Angela Shelton in Chapel Hill Tonight

Powerful Speaker
If you are in or near the Triangle area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC), and you are free this evening at 5pm, I encourage you to go hear Angela Shelton speak at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work at 5pm today. She will screen and discuss her film, "Searching for Angela Shelton." The event is at 325 Pittsboro St. in Chapel Hill. It's free and you can pre-register at http://www.nchealhtywoman.org/ or call 919-843-1759.

"Searching for Angela Shelton"
I heard Angela Shelton speak when she came to NC State in 2004. She is a woman who survived childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father. She made a film based on her travels across the US talking to women who also have her name, Angela Shelton. 24 of 40 women she interviewed disclosed some form of interpersonal violence. She is a powerful speaker and the film is equally powerful. Learn more at www.angelashelton.com.

Her Message
After she showed her film and gave a short talk at NC State, she talked about releasing shame and anger about abuse. She had a padded chair up on stage with her and she took a baseball bat and demonstrated what she does to get her anger out. She began hitting the chair with the bat and screaming - I don't remember the content of what she screamed at this point. It's a rather raw experience to watch someone express their anger so bluntly and poignantly in front of a room of 200 or so people. After she finished she invited anyone in the audience that wanted to do this to come on up. One woman took her up on her offer and she too beat the chair with the bat.

On the Outside Looking In
This was an extremely emotional and uncomfortable experience for me. It was emotional first and foremost because I do not like to be around yelling and screaming of any sort - even if it's someone's catharsis. Further, it reminded me of a friend of mine who used to attend a support group for rape survivors. The group also encouraged people to hit a pillow with their fists or a bat to get their anger out. This is a commonly held belief that hitting something repeatedly will help you reduce your anger. I'm not sure what it actually does because research shows that putting yourself in an agitated state and raising adrenaline does not actually disperse anger. It creates a more agitated state that you now have to come down from. It may exhaust you and some relief from anger comes from the sheer exhaustion. Your thoughts on the matter are welcome here.

Learn More
To learn more about anger, I recommend the book, Anger Kills, 17 Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health, by Redford Williams, MD, and Virginia Williams, PhD. This is a wonderful book about anger and it dispels the myth that agitating ourselves into a frenzy will release our anger.

My friend took her turn with the bat and pillow. She ended up damaging her hand. She had to go to the emergency room and she had to keep her hand in a brace for months. A year later she still had pain in her hand. The sad part was that she damaged her dominant hand and she is a painter and jewelry maker. She had a limited range of motion and it was painful for her to hold a brush or do tiny work with jewelry pieces.

Safety First
Any type of therapeutic intervention comes with risks because it's about diving into the depths of our pain and getting it out. We owe it to anyone that we work with to provide as much safety and care as possible when diving into the pain. And when it comes to any type of physical exertion to get to another level of pain and healing, we have to continue to provide a safe environment - emotionally and physically.