Think of something in the past that brings your eyes to a gentle misting or a few tears. Consider that these feelings of tenderness and tears may be both of joy and of sorrow. This tenderness that often comes with a gentle misting of the eyes is what we call nostalgia, a looking back with a bit of, dare we say, peaceful sadness.

Nostalgia is proof of love. Like all love, joy and accompanying sadness is about having something we love and then no longer having that something.  The memory of what we have had and lost is no longer traumatic or sorrowful, but a gentle reminder of the goodness we once experienced. Both of us experience this nostalgia frequently when we think of our daughter Krissie who died nearly 7 years ago.  The horror of that loss is no longer the focus, rather the gentle loving her from afar while remember the sweetness of her.  By contract, when we aren’t able to face our losses, large or small, we tend to go into the anger as a defense against the natural feeling of sadness that occurs with a loss of something that we love.

As we have noted elsewhere (books, blogs), we humans tend to get angry because of something that has already happened, something that we lost be it an idea, a piece of property, a felt right or privilege or even a person. Also, we have noted that fear and its most common persona, anxiety, has to do with being afraid that we will lose something in the future. Today, our focus is only on the need for nostalgia rather than anger as we deal with losses. In our next blog we will propose the value of hope as a replacement for anxiety.  Let’s unpack this idea of nostalgia with a few examples of some things that have happened to people in the past that seemingly have led to their being angry and suggest how nostalgia can replace that defensive anger.

Losses that people have:

• Jill lost her mother, “the most important person” in her life. They were best friends, not just mother and daughter.
• Matt lost his favorite poetry book. He was reading it on the bus but forgot it when he packed up his stuff.
• Sam lost his job. He really enjoyed his work as a payroll officer. He liked giving out all that money that wasn’t his to people whom he knew.
• Herb lost his opportunity to play golf with his best old friend who had car troubles and had to wait for repairs most of the day.

All of these losses would seem to lead to being angry, maybe at yourself, maybe at someone else, maybe at the weather, maybe due to an accident. Is anger the only option or is there a better way?

Losses can lead to anger

We have written quite a bit about anger, which you may peruse with our books or blogs, so this may be a bit of a repeat. Simply stated, anger is a natural emotion that we associate with the “fight” part of the trilogy of actions that can come about when one is under attack, namely, “fight, flight, or freeze.” Granting that anger is normal, and importantly, necessary is some circumstances. We propose that anger is necessary in childhood, but rarely necessary in adulthood. Importantly, Anger is always a secondary experience and anger can be prevented.

• Childlike and necessary in childhood. You have heard about (or experienced) the so-called “terrible twos,” which is a reference to two-year-olds who tend to get angry easily and frequently. Actually, the “terrible” timetable is more like ages 2-5, which makes these very formative years so very important. Anger is a very important emotion for toddlers to experience because is the primary ingredient in a child finding a sense of “self.” When the toddler reacts to anger, the essence of this reaction is something like, “I don’t want.” Note the pronoun (I) in these statements. We understand that these “no’s” or outcries are statements of defiance, but in fact, they are the means the child has of identifying him/herself. We might consider that these no’s, while they are functionally statements of “This is not me,” these no’s are the beginning of the establishment of this “self” or “I,” which eventually lead to “I want” and “I am.” We will make note of how this feeling can, unfortunately, remain in an individual later in this discussion. Proper parenting allows a child to protest in this way so that s/he can continue to develop this self thing. Allowing a child to experience and express anger is primary, as it this experience helps the child develop a sense of self, which is a distinction between “This is me” and “This is not me.” Two errors made during this 2-5 age are not giving enough freedom of expression and giving too much freedom of expression. Roughly, you should allow a child to say anything when protesting a limitation, and then allowing the child to physically display this natural anger, limited only by a protection of other people and property. Most importantly, parents should not argue with children, which is particularly hard with intelligent children who can frame their likes and dislikes with questions. Arguing or discussing with a child that give them too much freedom of expression. There is much more to this discussion but allow us to defer to previous writing and forthcoming book, The 4-8-12 Child, which is summarized in another blog.
• Rarely necessary in adulthood. We make the seemingly outrageous statement to people who are in our office: You should never be angry. You might ask, “How can you ask such a thing of people? Isn’t anger a normal emotion? Isn’t it necessary? Aren’t there times when you really should be angry?” These rhetorical questions seem quite reasonable, but they are actually not reasonable if we understand “reasonable” to be the best course of action. We admit that there are real situations where some kind of anger would be called for. These would include such things as you’re being physically attacked and need to defend yourself displaying anger to your assailant, like in a dark alley. You might need to yell at your kid when s/he is about to run into a dangerous street. Yes, there are these situations, but consider this: these situations are very rare, and many of them actually never happen in real life. Indeed, I remember yelling at my daughter when she was about to run into the street. But I can’t think of a time in my entire adult life when I was physically attacked or duly threatened by someone.
• Anger is always a secondary experience. We have written extensively on this topic in our books, The Positive Power of Sadness and I Want to Tell You How I Feel, some of which we have summarized in previous blogs. Allow to summarize how we think anger is a secondary experience:
  • You are assaulted in some way. This will usually be something verbally said to you, you experience some kind of accident that causes you to feel assaulted, or occasionally feel threatened
  • You lose something. This “something” can be an idea, a piece of property, a freedom, or a relationship, among other things
  • You feel hurt and helpless. This usually lasts for a split second
  • You feel afraid that you will lose more. This is the “flight” response or the “freeze” response
  • You get angry to fend off any more assault. You may be silently angry, out loud angry, or physically defend yourself by assaulting your assailant. By the way, you could just be angry at yourself because you spilled your coffee or hit your thumb with your hammer
  • Thus: you can see that anger is actually the fourth of the for emotions:
    • You love something (joy)
    • You lose something (sadness)
    • You are afraid of losing more (fear)
    • You get protect yourself (anger)
• You can prevent becoming angry. How do you do that? You catch the process of emotional evolution from joy (having), through loss (sadness) and stay with these feelings, thus preventing fear and anger from taking hold. This is a very difficult process, and we do not suggest it lightly nor expect that you can catch the process before you get angry at all times. You might need to do this post hoc, which means after the fact, after you get angry. While quite simple to prevent anger, it is extremely hard to do, mostly because we haven’t been taught about the centrality of sadness in life and how sadness ends if allowed to be felt, while anger tends to migrant into threat, punishment, shame, revenge, or rage.

From anger to nostalgia

So, how can we turn anger into nostalgia, what is nostalgia, and why is it good for you?

• Nostalgia is the experience of remembering something you loved and lost. Thus, it is an experience of joy and sadness, which means that it is a love experience. If your first develop and maybe eventually master the ability of staying in the present moment, you will experience both joy and sadness. The more you do this, the more you will see that there is love around you, things, people, places, ideas, and such that you love. You will also see how whatever you love, you will eventually lose. Maybe your perfect idea migrates into a better idea; maybe that old car you loved now is not worth keeping; maybe that friendship you had is no longer available for some reason. You can do the same with things you loved…lost in the past. But it will take practice.
• Nostalgia is good for you. The more you see what you loved, the more you will feel the love you had for some someone or something. You do this, and you will feel the joy of loving and the sadness of losing simultaneously, and it will bring you to that tender feeling, if not tears. The more you do this, the easier it becomes, the less you actually feel anger because you will feel more of the love while not neglecting the sadness that always comes eventually when you love something. Furthermore, the more you will be good for people around you: they will see the love you have in your heart, not the reactive anger on your face. You will also see that the more you allow yourself to be nostalgic (joy and sadness), the better you will feel physically, cognitively, and relationally. Anger takes up much more energy than does joy and sadness, and it is not good for body, soul, and relationships.

How can people find, experience, and value nostalgia?

• Jill, who lost her mother can remember the times she had with her, the connections, the agreements, even the disagreements…this together with grieving her loss of her mother
• Matt who lost his poetry book can remember how wonderful the book was, all his favorite pieces and remember how good he felt when he read it…and grieve the loss of his book
• Sam, who lost his job needs to remember how good his job was, how well he did, and how he was respected…and grieve the loss of his job
• Herb who lost his golf date needs to remember the glorious times he had with his friend, the many times they talked and played…and grieve the loss of this one opportunity to be with his friend

What are the ingredients of nostalgia: joy and sorrow; had it, lost it. The recommendations we have given to Jill, Matt, Sam, and Herb do not deny the hurt, the loss, and the challenges. Rather, we see the necessity of sadness at having lost something in conjunction with the joy of having had this thing.

Nostalgia is a cure for anger. Next up: hope as a cure for anxiety.