you’ve
pulled up out of your implicit memory. When you remember how to kick a
football, sew a particular type of stitch, or type on a computer, you are
experiencing implicit memory. However, you usually don’t experience it as
14
remembering—you’re just doing whatever it is that you’re doing.
It’s the same way with emotional learning. When you smell the fragrance
that your first love used to wear, you may experience a surge of emotions
(depending on how things went in that relationship!). Your experience is one
of feeling, but it’s driven by your implicit memory—the connections your
brain has laid down between your emotions and your sensory experiences.
When you’re presented with one piece of the puzzle, your brain naturally
(and without your awareness) brings up the others. Sometimes you may also
have conscious (explicit) awareness when this is happening, as in “I know I
feel sad when I hear that song, because I remember hearing it on the radio the
night we broke up.” Often, however, you just experience it as “what I’m
feeling right now” without understanding that much of what you are
experiencing right now is actually an echo of your previous experience.
 When I first really thought about what this meant, it blew me away. We
tend to think that what we are experiencing right now—the information
coming in through our senses—is reality. But actually, our sensory
experience is just one part of what makes up our perception of the present
moment. Our experience of reality at any moment in time is actually a
combination of information coming in from our senses and information
coming down from our implicit memories of similar situations in the past.
Then this combination is selectively filtered and pieced together by those
parts of our brains that deal with sense and emotion. Emotional memories
laid down in the past can color our experience of the current moment and
organize our minds in certain ways as we participate in the present.
Our implicit memory influences how we feel in response to the present,
what aspects of the environment we attend to, and how we expect things to
go—all of which helps to shape how we behave. Like I said, it’s similar to a
puzzle that our brains are trying frantically to put together by grabbing all the
pieces that seem to fit in order to create a “reality” that makes sense to us.
However, sometimes they force together pieces that don’t really fit, and this
can create interesting problems when combined with our sensitive threat
systems. People and situations we’ve got no real reason to be angry with can
trigger our threat response, because they have characteristics that our brains
have connected with anger in the past—they may look, speak, or otherwise
remind us of someone who treated us badly earlier in our lives, for example.
In the moment we encounter them or interact with them, we can feel anger or
irritation toward them. The emotion arises with our having little awareness
that the anger has little to do with these people or the situation and everything
to do with our pasts. We generally can’t prevent this from happening, as it’s
just how our brains work. But once we’re aware that it is happening (and it
happens a lot), we can have some compassion for the others in the situation.
It’s not their fault that their behavior is stirring up all this learning from our
past (even if they are being thoughtless or rude). We can also have some
compassion for ourselves as well, reminding ourselves that it isn’t our fault
that our brains work like this, either. This awareness also gives us something
else: an opportunity. If we can notice our shifts in mood and become aware
that our tricky brains have allowed our threat systems to get rolling, we can
do something about it.

Triggers
This chapter has two purposes. The first is to help you begin to understand
why you might have difficulties with anger when other people don’t seem to.
This understanding will come as you learn more about your attachment
history, explore how you might have learned anger through your experiences,
and recognize how this learning can play out in the present in the form of
implicit memory. It’s worth noting that you probably didn’t choose any of
these factors that contribute to your anger; but chosen or not, it’s our job to
deal with the anger and how it plays out in our lives. That’s the second
purpose—to help you begin developing awareness of the factors that cause
your anger so that you can take on the job of working with it. Part of doing
this is getting to know what may “trigger” your anger—what things may push
your buttons or provoke you. You’ve learned to respond to these triggers with
anger, and as you go through this book, you’ll be learning alternate ways to
respond to them that don’t have the negative consequences that anger does.
Let’s take a moment to consider the things that trigger your anger.

Exercise 3.4: Exploring Anger Triggers

Think about the times when people or situations push your buttons. What sorts of things
trigger your anger?

When do you tend to get angry in your dealings with other people?

What sorts of situations tend to trigger your anger?

Fault and Responsibility

Several times in this book so far, I’ve stated that it is not your fault that you
struggle with anger. If you’re like me, you may have a hard time accepting
this. I remember the first compassion focused therapy training I attended,
when I heard Paul Gilbert talk about how many of our troublesome emotional
reactions weren’t our fault. I got a bit of a knot in my stomach, and I
remember thinking, Well, perhaps this is just a small part of the model…I can
overlook this bit and take away the good stuff. But over the course of the
three-day training, he kept saying it over and over. As we continued through
the training, I began to realize that this “It’s not your fault” business wasn’t
just an aside; it was a core part of the Compassionate-Mind model and is a
core part of the therapy model that flows from it (CFT).
Initially, I didn’t like it. I mean, I’m not as familiar with how things work
in the rest of the world, but I’m American, and if there is one thing we
Americans are good at, it’s assigning blame. “Not my fault? Well, whose
fault is it? Because it’s got to be somebody’s fault!” Sadly for people in other
parts of the world, it isn’t just Americans who do this. In Western culture at
least, we seem to be very good at assigning blame and shaming ourselves and
other people, and this seems especially true with anger. It seems we are either
blaming those who provoke our anger or shaming ourselves for having it. As
I listened to Paul say, “It’s not your fault,” over and over, our tendency for
blaming made sense to me. Again, it’s got to be somebody’s fault that we get
angry, doesn’t it?
Well, not so much. After giving it some thought and looking at the ways
that our anger works, I truly believe that our anger really isn’t our fault.
Neither is it the fault of whoever or whatever provoked it. Yes, I’m a convert,
and I’ll try to explain the reasons why. What we mean when we say, “It’s not
your fault,” is “It’s not helpful to blame and shame yourself for things you
didn’t choose or for processes you didn’t design.” There are many factors that
led to the way we experience and express our anger, very few of which were
chosen by us or were under our control. I would argue that even the
conscious decisions we make and the behaviors that we purposefully engage
in when angry are not a sign of some fundamental flaw in us. As I discussed a
bit earlier, when we’re angry, even our decision-making and reasoning
abilities can be impaired by our threat system as it narrows our vision and
directs our thoughts in the attempt to protect us from real or imagined
dangers.
I’m betting that some of you may feel a bit doubtful and resistant right
now, and that a few others might be thinking, This is all well and good, but…
You may find yourself wanting to argue against the idea that you’re not to
blame. You might even be getting a bit, well, angry. Perhaps that resistant
feeling is based on the observation that, although you didn’t choose your
brain, your birth, your temperament, your childhood situation, or your
caretakers, in fact you are reading this book because in your life, you’ve
made some tragic choices. You’ve perhaps made choices that have harmed
others and that have caused suffering for yourself and those you care about.
But let me just say again: when we are fully in the grips of emotions like
anger, when our threat systems have taken complete control of us, we tend to
make bad choices. Our threat systems are good at producing misguided but
powerful urges to protect ourselves, leading to flawed decisions—decisions
made under conditions of significantly narrowed attention and a limited
ability to think flexibly and solve problems. This is not an excuse. It is an
observation.
This may be a difficult pill to swallow if you’ve learned other ways of
relating to anger. Don’t worry—I’m not letting you off the hook. There is a
very important reason for the approach we’re taking here. While it may seem
strange to consider, the fact remains: if we stop shaming ourselves for
experiencing anger, it frees us up to take responsibility for it. When we tell
ourselves that our anger is somehow a reflection of something bad in us, we
have two types of problems. We have the anger itself, but we also have the
way the anger makes us feel about ourselves. When faced with this, it’s easy
to resort to blaming others; shaming ourselves; or ignoring, justifying, or
rationalizing our anger. None of these reactions, driven by our deep fears
about what our anger means about us, is helpful. In fact, shaming ourselves
keeps us from working with our emotions in productive ways, because it
keeps us focused on maintaining our self-image instead of working with the
anger more effectively. When we stop beating ourselves up or pointing
fingers, we will be better able to see clearly what needs to be done to improve
our lives, and to do it.
I’m not saying that we aren’t responsible for the decisions we’ve made
when we’re angry. Of course we are. If I’m careless and knock a cup of
coffee all over my keyboard, which then causes my computer to blow up, it’s
only me that did that and it’s my job to fix it. But blaming and shaming
myself, getting angry, beating myself up, and then slamming about the house
upsetting everybody else—these things just make the situation worse.
Instead, we can learn to recognize what is happening, stay as calm as we can
even though we’re very frustrated, and try to be sympathetic to the difficulty.
This then allows us to do the most important things—repair the damage
we’ve done and learn to pay more attention next time. That is what I mean by
“taking responsibility”—recognizing that our emotions can be very strongly
aroused and learning how to work with them rather than letting them control
us. So when I say that your anger isn’t your fault, I’m not saying that it
doesn’t matter what you do. Rather, it’s precisely because of all these factors
you don’t choose that you must work hard to understand yourself and take
control of those things that you can change. As you will see, compassion
creates the conditions for a profound sense of responsibility that arises
naturally and is freely chosen, rather than being assigned or born of blame.
It also isn’t particularly useful to get into a debate about things like fault
or blame over the bad choices that we’ve made. The fact is that we’ve made
them, and in this moment, we now have other choices to make. Are we going
to devote our lives to the shame of having done those things or to blaming
others for our bad choices? Are we going to endlessly debate whether or not
those choices make us bad people? Or can we consider another choice, a
choice to cultivate compassion toward the situation and everyone in it—
toward ourselves, caught in the grip of an out-of-control threat response that
we were unprepared to handle, and toward all those others who have
experienced harm and emotional pain as a result of the situation and our
anger? Can we allow ourselves to experience sorrow over the harm we’ve
done and to channel that sorrow into making our best efforts to not do it
again? Can we choose to work honestly, directly, and compassionately with
our minds to change the habits and balance the emotions that led to those
poor choices? Can we make better choices and commit ourselves to
becoming the sort of people we want to be?
If you thought before you started reading this book that compassion is
about something weak, soft, or fluffy—that it just means being nice all of the
time—I hope you’ll soon recognize that this isn’t the case. Compassion
involves making the difficult choices needed to take control of your mind and
having the willingness to work directly with the thoughts and emotions that
scare you the most. This takes determination, and it takes strength.

Conclusion
So far in reading this book, you’ve covered a fair bit of ground. You’ve
explored anger, been introduced to a model of how your emotion-regulation
systems work and interact, and explored a number of reasons why you’ve
ended up having difficulties with anger. Hopefully, understanding these
things can help you begin to overcome the emotional hurdles—the shame,
self-criticism, and related avoidance—that may have hampered your previous
attempts to work with your anger. You’ve also begun to look really closely at
your anger so that you can understand where it comes from and the things
that trigger it.
Going forward, you’re going to learn a new way of organizing your mind.
I will introduce ways that will help you work with the safeness system to
restore balance to your emotions, so that your life isn’t defined by anger or
controlled by your threat system or your drive system. You’ll learn to
cultivate compassion for yourself and for others, organize your mind in ways
that are strong enough to handle your difficulties, and put your focus squarely
on making life better for yourself and for those you care about. You’ll learn
skills for cultivating this compassionate perspective that will help you
become a peacemaker—in your own life and in the world.
 4

The Case for Compassion

The CFT approach to working with anger involves learning to organize our
minds in different ways by developing what we call a “compassionate mind.”
In this chapter, we’ll explore the meaning of “compassion” and discuss the
mental qualities that we’ll be developing as we learn to work with our anger.

The Heart of Compassion

As the Dalai Lama frequently points out, no one wants to suffer—we all just
1
want to be happy. So far, we’ve spent a good bit of time exploring how our
anger can control us and that, despite our best efforts, we often find ourselves
doing things that don’t lead to happiness and actually produce the very
suffering that we would prefer to avoid. But even these things we and others
do—the ridiculous things, the irritating things, the maddening things—these
are all done in the attempt to be happy or to avoid suffering.
Once we understand this, we can begin to see ourselves and other people
differently. Thinking and meditating on this realization has long been a
pathway to the development of compassion. Like it or not (and we usually
don’t like it), the normal course of a human life will involve tremendous
suffering at various points: we will all become ill; we will all die; we will all
lose people we love; most of us will have our hearts broken—if not once,
then several times; we will lose jobs; we will make mistakes that may have
tragic consequences; and we will be faced with the reality that we all too
often fall short of our expectations for ourselves. And we have to struggle
with all of these challenges while equipped with tricky and often difficult
human brains.
No one wakes up and decides, I’m going to be an angry, miserable
person today. But often, we do things in the heat of anger and other emotions
that cause us (and those around us) to be miserable. The key is to look upon
our actions through the eyes of compassion, so that we can understand why
we have behaved in such a way. Nevertheless, it can be hard to feel
compassion for angry people—including ourselves!
One of my clients, Chris, was an adolescent referred for therapy because
he had been fighting with others and had become hostile toward his
caretakers, peers, and teachers. Chris had a hair-trigger temper, and he would
often fly off the handle with little or no provocation. He was difficult to be
around, as he became defensive and agitated so quickly that it was often
impossible to have much of a conversation with him, even about random,
neutral topics. He intentionally did things to irritate others, was a master at
getting under your skin, and would frequently act aggressively. In short, he
was easy to dislike. However, as I got to know Chris and established some
trust with him (which took a while), I began to understand a few things about
him. He lived with his grandparents because his parents had abused him and
then ultimately abandoned him. Despite this, he was very protective of his
parents and would speak no ill word against them. He often said that other
people were not to be trusted and would hurt you if given the chance. He
expressed deep fears of being abandoned, even as he pushed others away
with his hostile and irritating behaviors (because, if you didn’t trust people,
they couldn’t disappoint you). His anger was unpredictable and seemed to hit
him out of the blue—once it kicked in, Chris felt out of control. He tried to
turn this to his advantage, though. He took pride in his ability to fight well
and said to me that it was the only thing he was good at. He was proud to
consider himself one of the kids whom no one wanted to mess with.
When I took a closer look at Chris through the eyes of compassion, I
could see how his behavior, however misguided, emerged from the
combination of his background, his biological response to perceived threats,
and the desire to protect himself, pursue happiness, and minimize suffering in
his life. We also can see that the ways he attempted to protect himself
actually created more suffering for him by driving away those people who
might have been able to care for him and creating obstacles at home and at
school.
It’s easy to dismiss someone like Chris as a bully or a jerk—too easy. The
difficult thing to do is to stop seeing Chris as “that irritating kid” and begin
seeing him as a valuable human being who learned to cope with the very
difficult life he had been born into (which was not the life that he or any of us
would have chosen). The coping strategies he learned to protect himself came
at the cost of his happiness. My role as a therapist was to help him learn to
cope with his difficult life and his angry emotions in ways that wouldn’t
alienate him from everyone around him—ways that would work better for
him and that might allow him to find happiness and contentment.
As challenging as it can be to feel compassion for others who are pushing
our buttons and making us angry, it can be even more difficult to extend it to
ourselves. This is particularly true when we see ourselves doing things that
are harmful to our own lives and to people we care about. It’s difficult to face
and accept that we’ve caused such harm, but we must do this if we want to
change. This is where compassion comes in—it helps us to have the courage
to face those things in our lives that are most painful and to be kinder to
ourselves as we go through the process of change. Compassion, as we’ve
seen, isn’t pink and fluffy. It isn’t about just being sweet and nice all the
time. It involves running into the fire to save the child, not running away and
pretending that danger doesn’t exist. In the case of this book, the fire is our
anger, and the child is us.

So What Exactly Is Compassion?

The word compassion comes from a combination of two root words: com,
2
meaning “together” and pati, meaning “to suffer.” Common definitions of
compassion include two components, each of which is crucial. The first part
is that compassion involves having sensitivity to suffering—noticing it and
experiencing an emotional reaction when we are exposed to it. I like to define
compassion as being moved by suffering and being motivated to help. I like
the term “moved” because it evokes a sense of being personally affected—we
are touched by the suffering; it affects us in a way that creates an emotional
connection to the being that suffers (even when that being is me).
This brings us to the second component of compassion, which is the kind
motivation to help. When we feel compassionate, we don’t just passively
observe someone as they suffer; rather, we want to do something about it.
Compassion, like anger, directs us toward the difficulty rather than away
from it. With anger, the desire is to overcome, destroy, or punish. With
compassion, we are sensitive to suffering and have a corresponding desire to
be kind and understanding, and to somehow make things better—to help, or
at least not to harm.
If compassion only involved sensitivity to suffering, it might have a lot in
common with depression. If all we had was an emotional connection with
suffering without the inspiring motivation to help, we could find ourselves
wallowing in the negativity of the world and overwhelmed by the difficulties
of life. That wouldn’t be particularly helpful. To use a real-life example, this
might be like swimming in the pain of a terrible breakup and refusing to ever
enter another relationship because of the fear of being hurt.
On the other hand, if compassion included only kindness or being nice all
the time, it would seem a lot like Pollyanna—dressed up in a pretty dress,
naïvely repeating how wonderful life is, offering easy but superficial
solutions while refusing to acknowledge the pain and difficulties we are faced
with. Being kind and motivated to help without an understanding of the
reality of suffering can lead to naïve avoidance or quick-and-dirty attempts to
smooth things over that never really address the true difficulties of life. An
example of this might be to hook up with someone else the day after that
painful breakup or attempting to mask the feelings of pain with drugs or
alcohol.
Compassion requires both sensitivity and a motivation for helpful action.
Compassion knows that suffering means that there is something happening in
our lives (or those of others) that demands attention, and the nature of this
suffering can inform us about how we can help address it—about what the
person who is suffering needs. When this wisdom is combined with the
motivation to help, we suddenly have other options that can help us deal with
difficult situations in positive ways. Compassion can give us the ability to
engage in what Buddhists sometimes refer to as “skillful means”—being able
to know and do exactly what needs to be done to best address the situation
(even if that means simply holding a person’s hand as she grieves).
Compassion is not about taking the smoothest road. It means being
willing to risk discomfort in order to do the job correctly and completely.
Compassion recognizes that difficult questions seldom have easy answers.
Faced with a terrible breakup of a relationship, compassion recognizes the
pain of the broken heart but also realizes that the pain will not last forever.
Compassion takes into account the joys of life, the things that help us to feel
better, as well as the suffering. In the case of this painful breakup, a
compassionate perspective might help us find the wisdom to take advantage
of other close relationships in our lives as we heal. Compassion would help
us gradually begin to move into new relationships when we feel ready to do
so and would help us know when the time is right. When faced with the pain
of life, the threat system says, “This is bad—I need to fight or run away!”
The drive system says, “Things will be better when I have that!”
Compassion, intimately related to our safeness system, says, “Ah, pain. I
recognize you. This is how life sometimes is. I will figure out what needs to
be done to work with this, and I will bear it in the meantime.”
Compassion is a strength that helps us find the courage to move toward
difficulties so that we can do something about them—exactly the sort of
courage that you are displaying by choosing to work with your anger. In the
rest of this chapter, we’ll look at ways that compassion organizes our minds
and how different this is from the way our minds are organized by anger.

How Compassion Organizes Our Minds

Remember how our different mood states (like anger) and the three emotion-
regulation systems can organize our minds? Well, compassion can help us
take control of the way our minds are organized in ways that help us cope
more effectively with the difficult emotions and struggles we will face in life,
as illustrated in figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Organizing the Mind in Different Ways

Reprinted from The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson, 2009) with
permission.

Next, figure 4.2 illustrates what we call “The Circle of Compassion” and
depicts various aspects of what we call “the compassionate mind”:

Figure 4.2: The Circle of Compassion

Reprinted from Gilbert, 2009 with kind permission from Constable and Robinson

Attributes: What a compassionate mind is like.

Skills: The things that we’ll be doing to develop the attributes of

compassion.

Environment: Where all of this takes place—an environment of

warmth.

Attributes of the Compassionate Mind

The first aim of this book is to give you practical tools you can use to work
with anger; the second aim is a bit broader and more ambitious—the
development of your compassionate self and the ability to approach life in a
way that allows you to work with your anger and build a happy life. This life
will be filled with good relationships and actions that reflect your deepest
values and priorities. This may seem like a big task, and in some ways it is.
But we don’t need to do it all in one try, or even very quickly. Not at all.
Instead, we’ll aim to tackle it one small step at a time. Let’s start by
considering the attributes featured in the inner ring of the “Compassion
Circle.”

Motivation

A compassionate mind is motivated by the basic desire to care for the

well-being of ourselves and other people. This caring mentality is already
within us—it’s part of how our brains work. If we’ve struggled with anger,
though, we may not have had much experience of this caring motivation. It’s
hard to care if we are constantly feeling threatened and angry. Interestingly,
one reason we may feel threatened so often is that we don’t relate to
ourselves in caring ways. The parts of your old brain that trigger your
emotions often can’t tell the difference between external threats (for example,
someone else telling you that you’re a terrible person) and internal threats
(like telling yourself that you’re a terrible person). The shame we create by
beating ourselves up is “mental gasoline” that fuels our anger. Cultivating
the motivation to care for our own well-being can help stop the internal cycle
that keeps our threatened, angry minds in operation. The motivation to care
for ourselves allows us to replace feelings of blame with questions like,
“What do I need in order to handle this better?”
A compassionate mind also experiences a motivation to care for others.
Being motivated to care for the well-being of others is a powerful antidote to
anger, which is associated with the urge to harm. One way we can help
ourselves manage our anger is to become more sensitive to the negative
consequences that our angry behavior can create. We already do this when
we refrain from snapping at the boss at work, even though we may be very
irritated with him. We know that if we let nasty remarks go, it could cost us
our jobs. By developing a caring motivation toward other people and keeping
this motivation at the front of our minds (rather than buried as a value we
deeply hold but often do not live), it makes it much harder to give our anger
free reign to harm them. When we truly relate to others from a position of
caring, we’re much less likely to act in ways that harm them because we’re
aware of the suffering that it will cause them, and we aren’t willing to risk
that consequence. We know it isn’t worth it.
Another reason for cultivating the motivation to be caring of others is that
it naturally produces good relationships. When we act out of this motivation,
we tend to naturally stimulate the safeness systems of others. Instead of
becoming someone they feel threatened by, we can instead become the
person who helps them to feel safe. They will then react to us with more
warmth, in ways that are more positive and that help us to feel safe and
accepted as well.

Sensitivity

Sensitivity means being open to signs of suffering in ourselves and in

other people. Often, anger emerges when we are faced with difficult emotions
that we’d rather not feel. Examples include lashing out when we are criticized
by others in order to avoid feeling embarrassed or becoming frustrated and
angry with our children as a way of masking the worry we feel when they’re
struggling. Anger emerges from threat, and these emotions seem to threaten
us psychologically (What if I really am no good at my job? What if my child
isn’t bright enough to make it in school? What if I’m a bad parent?).
Sensitivity means being willing to notice the difficult feelings behind our
anger and being honest with ourselves about how we feel when we’re faced
with the inevitable difficulties of life. It means being able to say (at least to
ourselves), “That really hurt my feelings” or “I’m really worried that my son
won’t have a good life” or “I’m terrified that I’m becoming an emotionally
abusive parent.”
Instead of distracting ourselves from our worries and pain by allowing
our threat systems to fill our minds with anger, compassion helps us to open
our awareness to our fears and challenges so that we can then work to
improve the situations that cause them. It’s about being aware of how we are
hurting and then treating ourselves with kindness, forgiveness, and
openheartedness.
As with compassionate motivation, sensitivity to the suffering of others
can be an antidote to anger. While our angry minds may relish the idea of
harming others, they may not feel so eager to do so if we allow ourselves to
really become aware of others’ circumstances and their own pain. Ultimately,
I suspect most of us (when we aren’t trapped in a threatened state of mind)
don’t want to cause others to suffer. At least I’m betting that you don’t—or
you probably wouldn’t be reading this book. As we become aware that our
actions are producing real suffering in others—that it isn’t just about us—we
can be prompted to step back and reevaluate our actions, to detour from the
track that our threat system has placed us in.
The sensitivity of compassion can also take the form of vigilance: looking
out for things that trigger our anger and signs in our bodies that let us know
the dominoes of anger have begun to fall. The sooner we notice that we’re
getting angry, the more likely we’ll be to do something about it before our
minds are captured by our threat systems. This awareness is the first step in
catching our anger before it gets out of control. When applied to the suffering
of others, this vigilance can also work with our caring motivation to help us
transform ourselves. Our increased awareness of suffering in others creates
more and more opportunities for us to put our compassion into action—to
3
help them, which research shows can improve our own mental health as well.

Sympathy

Sympathy is the emotional extension of our caring motivation. It is being

moved in the face of suffering, the emotional reaction we feel when we see
someone struggling or in pain. Perhaps you’ve seen television programs
showing people whose homes have been destroyed by a natural disaster, or
learned of children who were abused or starving. Perhaps you’ve had friends
who have had their hearts broken, lost their jobs or homes, developed cancer,
or worked very hard for something but fell short of their goals. When we hear
of things like this, we often experience a sense of sadness or concern. We
understand the pain of life, and a part of us hurts for them—we don’t want to
see them suffer. Sympathy can be a great motivation for positive action; look
at the outpouring of donations in the face of earthquakes and hurricanes
across the globe and the number of people who donate time and money to
help others.
We can direct this sympathy toward ourselves as well, opening to the
realization, This is hard. Right now, my life is difficult. We can allow
ourselves to feel some sadness or brokenheartedness about it, and some
kindness. Instead of blaming ourselves for having a hard time, we open our
hearts to the difficulty of it. This is very different from how we may usually
relate to suffering: by ignoring it, denying it, or quickly attempting to distract
ourselves from it. Even anger is an example of suffering that we can allow
ourselves to be moved by. Anger isn’t fun, and it can get in the way of our
pursuing happiness. While anger might feel briefly empowering, we know
that in the long term, it can cause us tremendous suffering. In softening our
hearts toward our own suffering, we can fuel our motivation to do something
about it. Recognizing how hard it has been for us to have to deal with the
consequences that out-of-control anger has caused in our lives, we can
strengthen our commitment to do something about it. Sympathy is not pity,
4
which has a quality of looking down on the person who is suffering.
Sympathy is opening ourselves to the emotions that naturally emerge when
we acknowledge the fact that we all struggle and encounter pain and
hardship.

Distress Tolerance

As you’ve read previously, a compassionate mind doesn’t shy away from

pain. Distress tolerance is the ability to experience difficult emotions as they
happen, accepting that these feelings are a normal part of human life. As we
learn to open ourselves to the reality of suffering and difficult emotions in
order to work with them, we also learn to tolerate the discomfort that these
difficulties create. At first, this might not feel natural—our habit may be to
avoid working with anger and other painful emotions that contribute to it
because we feel we can’t bear it. In fact, it’s true: we do have powerful
reflexes and habitual reactions that pull us back from pain, such as when we
jerk our hands away from a hot stove. Remember, our threat systems operate
from a “better safe than sorry” mode.
However, the habit of attempting to avoid pain at any cost can create real
problems in our lives. CFT practitioners refer to these threat-based behaviors
that can reduce discomfort in the short term but create troublesome long-term
5
consequences as safety strategies, which include such behaviors as acting out
in anger and aggression when we find ourselves frustrated or embarrassed.
When we’re unable or unwilling to tolerate emotional discomfort, we can
find ourselves doing all sorts of unhelpful things to try to avoid it.
One of my clients, Richard, had this habit and told me that when a
colleague questioned his decisions, he would feel threatened and insecure,
afraid that the person would see him as incompetent. In response, he would
quickly become heated and verbally aggressive. Faced with this, his
colleagues would back down and end the encounter, which caused Richard to
feel some short-term relief. However, this strategy set the stage for lots of
long-term problems. First, he became known as someone who was difficult to
deal with, and his colleagues began to keep him out of the loop. He began
missing out on opportunities to be involved in important projects that would
have furthered his career. Additionally, his reactions prevented him from
taking advantage of what was actually help from his colleagues. Threatened
by his feeling that they were questioning his competence, he shut them down
before they could offer suggestions that would have improved the projects he
was working on. Later, when he learned to work with his anger, Richard
learned to tolerate the distress (feelings of insecurity, fears of being
incompetent) he felt in response to his colleagues’ constructive criticism.
Once he could do that, he found he didn’t feel the urge, or the need, to
respond with anger. Remember, anger emerges when we feel threatened, and
that involves discomfort. In order to work through such situations, we must
learn to tolerate that discomfort, giving ourselves room to develop helpful
ways of responding.
Distress tolerance allows us to work with difficult feelings instead of
rushing to avoid them. You probably already do this in some areas of your
life. After all, most of us have had to tolerate some discomfort when we’ve
pursued goals in our lives. For example, if you lift weights or work out in
other ways, you have learned to tolerate the discomfort and pain of the
exercises in order to benefit from a healthier body. What we’re doing when
we develop our compassion is like a workout for the mind and brain.
A compassionate mind recognizes that sometimes we can’t get rid of our
discomfort, but instead must change our relationship to it and learn that we
can tolerate difficult feelings. In this book, we’ll examine a number of
strategies for doing just this. Instead of habitually running away or going on
the attack when we’re faced with difficult or painful situations, we can learn
to recognize and accept them as a fundamental part of the human experience,
to approach them with the calm confidence that, I can work with this, too.
And it doesn’t matter what “this” is.
Empathy

The nature of empathy is similar to that of sympathy; however, whereas

sympathy is about allowing ourselves to feel moved in the face of pain and
struggles, empathy is about understanding what we and other people are
feeling. Empathy involves accepting whatever emotions are being felt or
expressed, and attempting to understand where those emotions are coming
from and why they are valid.
Can you recall a time when you were trying to explain how you felt about
something and the other person said something like, “It sounds like you feel
,” and they got it exactly right? How did that feel? In my experience, it feels
great to be understood when I’m struggling, even if that understanding comes
from me—from within myself.
Much of my work at Eastern Washington University involves training
psychology students who are learning to be masters-level therapists, and we
consistently work on the development of empathy. After all, if you can’t
develop empathy, you probably aren’t going to be much help to your clients.
One prompt I often use is a question: “How does it make sense that your
client feels as she does?” If we’re feeling something, there is a reason for it, a
reason why the mind is responding in this way. When we empathize, we drop
the tendency to be judgmental and instead seek to understand what we and
other people are feeling, and the reasons why we might be feeling this way,
in this situation. How does it make sense that I/she/he might be feeling this
way right now?
Imagine that you have a good friend who is very close to her mother.
Now imagine that her mother has been diagnosed with a rapidly advancing
form of cancer and dies suddenly. Consider how your friend might feel. How
would you try to understand her reaction to her mother’s death? You might
mentally put yourself in her shoes, imagining what it would be like if your
own mother died, drawing upon your own experiences of losing people you
loved. You might consider what you know of your friend and of her
relationship with her mother in order to understand how her response might
differ from your own. Most importantly, you would listen to her, allowing her
to express her emotions in her own way, perhaps occasionally reflecting back
what you’re hearing to make sure that you are really understanding what
she’s saying. In addition to drawing upon our own emotional experience,
there is a cognitive (thinking) component to empathy, as we consider the
emotional experience of the other person and how it fits into the story of her
life.
Cultivating empathy and compassion toward others is very important as
we learn to work with anger. Our threat systems reduce the actions of other
people into very simple terms, usually defensive ones (He cut me off because
he’s a jerk! Let’s get him back!). If we work to deepen empathy, we come to
realize that there can be very complex causes for the emotions and behaviors
of others—causes that often don’t have anything to do with us. The
willingness to step out of your threat system and put yourself into other
peoples’ shoes can take the wind right out of your anger. Once you begin to
understand how other people feel and the reasons why they act as they do,
you’ll often discover that there just isn’t much to be angry about. You can
find yourself feeling compassion for them instead, as you connect with times
when you’ve felt and behaved in similar ways and the reasons why you did
so. Remember, no one wants to suffer—we all just want to be happy.
We can also direct empathy toward ourselves. For many, this may sound
a bit strange, as empathy is often discussed specifically as understanding the
emotions of others. However, we often don’t take time to consider and
understand our own emotions (and this is particularly true with anger). Why?
Because we’re too busy avoiding them! When we look closely at anger, for
example, we often find that there are a whole host of other emotions lying
just underneath the surface. We may see that we use anger to avoid feeling
things like shame, embarrassment, insecurity, vulnerability, fear, and
heartbreak. We cultivate hatred and anger toward the partner who left us so
that we don’t have to face the pain of being left or the fears that we weren’t
good enough for that person. My client Richard snapped angrily at his
colleagues so that he didn’t have to experience the fear that he wasn’t good at
his job or that others didn’t respect him.
The problem is that anger doesn’t solve those problems or deal with those
emotions—it just shouts over them and often creates more difficulties. In this
book, you’ll begin to learn how to have empathy for yourself—to understand
what you’re feeling and how it makes sense that you would feel that way.
One way you can begin is by learning to “listen” to yourself. You can
practice this by doing things like paying attention to what you’re feeling in
your body, and perhaps writing in a journal about how you feel and going
back to read it later.

Nonjudgment

Nonjudgment involves relating to our experiences and those of other

people without condemnation. Our minds often rush to place things into
categories, often with the labels “good” and “bad” on them. A compassionate
mind lets things be as they are and instead seeks to understand them. It
recognizes that emotions, for example, are inherently neither good nor bad—
they just are. Our compassionate selves recognize that emotions we
experience as unpleasant are products of our threat systems, which ultimately
are just trying to protect us. When we recognize this, we can learn to stop the
labeling process that can turn challenging emotions or embarrassing life
circumstances into the shameful feeling that there is something wrong with
us. We can just let things be as they are (Oh, look—there goes my threat
system again. I’m really feeling ticked off).
To be nonjudgmental doesn’t mean that we don’t have preferences, that
we don’t need to behave better, or that we won’t work to change things.
Instead, it is the recognition that before we can really address difficulties in
our lives or challenges with other people, we need an honest understanding of
6
just what is happening right now. It’s about figuring out exactly what is on
our plates before we decide whether or not we’re going to eat it and
recognizing that just because you don’t care for brussels sprouts, it doesn’t
mean that they’re “bad” (and they might even be “good” for you!). If we look
at Richard again, we can see that he couldn’t deal with his anger because he
thought he was justifiably angry because his colleagues were jerks—of
course he should be angry, right? Once he was able to look nonjudgmentally
at their comments, he saw them for what they were: well-meant, constructive
criticism. Looking then at his own reaction, he could accept that their
comments caused him to feel threatened because he was afraid they didn’t see
him as competent. With support, he became able to work with the issue that
fed his anger—those feelings of insecurity that kept his threat system on high
alert. When we allow ourselves to see things just as they are and resist the
urge to label them, we are better able to see them clearly. In this state, we can
learn to recognize what things are better left alone and which ones we need to
change.
 Skills Training
We won’t get into the outer ring of the circle too deeply here, because the rest
of the book is pretty much devoted to helping you develop these skills for
working with anger and developing your compassionate mind. What I did
want to mention, though, is that skills training in compassion-focused therapy
takes a number of different forms. This variety helps you take advantage of
the many ways that your brain works. You can work with attention and with
your senses to increase your awareness of the things that trigger your anger.
You can begin to relate to your emotions and experiences with acceptance,
confidence, and clarity. You’ll use imagery to balance your emotions by
learning to stimulate your safeness system and practice new ways of dealing
with your emotions—anger in particular. You’ll use your thinking and
reasoning to discover new ways of working with difficult situations, explore
qualities you’d like to develop, and build new habits that reflect these values.
Finally, you’ll work to create and cultivate more positive emotions in your
life and train your brain to respond more effectively to challenges.
Just as the different aspects of the threatened mind interact to keep us in a
state of anger, so, too, can we take advantage of how our attention, reasoning,
imagery, emotions, senses, and behaviors interact to shape other states of
mind. Learning to work with these different aspects of our minds gives us
flexibility—it allows us to find and use different tools for working with anger
—and, as a result, opens up our options. We’re all a little different, and some
of us will really like one method while some will like another. The point is to
find what works for you.

Warmth
Moving to the outside of the compassion circle, we see the word “warmth.”
What this means is that a compassionate mind and our efforts to develop it
occur in a context of warmth, kindness, and self-acceptance. In learning to
direct warmth toward our efforts to work with our anger, we remind
ourselves that our experience of anger is not our fault, and attempt to give
ourselves encouragement for choosing to work with it more effectively.
Warmth allows us to recognize that the efforts we are making to work with
anger are courageous ones and are evidence of our good-heartedness.
It can be helpful if you engage other people in your efforts to work with
anger. Let them know what you’re doing and ask for their support (if you
have someone who can be truly supportive). In our prison groups, one of the
most powerful parts of the program is the warmth and encouragement that
participants receive from one another—the kindness and validation. In the
beginning, this can be a difficult gift to give ourselves, particularly if we’re
used to criticizing and shaming ourselves. However, learning to be kind to
ourselves is worth the effort.

Conclusion
Many of us have failed in our attempts to deal with our anger. We may have
decided From this point on, things will be different time and time again. But
then we’ve been unable to maintain the changes we were trying to create in
our lives, soon going back to doing the same old things. There are good
reasons why this happens. Deciding to change is an important beginning, but
the decision itself is not the change. You can decide to become a physician,
but if you don’t then attend medical school, you won’t make it very far. If
your car broke down, you wouldn’t expect to be able to fix it if you had no
understanding of how the engine works, without tools or training. Yet this is
exactly how we often approach the process of working with difficult
emotions and behaviors. We assume that if we just want it badly enough, we
will change. This is why we fail. Simply having the motivation to change is a
great start, but it isn’t enough—we need to practice strategies that work.
In this book, my goal has been to help remedy this situation by providing
you with two things. The first is an understanding of your anger and how it
works within your mind. In the second half of the book, the goal is to give
you the tools you need to change things. In this chapter, you were introduced
to the idea of compassion and how you can use it to organize your mind in
ways that are very different from what you’ve seen with anger. In the
following chapters, you’re going to discover how to use compassion to
manage your anger.
 5

First Steps
In the first part of this book, we examined the power of anger, the ease by
which it is triggered, and the way it flows through us to direct our thoughts
and actions. From here on out, you’ll practice skills that will allow you to
develop your compassionate mind so that, over time, you’ll learn to engage
the world in ways that are different from those dictated by your anger. The
idea is to work with your mind to weaken your habitual anger responses and
to cultivate ways of feeling and responding that are driven instead by
compassion, concern, and the motivation to help both others and yourself. Do
you have a notebook and pen nearby? Now may be a good time to get them,
as we’ll be proceeding through a few exercises as we move through this
chapter.
You might think of this chapter and the next one as “preseason training.”
I’ll introduce ways for you to keep yourself motivated—to keep you going
when the going gets a bit rough. You’ll also learn soothing-rhythm breathing,
a technique that helps you slow your body and mind down, and prepares you
to shift into a compassionate mode of relating to yourself and other people. In
chapter 6, you’ll learn about “mindfulness,” a skill that will help you to
observe how thoughts and emotions arise in your mind, helping you to
dampen the flame of anger before it grows into a forest fire.

The Courage to Change: Compassionate Motivation

In learning to work with your anger, your motivation will tend to wax and
wane depending on what is going on in your life and many other factors.
However, you can stimulate your motivation by considering what you have to
1
gain. In The Compassionate Mind, Paul Gilbert asks us to imagine being
offered ten dollars to regulate our anger for a week. Would you do it? What
about a hundred dollars? A thousand dollars? Perhaps a cool million? The
idea is that, at some point, the incentive will be so great that you will
absolutely commit yourself to the goal of regulating your anger. Perhaps
money isn’t the motivation. What if you knew that the rewards for handling
your anger were less stress, more happiness, better relationships, and perhaps
the ability to better live in accordance with your values? The key is to
recognize that it is possible to manage your anger and to find ways of
committing yourself to this effort—for example, by considering what you
have to gain by succeeding. Let’s explore some factors that may help keep
you motivated.

Exercise 5.1: Exploring Motivation

Consider the way your anger has played out in your life.

1. How has your anger negatively impacted your life? How has it been in the way? What
don’t you like about your anger?

2. How might your life be improved if you learned to work with your anger more
effectively?

3. What specific improvements would you like to see in your life as a result of working
with your anger? What are the incentives that can motivate you to keep going, even
when it seems difficult?

One of the things that can help motivate you as you pursue your goals is
to consider your values—the deeply held ideas you have about the sort of
2
person you want to be and the sort of life you want to lead. It may be that
you’ve thought about the sort of person you’d like to be and, in order to be
that person, decided that you’ll need to get a better handle on your anger. Not
everything that we value can motivate us equally. Some things work better
than others in terms of how likely they are to help us lead happy lives filled
with good relationships—the kind that help us to activate our safeness
systems and balance our emotions. For example, we could value money (“‘I
want to be unbelievably rich”) and spend our lives in the pursuit of material
gain while alienating those we love—but in the long term, that value
probably wouldn’t lead us to happiness. Let’s take a moment to consider
those things we value and see where compassion fits in with them.
 To give you a structure for doing this, I’ve set out a practical exercise for
you to complete in your journal. I’ve also included an example of a
completed exercise adapted from a client named David.

David’s Example

Sample Exercise 5.2: The Sort of Person I Want to Be

Take a moment to consider the sort of person you would like to be. Imagine that you
have died and that the people you love most are at your funeral. Imagine the eulogy
they have put together: “She/He was so ______________.”

If you had lived according to your deepest values, what words would you want them to
say? Come up with three words to finish that sentence.

1. Strong

2. Kind

3. Loving (especially as a father)

In your notebook or journal (what I’ll call your “Compassion Practice Journal”), write a
more detailed description of the type of person you’d like to be. What qualities would
you like to have? How would compassion manifest itself in your life? How would you like
others to describe you? How would you like others to feel when you’re around? What
would you like to think about yourself? What feelings would you like your days to be
filled with? What goals would you like to pursue? Try to really connect with those things
that you value, and bear in mind that some of them may be buried so deep down that
you may not think of them often. Use this as an opportunity to reconnect with them now.

Next, ask yourself if your anger fits in with the sort of person you want to be. Then ask
yourself if compassion fits. For example, I began working with my own anger because I
wanted to be a better father and husband and to help my son learn ways of managing
his emotions so that he wouldn’t struggle with anger as an adult the way I sometimes
have. Consider the following questions:
 How does your anger help or get in the way of your being able to live according to
your values? My anger creates lots of problems for me because I end up being
irritable with the people I care about. I don’t treat them as well as I’d like. It keeps me
focused on the things that are wrong and distracts me from the things I value, such as
achieving my targets at work or having an easy relationship with my young son, who
is full of energy and always wants to play football with me when I come home from
work.

How might compassion for yourself and other people help you to live a life that
reflects the sort of person you want to be? How might it help you improve your
relationships with others? I hope that compassion for myself would help me stop
being so defensive when things don’t go my way, and to focus on the things that
really matter and all the good things that do come my way. Compassion for others
would help me keep in mind that my actions affect them and that they have their own
reasons for doing things.

Exercise 5.2: The Sort of Person I Want to Be

Take a moment to consider the sort of person you would like to be. Imagine that you
have died, and that the people you love most are at your funeral. Imagine the eulogy
they have put together: “She/He was so .”

If you had lived according to your deepest values, what would you want them to say?
Come up with three words to finish that sentence.

In your notebook or Compassion Practice Journal, write a more detailed description of

the type of person you’d like to be. What qualities would you like to have? How would
compassion manifest itself in your life? How would you like others to describe you? How
would you like others to feel when you’re around? What would you like to think about
yourself? What feelings would you like your days to be filled with? What goals would
you like to pursue? Try to really connect with those things that you value, and bear in
mind that some of them may be buried so deep down that you may not think of them
often. Use this as an opportunity to reconnect with them now.
 Next, ask yourself if your anger fits in with the sort of person you want to be. Then ask
yourself if compassion fits in. For example, I began working with my own anger because
I wanted to be a better father and husband, and to help my son learn ways of managing
his emotions so that he wouldn’t struggle with anger as an adult the way I sometimes
have. Consider the following questions:

How does your anger help or get in the way of your being able to live according to
your values?

How might compassion for yourself and other people help you to live a life that
reflects the sort of person you want to be? How might it help you improve your
relationships with others?

As a threat response, anger keeps us trapped in the experience of feeling

threatened and focused on negative aspects of life—things that cause us to be
unhappy. As we saw in the first few chapters, when we’re in the grip of
anger, we’re less able to think clearly, to form and maintain good
relationships, and over time, we can be more likely to have major health
difficulties.
If we can learn to change the way we respond to perceived threats and use
compassion to understand more clearly why we and other people behave as
we do, we can begin to live with more ease and comfort. Compassion allows
us to understand the sources of suffering in our lives and then helps us to
alleviate the pain we feel because of them. As we’ve discussed, anger can be
thought of as a form of suffering—this often-misdirected threat response
causes real pain and problems in our lives. As I mentioned in chapter 4,
compassion can help us develop sympathy for ourselves: How difficult it’s
been to live with my anger. When we open our hearts to the difficulties that
our anger brings into our lives, we can begin to commit ourselves to changing
the ways we deal with it: My life would be much better if I could free myself
from this anger. It’s worth the commitment to do so.
At the end of the day, what do you have to lose? You can always go back
to being angry—you can’t lose it, as it’s a part of how everyone’s brain
works. The real question to ask yourself is: Is it worth it to experiment—to
see if my life can be improved by learning new ways of coping with my
anger? Is worth it to see what could happen if I began to look at myself and
other people from a compassionate point of view? The idea here is to find
ways to really motivate yourself to make the effort to work with your anger
so that you can stick with it when things get tough. Imagine what it would be
like if you succeeded.

Using Compassionate Attention with Arousal:

Soothing-Rhythm Breathing
How and where you direct your attention is incredibly important in shaping
your mental state. In this section, you’re going to learn how to focus your
attention in ways that will help you prepare your mind for compassion and
counteract the arousal that fuels your anger. A compassionate mind is a calm
mind, and while our angry states of mind are fueled by physical arousal and
tension, our compassionate states of mind thrive when we’ve slowed
ourselves down a bit. To do this, we’ll use a technique called soothing-
3
rhythm breathing, which will lay the groundwork for cultivating
compassionate characteristics such as empathy, the ability to be
nonjudgmental, and the ability to tolerate distress. Soothing-rhythm breathing
works with our breath and posture to gently shift our emotional state when
we’re feeling threatened. Here are some tips for developing this practice.

Breathing

The idea is not to control your breathing, but to slow it down a bit and
allow it to fall into a rhythm that is comfortable and soothing. You breathe in
and out through your nose, observing your breath as it slowly leaves your
body during the exhalation.

Posture

The aim is to slow down your body and mind but also to be alert (not to
fall asleep!). In order to do this, it’s best to get into a posture that will support
you. Sit upright in a comfortable chair with your back straightened in a
dignified posture, the soles of your feet flat on the floor in front of you, with
your knees parallel and roughly as wide apart as your shoulders. Your arms
will be relaxed and your hands placed gently on your thighs or held open and
together in your lap, as if you were holding a small rice bowl, with one hand
resting inside the other. As you continue to practice soothing-rhythm
breathing throughout the day, you may want to use it at times when you’re
standing. If so, stand up straight instead of slouching. If you are lying down,
lie down on your back, with your body straight instead of curled up.

Facial Expression

It’s useful to adopt a gentle smile while you are practicing soothing-
rhythm breathing and many of the other exercises. Relax the facial muscles,
let your tongue drop from the roof of your mouth, and allow your jaw to drop
open slightly. Then begin to let your mouth turn upward into a smile you feel
comfortable with—one that gives you a feeling of friendship, as if you’ve just
seen somebody you like. Research shows that the way we position our bodies
and form facial expressions affects our mental state.

Don’t Worry about Becoming Distracted

You will sometimes become distracted as you do the exercises in this

book. This is okay. It’s just how our minds work, and we’ll discuss this in
greater detail in the next chapter, when we cover mindfulness. For now, if
you notice that thoughts or sensations have taken you away, you can refocus
by just gently bringing your attention back to the feeling of your breath. The
key is to use the breath’s natural rhythm to slow your mind and body down.
That won’t happen if you’re getting all uptight because you’re worried about
doing it “right.” There is no doing it “wrong.” You’re simply allowing your
body to breathe—and if you’re not doing that right, you won’t be alive to
worry about it!

Sit Up Straight and Smile: Does Posture Matter?

 For decades, our parents and teachers have often told us, “Sit up
straight!” and “Smile!”, aware of the importance of having an upright posture
and a pleasing expression. Why?
Well, a growing number of studies have examined the effects of different
postures and facial expressions on our mental state. One study examined
4
“power posing.” The researchers experimented with different body postures
and their possible affects on hormonal responses, feelings of power, and risk
tolerance. In this study some participants engaged in “high-power” poses,
which were more expansive (taking up more space) and open (keeping their
limbs open and uncrossed); other participants adopted “low-power” poses,
adopting slumped and closed (arms and legs crossed) postures. Participants in
each group engaged in two poses for one minute each—one standing and one
seated. The results showed that posture did indeed matter. The researchers
examined levels of testosterone (a sex hormone related to feelings of power
and dominance) and the stress hormone cortisol, both before and after the
posture manipulation. Both types of poses significantly affected the
participants’ hormone levels, measured by sampling their saliva. High-power
poses led to increases in testosterone and decreases in cortisol. In contrast,
low-power poses had the opposite effect, causing decreases in testosterone
and increases in cortisol. These changes were reflected in participants’
psychological states. Individuals in the high-power poses felt more powerful
and more tolerant of risk than those who had engaged in low-power poses.
Posture matters!
Other research shows that smiling helps, too. In one of my favorite
5
studies, participants were asked to watch a cartoon while holding a pencil
either between their teeth (which encouraged smiling) or between their lips
(which prevented it). Those who were able to smile rated the cartoon more
favorably (funnier) than those who were prevented from smiling.

Practice When It’s Easy

Like most skills, soothing-rhythm breathing requires practice if you’re

going to use it effectively. This skill can help bring some calmness and
relaxation to any part of your day, but it can also be used specifically to
reduce arousal when you notice that you’re becoming angry. As you might
suspect, calming yourself when your threat system is doing its best to get you
worked up isn’t the easiest thing to do. For this reason, you want to become
very familiar with soothing-rhythm breathing, to establish it as an automatic
behavior that you can just shift into when you need it, without having to think
about it too much. Just as athletes practice extensively before the big game,
you can practice soothing-rhythm breathing when you don’t have a lot of
distractions and aren’t upset. Once you’ve found a comfortable breathing
rhythm and are familiar with the exercise, you can apply it to many different
situations, even when your arousal is up.

Don’t Fight It

Allow your breath to fall into a natural, soothing rhythm—don’t try to

force anything. Experiment with different rates of breathing until you find
one that feels natural and relaxing. A good starting point can be to breathe in
for three seconds, holding the breath for three seconds, and letting go of the
breath for three seconds. Members of our prison anger groups have told us
that focusing on the counting helps distract them from the angry thoughts that
fuel their arousal. It’s also worth mentioning, on the other hand, that some
people find that focusing on their bodies creates discomfort for them, which
in turn can actually increase their tension and arousal. If this is the case for
you, don’t force it. However, it would likely be useful to explore other ways
of slowing down your mind and body. For example, you might just sit quietly
or direct your attention toward something else that you find relaxing, perhaps
imagining listening to the rhythmic sound of waves coming in on a beach.
Ultimately, the key is to find a way to focus your attention that helps you
slow and relax your body, and create a calm state of mind. The idea is to find
something that works for you.

Exercise 5.3: Soothing-Rhythm Breathing

For this exercise, you’ll want to find a relatively quiet place where you can sit
undisturbed for ten minutes or so.

Sit upright in a dignified posture, with your back straight, the soles of your feet flat on
 the floor in front of you, and your knees about shoulder-width apart. Gently rest the
palms of your hands on your thighs or cup them in your lap. You can close your eyes
or direct your gaze to the floor a few feet in front of you, allowing it to soften (unfocus)
a bit.

Gently bring your attention to your breath, noticing it entering your body, expanding
your diaphragm, and gently lifting your abdomen.

Allow your breathing to fall into a natural rhythm, a bit slower and deeper than you
usually breathe. A good place to start is about three seconds as you inhale, a brief
pause, and then about three seconds as you exhale. Experiment with different
breathing rates to find one that feels natural and soothing to you—this is the key.

As you breathe, allow your attention to settle on the exhalation. Follow the rhythm of
the breathing, resting as you inhale and, again, watching as you exhale.

You’ll sometimes become distracted. This is very normal, and it’s okay. Just gently
refocus your attention on the breathing and the calm sensations that come with it.
Focus on the feeling of slowing down, as if there were a rhythm of breathing within
you that gives you the sense of slowing—like a fast-flowing river slowing as it feeds
into a wide lake.

Spend at least thirty seconds on this (more if you wish) simply focusing on the
soothing rhythm of your breathing. The soothing will come from the sense of slowing
within.

When you finish, take a moment to reflect on your experience. How does your body
feel right now? What did you notice during the exercise?

Once you’ve practiced this exercise a few times when you’ve been seated, try using it
in other situations—perhaps while you’re waiting in line at the store, at the bus stop or
when you’re on the train, or when you have a few moments between tasks at work.
Just allow your breathing to fall into the comfortable rhythm that you’ve become
familiar with, and for thirty seconds or so, allow your attention to simply follow your
breath as you inhale and exhale.

The Compassion Practice Journal

The odds of whether or not this book will help you are directly related to
whether or not you actually do the exercises. It can be tempting to simply
read books like this and skim over the exercises. In my experience, that can
help us feel better while we’re reading, but it usually doesn’t produce lasting
change.
It can help to keep track of the exercises as you do them throughout the
day. I’ve included below a simple form for this; you may wish to copy it in
your journal. I’ve completed an example of what a Monday entry might look
like:

I encourage you to use this or something similar to keep track of your

compassion practice. As you can see in the above example, doing so can help
you discover new uses for exercises (slowing down and centering yourself
between tasks at work) and find new times to practice. Also note that,
although in this example soothing-rhythm breathing was practiced three times
during the day, it only took a total of five minutes (although you could
certainly do more). We’ll cover a good number of exercises, but don’t be
overwhelmed—you’ll likely find that practicing doesn’t take that much time.
Doing brief exercises several times during the day works great!

Compassion Practice Journal

 Adapted with kind permission from the Compassionate Mind Foundation
(www.compassionatemind.co.uk).

Conclusion
This chapter has set the stage for you to begin to your work with anger so that
you can handle it more effectively. We began by looking at the issue of
motivation and the recognition that you can work to increase your motivation
when it begins to run low; for example, by reminding yourself of what you
have to gain by handling your anger better. You also considered your values
and how your anger has affected your life and those of people around you.
You can choose to commit yourself to at least trying to change. The essence
of compassionate reasoning is opening yourself to the idea that you will
encounter difficulties, but that you can work with them in constructive ways.
You also learned about soothing-rhythm breathing, a skill that is designed
to help you reduce angry arousal and that can be used any time you want to
slow yourself down. SRB will help you shift from a mind state that’s focused
on responding to threats to a more compassionate frame of mind. In this way,
you can prepare yourself to draw upon the compassionate skills you’ll be
learning in the rest of the book. In the next chapter, we’ll begin to explore
mindfulness, which will help you develop other aspects of your
compassionate mind.
 6

The Cultivation of Mindfulness

Before we proceed, I’d like you to do a little exercise. Take a moment to
notice how your body feels right now. What’s the temperature like? Are you
warm or cool? Notice the way your body feels as it comes into contact with
various surfaces—the chair or bed, the floor. Are you comfortable?
Next, turn your awareness to your internal bodily experiences. Do you
notice any muscle tension or relaxation? Hunger? Are there any other
sensations that stand out to you?
Notice your breath flowing in and out of your body, the rise and fall of
your abdomen as you inhale and exhale. If you feel any unpleasant
sensations, simply label them for what they are—pain, tension, or itchiness.
Observe your body for a few moments.
Try to be aware of the information coming in through your other senses.
What do you hear? What do you see? Try to be curious and to notice things
without judging them or trying to change them. Just observe whatever you
see, hear, feel, and smell. Stay with these experiences for a bit.
Now turn your awareness to your thoughts. Are you thinking, Ten more
pages and then I’ll get a snack? Or, perhaps, How does he expect me to pay
attention to all this other stuff while I’m reading? Try to notice these thoughts
without getting caught up in the content—they are just what you happen to be
thinking right now.
Open your awareness to your emotions. How do you feel? Irritated?
Content? Confused? Curious? Notice these emotions as mental experiences—
as events that are occurring in your mind. Observe without judging, just as
you observed the information coming in from your senses. Simply be aware
that this is what it’s like right now.
This is it. This is your life. This is what your life feels like. It is this
moment, unfolding before you in the form of bodily sensations, sensory
experiences, thoughts, feelings, motivations, and imagery. And this moment
is where our lives occur—it is the only place our lives occur. We can think
about the past. We can anticipate and plan for the future. But we can only live
right now.
Our experience of life is directly shaped by the ways we direct our
attention in the present moment. You’ve perhaps heard the phrase, “You are
what you eat.” I’m more likely to say, “Your life is what you attend to.”
There are lots of things going on in the space of every moment—both in our
heads and out there in the world—and the things we pay attention to and the
way we pay attention to them can have a great effect on how we feel. As
we’ve seen, anger tends to keep our attention focused in ways that keep us
angry. But there are other ways of paying attention, even when we’re angry,
ways that give us more power to step back from our anger and exert some
influence over our emotions. Directing your attention to this moment in the
way that you just have—with curiosity and without being judgmental—is the
essence of mindfulness. The way you began the chapter was a method of
“checking in” and was your first mindfulness exercise.
Mindfulness exercises are rooted in practices developed by Buddhists
over two thousand years ago. These practices were used to stabilize and focus
the mind as meditators worked to free themselves from suffering and the
factors that cause it. More recently in the West, mindfulness has been adapted
and successfully applied to the treatment of pain and distress that accompany
a variety of medical conditions and to emotional difficulties such as
1, 2
depression and anxiety. The person most associated with applying
mindfulness practices in the west is Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed the
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in the 1970s to help
patients cope with stress, pain, and illness. Dr. Kabat-Zinn defines
mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the
3
present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” When we are being mindful, we are
connected with what is happening right now. We observe the things that are
happening in the world, our bodies, and our minds as they are without
judging, condemning, or getting lost in them.
Mindfulness is different from the ways many of us have learned to go
about our lives. Instead of bringing our awareness fully to what is happening
right now, we may spend much of our time lost in thought—replaying the
past, fantasizing about the future—as the present passes us by. Have you ever
had the experience of turning off your car when you’ve arrived somewhere
and becoming aware that you have no memory of driving there? Have you
ever been in the middle of a conversation, looked at the other person, and
realized that you have no idea what he just said? Many of us spend large
amounts of our lives lost in our heads and traveling through the world on
automatic pilot.
Learning mindfulness helps us learn to stay connected with the present
moment. In contrast to the examples of “mindlessness” above, you’ve
probably had experiences of being completely present and absolutely
engaged in whatever you were doing. For example, I enjoy playing the guitar,
cooking, mountain biking, and teaching statistics because these are activities
that easily keep me engaged. Sometimes when I’m doing these things, I so
completely focus my attention on them that it seems as if I have no other
thoughts; I’m not easily distracted while I’m doing them, either. Mindfulness
can have this quality, combined with the awareness that we’re choosing to
focus the spotlight of our attention on these experiences or activities. This
way of paying attention stands in contrast to how strong emotions like anger
may focus our attention very powerfully but in ways that we don’t choose
and may not even be aware of. Here’s an exercise that will help you begin to
explore what mindful attention is like.

Exercise 6.1: Mindful Eating

Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and a small piece of food that you
enjoy. Something healthy would be good, like a bit of fruit or vegetable—perhaps a
grape, berry, raisin, olive, carrot stick, or slice of orange.

Hold the food in your hand and take a moment to study it. Imagine that you have
never seen anything like this before and are discovering it for the first time.

Turn it in your fingers. Notice how it feels.

Look closely at the food. Notice its different qualities (smooth, shiny, and so on).

Smell it. Notice any sounds that are made as you move it about.

Notice any thoughts you have about the food. What are you thinking?

Notice any feelings you are having, any desires. Do you want to eat it?
 When you have finished studying it, slowly place the food in your mouth.

Notice how it feels in your mouth. Observe the texture of the food.

As you begin to chew, notice how it tastes. Do you experience different flavors at
different places in your mouth or on your tongue?

Observe your behavior. Are you chewing quickly or slowly?

Once again, notice your thoughts and feelings. Are any evaluations, judgments, or
preferences coming up (I like this,I don’t like that)?

As you finish, allow yourself to notice your thoughts and feelings about the exercise.
Did you enjoy it or not? What was the experience like for you?

You might consider repeating the exercise with a food that you feel neutral about, or
one that you don’t particularly like.

Hopefully, doing that exercise gave you a taste (sorry, I couldn’t resist!)
of what it’s like to be mindful of your experience of eating. I’d encourage
you to try eating an entire meal mindfully and see what it’s like. People often
report that they enjoy their food more and that they eat less when they
practice eating mindfully. If you’re like many of us, this can be very different
from the way we usually eat—distractedly shoving food into our mouths as
we think about what we need to do next or stare at the television.
Although this exercise used eating as an example, it’s also possible to
bring mindful awareness to almost any activity you engage in, like doing the
dishes, gardening, or cleaning up the garage. The key is to slow down a bit
and focus the spotlight of your attention directly on whatever you’re doing,
opening your awareness to all aspects of the experience. We can walk
mindfully, noting the feeling of our feet touching and leaving the ground, the
feeling in our muscles as we maintain our balance and move ourselves
forward. You can be mindfully aware of a particular sense, like your hearing,
as you nonjudgmentally observe all the sounds that come in through your
ears. Practicing mindfulness can be particularly fun when you fully direct
your attention to something that you find pleasurable, like the feeling of hot
water in a shower, bath, or tub; the taste of a food you enjoy; or the sound of
a piece of music you particularly like.
 As we’ve seen, we often go through the world in a state of mindlessness,
with our minds on automatic pilot. When you are in the grip of anger, the
automatic pilot driving your attention is none other than your threat system. It
keeps your awareness fixed on experiences and thoughts that fuel your anger
and your sense of being threatened. As we’ve seen, our powerful threat and
drive systems can dictate the focus and content of our attention, thoughts,
imagery, motivations, emotions, and bodily experiences so that we become
lost in experiences like anger and completely lose contact with the present.
Learning mindfulness can help us recognize this process as it happens and
step out of it. In contrast to the threat system, which grabs hold of our
attention and focuses it (as well as our thoughts, emotions, and so on) on the
object of our anger, our compassionate minds can choose where we place our
attention. Being mindful doesn’t mean that we don’t experience emotions like
anger. Rather, mindfulness recognizes emotions and thoughts for what they
are—events in the mind. From the perspective of mindfulness, we can
observe both external and internal experiences without being caught up in
them. We can recognize that mental experiences such as thoughts and
emotions are not necessarily reality: just because I have the thought I can’t do
this doesn’t make it true. In terms of emotional impact, there’s a big
difference between really believing I can’t do it and having the mindful
awareness that I was just thinking, “I can’t do this.” Hmm…I seem to be
doubting myself a bit. Recognizing thoughts and emotions as mental
experiences gives us a bit of distance and perspective—some space in which
to operate. One of my favorite bumper stickers is, “Don’t believe everything
you think.” As we go about the business of working with anger, we can come
up with other helpful sticker-slogans, like “slow it down,” and “give things
some space.”
When we are mindful, we can bring our attention to the present moment
in a way that is curious and nonjudgmental about what we discover. We can
notice and investigate the quality of our experiences (for example, the way
anger feels in our bodies) as if we are studying them out of curiosity: Oh, this
4
is what it’s like …this is what my anger feels like. No wonder I have such a
hard time calming down—things are really moving in there! When we are
mindful, we open ourselves to the variety of human experience (not just the
pleasant stuff) and accept all of it without clinging to it or pushing it away. In
chapter 3, we looked at how our anger is often rooted in avoidance, grasping,
or clinging and how easily we become upset because we want things to be
different from the way they are now. Our mindful, compassionate selves are
able to accept and tolerate difficult situations and to work with things as they
are, not just how we’d prefer them to be.
That doesn’t mean we won’t work to change things. By reading this book,
for example, you’re specifically working to change how you respond to
threats and your tendencies to become angry and express anger in unhelpful
ways. We can draw upon our compassionate motivation to make things
better. Mindful acceptance actually helps with this, as we learn to stop fueling
our anger and discontent with thoughts such as, It’s all going wrong! This is
awful! or I hate this! When you do lose awareness and slip back into those
ways of thinking (and you will), you can always find it again by noticing
those thoughts for what they are: Ah…angry thoughts! I recognize you!
You’re trying to keep me locked into my anger. What a delightfully tricky
brain I have!

Exercise 6.2: Mindfulness of the Body

Take a moment to direct your awareness to your body—to notice and explore what your
body feels like. For each of these exercises, you’ll want to find a quiet space where you
won’t be disturbed.

1. Body Scan. Direct your attention to the top of your head. Notice what it feels like.
Gradually bring your attention down to your forehead, nose, cheeks, jaw, mouth, and
then to the back of your head, neck, and shoulders. Work your way down your body—
down your arms to your hands, down your chest to your stomach, waist, buttocks,
sexual organs, legs…all the way down to your toes. As you slowly move down, spend
time with each part of your body, pausing for a number of seconds at each part.
Focus your attention closely on that portion of your body and get to know what it feels
like.

2. Open Bodily Awareness. Take a moment to connect with the overall feeling of your
body. Open your awareness to your whole body. Do any sensations stand out from
the others? Does any part of your body call for your attention more than others? (For
example, I’m now aware that my feet are cold and that I’m getting hungry.) Allow your
attention to move to those sensations, wherever they are. Really study them, as if you
might have to explain the sensations in specific detail to someone who has never felt
 them before. Try not to judge the sensations as good or bad—even if they are painful.
Just be curious. What are they like? What qualities do they have? Spend time with
one sensation and then allow your attention to shift as other sensations stand out to
you.

3. Working with Discomfort. In this exercise, you’ll bring your awareness to a point of
mild discomfort, such as an itch, or perhaps the cold feet or mild hunger I noticed a
few moments ago. Select an area where you experience some mild discomfort but
not severe pain. Allow yourself to be open to this sensation and accept it. This
sensation is neither bad nor good—it’s just a bodily sensation. Bring your attention to
the discomfort and really study it. What are its different qualities? Does it tingle, ache,
sting, or burn? Does there seem to be a temperature or color associated with the
sensation? Try to also notice any thoughts or feelings that come up. If you notice
yourself desiring to scratch or rub the area, you can do so, but mindfully observe what
that feels like, too. Alternatively, you can choose to not scratch or rub it for now, and
observe what it feels like to refrain from doing so. This is one way we can learn the
compassionate quality of distress tolerance: refraining from acting out in anger can be
a lot like choosing not to scratch an itch. It’s possible to observe an experience
without reacting to it. See if you can direct some kindness toward the area, imagining
that it is surrounded in warm acceptance—as if you are relaxing and opening to the
experience rather than tensing and trying to push it away.

In his book The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of

5
Buddhist Psychology, Jack Kornfield describes the acronym “RAIN,” which
stands for Recognition, Acceptance, Investigation, and Nonidentification—all
of which can be applied to a practice of becoming mindfully aware of our
anger. We can recognize our anger—notice that it’s happening: This is just
the sort of situation that tends to set me off. I’m getting angry right now. I
can see the signs of anger coming up in my body. We can accept our
experience without pushing it away or being judgmental about what is
happening: I’m getting really worked up right now. We can mindfully
investigate our experience and take a closer, deeper look at what is going on.
And we can engage in nonidentification, which means that we realize that our
anger is not who we are, but instead it is simply an experience we are having.
As we mindfully explore our experience, we can use the spider diagrams
featured in the previous chapters as a guide for our investigation—bringing
our awareness to experiences happening in our bodies, noticing where our
attention is drawn, observing our desires—what we are motivated to do and
what we are feeling, thinking, and doing. We can study these experiences and
describe them to ourselves: My heart is racing and my stomach is in a knot.
I’m angry, and my thoughts keep going back to what I could say to her. I
want to lash out, to hurt her feelings the way she hurt mine. Simply observing
these experiences can give us a bit of distance from them. The recognition
that we are not the anger can help us step back from it. A metaphor that we
in CFT circles have borrowed from Buddhist traditions is that you can put
mud (or poison) into water and the water will look cloudy, but the mud and
the water are not the same thing. The mud can be removed or allowed to
settle, and the water will again be clear. Our minds are the same way—they
can be contaminated by anger, but the anger is merely an experience that
colors the mind. Our minds can again become clear as we help them to settle.

Mindfulness: A Workout for the Brain

A growing body of research shows that persistent mindfulness practice can
produce changes in the function and structure of the brain. In 2011, Britta
Hölzel and her colleagues published a study that used magnetic resonance
imaging to examine changes in the brains of people who had taken an eight-
6, 7
week course of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). The study
compared sixteen people in the mindfulness program with a control sample of
seventeen others who did not practice mindfulness. Participants in the MBSR
program attended a weekly two-and-a-half-hour group meeting in which they
participated in a number of mindfulness-based training exercises, including
body scans, mindful yoga, and “sitting meditation,” which uses mindfulness
to focus on the breath and other sensory experiences. Additionally,
participants in the mindfulness group spent an average of twenty-seven
minutes per day engaged in mindfulness practices during the course of the
study.
Results from the study revealed that the individuals in the mindfulness
condition showed significant increases in brain gray matter concentration in
the left hippocampus, an area of the brain that is involved in cortical arousal
and emotion regulation. Increases in gray matter were also observed in other
parts of the brain: the posterior cingulated cortex and the left temporo-
parietal junction (two structures involved in processes related to self-
awareness) and clusters in the cerebellum, which is also involved in helping
us regulate our emotions. These changes were not observed in the control
group. What is the take-home message? By choosing to engage in mental
activities such as mindfulness and compassion practices, we can potentially
change our brains. The ways our tricky brains work can cause us difficulties,
but this doesn’t mean we’re helpless to affect things. More and more, we are
learning that practicing mindfulness is a workout for the brain, developing
the abilities (and the parts of our brains) that will help us manage our
emotions and function better in the social world.

Mindfulness of the Breath

With mindful breathing, we bring our attention to the breath and keep it
anchored there, observing the breath as it enters and leaves our bodies. We
can settle our attention wherever we feel the breath most clearly, perhaps at
the point at the end of our nostrils where the breath enters and leaves the nose
or on the rise and fall of our abdomen, just below the rib cage. There are a
number of reasons for choosing the breath as an anchor point for practicing
mindful attention. As we learned in the preceding chapter, the rhythm of the
breath can be soothing to us as we attempt to focus our attention.
Additionally, the sensation of breathing stands out so that we can easily find
it, but it’s subtle enough that it requires some effort to keep our attention
there. Also, the breath is always there; if we’re alive, we can always turn to
the breath.
Mindfulness of the breath can be both simple and challenging, basic yet
profound in its impact. The essence of the practice is straightforward: we
bring our attention to our breath and attempt to keep it there. When our
attention inevitably wanders off because we’ve been distracted by thoughts,
feelings, or other sensations, we refocus our mindful attention by noticing
that we’ve been distracted and then gently bringing our attention back to the
breath. We notice and return, over and over again. Simple, right? Well, it is
simple, but it’s not easy. Keeping our attention on the breath is actually a lot
more challenging than we may anticipate. Our minds are used to being very
active—thinking and doing and remembering and imagining. They may
struggle with the experience of stillness and the attempt to stay in the present
moment, not being used to staying in one place for extended periods of time.
So, when we begin to observe the breath, our minds almost immediately will
begin to carry us away. We become distracted by thoughts, memories, noises,
bodily sensations—the list goes on and on. This happens very frequently
when we’re learning mindfulness. Sometimes, we notice the distraction right
away and can bring ourselves right back to the breath. At other times, we’ll
get completely lost in thought and may stay there for almost the entire
session.
The fact that we get distracted when we’re learning mindfulness can be
very frustrating—we may think we should be able to keep our attention
perfectly centered on our breath, and may get angry or frustrated when we
can’t. We may even think there is something wrong with us that prevents us
from doing it; we may feel that we just don’t have the right minds for it. Can
you see what’s happening here? Our threat systems are activated by the sense
that we’re failing at something we think should be easy, which then causes
frustration, arousal, and a variety of other thoughts that make it even more
difficult to be mindful.
Luckily, you can prevent yourself from getting caught up in this sort of
difficulty if you keep a few things in mind. First, you want to approach the
process of learning mindfulness, well…mindfully. Remember—being
mindful means being curious, accepting, and nonjudgmental about whatever
is happening in the present moment. Allow yourself to observe whatever is
happening, including feelings of distraction, frustration, and self-doubt. You
can even choose to draw upon some compassionate understanding, kindly
encouraging yourself to do this surprisingly difficult task. In the next chapter,
we’ll dive into developing our compassionate minds, which will help with
this. When we approach learning mindfulness in this way, the frustration of I
can’t do this! becomes an observation: Wow! I’ve got a very busy mind
today! Compassionate thinking helps us to remind ourselves that everyone
gets distracted during mindful breathing exercises, particularly when we’re
starting out. It’s not your fault. (If you’ve read the first half of the book, I bet
you knew that one was coming.) Your mind has spent decades learning how
to be busy. The fact that it takes some practice to settle it down is not a sign
that something is wrong with you. It’s completely normal.
Another point to understand is that we can’t lose when we’re practicing
mindfulness. We actually need our minds to become distracted during our
practice so that we can learn to notice when it happens. Every thought,
emotion, or experience that takes us away from the breath is an opportunity
to practice noticing movement in our minds—learning to notice when our
attention is captured by these experiences—and to practice bringing our
attention back to where we want it. Notice what happens when you do this.
When you observe that you’ve been distracted by thoughts or emotions, there
is a shift in awareness that pulls you out of the daydream and back into the
present moment. This awareness is the essence of mindfulness. In learning to
catch your anger early, being able to notice these movements in your mind
and body can be a real advantage. This ability can help snap you out of your
angry state of mind, allowing you to observe your angry thoughts and
emotions as mental events without your behavior being dictated by them. If
you never have distractions, how will you learn to notice your thoughts and
emotions as they arise?
Despite all of that, we’re almost guaranteed to become frustrated
sometimes during our mindfulness practice. Given our current purpose, this is
also a good thing. Tibetan Buddhist teachers often refer to “taking adversity
as the path,” which means that we can’t learn to work with a difficulty unless
we sometimes have that difficulty. This is one reason why distress tolerance is
an important component of a compassionate mind and why it’s crucial for
learning to deal with anger in more effective ways. Developing distress
tolerance gives us the ability to accept temporary discomfort as a part of life
and to endure the discomfort that comes with being angry while refraining
from acting on the anger. Frustration during mindfulness practice gives us an
opportunity to learn how to sit with a mild form of anger, to tolerate it, and to
work with it. We can observe the frustration as a mental experience and
gently bring our attention back to the breath. We could even shift the focus of
our mindful attention from our breath to the frustration itself. Doing this, you
would accept that This is how I’m feeling right now, taking a perspective of
curiosity as you examine your frustration, as well as the thoughts,
motivations, and bodily experiences that go with it. Most folks who stick
with mindfulness practice learn early on how to observe the thought I don’t
want to do this. I’m going to get up, even as they keep on practicing, knowing
that this is just another thought.

Exercise 6.3: Mindfulness of the Breath

As with the previous exercises, find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. You
might want to get a timer or set an alarm (something with a pleasant tone, not a jarring
one) to let you know when your session is done.

Sit in an upright position, with your back straight and the soles of your feet flat on the
floor. It’s all right to lie down if you need to, but that can sometimes cause
drowsiness.

If you like, you may close your eyes. Alternately, you can keep them open and allow
your gaze to drop—perhaps to a spot on the floor—and then “soften” your gaze,
allowing your eyes to un-focus a bit.

Allow yourself to become aware of your breathing. Just notice the sensation of the
breath entering and leaving your body.

You’re not attempting to control your breathing—just let it take on a rhythm that is
comfortable for you. There will be variations from breath to breath. Just notice them.

Follow the pathway of your breath: in through the nose, filling your lungs, raising your
abdomen, and back out again.

Bring your attention to the point at which the sensation of the breath stands out most
strongly to you. Often people observe the rise and fall of their abdomens, just below
the rib cage, or attend to the breath entering and leaving at the tips of their nostrils.
The key is to find the spot that works best for you.

Once you find a spot, let your attention rest there, observing your breath. You’re just
setting your attention there, not clamping it down. Gently observe your breath.

Thoughts, feelings, and sensations will distract you and take you away from the
breath. When this happens, simply notice that it has happened and gently bring your
attention back to the breath. Notice and return. Notice and return. This is the practice,
and you’ll do it many times.

Optional: When you notice that a thought, feeling, or sensation has taken you away,
you can choose to briefly label what it was that you noticed. For example, if you’re
thinking about something, simply note to yourself, Thinking, and return to the breath
(other labels might include Listening, and so on). You can also briefly congratulate
yourself when you notice the distraction as you learn to observe the movement of
your mind.
 Mindfulness is a skill, and just like any other skill, it needs to be
practiced. You can take some actions to increase the likelihood that you will
follow through with your practice and benefit from it. First, when you begin
to do the breathing exercises, it’s good to start small. In our anger groups, the
first assignment is to practice for at least two minutes per day for the first
week. We move up to five minutes the second week and ask members to
maintain a five-to-ten-minute daily mindfulness practice (encouraging them
to go longer if they choose) as we begin introducing other, compassion-based
practices into the routine. Other programs encourage people to practice for
longer, say twenty to thirty minutes per day, and that is wonderful. I
encourage you to do this if you’d like. In my groups, I tend to keep it a bit
briefer than that and encourage folks to do it more often—several times a
day, if possible.
The idea is to keep yourself motivated so that you keep practicing. Even
if you find yourself very motivated in the beginning, I’d recommend doing
shorter sessions several times a day, even just “checking in” with the present
moment for a few seconds. I know countless people who’ve started out very
excitedly and enthusiastically with long mindfulness meditation sessions,
only to burn out a few weeks later and stop altogether. Try to structure your
practice so that you’ll keep doing it. While I won’t be giving you any “rules”
for your practice, there is one very practical guideline from Buddhist master
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche that has guided how we’ve structured things in
8
our groups: “short periods, many times.” I think this is good advice for our
purposes because it helps us bring mindfulness into many aspects of our day.
The goal is to gradually cultivate an open awareness of the unfolding process
of our lives, so that we spend more time engaged in the present moment and
less time lost in thoughts and emotions that contribute little to our happiness.
I find it useful to set aside time for a mindful breathing session every day
for a consistent length of time. I do twenty or thirty minutes in the morning,
just before or after a small breakfast (depending on how hungry I am!), and I
also practice a variety of very brief mindfulness exercises at different times
throughout the day. It’s useful to pick times of day when you’re mentally
alert—it’s much harder to be mindful when we are struggling to stay awake.
There are lots of ways to briefly introduce mindfulness into the day so that
you can develop the habit of connecting with the present moment. For
example, you can commit to eating at least one mouthful mindfully every
time you have a meal or snack. When walking, you can do so mindfully—if
only for a few steps. If you have a few minutes free, you can do a quick body
scan, moving your awareness across your body, spending a few seconds on
each part as you go. Or you can simply bring your awareness to a particular
body part while doing things like washing dishes, bathing, or using the toilet
(if this sounds odd, recall that you’re learning to nonjudgmentally observe all
of your experiences). You can combine your mindfulness practice with the
soothing-rhythm breathing exercise, connecting to the calming rhythm of the
breath for thirty seconds or so whenever you get the chance. Several times a
day, you can do a quick checking-in exercise like the one we began this
chapter with (and which is included as exercise 6.4). Again, the idea is that
you’re trying to establish the habit of mindful awareness so that, eventually,
you just naturally find yourself connecting with the present moment in this
way—and are more likely to notice when angry thoughts or emotions begin
to carry you away.

Exercise 6.4: Mindful Checking In

The goal of this exercise is to bring you quickly and efficiently into the present moment
and to establish the habit of noticing what is happening in your body, thoughts, and
emotions. It takes just a few moments, and you can do it at almost any time (except
while driving—then keep your attention on the road!). As you do this exercise,
remember to direct your attention in a warm, nonjudgmental way. You are simply
observing what your experiences are in the moment:

Bring your attention to your body. Notice how it feels.

What is the temperature like?

Notice the points of contact between your body and other objects.

Is your body tensed or relaxed?

Allow your attention to be drawn to any bodily sensations that stand out to you.

Notice the information coming in through your other senses—what sights and
sounds are you aware of?
 Bring your attention to your thoughts.

Observe your thoughts as mental events.

Notice the content of your thoughts—what are they about?

Notice the rate of your thoughts—are they coming quickly or slowly?

Bring your attention to your emotions and motivation.

What emotions are you feeling? Which emotions stand out?

Notice the different emotions that can be present at one time and how they’re
related to one another.

Notice your desires—what do you feel motivated to do?

Try to observe the relationships between your bodily experiences, thoughts, and
emotions. Which ones go together?

Here’s a summary of some tips for learning and maintaining a

mindfulness practice:

Start small and gradually increase the amount of time you practice.

Establish a routine of doing mindful breathing at a consistent time of

day, at a time when you tend to be mentally alert.

Have fun! Bring mindful awareness to a variety of different activities

throughout the day. Don’t let it get boring.

Get in the habit of mindfully observing your body. Learning to bring

awareness to sensations in the body can help you step out of the
inertia of an emotion and observe it. In this way, you gain a sense of
distance from it and avoid being trapped in thoughts that continue to
fuel your anger.
 Bring mindful awareness to activities that can be pleasurable.

Check in with yourself and your experience several times per day.

Remember that there’s no way to fail. Your mind will become

distracted, and learning to notice this is part of the reason you are
learning mindfulness. Just keep coming back to the focus of your
mindful attention. Remember: notice and return.

Mindfulness and Working with Anger

Mindfulness prepares us to access our compassionate minds as we relate to
the experiences of our lives with calmness, curiosity, openness, and
acceptance. This is opposite to the way anger organizes our minds. Where
our angry minds seek to reject and harm, mindfulness accepts and embraces.
Where anger judges, mindfulness observes. When faced with difficulties,
anger narrows our attention and locks our minds into a flurry of threat-related
thoughts, images, and bodily sensations. Mindfulness observes all of this
mental activity for what it is and allows us to step out of our threat-driven
mind-set, broaden our attention, and see all aspects of the situation.
We can see that mindfulness gives us many tools that we can use to work
compassionately with specific anger episodes and that fit with many of the
skills we’ll be developing in the rest of the book. As we learn to notice
movement in our bodies and minds, we can wisely recognize the signs of
anger before we become caught up in them. Our anger motivates us to act in
destructive ways, but if we relate to the anger as just another mental event,
we can disengage from it and refrain from engaging in our habitual and
destructive angry behaviors. The ability to mindfully observe our bodily
experiences can help us to accept and endure the discomfort associated with
anger and refrain from the urges it produces. As we practice mindfulness, we
gain greater control over our attention. This control will help us to redirect
attention in more useful ways—for example, finding ways to get our safeness
systems going and the creation of compassionate thoughts and behaviors.
Finally, as we practice connecting with the present moment in different ways,
we will slowly establish new patterns in our brains—patterns associated with
a compassionate willingness to engage with whatever life presents us rather
than falling into anger every time something doesn’t go our way.
 Conclusion
Learning mindfulness gives us a way to connect with our experiences that is
open, accepting, and nonjudgmental. It can help you learn to control your
attention and to participate directly in your life, rather than being captured by
your thoughts and emotions or going through life on automatic pilot.
Research shows that mindfulness can be beneficial to us on many levels,
potentially improving our physical health, helping us to deal with difficult
emotions, and even stimulating growth in our brains.
Mindfulness is a valuable tool that can help you work with your anger in
more effective ways, and like any valuable skill, it takes time to cultivate.
The key is to establish mindful awareness as a new habit. I’d recommend
mindfully checking in with yourself before and after doing the other exercises
we’ll cover in the rest of the book. This will increase your awareness of how
the practices affect your thoughts, emotions, motivations, and behaviors.
Getting in the habit of observing your state of mind gives you countless
opportunities to shift your mental perspective. In the next chapter, we’ll do
exactly that as we focus squarely on developing the perspective of the
compassionate self, which will provide a framework for organizing the work
we’ll be doing for the rest of the book.
 7

Compassionate Imagery: Developing the

Compassionate Self
In this chapter, we’ll use imagery to begin developing what I call the
“compassionate self.” As we’ve seen, our brains and bodies can respond to
mental experiences (thoughts, fantasies, and imagination) in ways that are
similar to how they respond to external situations. We’ve seen how imagery
can impact our mood and overall mental state—imagining situations that
threaten or anger us can keep us angry for hours at a time. In the same way,
compassionate imagery can produce entirely different patterns in our brains,
organizing our minds in ways that are helpful rather than harmful. Many of
the exercises included here are reminiscent of mind-training techniques that
have been used for thousands of years.

Using Imagery
Before we jump into the practices and exercises, let’s consider how to work
with three potential obstacles that sometimes come up when we begin to use
imagery: having a wandering mind, feeling as if you “can’t do” imagery, and
1
not having time to practice.

The Wandering Mind

Our minds will sometimes wander during these imagery exercises, just as
they do when we practice mindfulness. Sometimes they wander a lot. The
key to managing this is to simply accept that our minds will sometimes
wander, and that it’s okay. The routine is to bring your attention to the
imagery exercise and, when you observe that your attention has wandered, to
gently bring your attention back to the imagery. Remember, becoming aware
that your attention has wandered helps you learn to notice movement in your
mind—a valuable skill to have when you are working with anger.
“I just can’t do imagery!”

We may tend to think that mental images are like Polaroid pictures in the
mind, but for many of us, mental imagery may simply consist of fleeting,
fragmented images or simply of “having a sense” of something. To help you
understand, let’s take a moment to do some brief imagery exercises:

Think about your favorite meal.

Now bring to mind a recent drive or ride that you’ve taken, perhaps to
work.

Think about the summer holiday you’d like to take this year.

Don’t rush. Just give yourself a bit of time to think about these things,
noticing what happens in your mind. Those fleeting impressions of favorite
foods, the journeys you took and houses you passed on the trip to work, the
beach or mountains of your vacation spot—all of those impressions were
created through mental imagery. To a greater or lesser extent, we can all
engage in imagery—say, by imagining a meal in such a way that it impacts
our bodies and minds, perhaps by making our mouths water.
These imagery exercises aren’t about creating vivid or sharp mental
images—they are about having a mental experience that can impact your
state of mind. And if you find that you have difficulty creating or maintaining
vivid images in your mind, it isn’t a problem. The key is to focus on the
experience and to notice any feelings that might come with it. As I’ve
mentioned, my mind tends to be very auditory—I can play songs in my head
like a jukebox, but I struggle to picture anything. One technique I sometimes
use is to imagine what it would be like if I could picture whatever it is I’m
2
imagining. You don’t want to get caught up in being judgmental about your
ability to visualize. It’s better to simply notice when you think, I can’t really
imagine this very well, and recognize it as just another distracting thought to
be aware of as you gently bring the spotlight of your attention back to the
imagery.

Not Having Time to Practice

 Many of us have very busy lives and may feel as if we don’t have any
time to set aside for practice. However, practice doesn’t need to be really
time consuming—it can take up as little as thirty seconds of your time.
Additionally, if we really look at how we spend our days, there are often lots
of small pockets of time that we could potentially use—while sitting on the
train on the way home from work, during a commercial while watching
television, that sort of thing. It’s also useful to find convenient ways to
remind yourself to practice, possibly with a tiny note by the bedside or in
your lunch box, or by using a cell phone alarm. It can help to keep a small
stone or some other small object in your pocket so that you’ll be reminded
every time you reach in your pocket. When you notice it, you can practice
thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing and then spend possibly a few
minutes on one of the imagery exercises. Instead of a pebble, I use a one-
pound coin, as it’s the perfect size and reminds me of England, where I first
learned about CFT.
To identify the “pockets of time” I’ve mentioned, you could keep a record
of how you spend your time for a week, and then review where you might be
able to create space for practice. You may discover time that you hadn’t been
aware of before. Often, we may feel as if we have no time yet also spend
several hours per day watching television programs that we aren’t terribly
fond of or surfing the Internet. If this is the case, it may be possible to find
ten or twenty minutes in the day for imagery practice. We can be creative in
looking for times and places that are great for compassionate-imagery
practice; for example, we can practice in the bath, in bed before we get up
(what we in CFT circles sometimes call “compassion under the duvet”), or
for a few minutes during the lunch break at work. Remember, “short periods,
many times.”
Finally, if you really don’t have any time to yourself, it’s worth putting
some effort into changing this, as this lack of time may be contributing to
your struggles with anger. Stress tends to turn up the volume on our difficult
emotions. Sometimes making the effort to create a bit of space in our lives
can make a world of difference.

Cultivating the Compassionate Self

We’ll be looking more closely at the qualities of the compassionate self
shortly, but for a moment let’s begin by briefly imagining that you have
them. What would it be like to have a sincere desire to be helpful? To possess
a sense of calm confidence and the courage to face difficulties? To have
wisdom drawn from life experiences and the ability to be in control of your
mind, rather than having it controlled by anger or any other particular
emotion? You can create a vision in your mind of how you’d like to be—of a
“compassionate self.” Your sense of self can be practiced and developed in
the way that you practice and develop other qualities that you’d like to have.
For example, if you wanted to be a good tennis player or guitarist, you would
spend time hitting the ball on the tennis court or practicing chord changes
over and over. Gradually your body and mind become familiar with the
things you need to do to be a better tennis player or a better musician, as
those new brain patterns begin to “wear in.” If your goal were to solve math
problems, you’d need lots of practice to train your mind to work in those
specific, analytical ways.
Once you’ve connected with a compassionate motivation—for example,
to be helpful and caring—you can move on to practicing and developing
these qualities so that they become a greater part of who you are. Once again,
the idea is to get into the habit of bringing forth these qualities in ourselves,
so that we can have a greater sense of well-being and purpose, feel that we
have more control over our lives, and contribute to the happiness of those
people around us. The compassionate self is capable of taking anger and
turning it into respectful assertiveness, defined by wisdom and strength.
Nelson Mandela is a good example of someone who chose to take a
compassionate focus and, as a result, became a powerful leader.
The compassionate-self exercises are about beginning to develop a new
identity for yourself based on the qualities of compassion. Why is it
important to do this? Well, much of how we think, feel, and behave is related
to how we see ourselves. If we see ourselves as being “angry” people, we’re
more likely to act out of anger, to accept our angry behaviors as simply part
of who we are, and to use that as an excuse not to change them. Alternatively,
the development of a compassionate self-image can set us up to think and
behave as someone who is compassionate and who doesn’t want to harm
others or ourselves. It can help us to take responsibility for changing angry
behaviors that don’t fit with the sort of person we want to be.
All the imagery exercises will begin in the same way: you’ll start by
taking an upright, dignified posture, assuming a seated position when first
learning the exercises (although later you can feel free to do them standing up
or lying down), and relaxing your facial muscles. You’ll slow yourself down
a bit, engaging in thirty seconds or so of soothing-rhythm breathing, which
helps prepare your mind for the calm, thoughtful perspective of compassion
and teaches your brain to associate SRB with the qualities of your
compassionate mind. Remember how we looked at classical conditioning in
chapter 3? By consistently doing soothing-rhythm breathing immediately
before each of the compassionate-imagery exercises, you’ll be teaching your
brain that this way of breathing and compassionate ways of thinking and
feeling go together. Then, in the future, the combination of this learning and
the slowing effects of the breathing can work together to help you shift into a
compassionate state.
To relax your facial muscles, begin with the forehead and work down,
allowing your jaw to drop slightly. Allow the edges of your mouth to turn
upward slightly. Keep going until you arrive at a smile that you feel is gentle,
warm, and friendly. It should be a comfortable and natural expression—the
kind that you might have if you felt completely at peace with yourself,
completely safe. This is not an exaggerated, cheesy smile, or a too-friendly
“creepy guy at the bar” smile. You’re just taking advantage of the subtle way
your facial muscles can send messages to your brain that can tend to improve
your mood.
As you do the compassionate-self exercises, it can be useful to approach
them as if you were a method actor who is studying your character by
mimicking his posture, manner of speaking, and facial expressions, as well as
by imagining how the character feels, thinks, and is motivated to behave. It
doesn’t matter if the method actor actually resembles the character he is
portraying—he imagines what it would be like if he were that person.
We’ll be taking this approach as well, and it may help us avoid the
potential obstacle of thoughts such as I can’t do this! How can I imagine
myself as a compassionate person? I’m nothing like this! It doesn’t matter if
you feel that you have these qualities or don’t. Just imagine what it would be
like if you did have them. Allow your mind to explore this way of being
without judging or second-guessing your efforts. The key is simply to
approach the exercise with the motivation to begin developing the innately
compassionate aspects of yourself. This motivation should grow increasingly
as you continue to practice so that it gradually becomes more than just acting
a role. The idea is for it to become a greater part of your identity, a part of
yourself that you feel is worth developing.
If this seems far fetched, let me say that I’ve used these exercises in a
prison environment, and the power of learning to nurture and connect with
our compassionate selves can be profound. Earlier in the book you met
Wade, who was regularly abused as a child, was imprisoned for violent
offenses, and had developed such a threatening persona that even other
prisoners tended to avoid him. One day during our CFT for Anger group,
Wade reported that he had received a letter from his ex-wife asking him to
relinquish his legal rights to his children so that her new husband (whom she
had left Wade to be with and whom Wade had violently attacked before
entering prison) could adopt them. A hush came over the room as the gravity
of the situation hit our all-male group. As a father, I can imagine few things
more difficult than signing away rights to my son, and Wade had frequently
shared his caring and concern for his own children. For Wade, this issue
brought up tremendous pain and turmoil—reopening the wounds of his
divorce and his own childhood, highlighting the pain of being in prison and
unable to care for his children, and bringing up feelings of being inadequate
as a father.
The first time he read the letter, all of this surfaced in the form of anger:
he was overcome with rage. After a few minutes, though, something
happened. He told us, “I just sat down, defeated, staring at the floor. I just sat
there and breathed for about forty-five minutes. And then my compassionate
self kicked in, and I knew I had to sign that letter.” It took him over a month
to sign it; he spent the time thinking, going over the situation in his mind,
trying to figure out what would be the best thing for his children. Once he’d
created space for his compassionate self to emerge and not be bullied and
tossed out of the way by his angry self, he was able to connect with his inner
wisdom. This wisdom allowed him to step outside his experience of threat
and view the situation from his children’s eyes, considering what they
needed. As painful as it was, Wade ultimately signed that letter. “My kids
need a dad, and I’ve put myself in a position where I can’t do it. I hate that
guy, and I don’t know what my ex-wife’s motives are, but he seems to care
for them, and they need a father.” Wade was able to put his compassion and
caring for his children first. He signed the letter and then did something
equally courageous: he put aside his anger for his ex-wife and her new
husband, and began to face and work with the deep sadness of not being able
to care for his children, as well as the regret that came with feeling that he
had lost them and that it was his own fault. Wade, who had started out as one
of the hardest men in the prison, made the choice to enter individual
psychotherapy to work with these emotions. Now, several months later,
Wade continues in his therapy and has made powerful changes in his life.
He’s kinder, has much better relationships with others, and is much happier.
He’s developed powerful friendships with some of his peers and reports that
although opening himself to others has been scary, it’s also made his life
much happier and more rewarding. This is the power of learning to connect
with the compassionate self. Inside each of us is the potential for developing
compassion, and it starts with making the decision to try and to practice.
Wade’s experience demonstrates many of the attributes of the
compassionate self that we’ll be working to cultivate: sensitivity, care for the
well-being of yourself and others, distress tolerance, sympathy, empathy, and
nonjudgmental wisdom. As you go through the following exercise, imagine
what it’s like to have these qualities. Step by step, you can use your
imagination to cultivate a sense of your compassionate self.

Exercise 7.1: Cultivating the Compassionate Self

Take a seated position with an upright, dignified posture. Allow your facial muscles to
relax and your mouth to take on a slight, gentle smile. Bring your attention to your
breath and allow it to fall into a soothing rhythm. Watch the breath for thirty seconds or
so.

Let’s focus on some specific compassionate qualities, beginning with kindness and
the desire to be helpful and supportive. Focus on your motivation and desire to be
compassionate and to contribute to helping yourself and others be free from suffering,
to be happy, and to prosper. As you connect with this compassionate motivation, hold
your friendly facial expression and consider your tone of voice—how you would speak
in a compassionate way. For the next thirty seconds or so, gently and playfully
imagine that you already have great kindness and the desire to be helpful. Notice how
you feel when you imagine yourself in this way. Do this for thirty seconds or more.

There are other qualities of compassion that make it possible to act with kindness,
including confidence, maturity, and strength. Imagine you have a sense of confidence
 and authority; feel it in your upright body posture. Imagine being able to face suffering
and life’s difficulties with the calm understanding that Whatever is happening, I can
work with this, too. Keeping your compassionate facial expression and warm tone of
voice, think about how you would speak in a compassionate way and how you would
move about in the world, expressing your calm confidence and maturity. For the next
thirty seconds (or more), gently imagine yourself to be this confident, calm, strong,
and compassionate authority. Notice how you feel when you imagine yourself in this
way.

A compassionate mind is also wise, able to see things from a broad perspective and
understand that suffering and difficulties are a part of life. A wise mind understands
that we can work with these difficulties as they appear without pushing them away or
being dragged down by them. Imagine yourself as open, thoughtful, and reflective,
already able to use this wisdom. Keep your compassionate facial expression and
warm tone of voice, and imagine yourself expressing thoughtfulness and
insightfulness to yourself and others. For the next thirty seconds, imagine yourself as
someone who is already wise, thoughtful, and insightfully compassionate. Notice how
you feel when you imagine yourself in this way.

From these qualities come others, which we can develop one at a time. If you find
yourself experiencing any distress, simply return to imagining one of the previous steps.
If you need to, feel free to use soothing-rhythm breathing to center yourself at any point
in the exercise.

Select the qualities you’d like to develop and take some time (thirty seconds or so with
each) to imagine that you already have the quality. Consider how you would feel, think,
and behave as a result. Select different qualities in different practice sessions:

Sensitivity. Acknowledging suffering without being overwhelmed by it.

Sympathy. Allowing your calm and confident compassionate self to be touched by

the suffering of yourself and others.

Empathy. Being able to put yourself in the shoes of others (and yourself) and
understand why they feel the way they do—how it makes sense that they might feel
this way.

Generosity. Feeling the compassionate motivation to give.

Forgiveness. Being able to let go of grudges and hurt caused by others (and
yourself).
 Playfulness. Allowing yourself to be lighthearted, even in the face of difficulties.

Consider other compassionate qualities you’d like to have.

To develop this practice, you might imagine that you are looking at yourself from the
outside. See your facial expressions and the way you move in the world. Note your
motivation to be thoughtful, kind, helpful, and wise. Hear yourself speaking to others,
noting your compassionate tone of voice. See others relating to you as a compassionate
person. See yourself relating to other people in this compassionate way that you’re
developing. For the next thirty seconds or so, playfully and gently enjoy watching
yourself being a compassionate person in the world, and note how other people relate
to you as this person.

When ready, return your attention to the present moment, bringing your compassionate
presence into the world. As you develop your practice, you can imagine yourself having
all those qualities you’ve been practicing. This way, when you focus on activating your
compassionate mind using the skills in the rest of the book, you’ll have a sense of the
kind of person you’re working to become. The more you practice slowing down and
imagining being this person, the more easily you may find that you can access these
qualities in yourself and the more easily they will be able to express themselves through
you. Over time, your compassionate self can simply become your self.

Considering Self-Compassion
CFT emphasizes bringing compassion into our relationships with all beings,
including ourselves, and focuses on self-compassion as a pathway to good
3, 4, 5
mental health. In chapter 4, we looked at the way compassion involves
being sensitive to suffering, and having a kind motivation to help. While we
may tend to think of compassion as extending these qualities to others, self-
compassion involves extending this kind sensitivity, understanding, and
helpful motivation to ourselves and to our own suffering. In many cases, we
may tend to treat ourselves much more harshly than we treat others and may
deny ourselves the kindness that we unthinkingly give to other people. With
self-compassion, we recognize that we are also worthy of this kindness,
which we then give to ourselves.
 5
Psychologist and self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff defines self-
compassion as involving three components:

1. Extending kindness and understanding to yourself rather than harsh

self-criticism and judgment

2. Seeing your experiences as part of the larger human experience rather

than as separating and isolating

3. Holding your painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness

rather than overidentifying with them

This definition helps us recognize our struggles in a larger context—that

of the common human experience—and guides us to relate to these
challenges in more helpful ways.
In CFT, we approach self-compassion by particularly emphasizing the
nature of the human experience. By now, you are familiar with the CFT
approach to self-compassion: the idea that we all have tricky, evolved brains
that create difficulties in our lives and that we all just find ourselves here,
doing the best we can in the face of often challenging lives. When we
recognize the difficulties and suffering that we and others will inevitably face
simply as a result of being born human, we see that directing kindness and
patience toward ourselves is not only helpful; it’s really the only approach
that makes sense. However you choose to approach it, the idea behind self-
compassion is that, instead of relating to ourselves with harsh judgments,
self-criticism, and shame, we give ourselves the same compassionate
kindness and patience that we would direct toward others that we dearly care
about. Doing so can help us shift out of the patterns of shame and self-blame
that keep our threat system on high alert, providing continuous fuel to our
anger.

The Compassionate Self in Action

Once we become acquainted with the compassionate-self practice and how it
feels to imagine ourselves with these qualities, we can focus our thoughts and
attention on other exercises designed to deepen the experience of feeling
compassionate and to stimulate our safeness response. For the following
exercises, begin by shifting into the perspective of your compassionate self.
Take an upright, dignified posture, spend about thirty seconds in soothing-
rhythm breathing, and image yourself with the compassionate qualities
emphasized in the compassionate-self exercise. Imagine yourself as the sort
of person who is kind and is motivated to be helpful, as someone who has a
calm sense of confidence and authority, a sensitive emotional perspective,
and the wisdom that comes from a wealth of life experiences.
The first practice is called “Deepening Compassion,” and the idea is to
awaken and really familiarize yourself with the compassionate wish to
flourish and to be free from suffering and the emotional experience that goes
with it. You’ll focus your compassionate wishes on someone whom you care
about, for whom you naturally and easily feel a strong sense of warmth and
6
affection . For example, you might choose to imagine a friend, partner, child,
or even an animal. It shouldn’t be someone whom you have mixed or
negative feelings about (for example, a partner whom you love very much but
with whom you’ve also had a lot of recent conflict). If you pick someone but
find yourself feeling a lot of resistance, feel free to shift to someone else for
whom the feeling of kindness and compassion flows more naturally.

Exercise 7.2: Deepening Compassion

Begin by accessing your compassionate self: take an upright, dignified posture with your
face relaxed and smiling slightly. Start with thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing.
Imagine yourself as someone who is kind and is motivated to be helpful (thirty seconds).
Imagine having strength and a sense of authority—the calm confidence to work with
difficulties (thirty seconds). Next, imagine having wisdom and insightfulness (thirty
seconds).

Now bring to mind someone you care about. This should be someone you naturally
have affection for, for whom caring arises fairly naturally in you. It could be a friend,
partner, child, or an animal—someone for whom it’s easy to have kind, nurturing
feelings.

Hold this person (or being) in your mind’s eye. Focus your compassionate feelings on
them and bring to mind the kind wish for them to prosper—to be happy and free from
suffering. Extend this wish to them and really try to feel it.Name them in your mind as
 you breathe in, and say the following as you breathe out.

“May you be free of suffering.” (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

“May you be happy.” (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

“May you flourish.” (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

“May you find peace.” (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

For the next minute or longer, if you can, continue to say these phrases (out loud or
silently) as you visualize this being you care about. With each phrase, focus on the wish
you are directing toward them. Attempt to feel the wish that they be free of suffering,
happy, and able to flourish and find peace. After each phrase, wait a few seconds.
Really let the meaning sink in as you sincerely direct this wish to the person you care
about. If you can’t remember these specific phrases (or have other compassionate
wishes that you prefer), just use the ones that you recall.

When you’re ready, let the image fade. Spend a moment or two reflecting on the
feelings that have arisen in you while you have focused your compassion on this being.
Notice how it feels in your body. Remember, this is a practice designed to awaken
feelings that we may not connect with all that often, so it may take time to really feel it.

After practicing the deepening compassion exercise a few times, you’ll

become familiar with how it feels to extend compassionate wishes to
someone you care about. For those of us who have struggled with anger, this
exercise can sometimes bring up difficult emotions. For example, if we’ve
caused pain to the person we’re visualizing, we may experience guilt or
shame. This is normal, and it’s a sign that we’re beginning to connect with
compassion for that person. (If we didn’t feel compassion toward them, we
likely wouldn’t care if we’d caused them pain or not.) If you notice this
happening, try to mindfully observe those thoughts and emotions as mental
events, occurring because you are connecting with the compassionate wish
that the person or animal be happy, and gently bring your attention back to
the phrases. If you continue to struggle, I’d strongly suggest that you choose
another object of compassion. The idea is to pick someone (perhaps the
family dog!) for whom compassion easily arises so that you can practice it,
and become very familiar with what it feels like. By doing this, you aren’t
letting yourself off the hook for the pain you’ve caused—you’re working to
develop states of mind that will help you treat that person better in the future.
People you’ve hurt won’t benefit if you get caught up in punishing yourself.
But they (and everyone you interact with) will benefit from your
development of kindness and compassion. Once this exercise comes to you
more easily, you can move on to extending your compassion to slightly more
challenging targets.
As you’ve perhaps noticed, these exercises build on one another, and
you’ll begin each by briefly connecting with the compassionate qualities of
the mind by doing the compassionate-self exercise. In the following exercise,
you’ll first connect with your compassionate feelings by first directing them
to someone you care about as you did in the preceding exercise, and then
you’ll extend those compassionate wishes to a new target—you. This may
seem like a lot to do in a single exercise, but it takes just a few minutes to
progress through the preceding exercises, and the total practice can be done
in well under ten minutes, particularly after you become used to it.

Exercise 7.3: Compassionate Focusing on the Self

Begin by moving through the Compassionate Self and Deepening Compassion

exercises, taking a few minutes to assume the posture and qualities of the
compassionate self and then visualizing someone you care about and extending
compassionate wishes to that person. Focus on your compassionate feelings and your
sense of kindness, calm confidence, and wisdom. Connect with the deep wish that this
person be happy and free from suffering, focusing on how this feels.

Now create a picture of yourself in your mind’s eye, as if you were looking at yourself
from the outside. Don’t worry if you can’t produce a vivid image—if the image doesn’t
come easily, you can instead place one hand flat on your chest at the level of your
heart, and one just below, on your abdomen. The idea is to get a sense of connecting
with yourself. Focus your compassion on yourself as a human being who has arrived in
this world, one who just wants to be happy and to avoid suffering, a person doing the
best you can as you’re faced with difficult feelings and life circumstances. Keeping your
compassionate, friendly expression and a sense of your warm voice, imagine directing
 the following phrases toward yourself:

May I be free from suffering. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

May I be happy. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

May I flourish. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

May I find peace. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

For a few minutes, continue to say these phrases (out loud or silently) as you visualize
yourself in your mind or attend to the feeling of your hands on your torso. With each
phrase, focus on the wish that you’re directing toward yourself. Attempt to feel the wish
that you will be free of suffering, happy, able to flourish, and at peace. After each
phrase, wait a few seconds, really letting the meaning sink in as you sincerely direct this
wish to yourself. Again, if you can’t remember these specific phrases (or have
compassionate wishes that you prefer), just use the ones that you recall.

If you find yourself resisting (for example, feeling as if you don’t deserve to be happy or
free from suffering), remember that we’re working with our minds in ways that will help
us to improve ourselves and our ability to manage anger—this goal has little to do with
what we may or may not feel we deserve. Our shame keeps us locked into our
threatened, angry states of mind, so it’s time to learn to let it go. You can notice and
compassionately acknowledge these thoughts, gently let them go, and bring the focus
back to your kind, confident, and wise compassionate self. Notice what feelings arise as
you direct these kind wishes toward yourself and how it feels in your body.

Directing compassionate wishes to yourself can feel a bit strange or

uncomfortable in the beginning, particularly if you usually relate to yourself
with anger, shame, and self-criticism. Some resistance and discomfort is
perfectly normal as you begin to shift the way you think and feel about
yourself. You may fear that you don’t deserve kindness, that directing
compassion toward yourself will make you weak, or that it may let you off
the hook for the things you’ve done. Directing these kind thoughts to the self
can also bring up feelings of heartbreak if the exercise reminds us of affection
and support we never received. When this happens, you can draw upon the
skills you’ve been building: you can mindfully observe the feelings while
refraining from judging them; you can access your kind, wise, compassionate
self; you can recognize your shame and difficult feelings for what they are
—suffering—and a sign that in fact you do need compassion. You can
withhold judgment, directing sympathy and kindness to yourself as you
struggle with these feelings. You can also attempt to develop empathy for
yourself, working to understand how it makes sense that you feel this way. So
when these emotions come up, gently bring your attention back to your
compassionate self and reconnect with the attributes you’re working to
develop—kind concern, confidence, and wisdom. Then return to the phrases.
Just like the previous exercises, the key to the practice is to notice and return,
over and over again.
Sometimes, the emotions that come up can be so overwhelming and
paralyzing that they prevent us from continuing in the exercises entirely. This
is a sign that you may benefit from a therapist who can support and guide you
as you go through this process. Part of the wisdom of compassion is
recognizing when we need help and then getting it.

Using Imagery to Engage Your Safeness System

So far in this chapter, you’ve worked using imagery to help you connect with
your compassionate self. In the chapters to come, we’ll explore how we can
use the perspective of our compassionate minds to help us view situations
that anger us in new ways and discover new approaches for responding to
these situations. However, when we find ourselves hijacked by anger, the
arousal and emotional inertia of the threat response can make it very
challenging to shift our minds in this way. It’s hard to think flexibly and
compassionately when we are driven by our threat systems. We’ll address
this by using some imagery exercises that can help us activate our soothing
system and bring some balance to our emotions.
You took the first step in this direction when you learned soothing-
rhythm breathing, which helps you slow your body and mind down, helping
to counter the physical arousal and the racing thoughts that fuel (and are
fueled by) anger. Now you’ll try using imagery exercises to direct your
attention away from the thoughts and fantasies that keep your anger going.

“Don’t Think of a White Bear!”

One strategy you may have tried in attempting to manage your anger is to
simply stop thinking about it. Does this work?
It turns out that the answer seems to be, “Not really.” In 1987, memory
researcher Daniel Wegner and his colleagues examined the effects of thought
7
suppression: attempting to avoid thinking about specific topics. They divided
the participants in their study into two groups, and one (the “initial
suppression” group) was instructed to avoid thinking about a white bear for
five minutes. The other group (the “initial expression” group) was given
opposite instructions: they were told to try to think of a white bear. Both
groups were instructed to ring a bell every time they thought of a white bear
during the five-minute period. Afterward, the group instructions were
reversed—the initial suppression group was asked to think of a white bear for
five minutes, and the initial expression group was asked not to.
The results revealed that members of both groups continued to think of
white bears at a rate of more than once per minute even when asked not to,
but the group that was most likely to think about white bears was the thought
suppression group—the one that had at first been asked not to think of them.
In fact, this group thought of white bears more often than the participants
who had been told to think of them from the outset.
Furthermore, rates of “white-bear thoughts” in participants who’d been
asked to avoid thinking of them increased over time once they were no
longer attempting to suppress their thoughts. In every other condition, the
rates of white-bear thoughts gradually decreased over the five-minute
periods. It seemed that initially attempting to not think of white bears actually
set participants up to be preoccupied with them later, in a way that increased
over time. The researchers called this the “rebound effect.”
In a second study, an additional condition was added. A third group of
participants was instructed to avoid thinking of a white bear but was told, “If
you do happen to think of a white bear, please try to think of a red
Volkswagen instead.” This strategy worked: giving participants something
else to think about seemed to block the rebound effect. These participants
didn’t tend to think about white bears more as time went on in the way that
the others had.
The results of this study mean that it doesn’t work to simply try to avoid
thinking about something that has made us angry, because this may actually
make us more likely to stew over it later. If we want to move on, we’ll need
to focus our attention on something else. Specifically, we’re going to bring
our attention to imagery and thoughts designed to help calm and balance our
emotions so we can come back and address the situation from a
compassionate perspective (rather than one that is controlled by our threat
systems).
These exercises are not about soothing away anger or trying to suppress it
by distracting ourselves and forever avoiding the situations that led to it. A
growing body of research indicates that avoidance of difficult emotions
doesn’t work. Rather, our goal is to step away from the anger and bring a bit
of balance to our emotions so we can come back to the situation that has
activated us, addressing it from the perspective of our compassionate selves.
This isn’t avoidance—it’s working with the spotlight of our attention to help
us approach difficult situations from a perspective that is driven by a
compassionate motivation to help rather than by our automatic threat
responses. We shift away momentarily, center ourselves, and return when
we’re ready.

Your Ideal Compassionate Image

Our next exercise will focus on the creation of your “ideal compassionate
8
image.” Like other exercises that help us direct compassion toward
ourselves, this exercise is designed to help us counter feelings of shame and
self-doubt or of feeling judged, disliked, or criticized. We do this by
imagining a perfect (or ideal) compassionate nurturer who accepts,
understands, and values us.
Sometimes we can initially feel strange imagining someone who relates
to us in this way. We may even feel anxious or saddened, thinking, I don’t
have anyone in my life who relates to me like this. Apart from religious
entities, the truth is that none of us truly has a perfect nurturer—someone
who purely accepts us, understands our inner thoughts, feelings, and
motivations; someone who will never condemn us regardless of the
circumstances. Real people can’t do that. The key to remember here is that
our emotional minds respond to our imaginations, and we’re using this
observation to help change the way we think and feel about ourselves. Recall
that our safeness system is linked to experiences of affiliation—cues of
safety, acceptance, and kindness that we receive from others. The goal of this
exercise is to use your imagination to stimulate such experiences. The fewer
actual people you have in your life who provide this kindness and acceptance,
the more important it is to learn to do it for yourself.
To begin, consider what qualities you would like your compassionate
image to have—perhaps complete acceptance of you no matter what, a deep
concern and affection for you, or a sense of kinship and belonging. For
example, if you feel that you don’t deserve compassion, imagine that your
compassionate image understands this concern and helps you with these
feelings. If you don’t feel understood, you might imagine your compassionate
image as being completely understanding. The idea is that your
compassionate image is a match for you—possessing qualities that are
perfectly designed to meet your needs and help with your own particular
struggles. This being understands the human condition very well, perhaps
because it has been through difficulties itself. It understands that we all just
find ourselves here—we are born, grow up, and somehow become the people
we are—equipped with a tricky brain and with feelings and problems that we
didn’t choose and that we may not have been prepared to deal with.
Sometimes we may find ourselves avoiding our problems or even doing
things out of anger that make them worse. Your ideal compassionate image
understands that this is part of the struggle of being a human being. Your
ideal compassionate image will always try to help you become more
compassionate to yourself and others and will never criticize you.
If you find yourself struggling with this practice, start by just imagining a
compassionate voice that tells you the sorts of things you would say to
comfort a friend whom you dearly cared about. The idea behind all of these
exercises is to find a way to start directing compassion toward yourself and to
allow yourself to receive it, to feel cared about, respected, and valued.

Exercise 7.4: Your Ideal Compassionate Image

As with the other exercises, begin by assuming an upright, dignified posture, relaxing
your face and allowing your mouth to form a slight, warm smile. Spend about thirty
seconds in soothing-rhythm breathing, allowing your breath to fall into a slow, soothing
rhythm:

Keeping in mind the qualities we’ve considered, begin to visualize your ideal
compassionate image. Consider what this being would look like. Would you want that
person to be old or young? Male or female? Perhaps nonhuman, such as an animal
or a part of nature? When you think of this being, notice what comes to mind; over
time, you may find that different images will come and go. Don’t try to hold on to
them, just see what happens and go with what is helpful to you. If your ideal
compassionate image were to communicate with you, what would their tone of voice
sound like? Imagine their facial expression—the way he or she smiles at you or
shows concern for you. Spend the next thirty seconds imagining your ideal
compassionate image, one that’s perfect for you in every way.

If you’d like, you can imagine your compassionate image coming to you in the safe
place you’ll be developing in exercise 7.7 later in this chapter. Once you’re familiar
with that exercise, feel free to bring that place to mind. Imagine that your image is
coming toward you to meet you and that you are moving toward her. Feel this being’s
pleasure as he or she smiles at you. Imagine them being with you, either standing in
front of you or perhaps sitting or standing beside you. Spend thirty seconds imagining
this scene.

Take a few moments to consider any other sensory qualities that are associated with
your ideal compassionate image. Focus on your sense of its presence and the feeling
of having this compassionate being with you, supporting you. Focus on this for thirty
seconds.

Imagine how your compassionate ideal became compassionate. Maybe they’ve had
many experiences of pain and suffering, of doing good and bad things but has
learned how to dedicate themselves to the compassionate path. The idea is that this
ideal compassionate being deeply understands the suffering and pain of humanity
and can completely understand your own personal struggles. This being’s wisdom
comes from inner knowledge of the pain and suffering that is a part of life. His or her
deepest wish is to offer you complete compassion and understanding. Spend the next
thirty seconds considering this aspect of your compassionate ideal image.

Now imagine that your compassionate image has certain qualities. Begin by focusing
on the sense of safety, kindness, and warmth you feel when you are with your
compassionate image. Imagine what it would be like to feel completely safe with this
being (it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t feel safe—the key is to imagine what it
would be likeif you did). Notice the feelings that would arise in you. Spend thirty
seconds in this way.

Now focus on the sense of this being’s maturity, authority, and confidence. This being
is not overwhelmed by your anger, pain, or distress, is not put off by the strange
things that can go on in your mind. It remains present, enduring these experiences
 with you. Imagine what it would be like to be with such a compassionate being, one
who’s there just for you, conveying a calm sense of strength and confidence and
helping you to experience these qualities as well. Spend thirty seconds or so
imagining this.

Imagine your compassionate image also having great wisdom that comes from
experience and dedication. A part of this wisdom is reflected in this being’s kindness,
calm confidence, and deep desire to be helpful and supportive. Imagine the profound
wisdom enabling them to truly understand your struggles, hopes, and fears. Imagine
that this being passes this wisdom on to you. Spend thirty seconds in this way.

Now focus on your compassionate image having a deep commitment to you. Imagine
that, no matter what, this being is fully accepting of you and committed to supporting
you in becoming more compassionate to yourself and others and getting better at
coping with life. This being’s kindness, acceptance, and commitment to you are freely
given, and there is nothing you could do that would cause him or her to reject you.
Spend thirty seconds imagining this.

Keeping your friendly facial expression and breathing in a soothing rhythm, imagine
your ideal compassionate image speaking to you in a warm voice, conveying deep
wishes and commitment to you:

“(Your name), may you be free of suffering.”

“(Your name), may you be happy.”

“(Your name), may you flourish.”

“(Your name), may you find peace.”

Spend one minute imagining this.

When you’re ready, allow the vision of your compassionate image to fade and bring
your awareness back to the present moment.

Compassion Flowing Into Us

In this practice, we imagine that compassion and peace, visualized as a
healing light, flows into us from an outside source. You can imagine these
compassionate wishes coming from your ideal compassionate image, from
some aspect of nature, from all the kind beings in the universe, or from a
spiritual source from your own faith tradition if you have one. It doesn’t
really matter what the source is—the important part is that in your
imagination you can accept these kind wishes flowing into you.

Exercise 7.5: Compassion Flowing In

Again, spend about thirty seconds doing soothing-rhythm breathing and access the
kindness, wisdom, and confident authority of your compassionate mind:

Imagine that, outside of you, a source of great kindness and compassion sees that
you’re struggling and directs its efforts to help you. Imagine it directing great
compassion, peace, and kindness to you.

Imagine that this great wish for you to be happy takes the form of light—any color
you’d like—and that this light flows into you through the crown of your head (or, if you
like, at the level of your heart).

Imagine this light flowing into your body, accumulating at the level of your heart, and
slowly filling you. As it flows in, you experience a sense of great compassion, peace,
and kindness spreading through you. When this light contacts pain in you—physical
or emotional—it simply surrounds this pain and gently holds it in warmth and
compassion.

Imagine being completely filled with this light and being completely filled with this
sense of compassion, peace, and kindness. You feel completely safe and
comfortable.

Bringing Compassion to Pain

In this next exercise, we use our imaginations to direct compassion to our
own pain. For example, this could be the pain of embarrassment or regret
from having spoken harshly to a loved one, or even the physical pain of an
ingrown toenail (ouch!). We can also use this compassion to target feelings of
resentment and hurt we feel toward others, feelings we may have simply been
trying to ignore. We imagine sending compassion out to this pain and
surrounding and holding the pain with acceptance and kindness. We’re not
covering the pain up or pushing it out. The light-visualization portion of the
exercise is optional—some people like visualizing the light, and some don’t.
Just find the way that works best for you. The key is that you’re directing
compassion toward a part of yourself that is hurting or suffering.

Exercise 7.6: Sending Compassion Out to Pain

Again, spend about thirty seconds doing soothing-rhythm breathing and access the
kindness, wisdom, and calm confidence of your compassionate self:

Take a moment to reflect on an experience of physical or emotional pain in your life. It

can be a physical hurt; the emotional pain of anger, regret, sadness, disappointment,
or embarrassment; or any other pain that you feel.

Imagine sending compassion and kindness to this pain, accepting it as a part of your
life experience, holding it in warmth, safety, and kindness, and soothing it.

If you like, you can imagine these kind wishes originating as a point of light at the
level of your heart (imagine what color it would be). Imagine that this is the light of
compassion, peace, and happiness, and that it pulses with the rhythm of your
breathing. Imagine that this light extends out to your pain and gently surrounds it,
warmly holding it and accepting it as a part of your current experience.

Observe what happens to the experience of your pain as it is held in your kind
compassion. Keep in mind that you aren’t trying to rid yourself of it—the pain isn’t
bad; it’s just an experience you’re having in this sometimes-challenging life.

The Safe-Place Exercise

As we’ve seen, anger is driven by the experience of feeling threatened—our
brains perceive threats and activate us to respond. As long as our attention is
focused on the threat experience, our anger is likely to continue. The goal of
this imagery exercise is to construct a mental experience that is completely
free from all feelings of threat. You’ll be mentally creating a “place” that is
safe, comfortable, and soothing—a place where you are welcomed and
valued. This exercise is specifically designed to stimulate your safeness
system, and it is unique to you. Some people imagine being at a beach,
smelling the water and feeling the wind in their hair, or in a beautiful forest,
watching the sun shine down through the trees. Other people prefer to use
places from their memories. There are no rules for what your safe place
should be, apart from being a place where you feel safe, comfortable, and
welcome. There can be other people or animals there if you like, or you can
be alone. I have several safe places: one involves walking alone on a beach,
with the sun on my face and the salty smell of the ocean in the air; another is
entirely different—a favorite pub in Birmingham, England, surrounded by
old oak beams and furnishings, welcoming faces, and the tasty aroma of steak
and ale pie at my table. Experiment to find the mental space that works best
for you. Your safe place welcomes you, and it’s glad that you’re there. It
takes joy in your presence. When you are there, you can imagine your cares,
anger, and experience of feeling threatened melting away, replaced by the
soothing sense of being valued and accepted.

Exercise 7.7: Constructing a Safe Place

Begin by assuming an upright, dignified posture, relaxing your facial muscles and
allowing your mouth to form a warm, slight smile. Allow your breathing to slow, and
spend thirty seconds or so doing soothing-rhythm breathing.

When you are ready, allow yourself to imagine being in a place that is comfortable and
soothing, where you are filled with a sense of safety and calm comfort. This is your
place, filled with comforting sights, sounds, and experiences:

Imagine the details of this place. What do you see? Hear? Smell? Feel? Really try to
form a mental experience of what it’s like here. Spend a few moments (thirty seconds
to a minute, or longer if you like) imagining what this place is like.

Are there other beings (people, animals) here? If so, imagine that they are welcoming
you, value you, and are glad you’re here.
 Imagine that this place itself takes joy in the fact that you are here, that this place
itself welcomes you, accepts you, and is happy to have you.

Spend as long as you like imagining and exploring this safe, comforting place. If
thoughts intrude or distract you, mindfully notice them as distractions (attempting not
to judge them or get caught up in them) and bring your attention back to your safe
place. It’s okay to resist the pull of the angry thoughts, despite how urgent they may
feel. This urgency is simply a quality of threat emotions. Don’t worry—you can go
back and attend to these later, when things feel a bit more balanced. For now, it’s all
right to stay in this soothing space for a bit and allow yourself to feel safe,
comfortable, valued, and calm.

Conclusion
In this chapter, we’ve covered a number of imagery exercises designed to
help you activate your safeness system and begin developing the qualities of
your compassionate self. Because our emotional minds can respond to
imagined experience in ways that can be similar to how they respond to the
experiences in the external world, imagery is a powerful tool for helping us to
cultivate states of mind that we wish to have. Instead of using your mind’s
ability to imagine and fantasize to fuel your anger, as you likely have in the
past, you’re learning to use it to calm yourself and develop compassionate
qualities.
As with any skill, the key is to practice as often as you can, and brief
practice periods work just fine. You can shorten the exercises to suit your
time period. For example, you don’t have to go through all of the attributes in
the compassionate self or ideal compassionate image exercises every time.
Instead, you can focus on the attributes that will be most helpful to you in
that moment (or even choose a particular one to focus on for a day or week)
and also on the general sense of yourself as a compassionate being or of the
compassionate being that accepts and supports you. Keep in mind that you
can spend more time on the different parts of the exercises if you’d like, and
you don’t need to create sharp images in your mind—fleeting impressions are
fine. You will likely find that you enjoy some of the exercises more than
others. It’s fine to spend more time with those exercises that work best for
you, sometimes returning to the others to develop them as well. It can be
useful to use the Compassion Practice Journal introduced in chapter 5 to keep
track of your progress.
Copies of this log and guided audio (MP3) versions of many of the
exercises can be found in the “Working with Anger” section at
www.compassionatemind.co.uk.
 8

Working Compassionately with Anger:

Validation, Distress Tolerance, and Exploring
Your Emotional Self
We’ve explored the ways that anger works in our minds and seen how
compassion can serve as its antidote. We’ll now look at how we can bring
compassion to our own experiences of anger. As we do this, it will be useful
to have a specific example that demonstrates the various things we’ll be
discussing.

A Case Example: Sheila and Josh

Over the past several years, Sheila had developed significant anger around
her relationship with her twenty-five-year-old son, Joshua, an on-again, off-
again university student who had spent the past six years or so moving in and
out of different jobs and academic programs but making little progress
toward a career. Sheila, a fifty-one-year-old single mother, raised Josh by
herself even while maintaining a high-achieving career in advertising, and
she worked very hard to give Josh a good life and pay for his education. She
loves her son dearly but found herself frequently filled with anger and
frustration at his life choices. “I’m just furious with him. He spends his time
lying around, playing video games, and hanging out with his friends. He can’t
keep a job, and because he can’t decide what he wants to do with his life, he
won’t finish his degree. He won’t do anything to help himself. I’ve worked
myself nearly to death for the past twenty-five years to give him these
opportunities, and he’s throwing it back in my face!” Sheila went back and
forth between being angry at Josh and being angry at herself, because she
interpreted his situation as being her own fault: “It was my job to raise him
and give him the tools to succeed—clearly, I failed!” Her interactions with
Josh became increasingly tense and snappish, which she was somewhat
mindful of: “Now, it’s like I’m angry as soon as I think of him. If I look at
caller-ID when my phone rings and I see that it’s him, I’m angry before I
even pick up the phone. I just know that he’s going to tell me about his latest
screwup and expect me to bail him out.”
Sheila was convinced that if she had been able to provide Joshua with a
male role model, things would be turning out differently for him. At times
when her shame got the better of her, she attempted to “help him” by sending
him money, even when he hadn’t asked for it (and several times, even when
he told her not to send it). Sheila felt trapped in a cycle of anger,
disappointment, fear for her son’s future, desire to control his behavior, and
shame.
Looking back, we see that what Sheila is going through demonstrates the
ways that anger can fuel itself in our minds. She interprets her son’s behavior
as signs of negative personality traits on his part—laziness, ingratitude—and
of her failure as a parent. She spends lots of time ruminating over what’s
made her angry with her son and herself, focusing on both his “failures” and
hers. As a result, she’s oblivious to the signs of success in his life (or her own
successes with regard to him). She feels embarrassed during conversations
with colleagues, some of whose children are attending medical school or
already have budding careers. She indulges in tragic fantasies about Joshua’s
future—that he will be chronically unemployed and alone, that he will move
back in with her, that others will judge her based on his failures. Sheila
harbors strong desires to control Joshua, to coerce or force him to live his life
in a way that meets her standards. As we move through the next couple of
chapters, we’ll use Sheila’s case as an example that will show us how we can
bring the skills of compassion to counter the ways that anger plays out in our
minds.

Getting to Know Your Anger Response

I’ve prompted you several times to consider your anger, the factors that tend
to trigger it, and how you tend to feel, think, and behave when angry.
Becoming familiar with anger in this way paves the way for working with it
compassionately, because we gain a sense of what there is to work with. It
also allows us to begin anticipating situations that are likely to trigger anger
in us and to plan how to approach them. The anger monitoring form
introduced in this chapter is designed to help you get in the habit of
mindfully observing your anger and then to generate compassionate
alternatives for dealing with it and the situations that trigger it. Let’s take an
initial look at what the form will help you examine.

Situation/Trigger

Briefly describe a situation that provoked anger or irritation in you. What

threat was involved? Describe the context as well (“I was late, and the people
in front of me were dawdling”).

Your Response Emotions

What feelings did you have during the situation? Often when we feel
anger, there are other emotions going on as well. Use specific terms (anger,
irritation, rage, embarrassment, shame, fear, sadness, excitement, and so on).

Thoughts

What things did you tell yourself? (For example: I can’t let him treat me
with such disrespect! She was probably just in a hurry.) How did your
thoughts fit with your anger? Did they fuel it or calm it?

Behavior

What did you do? What actions did you take?

What Does Your Compassionate Self Say?

Think about your wise, kind, confident, and compassionate mind that you
connected with in the compassionate-self exercise. What would it think or
say? How would your compassionate self approach this situation?

What Would Your Compassionate Self Have Done?

 If it were in control, how would your compassionate self behave in this
situation?

Outcome

How did it turn out? What helped in the situation? What did you do that
worked? What got in the way of handling the situation the best you could?
The idea of the anger monitoring form is to have a structured way of
examining how anger plays out in our lives. If we use the form, we can begin
to see patterns in the situations that trigger our anger and in how we respond.
This can help us anticipate and plan for how we will deal with similar
situations in the future. The form also prompts us to use our compassionate
minds to come up with alternatives to our habitual responses to anger, which
we’ll be looking at in the rest of this chapter. I’ve included a blank
monitoring form later, as well as an example drawn from Sheila’s work on
her own anger.

Sample Anger Monitoring Form: Sheila’s Example

The purpose of this form is to help you become familiar with the situations that tend to
provoke your anger and the ways you tend to respond. It also aims to help you generate
compassionate alternatives. Pick one time during the week when you experienced
anger, rage, or irritation.

Situation/Trigger: Phone call from Joshua. He told me he was changing his major yet
again, this time to art.

Emotions: Anger and worry. I also felt hopeless and inadequate as a parent, like it’s my
fault that he can’t get his act together.

Thoughts: Well, that adds another year of college. He’s never going to get a decent job!
Why can’t he just stop screwing around and get to work? This is my fault. My parents
would never have put up with this.
Behaviors (What did you do?): I snapped at him and told him that I was getting sick of it
and that he needed to get his act together. I also told him there weren’t any good jobs
for artists.

What does your compassionate self say? He isn’t doing this just to frustrate me. He’s
trying to figure out his life. Josh is a grown man who can make his own choices. I don’t
have to agree with all of his choices to love and support him.

What would your compassionate self do? Call him back and apologize. Assertively
express my concerns in a way that doesn’t attack him. Work with my own emotions so
that I can accept his decisions.

Outcome: I ended up calling him back and apologizing. I’m still struggling with his
decision, but I’m not as angry.

Anger Monitoring Form

The purpose of this form is to help you become familiar with the situations that tend to
provoke your anger and the ways you tend to respond. It also aims to help you generate
compassionate alternatives. Pick one time during the week when you experienced
anger, rage, or irritation.

Situation/Trigger:

Emotions:

Thoughts:

Behaviors (What did I do?):

What does your compassionate self say?

 What would your compassionate self do?

Outcome:

Compassionate Validation of Anger as a Threat

Response
This chapter’s first exercise aims to help us overcome the self-criticism and
shame that can keep us from dealing with anger. Shame and self-criticism
about our anger and its consequences can create great pain in us, prompting
us to either ignore our anger altogether or to justify our angry behaviors as
we attempt to avoid facing the harm and difficulties that they have caused. As
a result, instead of seeing the anger itself as the issue, we experience hostility
toward ourselves, other people, or the situations that trigger it. This tendency
only fuels the habitual process of anger. We’ll explore ways of dealing with
trigger situations, but the first thing we’ll attend to is the anger itself. We’re
intentionally shifting our focus from whatever the situation is (the battle) to
the way that anger plays itself out time and time again in our lives (the war).
Difficult situations will come and go, but out-of-control anger can create
problems in many different areas of our lives. Once you’re able to manage
the way you respond to feeling threatened, you’ll be much better equipped to
deal thoughtfully and compassionately with whatever situation has triggered
your anger. When things in your life go badly (as they sometimes will,
despite your best efforts), you’ll be able to stop yourself from making them
even worse.
We need to find a way to take responsibility for our anger that doesn’t
cause us to feel ashamed, “bad,” attacked, self-righteous, or contemptuous. In
doing this, we’ll want to mindfully recognize when we begin to justify, deny,
push down, or blame our anger on others, and use those observations as
reminders to refocus on compassion instead. Keep in mind that while we
didn’t choose to have threat systems that produce anger, we can recognize the
suffering that our anger causes us and other people, and we can choose to
connect with the compassionate motivation to help ourselves manage anger
better. In this exercise, you’ll remind yourself again that anger is your brain
trying to protect you and that the reaction isn’t your fault, and you’ll commit
yourself to working with anger more effectively.
This exercise can be done at any time. As with all of the exercises, it
helps to practice when it’s easy, so it may be a good idea to start by dealing
with minor irritations.

Exercise 8.1: Compassionate Understanding of Anger

as a Threat Response

Take a dignified posture, slow your breath, and bring to mind the characteristics of your
compassionate self: imagine yourself taking on the qualities of a confident, calm, and
wise person who is motivated to be supportive, understanding, and helpful. Feel those
qualities in you as you breathe. Create a friendly expression on your face and imagine
your tone of voice to be firm, kind, and understanding. Imagine yourself speaking
compassionately. Spend a few moments imagining yourself from the outside, observing
your compassionate self. Now imagine what it would be like to bring these qualities to
this situation you’re having difficulty with:

Using your mindful awareness, observe the experience of your anger. Observe the
thoughts and fantasies that fuel your emotional experience. Notice how your anger
feels in your body, what sensations are associated with it.

Observe your feelings and the motivations you have to act in certain ways.

Consider what other emotions might be present alongside the anger. You may or may
not be acknowledging these emotions in this situation (for instance, sadness,
embarrassment, disappointment, and so on).

Observe the quality of these emotions—how they direct your attention, perceptions,
and motivation. Notice the angry thoughts and fantasies you are having and how they
fuel your emotional response to threat.

Remind yourself that all of these experiences are products of your threat system, your
brain’s attempts to protect you because it has perceived a danger to you. You didn’t
choosefor your brain to respond in this way, and it isn’t your fault. Your anger is not a
sign that you are a bad person or that someone else is. It just means that your
sensitive threat system has been activated. This can happen for many different
 reasons.

Direct compassionate thoughts toward yourself: spend at least twenty seconds or

more with each one as you breathe slowly, and hold on to the image of your
compassionate self.

Empathy: Consider how it makes sense that you might experience anger in this
situation and that it is unpleasant for you.

Encouragement: These feelings are hard to take, but I’ve dealt with difficult
situations in the past. I can work with this.

Commitment: Now that I’ve noticed my anger, I don’t have to let it control me.
What skills can I use to work with these feelings?

Bring to mind the reasons why you are choosing to work with your anger
compassionately. Commit yourself to doing so.

Allow yourself to feel good about your efforts: I’m taking responsibility for my anger
rather than letting it control me.

Let’s consider how this compassionate approach played out in Sheila’s

case. As she connected with her kind, wise compassionate mind, she realized
that her reaction made sense—of course she would be frustrated and angry
when she perceived a threat to her son’s future and to herself as a parent. At
the same time, she began to recognize that her anger only served to fuel her
darkest perceptions of her son as a “failure,” which exaggerated the negative
aspects of his situation and ignored his positive qualities. For example, Josh
actually spent much of his “lazy” time at home working on art projects,
several of which had been featured in a recent show at the university gallery.
She began to recognize her anger, fear, and desires to control Josh’s life as
indications of how much she cared about him, even though this created
distance between them. She came to understand that although there were real
concerns to be had about her son’s future, much of her frustration was driven
by values she had inherited from her own parents, and she recognized her
tendency to compare herself to her colleagues and use their children’s
“success” as a measure of her parenting competence.
 Anger is often like this—our threat systems personalize things and make
them about us, even when the reality is that we may be relatively minor
players in a situation that is playing out in someone else’s life. Sheila also
noticed that her anger had somewhat poisoned her relationship with Josh,
making it hard for him to share his feelings and concerns honestly with her
because he feared her disapproval, and prompting him to push back against
her efforts to control him.

Tolerating Distress and Discomfort

When we consider the circle of compassion I introduced in chapter 4, we see
that distress tolerance is a primary attribute of a compassionate mind.
Compassion involves bringing ourselves into contact with suffering and
enacting a kind motivation to help. Bringing ourselves face to face with
difficult emotions and life situations is simply uncomfortable. It just is. But
we can spend so much time and effort attempting to avoid discomfort that we
1
forget that we can actually tolerate a good deal of it if we need to. Again,
most of us have at some point tolerated discomfort or distress in the pursuit
of a goal—the pain of working out or running, the frustration of practicing a
skill over and over to get it right, the irritation of studying for an exam when
we’d rather be doing something more enjoyable.
Learning to tolerate discomfort and distress can help us work with anger,
particularly if we tend to act out or are passive-aggressive. As an emotion,
anger naturally produces a strong desire to act (aggressively), and this desire
can be experienced as tension or discomfort. Sort of like an itch, it doesn’t
hurt exactly, but there is a strong experience of discomfort combined with the
sense that the discomfort will go away if we act on the angry urge. Since
working with anger often means refraining from acting out our angry, hostile,
aggressive, or passive-aggressive urges, we need to learn to tolerate this
discomfort. The idea is to find strategies that will help you to accept and
tolerate discomfort as simply a part of working with anger, to remind yourself
that you can do it, and to soothe yourself a bit until the wave of your anger
has passed. Feel free to use any other strategies that you’ve found helpful as
well.
Let’s take a look at some of the wide variety of strategies that we can use
to help ourselves tolerate distress. In chapter 6, for example, I introduced
mindfulness, a powerful distress-tolerance skill that helps us understand that
we are capable of observing our anger and discomfort without having to act
on the urges that come with it. In fact, there are a number of skills that can
help you to tolerate this discomfort:

You can mindfully observe your anger-related discomfort without

acting on it, accepting it for what it is—an activation of your threat
response. When using mindful observation to deal with discomfort, it
can sometimes be useful to keep bringing your attention back to your
bodily experience. Just observe discomfort in an accepting, curious
way.

You can use soothing-rhythm breathing to counteract the angry

arousal in your body, to slow yourself down a bit.

You can use your compassionate mind to coach yourself through the
discomfort.

You can talk with a supportive friend or family member who can
listen well, understand how you are feeling, and offer helpful
suggestions (the kind that help you feel calmer and don’t fuel your
anger).

You can use distraction to reduce your sensation of discomfort by

temporarily bringing your attention to something that slows you down
or soothes you (the safe-place exercise in chapter 7 or other imagery
exercises we’ve covered).

You can look at the anger event through the eyes of the
compassionate self rather than stay in an angry mode of observation.
The meaning of the event (and your reaction to it) can change when
you view it from a compassionate perspective.

Also, you can imagine the anger event from a third perspective: how
might someone who cares about you (for example, your ideal
compassionate other) think about this and help everyone in the
situation? How would that person see the situation differently?
Research shows that we stay angry if we simply ruminate about the
situation, but we can reduce our anger if we can reconsider it from a
 2
different perspective.

Let’s return to our case example. Sheila noticed that she experienced
significant discomfort whenever she was reminded of her son Joshua’s
situation, either in her thoughts or in conversations with him. It was
particularly difficult for her when Josh told her of his decision to study art.
For Sheila, this created a flow of extremely distressing thoughts: that he
would be forever poor and unemployed, that he didn’t respect her advice, and
that she had failed to instill the value of hard work in him. These thoughts
produced lots of emotional discomfort (anger, fear) in her, as well as the urge
to yell at him. She wanted to “set him straight,” a strategy that hadn’t helped
in the past. What it had done was create an uncomfortable distance in their
relationship.
With some effort, Sheila found that when these thoughts came up, she
could mindfully notice them and the distress they produced and then use a
number of strategies for working with them. She found that spending time
with a supportive friend helped a good deal. When her friend wasn’t
available, she found that she could compassionately coach herself through: It
makes sense that you feel this way, but you can make it through this, and
you’ll be better able to cope when you’ve calmed down a bit. She also wrote
a compassionate letter to herself so that she could read it in such situations
(chapter 12) and found the safe-place (chapter 7) exercise useful at these
times.

Distress-Tolerance Strategies
There are a number of strategies that can be useful for tolerating the distress
of anger and the discomfort of refraining from how you normally (or
habitually) behave when you’re angry. Experiment with a number of
strategies and find the ones that work best for you:

Soothing-rhythm breathing (chapter 5).

Mindful awareness, particularly of the breath and body (chapter 6).

Self-coaching by shifting into the perspective of your compassionate

self or imagining your ideal compassionate image (chapter 7).
Imagine what this person might say to you to help you through.
Remember, the key thing here is the emotional tone of these thoughts
—keeping your well-being in mind, being kind, and having a deep
and genuine wish to be helpful to yourself. Here are some examples:

This is uncomfortable, but you’ve lived through lots of things

that are uncomfortable. You can do this.

Remember why you’re doing this.

Ride out the wave. This won’t last forever.

This discomfort is a sign that you’re succeeding. As with the pain

from a workout, you are developing your mental muscles so that
they can work with anger, and it will get easier in the future
because of this effort.

Keep going, one moment at a time.

Bringing to mind your compassionate motivation (chapter 5).

Compassionate-imagery exercises (chapter 7), such as:

Safe place

Ideal compassionate other

Compassionate-thinking exercises (chapter 9).

Compassionate letter to yourself (chapter 12).

Broadening your perspective by considering interdependence and the

unintended kindnesses of others (chapter 12).

Compassionate behavior, such as:

Conversations with supportive others

Distraction through positive experiences

 Enjoyable songs, movies, quotes

Walks or enjoyable exercise

Humorous Internet movie clips (my favorite clip is called “Baby

Monkey Going Backwards on a Pig!”)

Be creative!

The idea is to find strategies that help you to accept and tolerate this
discomfort as simply a part of working with anger, to remind yourself that
you can do it, and to soothe yourself a bit until the wave of your anger has
passed. Feel free to use any other strategies that you’ve found helpful as well.

Exploring Emotions Behind Your Anger

As we’ve seen, emotions like anger, anxiety, and compassion involve very
different motivations, thinking, and ways of experiencing and interacting
with the world. It can feel as if we have different selves: an angry self, an
anxious self, a happy self, a sad self, a self-critical self, and, of course, a
compassionate self. These perspectives can sometimes compete with one
another, as reflected in the classic image of the person with a little angel on
one shoulder and a little devil on the other, each offering very different
advice. In any given situation, we can experience a number of competing
emotions and motivations that can pull our minds in different directions. The
problem is that, due to the “better safe than sorry” way that our brains have
evolved, our threat systems are often capable of overwhelming the better
angels of our nature.
One way to gain some understanding and control is to step back and
explore the perspectives of our different emotional selves, giving priority to
the compassionate self. We’ll do this in the next exercise. The idea is to
explore the ways that your different emotions experience the situation, but to
do so in a mode of curiosity, as a kind, nonjudgmental observer. We’ll be
exploring the perspectives of anger, anxiety, sadness, and compassion in turn,
examining how the situation appears from these different viewpoints. If you
find yourself becoming overwhelmed by these emotions as you explore them,
break away from the exercise, do some soothing-rhythm breathing, and shift
back to the perspective of your compassionate self. Try to have a friendly
interest in what these different parts of you think, feel, and want to do. If
needed, you can always shift into a soothing exercise like the safe-place
practice (chapter 7) in order to center yourself. The goal is to gain a clearer
understanding of how different emotions play out in your mind, allowing
yourself to explore them without criticism and learning to shift into the
perspective of your compassionate self even in the face of other, threat-based
emotions.
As we do this, we want to establish the compassionate self as a kind
“emotional authority,” sort of like the captain of a ship. The job of this
compassionate captain is to make sure that all the other passengers (angry
self, anxious self, sad self, and so on) are allowed to have their say. As they
do, we accept and reassure them while using the compassionate self’s kind,
wise, and confident presence to work with the situation. We can imagine that,
when faced with a stormy sea, the angry self might get mad: I knew it was a
terrible idea to get on this ship! Who’s responsible for this mess? Let’s string
’em up! The anxious self might get lost in worry: Oh my goodness, we could
all die! I can’t handle this! The sad self might become hopeless and
mournful: I’ll never see my loved ones again. It’s all over for me. In contrast,
the compassionate captain knows that stormy seas (life’s difficulties) simply
happen sometimes, and that although it’s not fun and can sometimes be scary,
the captain can draw upon wisdom and experience in guiding the ship to
safety. Our compassionate selves can understand the perspectives of our
angry, anxious, and sad selves, understanding that it is our nature to
experience and express these emotions, and working to bring comfort and
balance to ourselves as we work our way through difficult experiences. In
this way, we can bring acceptance to the various emotions we feel (rather
than shame and self-criticism), even as we work to move beyond their limited
perspectives.
To prepare for this next exercise, take out a pen and a sheet of paper and
draw lines on the paper to divide it into four squares. Label the first square
“Angry Self,” the second “Anxious Self,” the third “Sad Self,” and the final
square “Compassionate Self.” Let’s start with Angry Self in the top-left
square:

Consider a challenging situation that you’ve been dealing with,

 perhaps something that has recently caused you to be upset.

How does your angry self view this situation? Spend a moment
thinking about the typical thoughts you have when you’re angry—
thoughts of unfairness, being dismissed, or rejected. For instance,
thoughts may sound like, People don’t care, People shouldn’t get
away with this, I have to show them, or People take advantage. By
now, you’re probably familiar with the sorts of thoughts you have
when you’re angry. Write them down in this space.

When you’re ready, consider how your anger feels. Where is it in

your body? Does it seem to move? How would you feel if that anger
built up in you?

Now think about the urges for action that come with your angry
feelings. If your anger were totally in charge, what would it have you
do? Notice how the threat system tries to control your behavior.

Consider: What does your anger really want? Deep down, what would
your anger like to have happen? What would happen if it were in
complete control?

The idea is to get some insight into the core thoughts, feelings, and
desires for action that go with your anger system or “angry self.”

Exercise 8.2: Exploring Different Aspects of the

Emotional Self

______________ Self

Thoughts and Imagery. What thoughts are you having as you feel this emotion? What
are you imagining?

Bodily Experiences. How do you experience this emotion in your body? For example,
does it hurt? Is there an experience of tightness, tension, sinking, or temperature? How
does it feel?
 Motivation. What does this emotional self want to do? What behavior is it trying to
motivate you to do?

Desired Outcome. What does this emotional self want to happen? How does it want
the situation to turn out? What would happen if it was in complete control?

Let’s see how this exercise can work by looking at how Sheila responded
to Josh changing his course to study art. First, she wrote from the perspective
of her angry self:

I’ll tell you what my angry self thinks. It thinks that he’s spent six
years in and out of university just so that he can choose a degree that
prepares him to be unemployed! It says that after all I’ve put into
raising him and saving for his education, I’m going to be stuck
supporting him for the rest of his life. My anger thinks that this is just
another way for him to avoid having to do any actual work—that he’s
so lazy! My heart is racing, my stomach is tensed up, and my jaw is
tensed—I feel like I could explode! I feel like smacking some sense
into him, cutting him off, and telling him not to call me until he’s
graduated and found himself a decent job. What my anger really
wants to do is take complete control, to force him to study something
worthwhile and get himself into gear.

Now let’s look at the anxious self. In the top-right square, you’ll have
written the subheading “Anxious Self.” Take a moment to think about the
event that made you angry, and focus on any feelings of anxiety or fear that
went through you. What were you concerned about? You may have lots of
different thoughts: This is getting out of control, I might regret this, Maybe
something is wrong with me. Just try to notice those anxious thoughts in the
background of your mind and write them down as you do. When you’re
ready, move on to thinking about how anxiety feels in your body. How would
you feel if that anxiety built up in you? If your anxiety were totally in control,
what would it want you to do? How might it make you behave? Deep down,
what does your anxious self really want?
The voice of Sheila’s anxious self came from a very different perspective
than did the voice of her angry self:

The voice of my anxious self is rather loud. It tells me that Josh just
isn’t going to make it, that he’ll end up unemployed and alone, that he
hasn’t learned to support himself, and that I won’t always be there to
do it. What will happen to him? It worries me that he won’t have a
happy life and that it will be my fault—that I didn’t give him the tools
he’ll need to succeed. My anxious self is scared of my angry self. I’m
worried that my anger is driving him away from me. I’m worried that
he sees all my attempts to help as efforts to control his life, and that
he’ll resent me for it and won’t want anything to do with me. My body
is filled with this restlessness—butterflies in my stomach and all
jittery. I feel like if it doesn’t stop, I might go crazy. My anxious self
wants to just ignore the situation and run away. But, really, what it
wants is to know for sure that everything will be all right—for Josh to
have a great life and to know that I’ve done a good job at raising him.

Another aspect of the self that we sometimes don’t want to think about
when we’re angry is the sad self. Before continuing, perhaps take a moment
to slow things down and focus on the breath. Then, when you’re ready,
consider the subheading “Sad Self” in the bottom left-hand square. Take a
moment to think about the event that angered you, focusing on any sad
thoughts that are related to this event. These might be thoughts such as I’ve
failed, I don’t want things to be like this, I’m pushing away the people I care
about, I feel so alone. Sometimes the sad self has thoughts that seem
hopeless, that make us feel as if there’s nothing we can do or that things
won’t change. For this exercise, just note these sad thoughts in the square so
that you can understand where they’re coming from. When you’re ready,
move on to thinking about how sadness feels in your body. Note how it’s
quite different from the energized angry feelings, that there is often a sort of
heaviness with sadness. How would you feel if that sadness built up in you?
How would it play out in your body? If your sadness were totally in charge,
what would it want you to do? Deep down, what does your sad self really
want? Try not get too pulled into sadness—remember, the aim is just to
explore the perspectives of these different parts of your emotional self, as
Sheila does below:

I’ve got a lot of sadness around my relationship with Josh. My sad

self thinks that as hard as I tried, I failed in being a good mother to
him. It thinks that I should have given him a father and that he’s
going to have a terrible, difficult life because I didn’t give him what
he needed. It thinks that I should never have had him, because I’m not
strong enough to care for him. My sadness is lonely and thinks that
there is no one who really loves me. It tells me that Josh doesn’t love
me because I keep harassing him all the time. In my body, my sadness
feels tired, old, and achy. It wants to curl up in bed and never get up
again, or maybe to just go to sleep and die. Deep down, my sadness
just wants to stop feeling, to stop hurting. It just wants it all to stop.

It can be quite sobering to explore our emotions in this way, because we

can become tuned in to different parts of ourselves that anger usually blocks
out. Many of my clients have discovered that behind their anger, there is
actually a lot of sadness and anxiety that they are trying to avoid. They report
preferring the powerful feeling of anger to the vulnerable experiences of
sadness or anxiety, and that they use anger to keep from having to feel these
emotions, or because they’ve been taught that it is okay for them to feel and
express some emotions but not others. If we are unable or unwilling to
tolerate sadness and anxiety, anger can feel like the only response we have
left.
After using this exercise to explore different emotions and why we may
choose to avoid them, we can also consider how they can interact. How does
your angry self feel about your anxious self? Is it annoyed by your anxiety or
even contemptuous of it? How does your angry self feel about your sad self?
Now switch perspectives. How does your anxious self feel about the angry
and sad selves? For example, do you find yourself being scared of your own
capacity for anger? Finally, how might the sad self feel about the angry self
and anxious self? It’s worth taking a bit of time to explore the ways these
different emotions can organize our minds and lead us to make critical
judgments about ourselves as we observe our different emotions.
You can probably see that these threat-based selves are often in conflict
with one another and might even dislike one another. Some people can be so
anxious about expressing anger that they retreat into passive coping: keeping
their anger locked up so that it can never really develop into mature
assertiveness. However, their fantasies, resentment, and irritation still bubble
inside and cause them great distress. Other people work so hard to avoid
experiencing anxiety and sadness that the angry self always takes center stage
and runs the show. All of these threat-based emotions can be powerful, often
unpleasant, and difficult to work with. This is why it’s so helpful to develop
the compassionate self as a kind, wise, and confident perspective that will
allow us to work with our challenging threat emotions and the situations that
provoke them. In this exercise, we’ve reserved the bottom right-hand corner
of your page for the voice of your compassionate self.
By now, you are familiar with how to access your compassionate self.
Begin by breathing slightly more slowly and deeply; feel your body slowing
down. As you do this, imagine yourself as a deeply compassionate being:
kind, wise, and confident. Create a friendly facial expression and imagine
your kind, confident tone of voice. When you feel you are ready, take a
moment to think about the situation that angered you, but focus on thoughts
you have when you’re being helpful and compassionate. Note how the sense
of slowing associated with the compassionate self feels in your body. If that
feeling (associated with a sense of confidence, wisdom, and warmth) were to
grow inside you, how would that feel in your body? If your compassionate
self were totally in control, what would it want you to do? Consider for a
moment, deep down: what does your compassionate self really want?
Don’t rush the exercise. Spend time reflecting and being curious and open
to new discoveries. You will gradually discover that the compassionate self
thinks, feels, and wants to act very differently than the angry, anxious, and
sad selves do. Sit back and look at the angry self through the eyes of the
compassionate self. Do this with the anxious self and sad self as well. What
does the compassionate self think and feel about these other parts of you?
Can the compassionate self recognize that these parts of you have their own
points of view that are not to be ignored but need help to be more balanced?
As your compassionate self recognizes that these emotions are just a part of
you, how would it help them? For example, might it help the angry self and
anxious self to learn to be more assertive? Might it reassure the anxious self?
Might it help the sad self to feel loved?
 Paul Gilbert developed these ways of working with different emotional
selves with a focus on building our compassionate capacity to deal with these
inner voices, so that we can gain more emotional balance. You’ll also see that
while the anxious, angry, and sad selves can be frightened or contemptuous
of each other, the compassionate self is like the kind, authoritative parent or
captain who can take different points of view and is not in a battle with the
other parts of the self. This is why we see this self like an inner authority: it
can create space for the difficult, threat-based emotions we experience in a
way that is both accepting and assertive. We can see that Sheila’s angry,
anxious, and sad selves were focused on several key threats: her son’s
livelihood, how others perceived her as a mother, and threats to her
relationship with Joshua, whom she loves very much. Let’s see what her
compassionate self had to say:

First, my compassionate self would say that it makes sense that I

would be scared about Josh’s future and frustrated with his choices.
It’s a difficult economy right now, and I’m his mother—I love him and
want him to have a good life. I was also raised to believe that it’s very
important to be a high achiever and to make lots of money. My
compassionate self recognizes that much of my sadness comes from
feeling unloved. When I was growing up, my parents only seemed to
love me when I did what they wanted, and they often expressed very
harsh disapproval when I didn’t. There is a part of me that has a hard
time feeling loved, even now. My compassionate self also helps to
reassure me as I deal with my anger, anxiety, and sadness, by helping
me to see other parts of the situation. Although I get really worked up
about it, I have to admit that Josh always seems to find his way
through things. He pays his own rent and some of his tuition, and
we’ve been able to keep him from having to go into debt. He calls me
every weekend and even sometimes tries to reassure me that he’ll be
all right. He’s kind, so I must have done something right. And he did
seem very happy about changing his course of study. I want him to be
happy, and I guess there are jobs out there for art teachers and things
like that. When I access my compassionate self, my body calms down,
and I feel comfortable. My compassionate self sees my angry,
anxious, and sad selves almost like children. They’re important, but
they don’t understand the whole situation, and my compassionate self
 is like the parent who can help them see things more clearly. The goal
of my compassionate self is just to do the best I can to help, both with
Josh and with my own emotions. It wants all of us to be happy.

In summary, the goal of this exercise is to explore the perspectives of

your competing threat-based emotions and allow them to express the
thoughts, concerns, physical experiences, and motivations that drive them.
Then take a few moments to shift into the perspective of your compassionate
self and respond from this perspective of a kind, wise authority who is
motivated to understand and help everyone in the situation.

The “Two Chairs” Technique

One way to explore the perspectives of your different emotional selves is to
3
use the “two chairs” technique commonly used in Gestalt therapy and other
therapy approaches. You’ll need to find two chairs and place them so that
they are facing one another. One chair is the “angry chair,” and when you’re
in it, you speak directly (and out loud) from the perspective of your anger.
You let your anger roll—expressing how your angry self feels and why it’s
angry. When your anger has had its say, you get up and move to the opposite
chair, speaking from the perspective of your compassionate self—again,
letting it roll, expressing how it feels and what it would say, with kindness
and concern for the angry self. This shift in perspectives from anger to
compassion is the key to our approach in working with anger, and most of the
exercises in this book are designed to help you make this shift in various
ways.

Conclusion
In this chapter you’ve begun to explore ways of bringing compassion to your
experience of anger. I’ve highlighted practices designed to support a
compassionate approach to working with anger. These practices will also
help you recognize anger as a manifestation of your threat response that
evolved to protect you, but which is ill suited to many modern-day
difficulties. You’ve begun to understand how to refrain from engaging in
problematic, anger-driven behavior by accessing your compassionate mind
and by giving yourself permission to experience and explore whatever
feelings you may have. Doing this work requires you to develop tolerance for
your distress—to accept and endure the discomfort that is associated with
your anger and with resisting the action urges that accompany it. In the next
chapter, we will explore how we can use compassionate thinking to further
understand our anger and work with it in helpful ways.
 9

Working Compassionately with Anger:

Mentalizing, Compassionate Thinking, and
Problem Solving
It’s easy to see our anger as being provoked in a very direct way by things
that happen in the outside world. It can feel as if other people just keep doing
things that make us angry. If we view our anger in this way, it can seem as if
there is no other way we could have reacted, and we may find ourselves
feeling justified and self-righteous. However, if we look closely, we can see
that anger is much more complex than this. As we’ve seen, the angry state of
mind involves much more than how we feel and behave—it also involves our
attention, thinking and reasoning, imagery, and motivation. In this chapter,
we’ll focus on ways we can use thinking and reasoning to work with our
anger and with the situations that trigger it.

Mentalizing
One important quality of the compassionate mind is that it can help us do
something the British psychotherapist Peter Fonagy has called
1
“mentalizing.” Mentalizing involves looking at our actions and
understanding where they come from in terms of desires, feelings, needs,
2
beliefs, and reasons. When we mentalize about other people, we see that
their actions stem from their own feelings, desires, and beliefs, and this
applies to ourselves as well. Mentalizing helps us to spend less time on
automatic pilot and to be better able to see past the appearance of things. We
begin to understand our behavior as the result of the different things that are
going on in our minds.
Let’s consider the example of Sheila and her son, Joshua. We can
imagine how Josh might react to his mother’s anger at him. If Josh doesn’t
think about the situation from his mother’s point of view, he may dismiss her
as an angry, controlling person who isn’t worth dealing with—or he might
just get angry right back at her. On the other hand, if he’s good at
mentalizing, he may consider that his mother has had a difficult life and that
it’s been tough for her to raise him on her own. He might see that she
becomes angry partly because she’s worried for him and wants the best for
him, and that she would take joy in seeing him do well. This might help him
understand that his mother could have acted in the opposite way and just not
bothered with him at all. He may begin to see that her anger is in part a
reflection of her care and hopes for him. And yes, he could also recognize
that maybe she is a bit controlling, but that this may be a part of her
personality that has little to do with him. Mentalizing helps us see that we
(and others) are driven by a range of complex feelings and desires. We can
see that if Josh can mentalize a bit, really thinking about his mother’s feelings
and needs, he ends up with a totally different perspective that may help him
to behave more kindly toward her.
You will probably not be surprised to hear that slowing down and trying
to engage with our compassionate selves can help us mentalize, which in turn
can enable us to take responsibility for our anger and the actions we engage
in when we’re angry. Rather than look to other people and situations as the
source of our anger, we can look inward and find that our anger isn’t caused
by external factors. It’s a product of our own reactions—our experience of
feeling threatened in response to those factors.
Imagine that someone has spoken rudely to you. Some days, perhaps
when you’ve had little sleep and are feeling irritable, or when you attach a
hostile meaning to the other person’s rudeness, you may tend to get angry.
On other days, when you’re feeling a bit more centered, you may simply be
confused or maybe even compassionately wonder if the person who’s being
rude is having a bad day himself. Even if we do get angry every time
someone is even a little bit rude to us, lots of other people don’t. Why the
differences in these reactions? If we look closely, we can see that our anger is
rooted in a whole range of experiences occurring within our own minds, such
as thoughts and beliefs like, People should always treat me with respect. If
we look even more deeply, we may even see that we feel threatened or
embarrassed by the person’s rudeness, or that perhaps we interpret it as
meaning that we are not worthy of respect or kindness, or that we’re
unlikeable. As human beings, we are very sensitive to these sorts of social
threats, even as our typical threat emotions (anger, fear/anxiety) are poorly
equipped to handle them. But if we take the kind, confident, and wise
perspective of our compassionate selves, we can courageously look inward
for the roots of our anger, be they thoughts or emotions like fear,
embarrassment, indignation, or jealousy. Knowing that anger is a threat
response, we can look closely at ourselves and ask, What is the threat that my
anger is responding to?

Learning to Pause and Ask Yourself Questions

A key question to ask yourself is, Why do I act this way when I am angry?
We may act very differently in different situations. At work, some people
may find themselves covering up their emotional reactions, saying nothing to
the boss who is being unreasonable or behaving passive-aggressively behind
their colleagues’ backs. In contrast, at home they might be openly hostile
toward their spouses. Each of these reactions to anger—suppression, passive-
aggression, and hostility—can be examined in terms of the mental states that
go along with them. Each of them is associated with certain feelings, ways of
reasoning, and underlying desires and motivations. By considering the
thoughts, motivations, and emotional reactions that underpin our feelings and
behaviors, we can begin to understand why we and other people act the way
we do. This information can be very helpful as we work with our anger.
Accessing the inner authority of our compassionate selves helps us to
slow down and ask these questions with genuine interest and concern. There
3
are good reasons to believe that if we feel socially safe, we can then
mentalize more easily. The experience of feeling threatened seems to impair
our ability and willingness to look inward and examine our own thinking,
feeling, and motivations. Shifting out of the certainty of our anger and into
the inquisitive perspective of the compassionate self helps us to slow down
and really look at the thoughts and feelings behind the anger. Instead of
shaming and blaming ourselves or other people for our reactions, the
compassionate self asks questions that direct our attention to our internal
experience:

How am I interpreting this situation? What does this mean about me?
What does it imply for my future? What does it imply that others are
thinking about me?

How does it make sense that I would feel threatened by this situation?
 What feelings are coming up in me right now?

Are there other feelings I’m not acknowledging here? (See “Different
Aspects of the Emotional Self” in chapter 8.)

What is my greatest fear if I don’t act on my anger? What’s my

greatest fear if I do?

What are the motives and desires in me that are being served by my
anger?

What do I need to feel safe? What would help me to feel less

threatened?

Mentalizing helps you direct empathy and sympathy to the part of

yourself that feels threatened and to accept and work with those feelings
rather than direct your anger at outside sources (or at yourself). You can shift
your perspective from, How do I get back at them for being so rude to me? to
How do I help myself to feel safe in this situation? Like it or not, people will
sometimes be rude to us, sometimes for reasons that may often have nothing
whatsoever to do with us and even if we magically found a way to be
perfectly nice all of the time. So we have to take responsibility for how we
respond when it happens by learning to understand and work with the roots
of anger in our own minds. As the Buddhist saying goes, “It’s easier to put on
shoes than it is to carpet the world.”
In the following exercise, you’ll practice mentalizing. I like to think of
this process as an extension of mindfulness—we are looking deeply into the
feelings, desires, and reasoning that produce our angry behavior. You’ll begin
this exercise by using soothing-rhythm breathing to slow down your body
and mind, and you’ll access the kind, wise, confident authority of your
compassionate self. The idea is to help yourself feel safe so that you can look
closely at the mental experiences that fuel your anger and angry behaviors.

Exercise 9.1: Mentalizing

Begin by doing thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing, slowly breathing in, holding
 the breath for a few seconds and then slowly breathing out. Then, go ahead and access
the qualities of your compassionate self. Open yourself to experience a kind motivation
to help, the wisdom to draw upon your life experience, and the confident authority to
work with difficulties. If you are struggling to bring up a sense of safety, feel free to
engage in any of the other practices that have helped you to do this (for example, the
safe place or the ideal compassionate image).

Now, bring to mind a recent experience of anger. Acknowledge the situation that
triggered this, and bring your attention to your reaction:

Consider how you felt when you experienced anger or irritation. What was it like?

What did you do in response to your anger? How did you express it (or not)?

Focus on your experience of anger and the behavior that followed it, and explore the
mental factors that led you to react this way:

What motivations or desires contributed to your reaction? What were you pursuing or
seeking to avoid?

Consider your response to the situation that triggered your anger. How did you make
sense of this situation and assign meaning to it? What thoughts did you have about
the causes of your anger? How did your reasoning impact the situation? Did it
magnify your anger or help to alleviate it?

What other feelings were present in response to this situation? How did they
contribute to your reaction?

Revisit the questions you considered in the mentalizing section earlier in this chapter.

When we shift into the perspective of our compassionate selves and bring
our attention to the mental processes that contribute to our anger, we can
begin to understand it in a much deeper way than the “He did this, so I did
that!” reasoning of our threat systems. While we consider this, let’s again
return to the example of Sheila and Joshua.
As Sheila looked closely at her angry interactions with Josh, when she
would insult his judgment and ridicule his choice to study art, she found that
the hurtful things she said resulted from all sorts of things going on in her
mind. “I felt ignored, taken for granted, and afraid he was going to be forever
unemployed and have a miserable life. I had this desire to bully him into
doing what I wanted. I justified this by telling myself that I knew what was
best for him and that he obviously didn’t. Underneath all of that were fears
that I’d done a poor job parenting him, and the desire for him to have a good
job and a happy life. I felt he needed me to tell him what to do and motivate
him to work hard so he could succeed, that this was how I could be a good
parent to him. I guess I thought that if I worked on him hard enough and
persistently enough, he’d change his degree to something more marketable,
work hard at it, graduate, and get a good job. I was sure he’d come back and
thank me when it was all over.” As Sheila looked more closely at the thinking
and emotions that led to her ongoing conflict with Josh, she discovered that
the conflict had more to do with her reasoning, assumptions, desires, and
fears than with any behavior on Josh’s part. When Sheila began to examine
her impact on Josh, she could see that, in fact, her criticism and suggestions
likely had a very different effect on him than she had hoped. Her responses
served to undermine him rather than improve his confidence, weakening
rather than strengthening their relationship. This understanding was helpful to
Sheila, and she decided to shift her strategy from trying to control Josh to
working with her own fears and to changing the things she did that drove
wedges into their relationship.

Working Compassionately with Angry Thinking

As we’ve discussed, when something triggers our threat systems, we tend to
magnify and personalize the situation. If someone cuts us off in traffic, for
example, we can feel personally attacked—as if that person did it
intentionally to endanger us, or because she just doesn’t care about our well-
being. We tend to assign very negative motives to the people involved, and
we may generalize these negative intentions to others as well. We’ve seen
some of this with Sheila, whose anger was fueled by thoughts that other
people judged her negatively because of her son’s behavior. She also
personalized his life choices as acts of defiance against her. In chapter 1, we
also saw the example of Steve, whose angry thoughts extended to many areas
of his life as he perceived his colleagues and family members as hostile,
unappreciative, and lazy. In both of these cases, these thinking patterns fueled
the fires of their anger.
Compassionate-thinking exercises are derived from cognitive therapy
(where “cognitive” means “thought”), developed in the 1960s by psychiatrist
4
Aaron T. Beck. Cognitive therapy involves examining the thoughts and
underlying beliefs that fuel negative emotions and behaviors, noting their
irrational, exaggerated quality and replacing them with more logical,
evidence-based alternatives. Dr. Beck observed that patients who struggled
with various psychological difficulties experienced specific sorts of negative
thoughts. For example, depressed patients tended to experience very negative
thoughts about themselves, the world, and the future. He also noticed that
these thoughts affected the patients’ emotions and behavior in particular
ways. Observing the ease with which such thoughts would arise, Beck
labeled them “automatic thoughts,” which he noted were often irrational and
involved the sorts of exaggerations and generalizations that we observed in
the cases of Sheila and Steve.
Over the following decades, this therapy became very popular and was
combined with learning-based strategies for changing behavior, leading to
what is called cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. Over the years, CBT has
been applied to the treatment of many psychological disorders and is now
5
supported by a great deal of research.
Newer therapies have focused less on the content of the automatic
thoughts and beliefs that drive our problems (for example, whether or not
they are accurate, correct, or rational) and assert that the problem isn’t so
much that we have irrational thoughts but that we accept them as being true.
These newer therapies often use mindfulness approaches like the ones I
introduced in chapter 6, and they focus less on changing the content of our
thoughts and more on changing our relationship to the thoughts. The idea is
that we learn to observe our thoughts rather than just buying into them,
understand them as mental events (rather than as reality). By doing so, we
weaken the hold that these thoughts have on us. A number of therapies
incorporate this approach to working with thoughts, including mindfulness-
6 7
based cognitive therapy (MBCT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and
8
acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
The approach we take in CFT is a combination of those described above.
Our goal is to learn to notice the thoughts that drive our anger (along with the
other aspects of our responses), to mindfully observe them as mental events
arising from our threat systems (rather than treating them as facts or reality),
and to replace them with alternative, compassionately helpful thoughts. Like
mindfulness-based approaches, we will avoid spending much time looking at
whether or not our angry thoughts are accurate or rational. Instead, we’re
simply aiming to relate to them as mental events that serve the purpose of
fueling our anger. To deal with our anger more effectively, we’ll also learn to
replace them with alternative, compassionate thoughts designed to reduce our
anger in the present and to develop the habit of thinking compassionately in
the future. The key is that when we generate alternative thoughts, we try to
infuse them with the compassionate qualities of warmth, wisdom, strength,
and caring.

“What Would My Compassionate Self Think?”

In order to shift our minds from angry, threat-driven thinking to
compassionate thinking, we can learn to identify the specific thoughts that
tend to drive our anger and to consider and generate compassionate
alternatives. Let’s compare and contrast angry thinking to compassionate
thinking.
 Angry thinking has an interactive relationship with the threat system—it’s
fueled by the threat response and it fuels the threat response in turn, keeping
things going long after the situation that provoked it is over. If we allow our
behavior to follow our angry thoughts, it often leads to negative
consequences. In contrast to anger, which is very narrowly focused on what
the brain perceives to be an immediate threat, compassionate thinking takes a
broader view. It recognizes that all of this happens in the context of an
ongoing life in which we (and others) will sometimes have to face discomfort
and disappointment, and that we’ll also have to face the consequences of our
actions. A compassionate perspective understands that everyone involved in
the situation wants to be happy and free from suffering and that we all are
struggling with the same things—tricky brains, life challenges, and
competing goals. Although our goals, strategies, and habits may sometimes
clash, compassion recognizes that this doesn’t make us enemies—just fellow
beings working through our lives in different ways. When harm is being done
(for example, when we or others are being abused), a compassionate
perspective helps us recognize the need for assertive action—to stop harm, to
establish solid boundaries, and to help prevent harm in the future—rather
than focusing on blaming and punishing. To help you think about
compassionate alternatives to angry thinking, consider the event that
triggered your anger and, again, ask ourselves some questions:

How might you see this situation if you weren’t stressed or angry?

If there were a neutral, caring person around, how might this person
see this event and help you think it through? (It can be useful here to
bring your ideal compassionate image to mind.)

How would you prefer to look at this if you were calm and collected?

How will you see this in three months? Will you even remember it?

From the perspective of your compassionate self, what might you say
to a friend who had experienced this? How would you help your
friend feel supported?

Let’s look at this using some examples drawn from Sheila’s situation.
 As we see above, compassionate thinking doesn’t offer easy solutions to
life’s difficulties. Many aspects of our lives simply don’t have easy answers,
even though anger (and the cultural messages we get from advertising, for
example) may try to convince us otherwise. However, taking a
compassionate perspective can help us become aware of the various parts of
situations that cause us to feel threatened, cope with the discomfort this can
cause, and work with life’s difficulties in ways that are thoughtful and
consistent with our values.

The Compassionate-Thinking Flash Card

It’s helpful to think about what our typical triggers are for anger when we’re
not angry. Consider these triggers and the kinds of thoughts you have when
you’re angry. Try to be honest. See how anger can often take your thinking to
extremes. Now, think carefully about what alternative thoughts would help
you avoid getting carried away in the anger stream, the sort of things you
might say to a dear friend—or that your ideal compassionate image might say
to you. If you were at your most compassionate—wise, confident, calm, and
motivated to help—what sort of thoughts would you come up with? How
would your compassionate self think and behave in that situation? Consider
9
making a compassionate-thinking flash card, a small card that you can carry
around with you, maybe with a picture or phrase you find comforting or
inspiring on the flip side. At the top of the card, write down one or two of
your typical angry thoughts. Then write down some compassionate
alternatives, thoughts that would help you keep your cool. When you’ve
written those thoughts down, go through them slowly and read them with as
much kindness, support, and encouragement as you can. Imagine the kind,
wise, authoritative voice of your compassionate self talking to you as you
read through your alternatives. It can be very helpful to carry this card with
you and to read it from time to time. This habit will help you revisit your
commitment to becoming the compassionate self—reminding yourself of
how your compassionate self thinks and the kinds of things it would say.
When you begin to get angry, take a moment to look at your card.

“What Would My Compassionate Self Do?”

While we’ve focused a good deal on working with the mental experience of
anger, we should also look at the real-life situations that trigger it. Many of
the exercises we’ve done are designed to help us shift from a threatened state
of mind that judges situations from an angry perspective to one that
understands them from a compassionate point of view. By doing so, we can
return to the situation and work with it skillfully. Sometimes there will be
things we can do to change the situations that trigger our anger; at other
times, we’ll be faced with situations that we don’t like but can do little or
nothing to change. These different types of situations demand different sorts
of responses, including action, acceptance, and combinations of the two.
It’s useful to recognize that your motivation and the process of
compassion-focused problem solving help you to not simply get your way but
to find the best possible response to the situation. These sorts of responses
minimize harm to yourself and others and are consistent with your values.
This process is different from the “win at any cost” mentality that flows forth
from the threat and drive systems—a mentality that can easily lead to anger.
If we look at things from a compassionate perspective, we recognize that,
despite our best efforts, things often will not go the way we want them to.
However, we will also be able to understand that even if we haven’t been
able to achieve what we desired in the short term, by behaving
compassionately we’re more likely to attain happiness in the long term. A
wise, compassionate perspective helps us recognize that we don’t want to
compromise our long-term priorities (your emotional health, good
relationships, living in ways that are consistent with the sort of person you
want to be) in the service of minor, short-term goals.
So let’s look at the steps involved in compassionate problem solving.
Begin with thirty seconds or so of soothing-rhythm breathing to access your
compassionate mind and consider the qualities of kindness, calm authority,
and wisdom. Then bring to mind the situation or difficulty that has triggered
your anger:

1. Start by bringing compassion to the situation and to everyone in it.

We’ll be working with this much more in the following

chapters. For now, start by considering that each person in this
situation (including yourself) ultimately just wants to be happy
and free from suffering.

We all have tricky brains with sensitive threat systems and the
problems that come with them. This is not your fault or
anyone else’s.

If another person in the situation is irritating or frustrating you,

see if you can cultivate some empathy for that person:

Have you ever behaved as that person is behaving? How

were you feeling at the time? What may be driving that
person’s behavior?

What thoughts, fears, and desires might be contributing

 to this person’s actions?

Consider that this person, like you, may be having lots of

automatic reactions to the situation based on how the
human brain works and how we can be affected by our
previous experiences.

If that person is being hostile and acting in anger,

remember that this is a form of suffering and that it isn’t
fun for him or her, either. This person is doing it because,
like you, she or he feels threatened.

If this person’s threat system is activated, be aware that

his or her attention is likely to be narrowed and that she
or he is thinking less flexibly.

2. Break big problems down into manageable bites.

Often, the problems and situations we are faced with can feel
overwhelming, as if they are just too big to do anything about.

Before we can address them, we need to break them down into

smaller, more manageable bites, just as we would approach
any large task—like writing this book, for instance. I can’t
write a book in a day, but I can write a few pages. Sheila
might not be able to heal her relationship with Josh in a day,
but she can plan to have a friendly and compassionate
conversation with him.

Ask yourself, What is a reasonably sized piece of this problem

that I could actually address? You may want to take fifteen
minutes or so to draw up a plan of action.

List the problems or tasks from easiest to most difficult, and

start with the easiest one. This helps you begin making
progress toward your goals and gain confidence as you see
yourself beginning to have success.
3. Consider the problem and generate compassionate responses.

What are some of your possible responses to the situation?

Generate as many ideas as you can. They don’t have to be
realistic.

Shift into the perspective of your compassionate self when

you’re thinking of these possible responses. What would your
compassionate self say and do? Responses can involve both
action (working with the situation) and acceptance (accepting
the situation, working with your response to it).

4. Consider the consequences of the various responses you’ve generated.

From the perspective of your compassionate self, consider the

short-term and long-term consequences of your various
responses. How do they fit with both your desired outcomes
and your values?
A bit more needs to be said about how to choose possible
responses, so allow me to take a small break from our list for the
moment. We’ll get to the fifth step shortly.
If the situation you’re considering involves other people (as most
anger-producing situations do), there are various factors and priorities
you can consider when choosing the best response:
The objective or outcome you want to occur

Your relationship with the other people involved

10
The most helpful expression of your feelings

These factors often compete with one another. For example, if

someone were doing something that irritated me, I might be able to
get that person to stop doing so very quickly (the objective) by yelling
at him or by threatening him (“Shut up or I’ll smack you a good one!”
which also allows the expression of my frustration). However, this
response is likely to damage our relationship. We saw this with
Sheila, who expressed her frustration with Joshua in ways that created
 distance between them and which, in turn, actually got in the way of
her objective (helping him sort out his degree and job situation). This
isn’t uncommon. Often, we may damage important relationships (with
spouses or children, for instance) in the service of objectives that may
or may not be that important, or by expressing our emotions in hostile
ways. We can choose to accept certain situations that we might not
prefer in order to maintain good relationships. This isn’t the same as
passively just “taking it.” I’m talking about making active choices to
prioritize relationships over certain objectives. This distinction is
important: we’re not martyring ourselves, we’re taking responsibility
and choosing the priorities that matter most to us. Alternatively, some
objectives are worth prioritizing over relationships. For example, if
someone is harming us, another person, or herself, acting to prevent
harm may in some cases create problems in our relationship with her
—but we act anyway.
With this in mind, let’s continue with step 5:

5. Select a response.

From the perspective of your compassionate self, select the

solution that seems likely to work the best for you and for
others.

Choose an option that you have the skills to carry out. Keep in
mind that one option may involve your asking for help.

6. Consider what you need in order to implement the response.

Think about the things you may need to put your response into
action. Do you need anyone’s help or advice?

Would talking things over with someone you trust help you to
look at the situation from a more helpful perspective?

Part of being competent means knowing when to seek help

when we’re overwhelmed or overmatched.

7. Plan and implement the solution.

 Before putting your response into action, use your imagination
to walk through how it will go. Imagine yourself responding
as you’ve planned, trying to anticipate obstacles that might
come up and how you can deal with them compassionately.
This will help you practice, or rehearse, dealing with difficult
situations and prepare you for the real thing.

Implement your solution, doing what you’ve practiced. As you

carry out your response, try to mindfully observe the process
as it plays out. Try to see it as an experiment in trying
something new. This can help keep you from getting caught
up in little details, particularly if things don’t go exactly as
you practiced. It can also keep you from giving up if things
don’t turn out the way you hoped, as will sometimes be the
case.

8. Evaluate the solution.

Consider your response to the situation: how did it turn out?

What worked or seemed to be helpful?

What didn’t work so well?

Consider these things when you plan how to respond to

similar situations in the future.

There are lots of things that will have an impact on the way any given
situation will turn out, many of which are out of your control. The key is to
try to see your efforts as a series of experiments occurring over the time
frame of your life. Like scientists, we take what we learn from each situation
or experiment—what helped, what didn’t—and use this information to
increase the likelihood of success when we approach the next situation.
We’re patiently honing our skills, trying to get a little better each time and to
develop a toolbox of approaches and behaviors that will reflect our values
rather than automatic, knee-jerk responses to threats.

Conclusion
In this chapter you’ve learned more about how to work compassionately with
your experience of anger and with situations that trigger it. Acting from the
perspective of your compassionate self can help transform threatening
situations into opportunities for growth, improving your ability to deal with
stress and enhancing relationships with others and your own happiness.
Because so many of the situations that trigger anger involve other people, it’s
important to specifically consider your interactions with them. In chapter 10
we’ll focus on how we can relate compassionately and effectively with
others, particularly in difficult situations.
 10

Compassionate Behavior: Relating

Compassionately with Others
Interacting compassionately with others isn’t about just being nice and
giving in to people all of the time. Some of the most compassionate things
people have ever said to me have taken the form of direct critical feedback,
kindly but assertively advising me to change tactics when I was doing
something that was causing problems for me. When we see someone stepping
in front of a speeding car, the most compassionate thing we can do is prevent
that person from being run over! Compassion certainly doesn’t mean letting
people take advantage of us. It means communicating genuinely and
assertively—acting in ways that respect both other people and ourselves,
seeking benefit for everyone and harm for no one.
In chapter 2 we examined the three circles model and learned about three
emotion-regulation systems: the threat system, the drive and resource
acquisition system, and the safeness system. It‘s helpful to have an awareness
of these systems as we interact compassionately with other people—so
helpful, in fact, that I use this model to help train graduate psychology
students in learning to work with clients and to help myself interact with
other people in my own life. The idea is to recognize that we are triggers for
other people’s emotion-regulation systems—we can activate each or any
combination of their three circles—and to ask ourselves the question, What
do I want to trigger in them?
We activate other peoples’ threat systems when we insult, threaten, or
speak rudely to them. This interaction is reflected in the phrase “pushing
his/her buttons.” When we flirt, seduce, or sell, we are attempting to stimulate
others’ drive and resource acquisition systems. And when we comfort,
validate, and empathize, we are attempting to activate their safeness systems.
So here’s the thing: things work better when people feel safe. When our
safeness systems are active and we feel comfortable, neither trapped in a state
of threat nor caught up in the pursuit of some strong desire, we can bring our
minds fully to the task at hand. As we’ve seen, at these times our attention
can broaden to include many possibilities and we’re able to think clearly and
flexibly. Freed from the burden of feeling as if we need to protect ourselves,
we can move toward our highest potential.
Unfortunately, we all sometimes have conflicts, disagreements, and
stressful interactions with others—just the sort of situations that trigger our
sensitive threat systems. In this chapter we’ll explore some useful skills for
bringing compassion to how we relate to others, focusing on behaviors that
can help us solve problems while helping everyone in the situation feel safe
so that our interactions aren’t dictated by our threat systems.

Assertiveness
Anger can disrupt our communication with others by motivating us to interact
with them in ways that are aggressive (insulting, attacking); passive (biting
our tongues, stewing); or passive-aggressive (refusing to interact, sarcasm).
Unfortunately, none of these approaches works very well. Why? Well, let’s
consider them in terms of the three factors we saw in the problem-solving
section of chapter 9:

They often lead to the situation turning out poorly for ourselves
and/or others (objective).

They often damage our relationships with other people.

They do not allow us to express our emotions in ways that can be

received and understood by the other people involved.

In contrast, assertiveness is a way of interacting with others that allows us

to control the emotions and clarify the message. It involves respecting
ourselves—standing up for ourselves—and respecting the people we’re
dealing with.
When we respond to people with aggression, their minds become focused
on defending themselves from our hostility. This can make it almost
impossible for them to listen to what we’re trying to say, to grasp the point
we are trying to get across. And if your own threat system is in charge, even
you might not be clear about what message you want to convey and why.
Assertiveness allows us to express ourselves in challenging situations while
minimizing how much we and other people feel threatened, so that we are not
pouring fuel on the fire.
1
So what is assertiveness? Psychologist Willem Arrindell and his
colleagues describe four abilities that characterize assertiveness:

Display of negative feelings. This is the ability to be able to express

annoyance or refusal, to ask others to change behavior that bothers us,
and to stand up for ourselves as we pursue what we want.

Expressing and dealing with personal limitations. This means

being able to face and admit to our own limitations, uncertainty, or
lack of knowledge. Assertiveness helps us admit mistakes and accept
appropriate criticism without being ashamed of what we don’t know.
It also involves asking others for help when we need it.

Initiating assertiveness. This is the ability to deal with differences of

opinion—being able to express opinions that may differ from others
and to accept that other people may have opinions that are different
from ours, though no less valid.

Positive assertion. This is the ability to appreciate and express

admiration for the strengths, talents, and achievements of others and
to accept praise for ourselves.

Let’s now discuss how to use assertiveness in a few different situations.

Expressing Emotions and Desires

It can be very difficult to express feelings like embarrassment,
disappointment, frustration, anxiety, or sadness. Faced with such emotions, it
can seem almost impossible to simply tell the other person how we feel.
When we pause to think, it makes sense that this might be difficult.
Acknowledging our feelings and sharing them with others can make us feel
vulnerable, and when we feel vulnerable, our default threat response is often
a defensive one: Cover it up! Hide it! Get angry instead! However, our wise,
compassionate selves can recognize that we all have these emotions and that
assertively communicating our feelings in a way that doesn’t attack others
can help us find solutions to difficult problems. This works much better than
trying to work around or against these emotions, or attacking the people we
think are causing them.
On the wall of almost every child and adolescent treatment center where
I’ve worked is a poster featuring this sentence:

“When , I feel , and I would like .”

Although it is straightforward and easy to understand, this classic example of

assertive communication isn’t just for children. To use it, we briefly describe
the situation, how we feel about it, and what we would like to see happen:

“When you call me that, I don’t like it, and I would prefer that you
call me by my actual name.”

“When you let us out of the meeting (or class) late, I feel rushed and
anxious about getting where I need to be, and I’d like to keep to the
schedule in the future.”

At first, people sometimes feel a little silly when they use this format—it
can seem unnatural if we aren’t used to it. The idea is to begin expressing our
feelings in nonaggressive ways. By “nonaggressive,” I mean not including
any extras that insult the other person, such as, “When you call me by that
name, I don’t like it, and I’d like you to stop being such an ass.” That’s
aggressive! You’ll see in the next exercise that the focus of assertive
communication isn’t just to get your way; it’s also important to help the other
person understand where you’re coming from—to get your perspective
across.

Exercise 10.1: Assertive Expression of Emotion

As with all the exercises, begin by slowing down your breathing for thirty seconds or so
by using soothing-rhythm breathing and by accessing the kind, wise, confident
perspective of your compassionate mind.
 In his book, Overcoming Depression,2 Paul Gilbert describes four steps involved in
expressing angry emotions (which work well with other sorts of emotions as well):

1. Acknowledge your anger (or whatever emotion you’re feeling).

2. Recognize in what way you feel hurt or frustrated (and try to discover if you might be
exaggerating the harm done).

3. Focus on where this hurt comes from and your wish that the other person could
understand your feelings and your point of view.

4. Don’t insist that the other person must agree with you.

Once you’ve gone through these steps, try to create an assertive statement that
communicates your experience to the other person without attacking that person. Focus
on the specific issue or behavior. Here are some examples:

“When you interrupt me, I feel hurt because I think that you don’t value what I’m
saying.”

“I like it much better when you (describe the behavior you’d prefer to see).”

“I understand that you feel like , but my point of view is .”

You’ll notice that the examples of assertive communication use the word
“I” in relationship to our emotions, and for this reason these are sometimes
called I-statements. With I-statements, we state our emotions or desires
directly, communicate ownership of them, and don’t add unnecessary
information that could be insulting to others. By “ownership,” I mean not
giving other people control of your emotions, for example, by saying, “You
make me feel .” Instead, simply state how you feel, as in, “I’m very angry
right now, and I think I need to take a break before we talk about this
further.” I-statements make it clear that this is your perspective, versus “the
way it is.” Just because I happen to like something (or not) doesn’t make it
intrinsically good or bad:
 “I’ve never really liked baseball (or hockey). I like football.”
(assertive)

“Baseball sucks. Real men play football.” (aggressive)

Let’s consider how you might apply this assertive approach to a recent
conflict.

Exercise 10.2: Considering Conflict

Think back to a time within the last few weeks when you had a conflict with another
person. Think about what was actually said. As always, start with thirty seconds of
soothing-rhythm breathing; engage with your wise, kind, and confident compassionate
self; and spend a moment or two thinking about the argument from that compassionate
point of view:

Replay the argument in your mind and imagine how it would go if you communicated
assertively.

You might even want to write down how you could handle the conflict in a different
way, using the skills described in exercise 10.1.

Note what mental blocks come up. For example, is there a part of you that thinks,
Well it’s okay in theory, but I don’t think the person I had the argument with would
take any notice? You might be right about that—assertiveness works better if we
behave this way consistently over time. If other people are used to our aggression
rather than our assertiveness, it may seem strange to them when we do things a little
differently, and they may not respond as we’d like them to. However, if we
consistently behave assertively, people learn that we mean what we say, and they will
respond to it. Don’t assume that things will change with one interaction. As with all of
the skills in this book, practice really helps.

Working with Your Limitations

Our threat systems have evolved to be very sensitive to messages that we
aren’t good enough and that relate to how other people view us—what they
think of us and feel about us. Additionally, we live in a world that is
constantly bombarding us with messages about how we’re supposed to be,
telling us how we’re supposed to look, feel, and behave. It’s easy to
internalize these messages about how we should be and to feel all sorts of
difficult emotions when it seems we don’t measure up.
If we look at this through the wise eyes of the compassionate self,
however, we can gain some perspective and realize that even if we aren’t
perfect, it doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with us. Our
compassionate selves know that no one is perfect, and that the way we’ve
developed is due to many factors that we didn’t choose or control. The key is
that we exist right here, right now; and while we can’t change the things that
led us to this point, we have a great ability to influence how things go from
now on. We can all find ways to act assertively even in situations that feel
intimidating. We also need to be able to honestly admit when we aren’t up to
a task and to get help.
Here are a few ways to begin working with our personal limitations.

Check It Out

First, try to decide whether the issue really is a limitation or if it’s simply
a negative judgment on your part. One of my clients, Robert, strongly
believed that he was a bad father (largely based on the harsh criticism he
received from his emotionally abusive father-in-law). However, when we
looked closely at how he interacted with his children and his ability to give
them what they needed to thrive (and sought feedback about this from his
wife), Robert discovered that he actually did a good job as a parent. When he
was feeling low or depressed, he was particularly likely to question his ability
to be a good parent. And just like Robert, you may also feel as if you have all
sorts of weaknesses or limitations that simply aren’t there, particularly when
you’re feeling low. As Robert did, one way to check this out is to ask for the
opinion of people you value and care about—compassionate people who
have your best interests at heart. You can ask them something like, “I think
this is a limitation of mine,” or “I think that I struggle with . What do you
think?”
Acceptance

Imagine that your compassionate self is your coach. How would your
compassionate self help you to accept your limitations and focus on your
strengths? Just as you may use your self-critical inner voice to convince
yourself that you can never be happy while you have this limitation, you can
use the voice of your compassionate self to comfort yourself, and remind
yourself that we all have limitations and that this is okay.
A good example of this is Paul, whom I met during a course I was
teaching on mindfulness. Paul had been an athletic student but became
paralyzed from the neck down as a result of an accident. During the course,
he courageously discussed with the class what it was like to learn to define
himself in a completely new way. He powerfully described how accepting the
way things were for him now, including the limitations caused by his
paralysis, was the first step in rebuilding his life. He refused to allow his
paralysis to hamper his ability to be happy and to pursue his educational
goals. But in doing this, he had to work with the way his life really was
(versus the way he might wish for it to be).

Exercise 10.3: Accepting Limitations

Cast your mind back to a time when you had to accept a limitation. Once again, begin
with thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing and engage with the kind, wise, and
confident qualities of your compassionate self:

1. Validate your disappointment. No one likes to have limitations: It makes sense that
I would be bothered by this limitation. This feels important to me.

2. Focus on the process of kind acceptance. Allow yourself to accept this limitation
without blaming or shaming. Notice how it feels when you don’t fight with it and just let
it be a part of you: This is the way it is for me. Everyone has limitations, and this is
one of mine. I don’t have to be perfect, and although I don’t like it, this limitation
doesn’t mean that I can’t be happy.
 If self-critical voices come up, repeat from step 1.

Problem Solve

You can also use your compassionate self to help you figure out ways to
be successful and happy despite your limitations. Rick, an Iraq veteran who
had been disabled during the war, was deeply upset that he could no longer
play soccer, which he’d enjoyed all his life. Ultimately, he was able to accept
that he could no longer play, and instead he chose to coach a children’s
soccer team. While he missed aspects of playing, his disappointment was
more than compensated for by the joy he got from teaching the kids about his
favorite game.

Do It Anyway

If your limitation is related to a lack of skill, then you can pursue training
and advice to help you improve. On the other hand, you can also learn to take
yourself a bit less seriously and choose to attempt (and enjoy) activities even
if you aren’t very good at them. Suppose that you would love to dance but
think you have two left feet. How could you learn to face up to that feeling of
inadequacy and just do it—feel the fear and do it anyway? One way could be
to note your critical thoughts, be mindful of the bodily feelings of anxiety or
embarrassment, engage your compassionate self, and then just dance. The
more you do it, the less self-conscious you’ll be likely to feel. You could also
choose to take dance lessons. In my life, I’ve found that one secret to
happiness is to enjoy doing things that I’m not particularly good at. Some of
these things (like guitar playing) I choose to improve by taking lessons, and
some (like mountain biking) I just keep doing, poorly but enjoyably. Once
again, the key is to shift your focus from a self-critical mind-set to a
compassionate, helpful mind-set by accessing your compassionate self.
Let It Go

Sometimes understanding your limitations is extremely important because

it stops you from obsessively trying to achieve things that are just not going
to happen. For example, imagine that your heart is set on becoming a doctor
but unfortunately you don’t have the grades and examination scores to get
into medical school. This can be a painful realization, but if you can find a
way to accept this, it’s likely that you may be able to find something else that
may be equally fulfilling, such as nursing or working for a medical charity.
Clinging to unrealistic goals can prevent us from pursuing others that would
make us just as happy. Accepting our limitations means that we need to be
honest with ourselves about what we can do, what we might be able to do,
and what we’ll never be able to do.
At the same time, you don’t want to give up on your dreams too quickly.
There are many challenging pursuits in life that you can succeed at if you’re
willing to keep at it. I’ve heard it said that one secret of success is the
willingness to fail. When we’re children we don’t think so much about it—
when we’re learning to walk, we fall over loads of times before we become
steady on our feet. But you don’t see many toddlers falling over and just
lying there for the next fifty years or so! They fall over and then get back up
again. As we get older, however, we start judging ourselves, and that can
make us fearful of failing, which can lead us to give up or not try at all.
Developing compassionate assertiveness within ourselves allows us to face
failure—to dust ourselves off and get up again—without getting caught up in
the inertia of self-criticism. Working with anger is like this; if you’ve
struggled with anger for years, you won’t be able to completely change
overnight. You’ll slip up again and again. But if you can bring compassion to
the struggle, encouraging yourself to keep at it over time, you will change.

Expressing Disagreement
All relationships involve differences of opinion, but these differences don’t
have to produce angry conflicts. A compassionate perspective allows us to
disagree in ways that express our position while also communicating respect
for others. It’s okay to disagree, and we can do so openly and appropriately:

Other person’s statement: “Jim is a jerk!”

 Disagreement: “I disagree. He’s always been nice to me, and I’ve
seen him treat others kindly as well. Did you have a bad experience
with him?”

The key is to express your perspective respectfully without stating or

implying that the other person’s opinion is stupid, naïve, or misguided.

Exercise 10.4: Expressing Disagreement

Begin by slowing down your breathing a bit by using thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm
breathing. Access the kind, wise, and confident qualities of your compassionate self.
Consider a situation when you have disagreed with another person and would have
liked them to know how you felt. Imagine the result of the disagreement turning out
differently as you approach it from a compassionate, assertive perspective:

State your perspective. It’s okay to say very directly, “I disagree…”

Refrain from criticizing others or their perspectives or implying that they are stupid or
shortsighted for not agreeing with you. It’s easy to attack someone without meaning
to when you feel strongly about something, but doing this almost guarantees a poor
result. Other people are just as entitled to their opinions as you are, and attacking
them sets them up to attack you back, or at least to dig in and oppose you.

Show respect for others by expressing interest in their perspectives and asking
questions to help you understand why they feel the way they do. This sets up a
positive interaction by helping them to feel safe and valued, and it communicates that
you’re willing to hear what they have to say. This step also helps you better
understand where they are coming from.

Practice the interaction in your mind so that you’re less likely to be thrown off guard in
the actual situation when it occurs next. Assertively expressing disagreement is a
skill, and we get better by practicing. You can also role-play by using two chairs
(sitting in one, imagining the other person in the other) or by asking someone you
trust to play the part of the other person (your friend can give you feedback on how he
she experiences what you’re saying).
 When disagreement occurs, it can help to pay close attention to the
emotions and experiences that emerge. For example, the angry little flush that
begins to go through your body can be a cue to slow your breathing and
engage with the wise, calm authority of your compassionate self, who desires
to find the best solution for both parties. Deliberately recognizing the need to
slow down (and then slowing down) can help prevent your threat response
from rushing you along in an increasing whirl of angry thoughts and
impulses.
The ability to deal with conflict is a skill—something to work toward.
Relationships are pretty easy to manage when everyone agrees and
everything goes well, but the true test comes when things get rocky.
Assertiveness isn’t about trying to keep everything quiet, avoiding
disagreements, or blowing up at the first sign of conflict; it’s the ability to
work your way through difficulties while maintaining control of your
feelings. This ability comes with practice. Remember that if you feel that
your emotions have taken control of you, it may mean that it’s time to break
off contact for a bit and give yourself some space from the situation that’s
triggering your anger. If we find ourselves driving on ice, it’s probably a
good idea to slow down so we don’t begin to slip and slide all over the road.
And once you’ve calmed down and shifted into the perspective of the
compassionate self, it becomes easier to work with the conflict in a way that
isn’t driven by your threat system. Taking a break to center yourself isn’t
running away—it’s good emotion management.
When you’re in the heat of anger, you’ll likely have a hard time seeing
the other person’s perspective as you are captured by your own threat
system’s narrow point of view. Disagreements are easier to handle when you
actually understand what the other person is saying (we’ll investigate this
even more in the next chapter). It’s helpful to learn about what the other
person is thinking and feeling by asking questions to clarify their point of
view:

“Could you tell me a bit more about that? I want to understand where
you’re coming from.”

“I can see this is really important to you. Could you explain that to
me?”
 “What’s the most upsetting/important thing to you about this?”

The tone of voice you use is important—asking clarifying questions

doesn’t work when your tone and body language are aggressive or
contemptuous. When people feel we’re making genuine efforts to see their
point of view rather than forcing our own perspectives on them, they’re much
more likely to work with us (though not always, of course). It can be very
useful to actually practice this. When you have a moment, consider a conflict,
shift into your compassionate self, and feel the sense of slowing that comes
with it. Imagine the situation and practice asking these questions while seeing
yourself as a thoughtful, inquiring person who wants to resolve this conflict.
By doing this, you are shifting focus and control away from your anger’s
desire to overcome the other person, and moving into a compassionate desire
to work out the conflict. Once again, the key is to practice being the self you
want to become.

Reconciliation
Since all relationships will involve disagreement and occasional hurt feelings,
it’s important to learn how to reconcile—to come back together and mend
relationships when they’ve been split by conflict or disagreements. One of
the reasons people can struggle with being assertive or expressing anger is
that they’re frightened they will damage their relationships beyond repair.
This sometimes develops from a childhood experience of parents or
caretakers who were very quick to punish or to withdraw affection from a
child if he or she showed anger or was disobedient. If we’ve had that sort of
background, we may learn to be very careful about expressing our emotions.
For example, Tim was a marital therapy client of mine who sometimes felt
quite angry with his wife. He was very frightened to express this anger
because when he did, he felt that at any moment she might say, “That’s
enough of you,” and walk out. Another client, Gary, had a similar fear, which
played out in an aggressive way: “Fuck you…I don’t need you anyway!” In
fact, both men love their wives, but they didn’t know how to deal with
conflict without becoming either sulky and submissive or nasty and
aggressive. Parts of their struggles were based on not knowing how to
reconcile after having conflicts or disagreements. Both felt that the angry self
was unlovable and that expressing their feelings could lead to a split in the
relationship that couldn’t be overcome. We can feel that reconciliation is
difficult or impossible, or that it feels like submission—like having to try to
win parental approval again. The good news is that when both people are
committed to a relationship, reconciliation is usually possible. There are some
things we can do that can help with this.

Plan Ahead

Discuss beforehand how you will work with conflicts and reconcile when
they’re over. For example, “Chances are that we’ll have some heated
disagreements at some point. How would you like to work things out when
that happens? What things can we do to help us come back together again?”
For example, you can agree to take time-outs when one or both of you need
to cool down. This break will give each of you space (so that you don’t
continue to argue), and you can return to the discussion when both are able to
communicate calmly.

Work Together to Help One Another Feel Safe

To prepare for the conflicts that will inevitably arise in any relationship,
you may try opening with a statement like, “Conflicts are part of life. How
can we make our relationship feel safe enough so that we know that any
blocks are temporary and that we can reconcile?” This will establish room
and the opportunity to work together to ensure a feeling of safety. For
example, couples can write “in case we are fighting” letters to each other
from the perspective of their compassionate selves. These are letters that each
can read (either to themselves or aloud to each other) when things feel
distant. They’ll remind each partner of the other’s caring and commitment to
work through the difficulties and come together again. For instance,
“Richard, if you’re reading this, it’s probably because we’re fighting.
Although I may be upset with you right now, I want you to know that I love
you very much and that I’m committed to working with you to solve
whatever problems might come up in our relationship…” The idea is to find a
way to get our safeness systems going, and to remind ourselves that we’re on
the same team when our threat systems try to make us relate to one another as
enemies.

Help Your Partner Feel Safe and Valued during Reconciliation

“What’s the best way for me to approach you when we’ve had a conflict
and I’m ready to make up?” One of my clients often tried to reconcile by
bringing his fiancée flowers or small gifts, and he was surprised to find that
these efforts actually made her feel distant and irritated—“because she felt
like I was trying to ‘buy her off,’ like I thought the flowers made it okay for
me to be rude to her.” It turned out that she much preferred an honest apology
or expression of caring, like, “I know we had a disagreement, but I want you
to know that I still love you and that I value our relationship very much. I’d
like to make up when you’re ready.”

Interrupt Rumination

It’s easy to get caught up in repetitive thoughts about disagreements or

conflicts, even when they’re about minor issues. You can shift your state of
mind by remembering the good times you’ve had with this person and the
reasons you’ve chosen to be in a relationship with them. People who struggle
to express their hurt feelings may hold on to them, building resentment that
then seeps out and causes more trouble. This is why we often talk about
arguments “clearing the air.” You can use disagreements as opportunities to
remove stumbling blocks in your relationships by focusing on the issues
without personalizing the disagreement. Just because people disagree with
you doesn’t mean that they don’t respect you, care about you, or want to have
a relationship with you. If these things were true, they probably wouldn’t
even bother talking with you at all.

Move from Shame to Regret

Those of us who struggle with anger may experience a great deal of

shame, which can get in the way of reconciling with others. As we’ve seen,
shame happens when we observe that we’ve behaved in certain ways that run
contrary to our values, and we then conclude that we’re somehow bad or
flawed, or that what we’ve done is unforgivable. The problem with shame is
that it keeps us stuck in the past and focused on ourselves. We can find that
we avoid confronting the problems we’ve created because doing so brings up
3
painful self-evaluations. This shame can also lead us to avoid people we feel
that we’ve harmed, which prevents reconciliation. As we learn to reconcile
and commit to working with anger in ways that are more effective, we must
learn to let our shame go. As we’ve seen, this can be hard to do because it
may feel as if you’re letting yourself off the hook. Don’t worry, you’re not—
but you are learning to recognize that shame doesn’t help, to mindfully relate
to shameful thoughts as mental events, and to redirect your attention to other
4
thoughts that actually can help. As an alternative to shame, consider regret.
Regret allows us to acknowledge that we’ve done something that has caused
harm to others, yet instead of getting us caught up in self-criticism or
negative emotions that paralyze us, regret focuses on not repeating the act,
repairing the relationship, and doing better in the future. It keeps our focus
on improving.

Apologizing
All of us sometimes do things, purposefully or not, that are hurtful to others.
When we become aware that we’ve hurt others, it may bother us (this is good
—a sign of compassion). However, as we know, embarrassment or shame
over our actions can get our threat systems moving and lead us to respond in
ways that aren’t helpful:

We may justify or rationalize our responses: He deserved it because…

We may shame ourselves: I’m a terrible person!

We may push it out of our minds, avoid thinking about it, pretend it
never happened, or even forget about it.

We may minimize its importance.

These are all ways that we use to avoid dealing with the fact that we’ve
caused harm to another person, and they prevent us from doing anything
about it. None of these responses helps mend the damage that was caused by
our behavior, and they often magnify it. Apologizing does not erase the harm
we’ve done or excuse us for it. However, acknowledging our fault and
committing to do better (and meaning it) can create movement toward
healing. It also reinforces the compassionate habit of taking responsibility for
our actions.
The ability to apologize requires us to tolerate guilt and regret—to allow
ourselves to feel sadness or remorse when we’ve harmed someone. Angry
people often struggle with allowing themselves to experience regret, perhaps
feeling that they would be overwhelmed by vulnerable emotions such as
sadness and remorse. It takes courage to open yourself to these feelings. The
truth is that, mostly, we don’t intend to be so hurtful—what we want is to be
recognized, respected, loved, valued, and wanted. Much of our anger flows
from these desires being blocked or frustrated. Behind our anger is often a lot
of emotional pain that we would prefer to avoid. If we are courageous enough
to face these emotions and experience them as they are, we won’t need to
avoid them by hiding behind anger.
A good apology involves directly acknowledging the harm we’ve done,
expressing regret, and expressing the intention not to repeat it. A good
apology does not include elaborating in ways that let us off the hook (“I’m
sorry, but…”) or that imply that the other person is at fault (“I’m sorry that
you felt like my comment was insulting”). Consider these examples of
apologies:

“I’m sorry I lost my temper. I was feeling overwhelmed, and it wasn’t

your fault at all. I would really appreciate an opportunity to talk about
this when you feel okay with doing that.”

“I want to apologize for calling you names. I know that this must have
been very hurtful for you. I was angry about the situation, and I took
it out on you. I’m working on handling my anger better, and I’m
going to treat you better in the future, starting with no more name-
calling.”

“I’m sorry I used the last of the ___________ and didn’t replace it. It
didn’t occur to me that it would inconvenience you, and I’ll try to be
more thoughtful in the future.”
 “I apologize for criticizing you in front of your friends. I can imagine
that this was very embarrassing for you. It was very inconsiderate,
and I won’t do it again.”

Once again, consider your tone of voice and body language when you
apologize. Try not to be overly submissive and childlike, or aggressive and
dismissive. Instead, speak from the perspective of your compassionate self.
The key here is that you’re claiming responsibility for your actions (not
blaming them on others), doing your best to make the situation right,
cultivating and communicating an intention to do better in the future, and
then following through with it. This last point is a very important one. It’s not
enough to simply intend not to harm the other person again and then forget
your commitment as soon as the interaction is over. Apologizing and then
repeating the behavior teaches the other person that your apology means
nothing. Committing to change may mean getting help (such as going to
couple’s therapy, for example). Again, we see that the path of compassion
isn’t always an easy one—it means acknowledging problems directly and
facing them head-on.

Exercise 10.5: Apologizing

Begin with thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing and access your kind, wise, and
confident compassionate self. Bring to mind what you want to apologize for. Develop an
apology that includes the following kinds of statements:

A direct statement of apology and remorse: “I am very sorry that I…,” “I apologize
for…”

An empathic statement of the hurt you may have caused: “I can imagine that this was
very hurtful to you.”

A commitment not to repeat the action in the future: “I’m committed to not doing this
again.”

Follow through. If you say that you’re committed to not harming this person again, take
appropriate steps to make sure that you don’t.
 Forgiveness
If you’re reading this book, chances are that some of the people you have felt
angry toward have harmed you or hurt your feelings in some way. Learning
to forgive—to let go of the negative emotions that you feel toward those who
have harmed or angered you—can be an important step in freeing yourself
from the grip of chronic anger. Forgiveness doesn’t mean thinking that what
they did to you was okay, giving them permission to harm you again, or
trusting them. In fact, you may no longer want to see them or have any kind
of relationship with them. Forgiveness certainly doesn’t mean that your
relationship with them will just go back to the way it was before.
The ability to have conflicts and then to reconcile and forgive can actually
strengthen and bring about positive changes in our relationships. It can help
to think about the things that help us to forgive and the things that can get in
the way. If somebody is unkind to you in the heat of her anger but then
apologizes, what would help you to forgive her? What might make it hard for
you to forgive her? What would make you continue to hold on to your
resentment?
Forgiveness means choosing to let go of the anger and suffering that
you’ve experienced as a result of clinging to your experience of being
harmed. It means accepting that you have been hurt and making the decision
to let go of the bad feelings that you hold toward the other person. I’ve
intended the following exercise to be done privately. Whether or not you
choose to communicate your forgiveness to the other person is up to you. In
making this decision, consider whether or not communicating it would be
helpful—first to you, and second to the other person.

Exercise 10.6: Forgiveness

Begin with thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing and access the kind, confident,
wise qualities of your compassionate self.
 When beginning the work of forgiveness, it’s good to start by forgiving little things,
moving on to larger harms once you’ve got the hang of it:

Bring to mind someone who has embarrassed, upset, or harmed you in ways that
you’ve struggled to let go of. Consider the ways that holding on to the hurt,
resentment, and anger has caused suffering in your life—how it has made the harm
that you received seem to last longer.

Consider how it would feel if you no longer had to carry the burden of this harm, if you
were released from the burden of these negative emotions.

Next, imagine that the person who harmed you arrived into the world as a baby, just
like you. Just like you, this person didn’t ask to be here or to have the genes or the
brain that he was given or the life experiences that have shaped him. Just like you, he
sometimes struggles and does things that aren’t helpful. Feel a sense of the common
humanity between you.

Commit yourself to letting go of the ill will that you experience toward this person, to
free yourself from the suffering of clinging to it. Picture the person in your mind and
say to yourself, I forgive you.

Notice the blocks that occur when you do this. If you find yourself struggling, imagine
how you would feel if you could do it—what it would feel like if you no longer had this
grudging feeling inside of you? Would that feel good, or would you feel that you’ve
lost something? Are you frightened of letting the person off the hook or letting him get
away with it? Consider how your compassionate self would work with this thought,
understanding that it’s your anger that is the issue here, not the other person.

Direct compassion toward yourself. Imagine being free of this suffering.

If your “angry self” resists the effort to forgive, see if you (from the perspective of your
compassionate self) can extend compassion to your angry self, recognizing the hurt
that has caused you these feelings and wishing yourself to be free of it.

When Things Don’t Go the Way You’d Like

Keep in mind that the goal of assertiveness is to communicate clearly and to
express ourselves in appropriate ways that are consistent with our values.
Over time, some of our interactions and behavior will produce the outcomes
we hope for, and some won’t. As we’ve seen, there are lots of situations in
life (such as other people’s reactions) that we simply can’t control, and often
things won’t turn out the way we want them to, despite our best efforts.
When this happens, it can be tempting to become disillusioned and think,
Well, that didn’t work…but I tried, so now I can feel free to go back to my
same old angry habits. Don’t fall into this trap! Your compassionate
strategies may not always achieve your short-term objectives, but I’d
encourage you to try them over time and see if they don’t work more often
than your angry threat responses have. You may find that, although specific
situations here and there may not be resolved in the way you’d like, other
priorities (such as your happiness and relationships) may still benefit. For
example, Sheila was unable to control Joshua’s choices about his university
degree. But when she worked with her own emotions and became able to
communicate her concerns assertively with him, she gained things that were
even more valuable: she was able to see that the high-pressure way she had
been raised wasn’t the only way to pursue a career, she learned to respect
Josh as an adult who was thoughtfully considering his future, and she was
able to strengthen her relationship with him by discussing things with a level
of honesty she’d never reached before.
Even when the situation doesn’t work out the way we want, we can still
behave in ways that are respectful to ourselves and to others, that minimize
harm to our lives and those of others, and that reflect the sort of people we
want to be. Remember, we’re trying to create changes in our minds and
brains that will shape our lives in the future. Even when we can’t control a
situation, we can control our own behavior, and we can work with our
difficult threat systems to have better relationships and happier lives. We may
lose some battles, but we can win the war.

Positive Interactions: The Building Blocks of Good

Relationships
5
In their book We Can Work It Out, Clifford Notarius and Howard Markman
describe the “Relationship Bank Account” as a way of understanding the
importance of positive interactions in human relationships. The idea is simple
but profound: imagine that every positive interaction you have with another
person is a “deposit” into the relationship bank account and that every
negative interaction is a “withdrawal.” The idea is that if we have lots of
positive interactions, the occasional conflicts are easier to bear because they
occur within a relationship that is defined overall by kindness and positive
experiences. Imagine getting an eighty-dollar traffic ticket when you’ve got
twenty thousand dollars in your bank account. It’s not fun, but you can
handle it without too much difficulty. If, on the other hand, you’ve only got
fifty dollars in your bank account, that eighty-dollar ticket will feel a lot
worse. When we’re having lots of negative interactions and only a few
positive ones (or even equal amounts, as negative interactions seem to be
more powerful than positive ones), small conflicts can become a really big
deal—the straw that broke the camel’s back. Let’s look at some ways to build
up a healthy balance in your relationship bank account.

Minimize “Zingers”

One way to create a surplus in your relationship bank account is to

decrease negative interactions. The ways we speak to one another can cause
terrible hurt, even if we aren’t doing things like yelling or name-calling.
Zingers are the little verbal “pokes” we give one another—little jokes, insults,
5
or comments containing toxic bits of criticism. Regardless of whether or not
your intentions are good, zingers hurt and can erode a relationship at
breathtaking speed. Better to just bite your tongue and remember that the
relationship is more important than the expression of that bit of irritation. If
you really want to address an issue with the other person, use the assertive
communication skills described previously.

Don’t Sulk or Stonewall

Stonewalling means refusing to interact or to engage helpfully with the

5
other person. Pulling back from other people and punishing them by being
passively hostile or simply refusing to interact with them is similar to saying,
“I’m going to punish you until you do what I need you to do to make me feel
better.” Such tactics are coercive and tend to make it less likely that others
will give you what you need. This is because this behavior serves to create
distance in relationships. When these tactics do get you what you want, they
do so in a fashion akin to bullying or blackmail. It may tend to irritate the
other person so much that she won’t want to work with you, even if she
knows what it is you need from her (and she may not, since you aren’t telling
her). If you look at the situation from a compassionate point of view, you can
recognize the urge to sulk or stonewall as an expression of your hurt; but you
can also recognize that this behavior will keep you stuck. By using
assertiveness instead, you can communicate what you need, help yourself feel
more powerful, and actually address the situation that has made you so upset.

Plan Positive Interactions

Find ways to have fun together, whether it’s taking your teenage son or
daughter out for a movie in the afternoon or having a brief conversation about
a television sitcom at the watercooler at work. Intentionally create situations
in which you can enjoy one another’s company. Be creative! Coming up with
positive interactions can seem like a lot of effort at first, but once you’ve
established the habit, fun opportunities will begin to present themselves as
you begin to notice, He would really enjoy this. A good way to plan positive
interactions is to ask the other person what he might enjoy and suggest doing
it, even if it’s something you wouldn’t normally care to do. It’s not about the
activity, it’s about having a positive interaction. Even activities that you
might not expect to enjoy (like cleaning the garage, for example) can
sometimes be great opportunities for positive interactions—particularly if
you can bring some humor to the situation.

Be Polite

Cliché it may seem, but “please” and “thank you” communicate respect
when spoken sincerely. Let people know when you appreciate them and their
efforts. We hate to be taken for granted, and so do other people! Politely
expressing our sincere gratitude to others acknowledges that they’ve treated
us well, and can improve our relationship with them and help us to feel
better.
Offer Kind Greetings and Farewells

Your best interactions will stimulate the safety systems of both you and
the other person. A kind greeting that communicates, “I’m glad to see you,”
or a farewell that says, “I enjoyed my time with you,” helps us to feel valued,
appreciated, and liked. Kind greetings set the stage for positive interactions,
and good partings leave the person with positive feelings about the
relationship, possibly even helping to keep her safeness system activated as
she moves out into the rest of her day. This is a gift that costs you nothing to
give, but one that can have really positive effects on other people’s lives (and
your own).

Give Sincere Compliments

I’m not encouraging flattery, which is insincere and can be insulting.

Good compliments simply involve communicating what we appreciate about
others. I think the best compliments acknowledge and reinforce positive
things that other people do rather than the quality of their appearance, for
example. “I really appreciated what you said about .” You can also get in the
habit of acknowledging others’ success and attempting to genuinely feel
happy for them because of it (which Buddhists call empathic joy). This can
be challenging, because your sensitive threat system may respond to others’
success by generating thoughts related to feeling overshadowed (because they
did it and you didn’t). Over time, however, making a point of practicing
empathic joy can help undermine tendencies to be self-focused and resentful,
and to see yourself as being in competition with others—tendencies that can
get in the way of having good relationships. Alternatively, showing genuine
happiness for others’ success will help them feel closer to you. Besides, if
you can learn to be happy for others’ successes as well as your own, you’ll
have a lot more things to be happy about!

Conclusion
In this chapter, we explored how you can use compassionate behavior to
interact with others in ways that help everyone involved feel safe rather than
threatened. Acting from the perspective of your compassionate self, you can
work with difficult situations in ways that show respect to others and to
yourself, and communicate in ways that are genuine, respectful, and
assertive. You can attend to your relationships when you’re not in a state of
conflict and cultivate a wealth of positive interactions so that the inevitable
difficulties don’t seem quite so impossible to handle. In chapter 11, we’ll
explore how to bring compassion to our experience of others and how to
develop compassionate attributes such as empathy.
 11

Bringing Compassion to Your Experience of

Others
In chapter 10 we focused on developing compassionate behavior that will
help you interact effectively with others, even in times of conflict. These
skills can be used even more effectively if you learn to feel more
compassionately toward others, to develop the habit of experiencing others
through the eyes of your compassionate self. Indeed, this approach can help
to reduce the tendency to get angry in the first place, because you’re
developing aspects of yourself that are resistant to anger. But this
development takes practice. Several times, I’ve heard the Dalai Lama point
out that developing compassion for others is helpful even if we’re operating
from a purely selfish standpoint. This is because developing compassion for
others creates changes in our own minds—helping to undermine the anger
and other threat-based emotions that can cause us so much discomfort. It also
will help us have better relationships.
In this chapter, we’ll focus on our experience of other people—how we
perceive them and assign meaning to them. One of the most troublesome
things about anger and other threat-based emotions is that they rob other
people (and ourselves) of our common humanity. As our threat systems try to
defend us, they simplify our experience of reality. The nuances and shades of
gray disappear as our world is condensed into “right/good” and “wrong/bad.”
Of course, we usually see ourselves as good (or at least, as the ones who are
right, who need protecting or avenging) and those that trigger our threat
systems as being bad (or at least, as the attackers or the ones who are in the
wrong).
When we’re in the grip of anger, the scope of our attention and thinking
narrows and focuses our minds on the aspects of the situation (and the other
person) that threaten us. In chapter 1, we noted that anger is typically linked
to the frustration of our goals, feeling as if we can’t do what we want,
experiencing a sense of injustice and unfairness, or sometimes perceiving
ourselves as powerless, shameful, or inadequate. Our minds then take these
perceptions and translate them into emotional experiences of not being cared
about, of feeling disrespected, or of being attacked or rejected in some way—
of not feeling safe. It’s rare for us to feel angry if we feel that people really
are trying their best to be caring and respectful toward us.
We tend to attach these negative emotional experiences to the people who
trigger them. We often find ourselves reacting as if these people exist only to
anger us, as if other people are deliberately not caring about us. Every other
quality they have, every other aspect of their lives and personalities seems to
disappear as we mentally reduce them to “the ones who are annoying me.”
We see the tragedy in this when the roles are reversed. For example, the
men I work with in our prison groups are somewhat distinguished by the fact
that their entire lives—how they spend their days, how others relate to them,
the assumptions people make about their characters—are dictated by the
worst things they’ve ever done. Imagine what that would be like, if the only
thing someone knew about you was the worst thing you’d ever done.
Actually, you may very well know how this feels. Many of us who
struggle with anger may finally seek help because we observe that others
relate to us as a problem—that, to them, we have become “that angry person”
or simply, “that ass.” Their threat systems reduce us to one-dimensional
characters in their minds the same way that our anger reduces others in our
own minds. To our anger, other people aren’t human beings, with complex
lives and a wide range of hopes, dreams, motivations, and emotions. When
our threat systems are in charge, other people are obstacles to be feared or
overcome. This isn’t our fault or theirs—it’s just how our tricky brains work.
Once that threat label is attached to someone, we shift into a defensive mode
that leaves little room for new information to sink in. When this happens, it
can become almost impossible for others to not activate our threat systems,
because we tend to interpret their behavior in ways that fit with the ideas
we’ve formed about them. By learning to consider others through the lens of
compassion, we can work to change how they are held in our minds and,
likewise, how we are held in theirs.

Compassionate Recognition of Our Common

Humanity
The first half of this book discussed various factors that can cause our lives to
be difficult, many of which we did not choose or design. The realization that
some of these factors are not our fault can help us begin to let go of our self-
criticism and to develop compassion for ourselves and for other people. Just
like us, everyone else found themselves here, born into the flow of life, with
brains they didn’t design, in environments they didn’t choose. Just like us,
they didn’t get to choose whether or not their young brains got what they
needed to be able to cope well with difficult emotions. Just like us, they want
to be happy and to be free from suffering. Just like us, they are doing the best
they can with the skills, knowledge, and resources they have. And just like
us, they sometimes fall short.
Despite what our anger sometimes tells us, pretty much no one gets up in
the morning and thinks, Today, I’m going to mess up my kids so that they
have difficult, miserable lives or Today, I’m going to create a hostile work
environment for my colleague. And how miserable must their lives be if they
do think this way. Cultivating this awareness of others can be a gateway to
compassion—we acknowledge that life is hard and that we’re all dealing with
it in the best way we can. We can begin to recognize that we are truly all in
this together.
Both parts of the exercise that follows are designed to help you connect
with a deeper realization and understanding of the lives of others. The idea is
to strengthen the habit of realizing that everyone else struggles with the same
basic emotions and challenges that we do, of recognizing that their life stories
run just as deep as ours do. When this realization first hit me, it was very
moving. But while I’ve found that having the occasional compassionate
epiphany (the “oh my gosh” moment) can be very powerful, it’s all too easy
to forget these moments when I’m again faced with day-to-day irritations. By
purposefully bringing this awareness into your daily life again and again,
you’ll make it more likely that you won’t be completely overwhelmed when
your threat system begins to kick in. Here are some tips to help do this:

Carry a small stone or special coin in your pocket as a reminder.

Every time you feel it, access the kind, confident, wise qualities of
your compassionate self. Then look to the first person you see. Hold
that person in your mind and briefly practice connecting with the
awareness of him or her as a human being, just like you.

Start with people you like or those you don’t know (rather than with
 people who trigger your anger or irritation).

The next time you stop at a red light while driving or riding public
transportation, observe someone in a vehicle around you. Remind
yourself that this person’s story runs as deep as yours, that just like
you, she or he just wants to be happy and free from suffering.

Similarly, go on a “compassion walk.” As you stroll, silently

recognize everyone you come across as a human being who just wants
to be happy and has suffering and struggles, hopes and dreams, just
like you. Extend compassion to them and wish them well.

Focus on the feelings that come up as you practice these activities. Or,
if this is difficult, imagine how your compassionate self might feel
while doing them.

With practice, you can do these exercises very quickly. Gradually they
will become quick but powerful reminders rather than exercises that take lots
of time to complete. The idea is simply to quickly connect with the awareness
of others as people whose lives run much deeper than the brief slice that
we’re exposed to, and to quickly bring up a kind feeling of compassion for
them. With practice, this awareness can occur in seconds. I’ve also found that
it makes the experience of life much more interesting to really consider the
experiences and perspectives of other people—how they are different from
me, and how they are the same.

Exercise 11.1: Compassionate Understanding of

Others

For each of these practices, begin with thirty seconds of soothing-rhythm breathing and
by accessing the kind, confident, and wise authority of your compassionate self:

1. Bring to mind another person, perhaps someone you don’t know that well. Consider
what you’ve learned in this book and how it applies to that person:
Consider that this person was born into a situation that he didn’t choose.
 Consider that, like you, he has a threat system that has evolved to organize
his mind around powerful emotions such as anger and fear, and that narrows
his attention and his ability to think flexibly.

Consider that, just like you, he wants to be happy and to be free from
suffering. He wants to be accepted, cared for, and successful, just like you.

Consider that, just like you, this person may have learned to pursue
happiness in ways that don’t work for him, ways that sometimes cause him
even more difficulties.

See if you can feel compassion for this person, recognizing the difficulties we
all share and wishing him well as he works with the challenges that life
presents him.

2. Bring to mind another person and imagine her progression through life. For each of
the realizations I offered in the first step of this exercise, imagine how it may play out
in her life:
Imagine her being born and emerging into a world she doesn’t understand.

Imagine her moving through her first years, learning to speak, crawl, and
walk. Imagine her falling and crying, laughing and being nurtured.

Imagine her as a child, happily playing with friends. Imagine her experiencing
the pain of rejection. Imagine her attending school, struggling and
succeeding, struggling and failing.

Imagine her in adolescence, struggling to define herself as she moves toward

adulthood. Imagine her coping with insecurity, discovering love, experiencing
the pain of loss.

Imagine her as an adult—perhaps working, marrying, and having children (or

not)—getting jobs and losing them, having success and heartbreak. Imagine
her struggling with her emotions and her expectations of herself and who she
wants to become, the disappointment of falling short sometimes.

Imagine her aging, perhaps looking at her children and grandchildren, or

perhaps not. Perhaps she’s surrounded by loved ones, or perhaps she is
alone. Imagine her as she observes her body aging, her appearance
changing, her physical strength fading and wisdom growing.

Imagine her on her deathbed, reflecting on her life. Imagine how she might
feel, approaching death. Imagine her closing her eyes.
 Cultivating Empathy
The narrow, defensive focus of our threat systems centers our attention on
our experience and tends to blind us to what others may be feeling. As a
result, we’re robbed of information that could help us understand many
difficult situations in ways that are less threatening. Compassion, on the other
hand, involves empathy: seeking to understand the emotional experience of
others, finding out what the other person is feeling, and how it makes sense
that he is feeling that way. This understanding can help shift us out of the “us
versus them” reasoning that drives our anger so that we can find solutions
that work for us and them. Empathy also helps reduce our anger and ill will
toward others because when we seek to understand the feelings of another
person, we humanize him. We begin to recognize that there is much more to
this person than whatever happens to be irritating us in the moment. Getting
in touch with empathy is difficult to do when we’re feeling threatened, so the
best way of preparing to do this is to practice when we’re not feeling
threatened—to get in the habit of trying to understand the feelings of those
around us.

Exercise 11.2: Developing the Habit of Empathy

I designed this practice to help you stretch the “mental muscles” of empathy, so that you
can become better able to understand the emotions of others and more likely to make
the attempt to do so. As with the other exercises, take thirty seconds to slow down your
body and mind with soothing-rhythm breathing, and bring to mind the qualities of your
compassionate self: a kind motivation to help, calm confidence, and the wisdom to draw
upon your life experience.

Start by practicing with people you aren’t angry with. Consider another person and
attempt to understand what he is feeling and how it might make sense that he’s feeling
and behaving this way. You can even practice this when you’re watching television.
Observe a character and think about how she might be feeling. Try to practice this
whenever it occurs to you, as often as possible. It doesn’t have to take a long time.

When you develop an empathic understanding of how someone else is feeling, you can
draw upon a number of different sources of information:
 His behavior. What do his actions say about what he might be feeling? Have you ever
behaved similarly? How were you feeling when that happened?

His facial expression and posture. How does his nonverbal behavior express his
emotions?

Your emotional reaction to his experience. How do you feel as you witness his
experience?

Your knowledge of your own emotional reactions. How have you felt when you’ve
been in similar situations in the past?

Your knowledge of his personality, background, and how he differs from you. You
might feel a certain way if you were in his situation, but you can’t assume he feels the
same way. Using what you know of him, how might he experience this situation
(potentially in ways that are very different from how you might)?

Consider how it makes sense that he would feel this way.

If you really want to know how someone is feeling, ask him, and listen to what he
says. When faced with a question like, “I was wondering how you were feeling about
all of this?” people will often tell us—we just have to be ready to listen. The key is to
listen from the perspective of the compassionate self and refrain from judging or
evaluating the appropriateness of the other person’s reactions.

Deepening Empathy with Mentalization

Once we have an idea of what another person is feeling, we can deepen this
experience by considering why they might be feeling and behaving this way.
In the first three chapters of this book, we looked at how our emotion systems
have evolved and the different ways anger can organize our minds. We also
discussed various factors (attachment history, learning, implicit memory) that
have an impact on how we express our emotions and our ability to regulate
them. Considering that we’ve had very little choice in so many of these
factors, I suggested to you that much of the experience we have of our
emotions is not our fault. We didn’t choose to have difficulties with anger.
 It turns out that all of these factors affect everyone else, too. And it isn’t
their fault, either. Recognizing this doesn’t mean that we won’t be
inconvenienced, frustrated, or angered by their behavior, and it doesn’t mean
we won’t address it. However, if we think about why others are feeling and
behaving the way they do, we may find ourselves feeling less angry toward
them and more sympathetic.
To do this, we compassionately consider that, just like us, other people
simply want to be happy and to be free from suffering, and that pretty much
all of their behavior is somehow directed toward achieving these broad goals.
We then draw upon the mentalizing skills that we examined in chapter 9 and
we ask ourselves certain questions. Go ahead and try this next brief exercise
to see how this can work.

Exercise 11.3: Using Mentalization to Deepen Empathy

for Others

Once again, take thirty seconds or so to slow yourself down with soothing-rhythm
breathing and access the kindness, confidence, and wisdom of your compassionate
self. Bring to mind a recent situation in which you experienced irritation with another
person—perhaps someone whose behavior inconvenienced you, for example:

Consider how the other person is behaving and ask yourself,What thoughts and
feelings might be leading this person to behave in this way?

What needs is this person attempting to meet? Safety? Social connection? Status?
Material needs?

What desires, concerns, or fears might be motivating this person’s behavior?

Consider this person’s life story. What struggles might she (or he) be facing that you
might not know about? Maybe she’s struggling with money. Perhaps she has health
problems. She may have problems with children or sick relatives. Maybe her marriage
is ending. Could the combination of her genes and early life experiences make it
difficult for her to experience empathy for others? When we experience others as
being difficult, there are often many factors affecting their emotions and behavior that
we won’t be aware of. Considering this, we still may not agree with their actions, but
we may be able to understand, sympathize, or keep from judging them.
 Think of the different reactions you might have to this person and how your reactions
could make this person’s life easier or more difficult. Consider what impact or effect
you want to have on her. How does your compassionate self want to affect this
person’s life?

Considering why other people do certain things and act in certain ways
can be a powerful antidote to our anger. For example, if we look again at
Sheila and Josh, whom we got to know in chapters 8 and 9, we see that
Sheila’s anger decreased a great deal when she was able to see that Josh was
taking a long time to graduate from college not because of laziness, but
because of a desire to find a career that would lead to a fulfilling life. Trying
to understand the reasons behind the other person’s behavior, and how it
makes sense that he might be feeling or acting in this way, can help us shift
out of the limited perspective of our angry minds and into our thoughtful,
compassionate selves.
I’ve been very impressed with how the men in our anger groups have
taken to this practice. It’s hardest to have empathy for people who are treating
us badly, and in prison there are lots of people who act rudely, angrily, and
aggressively. A fair amount of discussion in our group is spent on working
out ways of understanding and responding to these sorts of interactions so
that violence is not the end result. Violence in prison has lots of grim
consequences, such as being placed in solitary confinement, having time
added to your sentence, and, of course, the likelihood of physical harm for
everyone involved. When we’ve discussed such situations, group members
have done a great job of exploring, “Why might he be acting like that?” In
most cases, they’ve been able to consider and understand even the most
aggressive behavior of other inmates as being motivated by feelings like
insecurity or the desire for status or respect. Even in prison, we’ve found that
there are many possible responses apart from aggression or passivity (which
can make you a target for further victimization, the consequences of which
can be quite dangerous). And when we understand why someone else is
doing something, it’s a lot easier to come up with skillful ways to respond.
A number of our group members have become masters at bringing
compassion to their understanding of what motivates other people’s behavior.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard comments like, “He must have
had a pretty terrible life if that’s the only way he knows how to get respect,”
“He must be feeling pretty bad about himself to treat other people that way,”
or “She’s not always like that. I’d bet she was having a pretty terrible day.”
These comments reflect a recognition that disrespectful, harmful, or cruel
behavior is often rooted in suffering or misguided attempts to meet our own
needs. Bringing this understanding to others doesn’t mean that we aren’t
holding them responsible for what they do. What it means is that we attempt
to understand their behavior in terms of why it’s occurring rather than just
pass judgment, take it personally, and respond to them out of anger. This isn’t
easy, but I’ve seen men serving hundred-year prison sentences for violent
offenses do exactly this. If they can do it, we can, too.

Sympathy
While empathy is about understanding what others are feeling, sympathy
involves allowing ourselves to be moved by their suffering—to be touched or
feel some sadness when we see others in pain. Sympathy is an important part
of compassion because it provides us with an emotional experience that
resonates with others’ suffering and motivates us to try to lessen it. Emotions
have evolved to activate us, and sympathy is an emotion that can activate us
to help. It works best when we combine the motivation of our sympathy with
empathic understanding. Our empathy allows us to better know what other
people need so that we can skillfully help them. This again relates to the
qualities of the compassionate mind—the kind motivation to help, the wisdom
to gain an understanding of what would be most helpful, and the confidence
to put this into action.
The development of sympathy for others is particularly important for
dealing with anger. If we really allow ourselves to connect with the suffering
others experience as a result of our angry behavior, we can find that we have
no choice but to work with our anger, to learn to manage it more effectively.
Our sympathy for their suffering can create a situation within us that makes it
impossible to bear the thought of harming them anymore. The key here is to
use this emotion as fuel to motivate our improvement—as a motivation to
keep working with situations and other people in more helpful and more
compassionate ways. When our past behaviors have caused great pain to
others, opening to sympathy and empathy can sometimes cause us to feel
pain ourselves. This can seem overwhelming. Some of us may have avoided
allowing ourselves to sympathize in this way because doing so causes us so
much pain or shame. As we saw in the last chapter, when we experience
shame, it can be tempting to retreat into callousness, anger, indifference, or
denial. Remember, shame focuses our attention on us and how “bad” we are
—which doesn’t help anyone. Alternatively, sympathetic regret opens us to
the pain that others feel and helps us commit to helping them (or at the least,
to not harming them further). By choosing to shift our focus to a
compassionate motivation to help others, we can find the courage to work
with both our shame and the angry behavior that led to it.

Bringing Empathy to Your Angry Interactions

We struggle with empathy when we’re angry and may have great difficulty
seeing things from another person’s point of view. But understanding things
from a different perspective isn’t just for the benefit of other people: without
empathy, it’s easy to be confused about why others are behaving the way
they are. This makes it hard to understand the impact we (and our angry
words and behaviors) are having on others, which in turn makes it easy for us
to harm others without even knowing that we’re doing it. We may think
we’re just expressing ourselves.
Let’s consider someone who had been abused as a child and, as an adult,
experienced rapid, extreme mood swings. (I’ll call her Jessica.) She was
quick to feel rejected and alone and had been diagnosed with borderline
personality disorder. Jessica tended to take things very personally and would
become very angry with her children if she felt they had disobeyed her. She
took their behavior as a sign that they didn’t respect her and didn’t care about
her. At times, she would blow up in anger and would yell at them, calling
them names and then storming out of the house to leave them terrified and
alone. It wasn’t until Jessica connected with how she had felt when her own
mother had acted in the same way that she began to consider and understand
how her behavior affected her own children. At this point, Jessica began to let
go of the self-justifying thoughts that she had used to support her angry
behavior, and committed to working with her emotions compassionately.
Once Jessica understood the distress that her actions caused her children (and
the regretful feeling of heartbreak that this created in her), she couldn’t
continue allowing herself to act this way. She began taking parenting classes
to learn new, more effective ways to deal with her children’s defiant
behaviors (which occurred far less frequently as Jessica’s own behavior
changed).
Allowing ourselves to connect with others’ experience of our anger
allows us to see it, and ourselves, in a new light. Again, the key is to use
these perceptions as fuel for change—as motivation to develop our
compassionate selves.

Exercise 11.4: Becoming the Other

This exercise, developed by Paul Gilbert, is designed to help you consider, in a safe and
semiplayful way, what others might feel in response to your anger:

Set up two chairs facing each other. Sit in one of the chairs (we’ll call this the “angry
chair”) and imagine that the person you’ve been angry with is sitting in the chair
opposite.

Direct your anger toward this person, and say the sorts of things to him (or her) that
you said during your interaction (or if you’re planning the interaction, the things you
plan to say to him). Express your anger to him.

Now, take a breath, get up, and sit in the other chair. Imagine that you are the person
on the receiving end of your anger and accusations. Notice how you might be feeling,
how you might want to react. Imagine the facial expression of the angry self. Allow
yourself to experience what you might feel as this anger is directed at you. Consider
the thoughts and feelings that come up for you.

This exercise can give you the opportunity to think about what you sound
like and look like, and the impact you have on the other person when you’re
angry. The exercise can also be used to practice different ways of dealing
with difficult interactions. For example, in chapter 10 I offered a number of
ways to communicate assertively. The exercise above can allow you to try
out different ways of approaching a situation. Using role-play first in one
chair and then the other, you’ll have an opportunity to imagine how the other
person might feel, think, and respond to your efforts at communication. This
exercise is nice because it gives you the chance to practice your assertiveness
and empathy skills all at one time.

Compassionate Imagery: Bringing Compassion to a

Challenging Other
In exercise 7.2 you tried an imagery exercise that involved extending
compassion to someone you care about, and in exercise 7.3 you directed this
compassion toward yourself. In the exercise that follows, you’ll stretch your
compassion muscles a bit further, extending this exercise to send
compassionate wishes to someone you’ve struggled with, had conflict with,
or even just dislike. This practice is obviously more challenging than the
others, but bear in mind that you are training your mind. Just as with physical
training (for example, if you’re training to run a marathon), sometimes you
have to push yourself. It can seem difficult, but I’ll bet that you’ve done lots
of difficult things in your life as you pursued things that were important to
you.
You’ll start by first accessing the kind, wise, and confident authority of
your compassionate self and reconnecting with the “Deepening Compassion”
exercise (7.2). In this one, you’ll visualize someone you care about, bring up
the compassionate feeling of wanting to help this person, and send
compassionate wishes out to them. Once you’ve done this, you will then
bring to mind the image of a “challenging other”: someone you’ve been
having difficulty with. You’ll then go through the practice again, this time
generating compassionate feelings for this person and wishing for her (or
him) to have happiness and freedom from suffering, and that she flourish and
find peace. You could also start by doing exercises 11.1, 11.2, and 11.3 in
this chapter but, this time, holding your challenging other in mind. The
purpose of this exercise isn’t to make you like the other person—you may
never like her and may decide that your life is better if you keep away from
her. The point is to try to shift your mind’s orientation from being angry to
being compassionate toward her. In this way, this exercise is similar to
forgiveness.
If you find yourself losing the sense of compassion as you practice this
exercise, return to the image of the person or animal that you started with—
the one you care about, for whom compassion flows naturally. Once you’ve
reconnected with those compassionate feelings, try to extend them again to
your challenging other. This is an advanced practice, particularly for those of
us who have been harboring anger for a long time. So don’t worry if you
aren’t able to feel it. Just try to imagine what it would feel like if you could
feel and express compassion and kind wishes toward this person. Also, when
you begin to extend compassion to those you dislike or have conflict with,
it’s best to start small—perhaps with someone who causes you relatively
minor irritation rather than someone you feel great anger towards or who has
caused you intense pain. It isn’t easy, but with practice you can find that
you’re able to feel compassion even for the people who push your buttons
most regularly.

Exercise 11.5: Directing Compassion to a Challenging

Other

Begin by moving through “Cultivating the Compassionate Self” (exercise 7.1) and
“Deepening Compassion” (exercise 7.2) and by taking a few minutes to assume the
qualities of the compassionate self. Connect with compassionate wishes that you
extend to someone you care about. Focus on your compassionate feelings and the
sense of kindness, calm confidence, and wisdom of your compassionate self. Connect
with the deep wish for this person to be happy.

When you feel connected with feelings of kindness and compassion for the person or
animal you care about, shift your focus to someone with whom you’ve struggled—
perhaps someone with whom you’ve had repeated conflicts. Imagine this person as fully
as you can, and begin to focus your compassion on him. Imagine him as a fellow human
being who has arrived in this world, who just wants to be happy and to avoid suffering,
and who is doing the best he can as he is faced with difficult feelings and life
circumstances. Remind yourself that even his difficult or hurtful actions were done in the
attempt to be happy and to be free from suffering. Keep your compassionate, friendly
expression and a sense of your warm voice, name the person, and imagine directing the
following phrases toward him:

May you be free of suffering. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

May you be happy. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

 May you flourish. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

May you find peace. (Pause for ten to thirty seconds.)

Next, for a minute or so, continue to repeat these phrases (out loud or in your head) as
you visualize this person in your mind. With each phrase, focus on the wish you are
directing. Attempt to feel the wish that this person be free of suffering, happy, and able
to flourish and find peace. If he has harmed you or others, imagine him being free of the
suffering and confusion that lead him to commit this harm.

If you find yourself resisting—for example, feeling as if you don’t want this person to be
happy or free from suffering—mindfully notice these thoughts and feelings as normal
ways that your threat system is seeking to protect you.

Gently bring your focus back to your kind, confident, wise compassionate self and
reconnect with the phrases. Notice what feelings arise as you direct these kind wishes
toward this other person and how it feels in your body as you begin to let go of the ill will
you hold toward him.

Conclusion
As you work to deal with your anger more effectively, you can broaden your
experience of other people. As our experience and understanding expands,
our view of others is no longer driven by threat systems that narrow our
attention and bias our reasoning. Your compassionate self understands that
we are all complex beings who only want to be happy and to be free from
suffering, creatures whose behavior reflects a variety of motivations,
emotions, and thought processes. When we practice compassion for others
and establish the habit of having empathy, sympathy, and the compassionate
motivation to be helpful, we begin to remove the fuel that drives our anger
and strengthen the mental muscles of our compassionate minds. In chapter
12, we’ll bring our compassionate focus back to where we started—to
ourselves.
 12

Full Circle: Bringing Compassion and

Kindness to Yourself
Throughout this book you’ve worked hard to use compassion to help you
work with anger and to improve your relationships. This has required you to
direct a lot of attention toward problems—how to work with things when
they’re difficult and what to do when things go wrong. In this chapter we’ll
approach things a bit differently. In chapter 10, I introduced Notarius and
1
Markman’s Relationship Bank Account, which helps us to understand how
difficulties and arguments in relationships are a lot easier to handle if the
relationship contains many more positive interactions than negative ones—if
the relationship is otherwise strong. Similarly, things that go wrong in our
own lives are a lot easier to bear if they occur in the context of an otherwise
happy life. We’re a lot less likely to fly off the handle in the face of minor
difficulties if our lives are otherwise filled with lots of positive experiences
for which we are grateful. Alternatively, if we’re stressed out, unhealthy, and
stretched to the limit…well, this creates the perfect setting for our threat
systems to make mountains out of molehills.
So while the topic of how to have a happy life goes way beyond the scope
of this book, I wanted to include this brief chapter to introduce a few potent
ways to bring positive emotional experiences into your life. The idea is to
build up your personal resources so that you’re better able to handle things
when the difficulties, annoyances, and crises hit. Then, you’ll be less likely to
buy into your highly reactive threat system when it tries to convince you that
everything is falling apart.

Compassionate Behavior: Self-Care

Bringing compassion into our own lives means taking care of ourselves and
giving our bodies, brains, and minds the support and resources they need to
function at their best. All too often we eat unhealthily, get little sleep, budget
no time for leisure, recreation, or positive interactions with others, and then
wonder why we feel stressed out and irritable. Just as thinking in certain
ways can help create the causes and conditions for more positive states of
mind, there are also some basic things we can do to help ourselves cope well
with stress and difficult situations, and to have increased happiness as well.
When you work to bring compassion to yourself, I’d strongly encourage you
to try the following:

Get sufficient sleep. For most people, it’s good to aim for seven to
eight hours per night.

Eat a reasonable diet. Limit your intake of highly processed foods

containing lots of sugar, fats, and processed carbohydrates that are
high in calories and low in nutrition. Make sure to include plenty of
fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet, and keep portion sizes
reasonable. Buying a set of moderately sized dishes helps with this.
2
We tend to fill our plates and then eat until the food is gone. If you
feel that you overeat, I’d suggest trying to use smaller plates for a
week or so—you may find that you’re satisfied even though the
portion size is smaller than what you may normally consume.

Avoid drugs, and if you consume alcohol, do so moderately. Lots

of harmful behaviors associated with anger occur while we are under
the influence of drugs or alcohol. If you’re alcoholic (you crave
alcohol, make excuses to drink, and find that the amount you drink
has increased gradually over time) or have had problems related to
alcohol intoxication, it’s probably better to refrain altogether.
Working with substance issues can be almost impossible to do on
your own, and I would encourage you to get help, which is an act of
compassion toward yourself.

Get some exercise. Find fun ways to get your body moving. Exercise
has all sorts of positive benefits in our lives, including reducing stress
and improving our physical and mental health.

Learn to manage your time. There are lots of ways to do this, but a
good start would be to use a day planner to keep track of your time,
hour by hour, for a week. You may find lots of hidden pockets of time
that you could use in ways that are more productive or more fun!
Identify major life stressors and find resources to help you
address them. If there are things in your life that cause you a great
deal of stress, don’t just ignore them and hope they’ll go away. Often
there may be helpful, low-cost resources available (for example, free
local classes on managing finances), and the Internet has made it
easier to find them.

Learn to manage your spending. Spending ourselves into huge

amounts of debt creates lots of stress and can keep our threat systems
on high alert. This is beyond the scope of this book, but there are
plenty of other resources to help you learn how to manage money.
Reducing impulsive spending can be a lot like working with angry
behavior, although impulsive spending is driven by the drive and
resource acquisition system.

Identify sources of social support and connect with them. Identify

people in your life whom you enjoy spending time with and who
accept you as you are. Find ways to spend more time with them.
Remember, our safeness systems naturally respond to kind,
supportive interactions with others.

Seek out new sources of social support. Find other people who
share your values and spend some time with them. Consider
developing a hobby that will allow you to connect with people who
have similar interests.

Find ways to help others. Look for opportunities to help other

people or animals. There are often little things we can do to improve
the lives of others that require relatively little time or effort on our
part. Doing so helps them and helps us feel better (and better about
ourselves) as well. Volunteering directly will help you develop your
sense of compassion and is a great way to meet and develop
friendships with other like-minded and compassionate people.

Build in time for fun. Create opportunities for positive emotional

experiences in your life. Make time for doing things that you enjoy,
and then follow through and do them! Give yourself permission to
take it easy and have fun sometimes. Try finding and introducing a
 variety of brief, pleasurable activities (like pausing for a pleasant cup
of tea or coffee) throughout the day.

Get help when you need it. Sometimes we just aren’t able to solve
our problems on our own, even with the help of books like this one. In
this case, pursue the services of a qualified therapist (or other health
professional). Stubbornly refusing to admit when you can’t handle
something on your own just compounds misery. When your car is
giving you problems despite your best efforts to fix it, you take it to a
mechanic. Why shouldn’t you treat yourself at least as well?

These suggestions aren’t rocket-science treatment methods; they’re just

the kind of things that happy, healthy people tend to do. You can try these
methods or create some of your own. The idea is to maximize the enjoyable,
healthy, rewarding, and nurturing things in life; to avoid unnecessary
stressors; and to accept and work patiently with those difficulties that are
inevitable. We want to build up internal and external resources that we can
draw upon in times of need. Living compassionately is about taking care of
ourselves and others, and we need a balance between these two in order to do
both well.

Broadening Your Perspective

As we’ve seen, when we’re angry or irritable, our thoughts tend to ignore the
positives and focus on the negative aspects of the situations we find ourselves
in (and of our lives in general). We then tend to ruminate over these things—
turning them over and over in our minds. The brief exercises in this chapter
are designed to counter this habit of the angry, irritable mind and to help you
begin to establish the habit of seeking out and recognizing the positive
aspects of life. When we look closely, we often find that despite our struggles
and challenges, there are often many aspects of our lives that are going well
—things that we can be grateful for.

Positive Emotions: Broadening and Building

In this chapter, I present a number of exercises designed to facilitate

positive emotional states, many of which involve paying attention to good
things in your life and things that you can be grateful for. While this may at
first seem like “just think happy thoughts” therapy, there are reasons to
believe that using such methods can be beneficial. As we’ve learned, threat
emotions like anger and fear narrow our attention and restrict our ability to
think flexibly. When we’re in danger, this can help us think and respond
quickly to threats. However, it can also create problems in modern life when
we’re faced with difficulties that require thoughtfulness rather than rapid
action. Recent research has shown that positive emotions broaden our
3
attention and allow us to think more flexibly (which can be helpful when
4, 5
we’re figuring out how to deal with difficult situations).
Over time, negative or positive life experiences can produce “negative
spirals” or “positive spirals,” affecting our brains so that the more negative
emotional experiences we have now, the more likely we are to have such
negative experiences in the future. The same applies to positive emotional
experiences. The take-home message here is that by focusing your attention
and thoughts in certain ways, you can create the sorts of emotional
experiences that can get these spirals moving in the direction of having a
happier life, better relationships, and the ability to cope more smoothly with
life’s difficulties. One way to create these positive emotions is to practice
6
meditation that directs kindness and compassion toward yourself and others,
just as we’ve done in many exercises in this book.

Attending to the Good Things: The Gratitude Journal

In Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and

7
Wisdom, neuropsychologist Rick Hanson and his coauthor, neurologist J.
Richard Mendius, discuss how bringing our attention to the positive aspects
of our lives can have beneficial effects for our brains. The good news is that
we can learn to intentionally work with our tendency to focus thought and
attention on the aspects of our lives that feel most threatening. We can instead
choose to bring our attention to the many positive aspects of our lives. This
doesn’t mean that we ignore or avoid the difficulties in our lives—we’ve
spent lots of time exploring how to work with them. However, when we
aren’t directly working with these difficulties, ruminating on them only
serves to fuel our threatened states of mind. The key is to get in the habit of
noticing the positive things in your life, such as a good meal or hearing a
piece of music you enjoy. If you can shape the habit of noticing and allowing
yourself to experience the things that go well, your experience of life will be
lighter and more positive.
Gratitude can be defined as a feeling of thankful appreciation for favors
8
or benefits that we’ve received from others. Increasingly, research suggests
that experiencing and expressing gratitude can increase our ability to feel
9
positive emotions, improve well-being, and contribute to better relationships.
Research has also shown that people who have written down things they were
grateful for showed an increase in positive emotions, a reduction in negative
10
emotions, improved sleep, and increased satisfaction with their lives.
Grateful people are also more likely to help others with personal problems or
to offer emotional support to others—in other words, to act with compassion.
Focusing on the kindnesses we’ve received from others seems to help trigger
our own tendency to connect with our kind, wise, and compassionate minds.
This next exercise will help you begin to get into the habit of noticing
positive things to be grateful for, even if they seem small, generalized, or
otherwise inconsequential. For example, today I’m aware that I can be
grateful that my computer is working properly; that it’s a nice, sunny day;
that I’ve got a tasty cup of coffee to drink as I write; and that I have a family
who cares about me. Even when things go wrong (like last week when I fried
one of my favorite guitar amplifiers by mindlessly plugging it into the wrong
speaker cabinet and turning it on), there are often things that we can be
thankful for (like the fact that I have someone in town who is great at fixing
guitar amplifiers!).

Exercise 12.1: The Gratitude Journal

First, take thirty seconds or so for soothing-rhythm breathing. As you slow your breath,
bring to mind the characteristics of your compassionate self: kindness, confidence, and
wisdom.

There are many things in our lives, both large and small, that we might be grateful for.
Think back over the past week and write down up to five things in your life that you’re
grateful for.
 As you write them down, allow yourself to be appreciative of these good things you’ve
received in your life.

Interdependence, Gratitude, and a Wealth of Unintended Kindness

Buddhism has had thousands of years to develop mind-training

techniques that can help us focus our minds on compassion rather than on
anger, and in CFT we draw upon a number of these techniques. When we’re
feeling threatened or angry, we can feel as if it’s us against the world and that
we receive little kindness or support from others. When we go through life
feeling this way, the world can seem a very lonely, threatening place.
However, we can counter these feelings by recognizing our
interconnectedness and interdependence—the idea that we all live in
dependence upon one another. The idea is that our lives are supported and
made possible by the actions of other people, and as we go about our own
lives, we support them in turn. For example, when I purchase a pair of tennis
shoes, I support the lifestyles of those who work to produce shoes, even as
their efforts make it possible for me to have them. If we consider this idea of
interdependence a bit further, we can discover that we are truly and deeply
connected with one another.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama frequently mentions a mind-training
technique for developing this understanding, which we can call “considering
11
the unintended kindness of others.” Instead of focusing your attention on the
harms, insults, or inconveniences that we may feel others have brought us, we
can choose instead to focus on the many aspects of our lives that exist only
because of the efforts of other people (and beings) on this planet. This allows
us to become aware of two things: first, we notice that rather than being
alone, our lives are completely interdependent and intertwined with those of
other people. Second (and related) is the awareness that almost everything
that makes our ways of life possible is a direct result of the efforts—the
“unintended kindnesses”—of other people.
Consider something you may take for granted, such as the clothes you’re
wearing. How many hundreds or thousands of other people worked so that
you might be able to wear these clothes? The shirt I’m wearing exists only
because of the farmer who grew the cotton, the person who transported the
cotton to where it was processed into cloth, the people who processed the
cloth, the people who cut and sewed the material into a shirt, and the
countless people involved in packaging, transporting, stocking, and finally
selling it to me so that I might wear it. At every stage in this process, the
efforts of those people were only made possible by the efforts of many more
people who designed machines and tools, built factories, laid roads, and so
on. When I really think about it, this shirt that I almost always take for
granted represents the hard labor, the unintended kindness, of thousands upon
thousands of people. If we place the moments of our lives under examination,
we find that almost every aspect of our lives is like this—the food we eat, the
transportation we count on, the computers we type on—all possible only
because of the hard work of countless other people, most of whom we will
never be able to meet or thank.
Once we begin to think about such things, we can begin to realize how
much we have to be grateful for. And just because we don’t get to express
our gratitude to all of these people and other beings doesn’t mean we can’t
acknowledge it to ourselves. Doing so can transform our minds and allow us
to see how interdependent and interconnected we all are. This realization can
be a gateway to compassion. Nevertheless, we may experience resistance and
think perhaps, Well, those people didn’t do these things to benefit me—they
did it to earn a living. They didn’t intend it as kindness. But even if this were
true, does it mean that they don’t deserve our gratitude? Regardless of their
intentions, don’t we still benefit? From this perspective, we can see that our
current lives are made possible because of their hard work. This is why the
Dalai Lama calls these things unintended kindnesses, because although
unintended, the fact that we benefit from them makes them acts of kindness.
When we look at life in this way, we can see ourselves surrounded by the
kindness of others, living a life that is only possible because of them. We are
anything but alone.

Exercise 12.2: Contemplating the Unintended

Kindnesses of Others
 First, as with all exercises in this book, begin with thirty seconds or so of soothing-
rhythm breathing to access your compassionate mind and its various characteristics,
including kindness, calm confidence, and wisdom. Imagine what it would be like to have
these characteristics and then draw upon them as you do this exercise:

Choose a specific aspect of your life: something that benefits you, makes your way of
life possible, or is simply something you enjoy. It could be the road you use to get to
work, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and so on.

Consider what it took for this aspect of your life to come into being: the number of
people and other beings whose efforts made this aspect of your life possible.
Consider that without them and beings like them, these aspects of your life would not
be possible—they could not exist.

Allow yourself to view their efforts as acts of kindness that benefit you. Allow yourself
to experience gratitude toward them.

Observe how you feel as you consider these things. Notice the sensations that arise
in your body.

Bringing It Together: Compassionate Letter Writing

In this chapter I’ve presented a number of ways to bring kindness and

compassion to yourself. One way to bring many of these approaches together
with the other compassionate practices we’ve covered is through
12
compassionate letter writing, which involves writing a letter to yourself
from the perspective of your compassionate self. In this letter, you provide
yourself with encouragement, kindness, validation, and advice. You can
reread the letter when you’re having difficulties, to comfort and motivate
yourself to stay on track—dealing with your anger in ways that are more
effective. You can write the letter to remind yourself of things that can help
in difficult situations:

Your ability to feel concern and to genuinely care for others.

 Your compassionate self and its sensitivity to your distress and needs.

Your ability to tolerate distress and face your feelings, even when
they may be painful.

Your ability to become more understanding of your feelings and the

reasons you behave in certain ways.

A nonjudgmental and noncondemning point of view.

A genuine sense of warmth, understanding, and caring.

The behavior you may need to adopt in order to get better.

The need to broaden your perspective and recognize good things,

including your strengths and the things to be grateful for.

The reasons you’re making efforts to improve.

Here’s an example:

Dear Jim,
This has been a difficult week for you, and it makes sense that
you’re having a number of strong feelings. You have been trying very
hard to work with your anger, and it’s easy to feel disappointed and
upset with yourself when you see yourself acting in ways that you’re
not proud of. Remember that your anger is a part of a threat system
that you didn’t choose, and that it’s not your fault that you experience
it. Habits run deep, and they are hard to change. The key is to keep
trying. You have been very courageous in taking responsibility for
your anger and learning to work with it, and you deserve compassion
too. Learning to direct your mind in new ways is difficult, and you
won’t always get it exactly right. It’s okay to feel the way you do right
now. The fact that you’re feeling bad means that you care about doing
better, and it’s a sign that your hard work is paying off (even when it
may not seem that way). You’ve made a lot of progress, and other
people are noticing this and encouraging you. Think of how you are
now compared to how you were when you started.
 Maybe there are some skills you’ve learned along the way that
might help you now. You’ve always liked the safe-place exercise. Or
maybe you could talk with Robert about how you’re feeling—he
always listens to you and tries to understand. Try to give yourself a
break, and remember that you are doing this to set a good example
for your son and daughter. They deserve your love and compassion,
and so do you. Most importantly, keep going. Keep working to be the
man you want to be. You can do it.
Sincerely,
Jim

Conclusion
In this chapter we’ve explored a number of ways that you can use your
compassionate mind to take better care of yourself and to cultivate positive
emotional experiences in your life. By using compassionate behavior to take
good care of yourself, you create the opportunity to be at your best as you
face the challenges that life has to offer. Learning to focus your thoughts on
the positive aspects of your life and connecting with gratitude,
interdependence, and kindness can help counter the feelings of isolation and
resentment that so often fuel anger. Finally, you can use compassionate letter
writing to draw upon and remind yourself of the skills you’ve covered in this
book and to kindly give yourself encouragement when you need help.
 13

Moving Forward: Approaching Anger and Life

with Compassion
In this book, I’ve attempted to present you with a new, compassionate way
of understanding your anger, and I’ve tried to help you work with anger
effectively by developing the qualities of your compassionate self. We’ve
looked at our emotion-regulation systems and the tricky ways our brains
work, and how this can sometimes create difficulty for us. We’ve learned
practices for working with our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in order to
prevent our lives from being hijacked by our threat systems. We’ve covered a
lot of ground, so in this final chapter, I’d like to wrap up by attempting to
give you a way to organize all of this and apply it in your life.

Organizing our Approach to Anger: The RAGE Model

Compassion focused therapy helps us develop many different skills for
working with anger in more effective ways. We’ve examined a variety of
these skills and tools in the second half of this book. The RAGE model is my
attempt to organize these skills so that you can use them when you notice
1
yourself becoming angry. RAGE stands for recognizing anger arising;
accessing your compassionate mind, accepting your experience, and
activating your safeness system; generating a compassionate perspective and
compassionate alternatives to anger; and enacting compassionate responses
that move you toward your long-term goals. Let’s look at these processes in
more detail. You may notice some overlap between the steps, but that’s by
design—the idea is for each step to support the others.
Now let’s take a closer look at each element of RAGE. We’ll start with
“R,” which includes a reminder to recognize, reduce, and refrain:

Recognize Anger as a Threat Response

 The first step in managing angry behavior is to recognize the signs of
anger as they arise. Learning mindful attention (chapter 6) can help you
notice the shifts in your mind and body that signal coming anger, and
compassionate thinking (chapter 9) helps you identify, anticipate, and plan
for situations that tend to trigger your anger so that you can be ready for
them. You can also recognize that the anger you’re feeling is your threat
system working to protect you. This can help you mentally “step out” of the
anger and the situation that provoked it, and begin to see things in a broader
context. In doing so, you can use compassionate thinking to become aware of
what might be causing you to feel this way. Using mentalizing skills (chapter
9), ask yourself, What is the threat that my brain is reacting to? You can
examine the different emotional reactions you may be having (like
embarrassment or shame) that might be fueling your anger. This will help
you know what you’re dealing with so that you can work with it, instead of
having your behavior controlled by anger.

Reduce Angry Arousal

Your angry state of mind is fueled by arousal in your body, which can
make it very hard for you to think clearly, and can keep you stuck in an angry
state. Once you’ve recognized angry arousal in your body, you can work to
reduce it by using compassionate attention skills like soothing-rhythm
breathing (chapter 5) and the compassionate imagery practices (chapter 6).

Refrain from Anger-Driven Behavior and Habits That Amplify Anger

Many problems with anger are related to habitual behavior—either acting

out or suppressing your anger. The first step in changing these habits is
refraining from doing them once you’re aware that you’re getting angry. The
skills you learned in chapter 8 can help you tolerate the experience of your
anger without acting on it. Additionally, anger tends to organize our minds in
ways that can lead us to ruminate about what happened and to justify our
angry responses. These factors amplify our anger and keep it going. Learning
to mindfully identify these processes and step back from them using the skills
we’ve covered gives you the opportunity to shift away from the perspective
of your threat-driven mind.

Now we’ll move to the “A” in RAGE. It stands for accessing, accepting,
and activating:

Access Your Compassionate Self

The ultimate goal of the CFT approach is the development of your

compassionate self (chapter 4). In chapters 7 and beyond, we went into more
detail about how you can cultivate this state of mind. The goal is to develop
the habit of accessing your compassionate perspective as early in the
progression of your anger as possible, bringing forth compassionate qualities
like kindness, wisdom, confidence, empathy, and so on.

Accept and Endure Anger-Related Discomfort

As we saw in the first two chapters, anger and other threat-related

emotions carry with them a strong urge to act. You can experience this urge
and the anger itself as discomfort, like an itch that you desperately want to
scratch. To work with your anger, use your compassionate understanding to
accept that this is just the nature of anger—it’s how our threat responses
work. It’s uncomfortable, but it won’t kill us, and in order to work with anger
more effectively, we need to accept this discomfort for what it is and learn to
endure it. You can even see this discomfort as a signal that tells you that right
now you have an opportunity to actively work with your anger and practice
the skills you’ve learned. To help, you can use the strategies in chapter 8,
which are specifically designed to assist you in tolerating the discomfort
associated with anger. Likewise, you can use mindfulness to refocus your
attention so that you can observe and work with this discomfort rather than
act out (or give up) in response to it. One of the best strategies you can use is
outlined in the final “A.”
Activate Your Safeness System

Now that you’ve recognized your threat response for what it is, you can
work to balance it by stimulating your safeness system. We covered a number
of exercises for doing this in the compassionate imagery chapter (chapter 7),
and you can also use compassionate letter writing (chapter 12). Using your
compassionate mind to activate your safeness system helps bring your
emotions back into balance, setting the stage for you to work more effectively
with the situation and your emotions.

Now let’s consider the “G” in RAGE, which reminds you to generate and
give:

Generate Compassionate Alternatives to Habitual Anger Behavior

Once you’ve stepped out of the cycle of your habitual anger response,
you can use your compassionate mind to come up with new responses to help
in the situation. The chapters in the second half of the book, particularly those
on compassionate thinking (chapter 9) and compassionate behavior (chapter
10) outline several skills for doing this.

Give Yourself Permission to Experience Whatever You’re Experiencing

Developing a compassionate mind doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel

angry or think hurtful thoughts. If you notice that you’re having such
thoughts or emotions, try not to beat yourself up or shame yourself for it.
Instead, you can use compassionate thinking and acceptance to recognize
these experiences as mental events that are normal products of your threat
response. Then you can generate different thoughts and emotions. The key is
to keep from attacking yourself for the mental experiences you’re having, and
instead to patiently work with your mind to create the experiences you want
to have. The mindfulness exercises in chapter 6 can help you accept your
experiences, and the compassionate imagery practices in chapter 7 and the
compassionate letter writing exercise in chapter 12 give you opportunities to
practice extending compassion to yourself. Finally, the compassionate
thinking exercises in chapter 9 offer you compassionate ways to work with
unhelpful thinking.

Moving on to the “E,” you’re reminded to enact, evaluate, establish, and

experience:

Enact Compassionate Alternatives

Now that your compassionate mind has come up with better ways of
addressing the situation, it’s up to you to select the ones you’ll use. It’s time
to start building new habits that better reflect the person you want to be, and
this takes practice. In this stage, you put what you’ve come up with into
action.

Evaluate Compassionate Alternatives

Here you take a look at the compassionate alternatives you’ve used and
ask, How did they work? As we know, many situations won’t turn out the
way we’d prefer, no matter what we do. That’s just how life is. You can’t
base your success on factors that you can’t control. The goal is for your
behavior to reflect your values, so that you can be happy with how you
respond no matter how the situation turns out. As you do this, you’ll begin to
discover some options that tend to work better than others, and you’ll start to
build up a toolbox of compassionate strategies to use in difficult situations.
This will help you approach difficulties with confidence because you will
begin to understand that the way you respond can be under your control. This
sense of control naturally tends to calm your threat system, helping you stop
your anger before it really gets rolling.

Establish New Patterns in Your Brain

 Every time you act from a compassionate motivation or choose a
compassionate alternative instead of engaging in habitual anger behavior,
you’re helping to establish new patterns in your brain that will shape how
you respond in the future. It’s important to keep in mind that it isn’t just
about one particular situation—you’re working to develop abilities that will
help you cope with the struggles you’ll face throughout the rest of your life
one small step at a time. You’re building a new set of life skills and working
to establish them as your typical response. It’s inspiring when you start to see
your compassionate alternatives begin to appear as new habits.

Experience Yourself as a Compassionate Person

As you observe yourself acting from the perspective of your

compassionate self rather than that of your threatened mind, you can begin to
relate to yourself in a new way—as a compassionate person. You’ll never be
perfect, and you don’t have to be. The idea is that you are acting out of a
compassionate motivation to reduce your own suffering and that of others,
and to help everyone in the situation. You’ll fail, as we all do, but you’ll get
back up and try again. This is a lifelong effort, but it gets easier (and more
fun) as you go. Resources to support the practices in this book, including
copies of the forms and MP3 versions of guided meditations, can be found in
the “Working with Anger” section of www.compassionatemind.net.

Conclusion
As we conclude our compassionate journey together, I’d like to offer you a
hearty word of congratulations. You’ve reached the end of the book, and
hopefully you’ve learned about how your brain works and ways to begin
managing your anger and other difficult emotions, and perhaps have begun to
experience compassion toward yourself and others. Now the work really
begins! Take heart, and remember to take it one step at a time, to take the
things you’ve learned and continue to apply them in the individual moments
of your life—to bring them into the here and now. This present moment is
where it all happens. By simply choosing to shift into your compassionate
self, to think and act from that perspective, you begin to cultivate and
establish new habits and brain patterns. With practice, these new habits and
patterns can last for the rest of your life. This may sound difficult, but here’s
a secret: once these new patterns are well established, they will tend to
continue—and they can replace the old, angry habits. You’re wearing in new
pathways and letting the old ones slowly erode.
You may be wondering when you’ll see the effects of your efforts. People
often think that change happens suddenly, like the sun shining down through
a sky that was cloudy just a moment before. In my experience, the process of
real change is more like watching the minute hand on a clock or trying to
watch a child grow—while we’re watching, we can’t see any movement or
growth at all. We never really see anything change. However, after a time we
notice that although we may not remember changing, our lives have become
different than they were, like when you look back up at the clock and notice
that the minute hand has moved on. Similarly, one day you’ll look at your life
and notice that it has been days or weeks since you last yelled, that you can’t
remember the last time you spoke unkindly to your spouse or child, that
you’ve been having many more positive and meaningful interactions with
others and have more friends, or that things just seem to be going better in
general. You may even notice that you’re happier.
Keep going, keep practicing, one small step at a time. There will be
setbacks and problems, but the secret is to keep yourself pointed in the
direction you want to go. When you fall down, get up, dust yourself off, and
take another step. You will fall down, which is one reason having compassion
for yourself is so important. It isn’t easy, but most important things in life
aren’t—you’ve known this for years. You are worth this effort, and you can
do this.
—rk
 Appendix
Useful Books and CDs for Working with Anger
H. Kassinove and R. C. Tafrate, Anger Management (Atascadero, California:
Impact, 2002).

W. R. Nay, Overcoming Anger in Your Relationship: How to Break the Cycle

of Arguments, Put-downs, and Stony Silences (New York: The Guilford
Press, 2010).

R. C. Tafrate and H. Kassinove, Anger Management for Everyone

(Atascadero, California: Impact, 2009)

Buddhist Approaches to Working with Anger

T. Chodron, Working with Anger (New York: Snow Lion, 2001).

Thich Nhat Hahn, Anger (New York: Riverhead, 2001).

Self-Compassion

C. K. Germer, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from

Destructive Thoughts and Emotions (New York: The Guilford Press,
2009).

K. D. Neff, Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity

Behind (New York: William Morrow, 2011).

The Compassionate-Mind Model and Compassion Focused Therapy

P. Gilbert, Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features (London:

Routledge, 2010).
———, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson, 2009).

The Mind, the Brain, and How They Interact to Form Who We Are

S. Begley, The Plastic Mind: New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary

Potential to Transform Ourselves (London: Constable and Robinson,
2009).

R. Hanson and R. Mendius, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of

Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Oakland, California: New Harbinger
Publications, 2009).

D. J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (New York: The Guilford Press, 1999).

———, The Neurobiology of “We”: How Relationships, the Mind, and the
Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True,
2008).

D. J. Siegel and M. Hartzell, Parenting from the Inside Out (New York:
Tarcher/Penguin, 2003).

Western Applications of Mindfulness and Acceptance

T. Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a

Buddha (New York: Bantam, 2004).

J. Kabat-Zinn, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World

through Mindfulness (New York: Piatkus, 2005).

———, Full Catastrophe Living (New York: Delta Publishing, 1990).

———, Mindfulness for Beginners (Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True, 2006).

———, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in

Everyday Life (New York: Hyperion, 1994).
D. J. Siegel, The Mindful Brain (New York: Norton, 2007).

Buddhist Psychology

J. Kornfield, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of

Buddhist Psychology (New York: Bantam, 2008).

Y. M. Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of

Happiness (New York: Harmony Books, 2008).

Marriage/Relationships

J. Gottman, The Relationship Cure: A 5-Step Guide to Strengthening Your

Marriage, Family, and Friendships (New York: Three Rivers Press,
2002).

———, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: And How You Can Make Yours
Last (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).

C. Notarius and H. Markman, We Can Work It Out: How to Solve Conflicts,

Save Your Marriage, and Strengthen Your Love for Each Other (New
York: Perigree, 1993).

Useful Websites
Resources (forms, guided audio exercises) to support this book can be found
in the “Working with Anger” section of my website: compassionatemind.net.
This is the website for the Inland Northwest Compassionate Mind Center,
located in Spokane, Washington. We provide training, consultation, and some
clinical services based in the CFT approach. This website also links to and is
affiliated with that of the Compassionate Mind Foundation:
www.compassionatemind.co.uk.

See also:

American Psychological Association: www.apa.org

Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies: www.abct.org

For Compassion-Focused Work

Compassionate Mind Foundation: www.compassionatemind.co.uk. A

nonprofit organization set up by Professor Paul Gilbert, the
Compassionate Mind Foundation’s website contains information on
CFT, resources for individuals using CFT to work with life difficulties,
research supporting CFT interventions, and links to other compassion-
focused websites.

The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education:

ccare.stanford.edu. This site has lots of information, media clips, and
training opportunities on the evolving science of compassion and ways
that compassion is being cultivated in the modern world.

Mind and Life Institute: www.mindandlife.org. This is the website for the
collaboration between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists.

Self-Compassion: self-compassion.org. This is Dr. Kristin Neff’s website. Dr.

Neff is one of the earliest and most influential researchers on self-
compassion.

Mindful Self-Compassion: www.mindfulselfcompassion.org. This is the

website for Dr. Chris Germer, author of The Mindful Path to Self-
Compassion. It contains lots of guided meditations and handouts.

Anger Monitoring Form

The purpose of this form is to help you become familiar with the
situations that tend to provoke your anger and the ways you tend to respond.
It aims to help you generate compassionate alternatives. Pick one time during
the week when you experienced anger, rage, or irritation. [You may
download a printable version of this form at: nhpubs.com/20375]

Situation/Trigger:
Emotions:

Thoughts:

Behaviors (What did you do?)

What does your compassionate self say?

What would your compassionate self do?

Outcome?
 Notes
Introduction
1. For more information, I would suggest reading the following:

K. D. Neff, Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity

Behind (New York: William Morrow, 2011).

C. K. Germer, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from

Destructive Thoughts and Emotions (New York: The Guilford Press,
2009).

P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

———, Compassion-Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features (London:

Routledge, 2010).
 Chapter 1: Anger—Introduction and Overview
1. The following resources by Ray DiGuiseppe, Howard Kassinove, and
Raymond Chip Tafrate provide a more detailed discussion of the various
forms that anger can take (and lots of other excellent information on
anger and its treatment). These authors have done much excellent work
on anger, and their works were very useful in the preparation of this
chapter.

R. DiGuiseppe and R. C. Tafrate, Understanding Anger Disorder (New

York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

H. Kassinove and R. C. Tafrate, Anger Management (Atascadero, California:

Impact, 2002).

2. While unpublished, this manuscript from University of California

psychiatrist Martin Paulus and colleagues provides an excellent
overview of anger and its health consequences. Kassinove and Tafrate’s
Anger Management also presents a nice overview of the health
consequences of anger.

M. P. Paulus, J. Fedler, S. G. Leckband, and A. Quinlan, “Anger: Definition,

Health Consequences, and Treatment Approaches” (Unpublished
manuscript, 1–45. Retrieved from koso.ucsd.edu/~martin
/AngerReview.pdf).

H. Kassinove and R. C. Tafrate, Anger Management (Atascadero, California:

Impact, 2002).

3. P. Ekman, “An Argument for Basic Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 6

(1992): 169–200.

4. J. P. Tangney, P. Wagner, C. Fletcher, R. Gramzow, “Shame into Anger?

The Relation of Shame and Guilt to Anger and Self-Reported
Aggression,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62 (1992):
669–75.
J. P. Tangney, P. Wagner, D. Hill-Barlow, C. Fletcher, D. E. Marschall, R.
Gramzow, “Relation of Shame and Guilt to Constructive versus
Destructive Responses to Anger Across the Lifespan,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 70 (1996): 797–809.

5. D. J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (New York: The Guilford Press, 1999).

6. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

7. For more information on Buddhist approaches to working with anger, I

recommend reading Venerable Chodron’s excellent book, Working with
Anger, as well as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s Healing Anger,
based on teachings from Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way
of Life:

T. Chodron, Working with Anger (New York: Snow Lion, 2001).

Dalai Lama, Healing Anger (New York: Snow Lion, 1997).

8. E. Harmon-Jones, K. Vaughn-Scott, S. Mohr, J. Sigelman, and C. Harmon

Jones, “The Effect of Manipulated Sympathy and Anger on Left and
Right Frontal Cortical Activity,” Emotion 4 (2004): 95–101.

9. The literature on how anger can impact our judgment and decision making
is nicely summarized in the following chapter:

P. M. Litvak, J. S. Lerner, L. Z. Tiedens, and K. Shonk, “Fuel in the Fire:

How Anger Impacts Judgment and Decision Making,” in International
Handbook of Anger, eds. M. Potegal, G. Stemmler, and C. Spielberger
(New York: Springer, 2010): 287–310.

10. L. Z. Tiedens and S. Linton, “Judgment under Emotional Certainty and

Uncertainty: The Effects of Specific Emotions on Information
Processing,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2001):
973–88.

11. G. V. Bodenhausen, L. A. Sheppard, and G. P. Kramer, “Negative Affect

 and Social Judgment: The Differential Impact of Anger and Sadness,”
European Journal of Social Psychology 24 (1994): 45–62.

12. C. S. Carver and E. Harmon-Jones, “Anger Is an Approach-Related

Affect: Evidence and Implications,” Psychological Bulletin 2 (2009):
183–204.
 Chapter 2: The Compassionate-Mind Approach to
Understanding Anger
1. One of the most exciting developments in modern psychology is the
discovery of the dramatic ways that our experiences impact our
developing brains in ways that continue to reverberate throughout our
lives. Dr. Dan Siegel is a pioneer in this area, and a good place to start is
with his seminal text, The Developing Mind. I’ve listed a few other
references below as well, which provide a few more texts to read
through for those wishing to explore this exciting area of psychological
science. Dr. Siegel’s audio-CD set, The Neurobiology of “We,” provides
a particularly accessible entry point into this area of study.

L. Cozolino, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the

Developing Social Brain (New York: Norton, 2006).

J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998).

A. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self (New York: Taylor
and Francis, 1994).

D. J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001).

D. J. Siegel and M. Hartzell, Parenting from the Inside Out (New York:
Tarcher/Penguin, 2003).

D. J. Siegel, The Neurobiology of “We”: How Relationships, the Mind, and

the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (Boulder, Colorado: Sounds
True, 2008).

2. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

3. This model is based on the work of neuroscientists such as Richard Depue,

Jack Panksepp, and Joseph Ledoux.

R. A. Depue and J. V. Morrone-Strupinsky, “A Neurobehavioral Model of

 Affiliative Bonding,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (2005): 313–95.

J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998).

J. Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience (New York: Oxford University Press,

1998).

4. W. G. Moons, N. I. Eisenberger and S. E. Taylor, “Anger and Fear

Responses to Stress Have Different Biological Profiles,” Brain,
Behavior, and Immunity 24 (2010): 215–19.

5. J. Gould, C. Trapasso, and R. Schapiro, “Worker Dies at Long Island Wal-

Mart after Being Trampled in Black Friday Stampede,” New York Daily
News. Retrieved December 4, 2010, from
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-
28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html.

6. K. Stansbury and M. R. Gunnar, “Adrenocortical Activity and Emotion

Regulation,” in The Development of Emotion Regulation: Biological and
Behavioral Considerations: Monographs of the Society for Research in
Child Development, 59 (2–3, Serial No. 240), (1994): 108–34, ed. N. A.
Fox.

7. L. Cozzolino, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and

the Developing Social Brain (New York: Norton, 2006).

8. P. Gilbert, Compassion-Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features (London:

Routledge, 2010).

9. J. A. Coan, H. S. Schaefer, and R. J. Davidson, “Lending a Hand: Social

Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat,” Psychological Science 17
(2006): 1032–39.

10. C. S. Carter, “Neuroendocrine Perspectives on Social Attachment and

Love,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 23 (1998): 779–818.

11. L. J. Seltzer, T. E. Ziegler, and S. D. Pollak, “Social Vocalizations Can

Release Oxytocin in Humans,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B:
 Biological Sciences 277, no. 1694 (September, 2010): 2661–66.

12. D. J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (New York: The Guilford Press,
1999).
 Chapter 3: When Things Become Unbalanced
1. J. M. Twenge, B. Gentile, N. C. DeWall, D. Ma, K. Lacefield, and D. R.
Schurtz, “Birth Cohort Increases in Psychopathology among Young
Americans, 1938–2007: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the
MMPI,” Clinical Psychology Review 30 (2010): 145–54.

2. J. M. Twenge and W. K. Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in

the Age of Entitlement (New York: Free Press, 2009).

3. R. Eckersley, “Is Modern Western Culture a Health Hazard?,”

International Journal of Epidemiology 35 (2006): 252–58.

R. Eckersley, “Cultural Fraud: The Role of Culture in Drug Abuse,” Drug

and Alcohol Review 24 (2005): 157–63.

4. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

5. S. D. Calkins, “Origins and Outcomes of Individual Differences in

Emotion Regulation” in The Development of Emotion Regulation:
Biological and Behavioral Considerations: Monographs of the Society
for Research in Child Development, 59 (2–3, Serial No. 240), (1994):
53–72, ed. N. A. Fox.

6. There is a wealth of research in the area of attachment that explores the

importance of these sorts of relationships for infants and across the life
span. For an excellent review of this literature that will point you to
many other valuable sources of information about attachment, please
see:

M. J. Dykas and J. Cassidy, “Attachment and the Processing of Social

Information across the Life Span: Theory and Evidence,” Psychological
Bulletin 137 (2011): 19–46.

7. D. J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (New York: The Guilford Press, 1999).
8. A. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self (Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum, 1994).

9. S. Gerhardt, Why Love Matters (London: Routledge, 2004).

D. J. Siegel, The Mindful Brain (New York: Norton, 2007).

10. D. Siegel and M. Hartzell, Parenting from the Inside Out (New York:
Tarcher/Penguin, 2003).

11. This was first described by the psychologist Dr. Albert Bandura:

A. Bandura, Social Learning Theory (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:

Prentice Hall, 1976).

12. C. B. Ferster, “A Functional Analysis of Depression,” American

Psychologist 28 (1973): 857–70.

13. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

14. Although there are many sources that do an excellent job of describing
implicit and explicit memory, for our purposes, I recommend the work
of Dan Siegel, particularly for his description of the ways implicit
memory can shape our experience of the present:

D. J. Siegel, The Developing Mind (New York: The Guilford Press, 1999).

———, The Neurobiology of “We”: How Relationships, the Mind, and the
Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True,
2008).
 Chapter 4: The Case for Compassion
1. Dalai Lama, “Understanding our Fundamental Nature” in Visions of
Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human
Nature, eds. R. J. Davidson and A. Harrington (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002).

2. Compassion, in Webster’s New World Dictionary, 3rd college edition, ed.

V. Neufeldt (New York: Webster’s New World, 1988).

3. C. Schwartz, J. B. Meisenhelder, Y. Ma, and G. Reed, “Altruistic Social

Interest Behaviors Are Associated with Better Mental Health,”
Psychosomatic Medicine 65 (2003): 778–85.

4. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

5. P. Gilbert, Compassion-Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features (London:

Routledge, 2010).

6. T. Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a

Buddha (New York: Bantam, 2004).
 Chapter 5: First Steps
1. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,
2009).

2. Therapies such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) have

highlighted the power of reconnecting with our core values as a
powerful motivator for change.

S. C. Hayes, K. D. Strosahl, and K. G. Wilson, Acceptance and Commitment

Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change (New York:
Guilford Press, 1999).

3. Soothing-rhythm breathing and many of the other exercises in this book

were developed by Professor Paul Gilbert in collaboration with the other
members and affiliates of the Compassionate Mind Foundation. We’ve
worked to continuously refine these techniques to make them as useful
as possible, and I’ve attempted to adapt them where appropriate to apply
specifically to working with anger. In addition to my website, a number
of resources and audio exercises like soothing-rhythm breathing can be
found on the website for the Compassionate Mind Foundation:
compassionate mind.co.uk.

4. D. R. Carney, A. J. C. Cuddy, and A. J. Yap, “Power Posing: Brief

Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance,”
Psychological Science (2010): 363–68.

5. S. F. Davis, and J. J. Palladino, Psychology, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River,

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2000).
 Chapter 6: The Cultivation of Mindfulness
1. S. G. Hofmann, A. T. Sawyer, A. A. Witt, and D. Oh, “The Effect of
Mindfulness-Based Therapy on Anxiety and Depression: A Meta-
Analytic Review,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 78
(2010): 169–83.

2. In his book The Mindful Brain, Dan Siegel describes mindfulness as

having certain qualities, including curiosity, openness, and acceptance.

D. J. Siegel, The Mindful Brain (New York: Norton, 2007).

3. J. Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation

in Everyday Life (New York: Hyperion, 1994).

4. Tara Brach provides an excellent and moving exploration of mindful

acceptance in working with life difficulties.

T. Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a

Buddha (New York: Bantam, 2004).

5. J. Kornfield, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of

Buddhist Psychology (New York: Bantam, 2008).

6. B. K. Holzel, J. Carmody, M. Vangel, C. Congleton, S. M. Yerramsetti, T.

Gard, and S. W. Lazar, “Mindfulness Practice Leads to Increases in
Regional Brain Gray Matter Density,” Psychiatry Research:
Neuroimaging 191 (2011): 36–43.

7. The MBSR program is described in detail, along with the mindfulness

practices it entails, in this book by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

J. Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living (New York: Delta Publishing, 2009).

8. Y. M. Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of

Happiness (New York: Harmony Books, 2008).
 Chapter 7: Compassionate Imagery—Developing the
Compassionate Self
1. The exercises included in this chapter are direct adaptations of those
developed by Paul Gilbert and other members of the Compassionate
Mind Foundation and CFT community.

P. Gilbert, Audio Exercises for Compassionate Mind Training: Instruction,

Soothing-Rhythm Breathing, Compassionate Self, and Compassionate
Image www.compassionatemind.co.uk.

2. Kind thanks to Dr. Miriam Berkman for providing me with this excellent
technique a number of years ago.

3. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).

4. Of particular note are psychologists Kristen Neff, developer of the Self-

Compassion Scale, and Christopher Germer, author of The Mindful Path
to Self-Compassion.

K. D. Neff, “The Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Self-

Compassion,” Self and Identity 2 (2003): 223–50.

5. K. D. Neff, Self Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave

Insecurity Behind (New York: William Morrow, 2011).

6. C. K. Germer, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself

from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions (New York: The Guilford
Press, 2009).

7. D. M. Wegner, D. J. Schneider, S. R. Carter, and T. L. White, “Paradoxical

Effects of Thought Suppression,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 53 (1987): 5–13.

8. Psychologist Deborah Lee initially developed this exercise to help trauma

survivors who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
D. A. Lee, “The Perfect Nurturer: A Model to Develop a Compassionate
Mind within the Context of Cognitive Therapy,” in Compassion:
Conceptualisations, Research, and Use in Psychotherapy, ed. P. Gilbert
(London: Routledge, 2005).
 Chapter 8: Working Compassionately with Anger—
Validation, Distress Tolerance, and Exploring Our
Emotional Selves
1. K. Goss, The Compassionate Mind Approach to Beating Overeating using
Compassion-Focused Therapy (London: Constable and Robinson,
2011).

2. R. D. Ray, F. H. Wilhelm, and J. J. Gross, “All in the Mind’s Eye? Anger

Rumination and Reappraisal,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 94 (2008): 133–45.

3. F. Perls, The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy (Ben Lomand,
California: Science and Behavior Books, 1973).
 Chapter 9: Working Compassionately with Anger—
Mentalizing, Compassionate Thinking, and Problem
Solving
1. P. Fonagy and P. Luyten, “A Developmental, Mentalization-Based
Approach to the Understanding and Treatment of Borderline Personality
Disorder,” Development and Psychopathology 21 (2009): 1355–81.

P. Fonagy, G. Gergely, E. Jurist, and M. Target, Affect Regulation,

Mentalization, and the Development of the Self (New York: Other Press,
2005).

2. P. H. Lysaker, A. Gumley, and G. Dimaggio, “Metacognitive Disturbances

in Persons with Severe Mental Illness: Theory, Correlates with
Psychopathology and Models of Psychotherapy,” Psychology and
Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice 84 (2011): 1–8.

3. G. Liotti, and P. Gilbert, “Mentalizing, Motivation, and Social Mentalities:

Theoretical Considerations and Implications for Psychotherapy,”
Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice 84
(2011): 9–25.

4. A. T. Beck, Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects

(New York: Harper and Row, 1967).

———, Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (New York:

International Universities Press, 1976).

5. S. C. Hayes, M. L. Villatte, and M. Hildebrandt, “Open, Aware, and

Active: Contextual Approaches as an Emerging Trend in the Behavioral
and Cognitive Therapies,” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 7
(2011): 141–68.

6. Z. V. Segal, J. M. G. Williams, and J. D. Teasdale, Mindfulness-Based

Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing
Relapse (New York: The Guilford Press, 2002).
7. M. M. Linehan, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality
Disorder (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993).

8. S. C. Hayes, K. D. Strosahl, and K. G. Wilson, Acceptance and

Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change
(New York: The Guilford Press, 1999).

9. As with many of the exercises covered in this book, the Compassionate-

Thinking Flash Card was suggested by Paul Gilbert.

10. This method of considering objectives, relationship, and emotional

expression priorities in deciding what action to take was presented to me
by a teacher at some point very early in my educational career, and
while I have drawn upon this wisdom in my own life and with clients for
decades, I have been unable to track down its original source. My dear
thanks to the teacher who shared it with me and to whoever originally
articulated the idea. It has benefited me greatly, and if I were able to
credit you here, I would.
 Chapter 10: Compassionate Behavior—Relating
Compassionately with Others
1. W. A. Arrindell, R. Sanderman, H. van der Molen, J. van der Ende, and P.
P. Mersch, “The Structure of Assertiveness: A Confirmatory Approach,”
Behavior Research and Therapy 26 (1999): 337–39.

2. P. Gilbert, Overcoming Depression (New York: Basic Books, 2009).

Not surprisingly, in his professional progression that ultimately led to the

development of compassion focused therapy, Professor Paul Gilbert
spent much time considering (and writing about) shame. The volume
below is an excellent collection, which Paul and his colleague Bernice
Andrews organized and edited.

3 P. Gilbert, “What is Shame? Some Core Issues and Controversies,” in

Shame: Interpersonal Behavior, Psychopathology and Culture, eds. P.
Gilbert and B. Andrews (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

4. Venerable Thubten Semkye, Personal communication (March 23, 2011).

My thoughts on shame, guilt, and regret were helped greatly by a brief

conversation I had with Ven. Thubten Semkye, a Tibetan Buddhist nun,
during a retreat I attended in late March 2011 at Sravasti Abbey. I was
expressing to her that I saw shame as being very problematic but guilt as
being more helpful, as it involved feeling bad about what someone had
done without the negative self-labeling. Ven. Semkye communicated
that in her tradition, they used “regret” instead, as it tended to put the
focus more on making things right than on locking us into focusing on
the self (usually in a “feeling bad about me” sort of way). I completely
agree.

5. Based on research conducted by the authors (both clinical psychologists),

along with their adviser (the famed marriage researcher John Gottman),
this book is an excellent resource for couples or for anyone who wants
to have good relationships and the ability to negotiate conflict within
 them.

C. Notarius and H. Markman, We Can Work It Out: How to Solve Conflicts,

Save Your Marriage, and Strengthen Your Love for Each Other (New
York: Perigree, 1993).
 Chapter 12: Full Circle—Bringing Compassion and
Kindness to Yourself
1. C. Notarius and H. Markman, We Can Work It Out: How to Solve
Conflicts, Save Your Marriage, and Strengthen Your Love for Each
Other (New York: Perigree, 1993).

2. In his book 59 Seconds, British psychologist Richard Wiseman has culled

the scientific literature for helpful advice and brief exercises for having a
happy, healthy, and effective life. This book presents a wealth of such
information, touching on healthy eating habits for weight management
and many other life areas.

R. Wiseman, 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot (London: MacMillan,

2009).

3. B. L. Frederickson, and C. Branigan, “Positive Emotions Broaden the

Scope of Attention and Thought-Action Repertoires,” Cognition and
Emotion 19 (2005): 313–32.

4. B. L. Frederickson, “The Role of Positive Emotions in Positive

Psychology: The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions,”
American Psychologist 56 (2001): 218–26.

5. E. L. Garland, B. Frederickson, A. M. Kring, D. P. Johnson, S. M. Piper,

and D. L. Penn, “Upward Spirals of Positive Emotions Counter
Downward Spirals of Negativity: Insights from the Broaden-and-Build
Theory and Affective Neuroscience on the Treatment of Emotion
Dysfunctions and Deficits in Psychopathology,” Clinical Psychology
Review 30 (2010): 849–64.

6. B. L. Frederickson and M. A. Cohn, “Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive

Emotions, Induced through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build
Consequential Personal Resources,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 5 (2008): 1045–62.
7. Rick Hanson and J. Richard Mendius developed the “Focusing on the
Good” exercise. Their book is a warmhearted, accessible reference for
those who want to understand how working with our minds can help us
to change our brains.

R. Hanson and R. Mendius, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of

Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Oakland, California: New Harbinger
Publications, 2009).

8. P. C. Watkins, K. Woodward, T. Stone, and R. L. Kolts, “Gratitude and

Happiness: Development of a Measure of Gratitude and Relationships
with Subjective Well-Being,” Social Behavior and Personality 31
(2003): 431–52.

9. P. C. Watkins, M. van Gelder, and A. Frias, “Furthering the Science of

Gratitude” in The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2nd edition,
eds. C. R. Snyder and S. Lopez (New York: Oxford University Press,
2009).

10. The gratitude-journal instructions in the exercise are taken directly from
“Counting Blessings versus Burdens.”

R. A. Emmons and M. E. McCullough, “Counting Blessings versus Burdens:

An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being
in Daily Life,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (2003):
377–89.

11. If we truly want to cultivate compassion, there is perhaps no better place

to start than with the writings and public addresses given by Tenzin
Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. He combines a mastery of 2,500
years worth of mind-training techniques for generating compassion with
an ability to speak directly to the hearts of modern listeners. He’s written
many books on the subject. Here are some of the ones I’ve found most
helpful.

Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium (New York: Riverhead
Trade/Penguin, 2001).
———, An Open Heart (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 2001).

Dalai Lama, Transforming the Mind (London: Thorsons/HarperCollins,

2000).

12. P. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind (London: Constable and Robinson,

2009).
 Chapter 13: Moving Forward—Approaching Anger
and Life with Compassion
1. R. Kolts, “Making Peace: A Compassion-Focused Therapy Approach for
Working with Anger,” unpublished treatment manual (2010).
Russell L. Kolts, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and professor at Eastern
Washington University outside of Spokane, WA, and is founder of the Inland
Northwest Compassionate Mind Center. He has many years’ experience
treating anger problems in his work with combat veterans, sexual assault
survivors, and mood-disordered clients of all ages. Kolts has pioneered the
application of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) to anger, which he
currently applies in private practice and prison settings.

Foreword writer Paul Gilbert, PhD, is a professor at the University of Derby

in the United Kingdom, director of the mental health research unit at
Derbyshire Mental Health Trust, and author of The Compassionate Mind.