For years, I’ve felt pain when I read most statements about working with emotions, “mental health,” and dealing with life’s challenges.
The cause of my pain is that based on what I’ve learned, lived and practiced with others (as a psychotherapist and marriage and family counselor), what is usually recommended requires too much work, mostly develops “surface fixes,” is repetitive, and doesn’t lead us to lasting, positive results. Personally, I want definitive solutions that don’t repeat ad nauseum, and I know that’s possible!
I want to shout from the rooftops.
We’re Being Misled
We’re all being misled by not receiving a correct identification of what emotions are, by being encouraged to manage emotions, and to merely ease ourselves through never-completed challenges.
- We don’t have to work so hard
- Things are designed in life so that we don’t have to keep repeating the same challenges and problems
- It’s possible to get finished with specific issues and go on to other things.
What I’ve Learned Over 53 Years as a Therapist
Currently in my 53rd year as a psychotherapist and marriage counselor, I’m dedicated to broadcasting what I’ve been privileged to learn…..about what life is all about, what emotions are for, how to work with emotions, and how to partner with emotions and life, so we reduce stress and make real, lasting progress!
Here, allow me to share with you some of the things I’ve learned that can help.
Wrong Definitions Lead to Wrong Solutions
We are all being misled by not having our emotions identified correctly, by being encouraged to focus on easing our way through never-completed challenges, and by being encouraged to manage emotions.
The American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association maintain websites. I visited both, asking “What is anger?”
On the Psychiatric Association site, I could find no place to even ask this question. On the Psychological Association site, I was provided this answer:
“Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong. Anger can be a good thing. It can give you a way to express negative feelings, for example, or motivate you to find solutions to problems. But excessive anger can cause problems. Increased blood pressure and other physical changes associated with anger make it difficult to think straight and harm your physical and mental health.” Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology.
Reading this, can you tell me what anger IS? I can’t. From my neurosurgeon husband, Bob Fink, I learned that you can’t treat a medical problem if you can’t diagnose it. How can we “diagnose” anger and work with it if we don’t know what it is?
Anger is a form of energy
My learning is that anger, like all emotions, is a form of energy. Do you learn anything from this about how we develop “excessive anger” (or for that matter, what it is? My learning is that anger becomes “excessive” when we hold onto it, which almost everyone is taught to do! Just as the energy of water builds up behind a dam, the energy of anger builds up inside us when we hold onto it. There, it seeks a way out (because energy needs to move), eventually creating explosions, mental health problems and lethal illnesses. We need encouragement and tools for releasing anger “harmlessly.”
Anger can be a “good thing.” Anger does motivate us to take action. Not all anger is seen as something deliberately done to wrong us, though it does result from unexpected situations. This statement suggests that anger is a “bad thing.” That’s like saying water or wind are “bad.” There’s no such thing. Anger is energy. It just “is.” And it has a very positive purpose: to point out to us that there is something we need to change in ourselves.
When you read The American Psychological Association’s statement about anger, does it give you any indication that you can significantly change the role anger plays in your life? I don’t see it.
Two Key Barriers to Change
Over the many years I have worked as a client of psychotherapy, I knew there were things I needed/wanted to change. Two things got in my way:
- I didn’t know how to change/if it was possible, and
- I didn’t have the tools I needed to make those changes.
How about you? We all want to change, to have life flow better—yet we reach out for the tools, flow maps and support we need to make changes. With rare exceptions, psychotherapy failed to offer me those things I needed.
Lessons to Learn
I’m excited to share with you some information I’m now working to share with the whole world:
We are all attending a “Giant School,” and our primary job is to LEARN. Emotions are designed to help us live better lives. From high school science, we know “energy cannot be created nor destroyed,” “energy needs to move,” and “we cannot get rid of energy. We can transform a particular energy into another form of energy.”
Emotions are energy, so these “rules” also apply to them. Why not move and transform emotions instead of manage them? When we don’t learn our lessons, we repeat the same themes—over and over and over again. With each repetition, our internal (mental health) pain increases.
The instant we complete learning, repetition stops. We’re free to go on to other things. We’re supposed to learn from the lessons we’re presented with. We all have the ability to do this learning successfully—we just need explanations and tools. We are in times of tremendous change. A big part of this change is for us to recognize and work with the energy that’s inside us, to embrace ourselves as Energy Beings. The fastest way to do this? Work with emotional energy.
I invite you to update your relationships with the emotions you experience (they don’t belong to you, so it’s not “my anger”). Join me on May 10th (8 am to 1:30 pm PT) for the free Wellness Universe presentations on “Mental Health,” our Mental Health Month gift. Registration link: https://bit.ly/WellbeingForAll2025
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Ilene Dillon, MSW, has dedicated her life to helping people resolve personal challenges once and for all, then design life to be what they want it to be. A Transformation Specialist, she has worked 50 years as a psychotherapist and 15 years as a coach. She is a global speaker, Amazon International Best-selling author (The Wellness Universe Guide to Complete Self-Care, Volumes 1 and 2), podcast guest, and plans to give her first TEDx speech (on Anger) later this year. Ilene is also the author of Emotions in Motion: Mastering Life’s Built-in Navigation System and End Manipulation: Stop Being Jerked Around by Toxic, Energy-draining People. With her little dog, Pi, Ilene lives and travels full-time throughout North America in her RV, writing, teaching, and speaking along the way.
Thanks, Ilene, for your powerful and refreshing take on emotions and mental health! The idea that we’ve been taught to manage emotions instead of just understanding them and letting that energy move through us was eye-opening. It’s so encouraging to hear that real, lasting change is possible without repeating surface-level fixes. Thank you for sharing your 53 years of wisdom—and I can’t wait to learn more during the May 10th event!