My friend Anne was visiting one evening, years ago, when she overheard me yelling at Morty.
She marched downstairs and said something that knocked me off my feet.
“Who said that you can talk to your beloved that way?”
I had grown up in a loving, warm family. We laughed together, supported each other, and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. But when something went wrong, we yelled. It was simply what we did. It never once occurred to me that it wasn’t okay.
We’ve been told to let it out
The advice has been everywhere for decades. When you’re angry, express it. Vent it. Get it off your chest. Don’t bottle it up.
It makes intuitive sense. Pressure builds, you release it, you feel better.
But that’s not what the research actually shows.
A study by Brad Bushman found that when participants were made angry and invited to hit a punching bag while thinking about the person who had upset them, they came out angrier and more aggressive than people who did nothing at all.
Researchers also tested writing about anger, vigorous exercise like jogging, and other common outlets. None of them reliably reduced anger. Some made it worse.
And notably, many participants who vented said they felt better afterward.
But when researchers measured their actual aggression, the anger was still there. The feeling of relief was real. The anger was not gone. You can read the study here.
Why does venting fail?
Because venting doesn’t touch the thing that generated the anger. And that thing is the meaning you gave the event.
Where the anger actually comes from
Something Morty discovered changed how I understand every moment of anger I’ve had.
Events don’t carry meaning. We assign it.
Picture this. A close friend is late to dinner. Again. You feel your jaw tighten and something start to rise.
What your mind did in that moment, so fast you may not have noticed, was give meaning to what happened.
They’re so irresponsible. They don’t respect my time.
The event was that your friend arrived late. The anger came from what you decided that meant.
When you vent to someone, you talk about the friend, you replay the dinner, you describe how it made you feel. But the meaning you gave the event stays exactly where it was. That’s why venting can feel like a release and yet leave you just as angry the next morning. The source hasn’t been touched.
What Morty did differently
When Brittany started moving into her teenage years, Morty noticed something shifting between them. She would get upset with him, and he would take it personally and get hurt. It happened often enough that he began to worry they were growing apart.
One afternoon, Brittany walked in the front door and Morty asked how her day was. She snapped at him and called him a name.
This time he didn’t react the way he always had. Instead, he quietly started asking himself what else her behavior could mean.
- Her reaction could mean her teenage hormones were raging.
- Or that she had a terrible day with a teacher.
- Or that she hadn’t been invited to a party one of her friends was having.
- Or that she was a teenager who needed to start pulling away from her parents in order to grow up.
He sat with those possibilities. And then he said something to her that still moves me when I think about it.
“I hear a daughter who loves her father very much and isn’t in touch with it right now. I love you.”
She threw a sneaker at the door.
And then he heard laughter.
She came out of her room and said, “Daddy, I’m so sorry I talked to you like that. I had an awful day.”
He hadn’t vented. He hadn’t confronted her. He had dissolved the meaning he had been giving to her behavior, and in doing so, he had given her something she carried for the rest of her life. Years later, Brittany told me that in that moment she knew she was loved unconditionally. It meant the world to her.
How to do this yourself
What Morty did that afternoon with Brittany is something anyone can learn to do. Morty called it the Occurring Process, and it works by helping you see that the meaning you gave an event is one interpretation among many possible ones.
Separate the event from the meaning. Describe what happened in the most neutral terms you can, the way a camera would record it, with no interpretation attached. Your friend arrived forty minutes after the reservation. That is the event.
Name the meaning you gave it. They’re irresponsible. They don’t respect my time. Say it plainly. This is the meaning your mind constructed, and seeing it clearly is the first step to loosening it.
Ask what else it could mean. Maybe they had a difficult conversation with a family member right before leaving. Maybe they’re struggling with time management in ways that have nothing to do with how they feel about you. Maybe something came up at work they couldn’t leave behind. Sit with those possibilities genuinely, rather than just as an exercise in being fair.
As you find real alternatives, something loosens. The certainty behind your original interpretation begins to soften, the emotion tied to that interpretation softens along with it, and the anger that seemed so solid a moment ago becomes something you can set down.
This is what Morty meant by dissolving the meaning. When the meaning goes, the feeling it was generating goes with it.
What changes when the meaning dissolves
Dissolving the meaning doesn’t mean you say nothing about what happened.
It means you can address it from a completely different place.
My kids could always tell me how angry they were with me. What I asked was that they not call me names or curse when they did. I could say that steadily and clearly. Not because I was suppressing anything, but because I wasn’t operating from anger in the first place.
Once you dissolve the meaning, you can still tell your friend that their lateness matters to you. You can have the whole conversation. But because there is no accumulated charge underneath it, the other person can actually take in what you’re saying.
Morty kept showing up to Brittany the same way through her teenage years. As a result, over time, she stopped fighting with him and trying to push him away. What had been a painful pattern between them became one of the closest relationships she had.
I’ve seen this in clients too
David used to yell at his wife constantly. He was carrying beliefs like “the way to have power is to control,” and he gave negative meaning to nearly everything she did. After he did the work, his wife sent me a note: “Thank you for giving me the husband I always wanted.”
Michael came to me saying his anger was getting in the way of becoming a leader. When people didn’t follow his direction, he interpreted it as disrespect. After working through the meanings and the beliefs underneath them, his boss called to say he was seeing something new. More patient, more present, kinder to the people around him.
And Rose came wanting to stop snapping at her children in public. When they didn’t listen, she had been reading it as proof that they didn’t think she mattered. Once she could see that meaning clearly and begin to dissolve it, the knee-jerk reaction stopped showing up.
If you’d like support with this
The anger doesn’t have to keep arriving.
If you’d like help addressing what’s generating it in your own life, I’d be glad to speak with you. In a free strategy session, we look at your goals and dreams, what’s getting in the way of achieving them, and whether working together would be a good fit.
Anger and other negative emotions don’t have to run your life. You can change them, and if you need help, I’m here.
