Anger
“Rage is like a wounded animal. It attacks anything that moves. And as with a wounded animal, the attacks do nothing to ease the pain.”
-Thomas J. Harbin
As you may be noticing, I’m a believer in the notion that all emotions are valid, including the ones we are often told are not acceptable such as sadness, fear, loneliness, and yes, even anger. Admitting anger’s underlying validity can be quite tricky. Most of the great philosophers and thinkers throughout history viewed anger as an unhelpful poison to be avoided. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” And Albert Einstein said, “Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.”
I agree with those that theorize anger is frequently counterproductive. When we’re angry, our “fight or flight“ responses kick-in. This survival response trumps all our other thinking. We are no longer capable of rational thought. Anger limits our ability to communicate effectively with others and with ourselves. Accordingly, we are far from capable of connecting to ourselves, our rational minds, and what’s really going on for us underneath the anger (This is the reason “rageaholics” use anger- as an unconscious technique to avoid their deeper feelings).
Nevertheless, I have come to realize that the key to freeing ourselves of the destructive nature of anger lies not in seeking to avoid or deny anger but to understand our anger at its roots, and to understand the validity of those underlying roots.
I believe if we can get to the underlying triggers of our anger and find the validity there, that is the way to free ourselves of anger and it's destructive side-effects. Merely, telling ourselves “we shouldn’t be angry” does nothing to dispel our anger. Like invalidating any emotion, it stuffs it. The anger will eventually come out in indirect and even more unhelpful or dangerous ways.
With that said, I believe the concept of venting anger sounds logical but, upon closer inspection, is mistaken. It implies that anger builds up within us like pressure in a pipe, and that “venting” releases that pressure; it opens the floodgates and prevents the pipe from bursting. This sounds plausible but it’s not true.
It’s powerful to access our feelings, especially those we have stuffed. However, yelling, screaming, hitting things – actions associated with “venting” anger – actually tends to intensify the emotion and keep our minds ruminating on the very thing we’re angry about. It’s like trying to extinguish a fire by throwing gasoline on it.
To be clear, expressing anger is helpful. If one is able to express anger early enough, one won't feel that intense buildup of pressure, and one will communicate more effectively. I like the expression, “Say what you mean, but don’t say it mean.”
However, expressing anger in a rage filled manner is not as effective as finding out why you are angry and coming to understand the validity of your anger’s root cause. This is the real work. It still involves accessing our anger, but what we do with the anger once identified is very different.
Understanding the underlying causes of our anger is often very tricky. I can recall an incident where my parents were fighting. Then, later at dinner, my mom blew up at the waiter. She was enraged about the slow service and wanted others to validate her anger at how long we had been waiting for our food. I didn’t feel the service had been that slow and it was clear to me she was not really angry with the waiter. She was still angry with my dad. However, being angry with the waiter felt like a more acceptable form of anger so her frustration came out in indirect ways. The fact that I quickly thought of an example of someone else’s indirect anger underlies the greater problem. As Buddha said, “It’s easy to see the errors of others, but hard to see your own.”
It was relatively easy for me to recognize someone else’s misdirected anger. And yet, while I know I am guilty of this countless times, it would be far more difficult to see it in myself when it's happening. It takes a really deep introspective anger to ask myself, “What am I really upset about?” Often it is not at all what it seems. We spend so much effort avoiding our anger, finding what we are really angry about is requires deep introspection.
I had a boss who would infuriate me. I felt he was an incompetent con artist who should not have the high-ranking position he held. It took me a while to come to a difficult realization. As Herman Hesse said, “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.” I had my own underlying fear that I was a fraud, that I did not really deserve my own job and that I would someday be found out. I was not really angry with this person; I was really angry at myself and afraid that I was like him. Once I came to that difficult realization, I was empowered to address my underlying issue. I could assure myself that I was very competent at my job. I was not perfect but I was extremely capable and deserved my job. Also, while I use to be a “bullshit artist” myself, I had progressed beyond that and was now quite sincere in my daily interactions. I wasn't perfect but I could choose to keep working on the elements about myself I wanted to lovingly work on, so that I could be more of who I wanted to be. Once I had addressed those real underlying issues, my anger dissipated. This boss no longer bothered me so much. I still thought he was incompetent but I was free of the poison of my own anger.
Aristotle wrote, “Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.” If we can find what we are really angry about that address that, I believe we can truly free ourselves from ourselves.
Furthermore, the truth is that if we express ourselves with a lot of hostility, the people we are expressing ourselves to will naturally become defensive. This is commonly a survival mechanism; they are too busy protecting themselves emotionally (and perhaps physically) to really listen. Thus, while it is incredibly important to share what upsets you, it’s more productive to do this early and in a non-confrontational manner. Try telling someone how you feel rather than telling him or her what they should or should not have done.
Ultimately, nobody’s actions or words really “cause” you to feel anything. They are merely a stimulus. That stimulus may or may not trigger something inside you. However, we have the power to choose how we react to any stimulus and realizing that is empowering. Now if I believe someone angers me, I try to take a moment and ask myself, “What is this person triggering inside of me? Can I get in touch with that part of myself?” And then I am empowered to choose how I would like to respond.
Consider for a moment someone stepping on your toe. Suppose you said, “Hey, you stepped on my toe.” It likely wouldn’t be a big deal. Now, suppose someone stepped on your toe, you said nothing, and then they stepped on your toe another 10,000 times. You’d be likely explode in anger. So please, do express what bothers you. Express it early. Then you won’t feel the desire to “vent’ later because you have avoided the unhelpful build-up of stuffed feelings. And if you share it early enough, it will less challenging to “say what you mean without saying it mean.” One way to do this is by using “I statements.” For example, try saying “I feel ___” This keeps the focus on you and makes the other person less likely to feel attacked.
Assuming human beings are not supposed to get angry is the same as assuming we’re not supposed to feel fear or sadness. Our emotion has been invalidated, and we now think there is something wrong with us. Which in turn intensifies the very emotion we are trying not to feel. But everyone gets angry. It doesn’t make us good or bad, just human.
There are various ideas about what anger is, but the one I find most interesting comes from Thomas J. Harbin, who theorized that anger is about control. It’s an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Thus we yell at traffic, our kids, the TV – any person, place, or thing we’d like to control. This may even work in the short-term but in the longer term it is nearly always an ineffective technique that only serves to intensify our own frustration. We can have hopes, intentions and wants about the outside world but the fact remains, we can only truly control ourselves. This is an immensely difficult fact for many of us to accept. I know it was for me. Accepting that we are powerless over other people, places and things is not easy, but it can free of us anger and help us find greater serenity. I like to think of myself as sailor in life, I have two options: I can either yell at the wind and or I can adjust my sails.
Ask Yourself:
How do I feel about myself when I get angry?
When I’m angry, how can I seek out the real, underlying reason why I am upset?
What are ways that I can bravely communicate when I am upset early, rather than letting my anger build? For example, how do I feel about communicating using “I feel____” statements?
Do I believe getting angry makes me a bad person? If I do, where might this belief come from, and how has it served me in the past?
Next Letter: Fear