You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry
What we often get wrong about the emotion of anger
I’m fascinated by cultural nuance. What I try to write about in this newsletter is the shared human experience, particularly the collected works of malfunction that many of us mistake for private shame. However, I keep in mind that I’m writing from London, as an English person, of Irish heritage. So there are certain cultural leanings that may not ring true everywhere. I realise, for example, that outside of England and Ireland not everyone runs toward guilt, shame and self-deprecation like it’s an ice-cream van. And not everyone has such a dysfunctional relationship with anger.
My relationship with anger has completely changed over the past few years, mostly because I simply understand it better. Anger is an emotion not a behaviour. It’s not violence, aggression or hostility. It’s a feeling that’s aroused for good reason - it calls our attention to something important. Its primal purpose is a survival mechanism designed to keep us safe. To activate our amygdala so we have the energy to fight if cornered by a wild animal, or someone with a clipboard asking for money.
However, many of us have a strange relationship with anger. We avoid it, fear it. Scared of its power, we assume its energy to be destructive, and its existence within us to be a negative trait. My most loathed comment is when someone says [insert whiney voice here] “I’m just not good with confrontation” - deployed as a carte blanche to get out of saying what they feel or taking any adult responsibility in an uncomfortable interaction. If we are raised to fear, or at least misunderstand anger, then the unknown of confrontation can be frightening. Of course, if violence was present in childhood then conflict of any kind can trigger feelings of being unsafe. But in many instances, the confrontation we are avoiding is that with our own feelings, rather than the person or situation in question.
My younger brother has a very different relationship with anger. He loves it. He once made me a playlist called ‘Your Anger is Your Gift’, which made my ears bleed and my soul cry. But the sentiment was right - anger is, in fact, a gift.
Anger is transformative. Its fiery quality is designed to spark something within us. A motivator for change in order to shift what might be stuck. Reducing to cinders what we don’t need, so we can rise again from the ashes of fury.
It helps us get our needs met. Having a healthy relationship with anger helps us identify what’s causing discomfort. Rather than stifle it or project it onto another, we can step back to understand what’s fuelling that fire. When angry about something, we should ask ourselves if it’s in rational proportion to the object of our rage. Often there’s something underlying, a pain-point or past event that hasn’t been fully processed, now finding an outlet in an argument about who last took the bins out. That’s the thing about unprocessed material - it never goes away. It simply rots in our bellies, causing us to vomit out bile unexpectedly and repeatedly because it remains undigested. Anger helps us understand when something runs deep, so we can find what it is we actually need to confront, rather than disproportionately reacting in the moment.
It helps us identify when a boundary has been crossed. Anger is designed to keep us safe. It highlights unfairness and injustice. When we swallow back our anger, we are often suppressing our needs. Communicating to ourselves that what we feel doesn’t matter. A fundamental pillar of a healthy mind is having good boundaries, and anger signals to us that something has been compromised, so we need to set a boundary.
Anger strengthens relationships. There’s a term in psychotherapy known as ‘rupture and repair’, which is a key part of lasting relationships. When we express ourselves honestly, it might involve letting someone know that they hurt or offended us. In these instances, we’re speaking from a place of authenticity, and real friendships grow from being real with one another. Although it might activate discomfort, there are real and lasting bonds that form from repairing a rupture. This also brings security to both parties in knowing the strength of the relationship that can outlast bumps in the road.
I now understand that anger is such an important and powerful emotion. When expressed healthily, it can be the driving force that moves us forward. It’s only unhealthy expressions of anger that are destructive. In fact, it's far more damaging to suppress anger than to release it in a constructive way. Holding onto anger keeps that energy in the body, developing a toxic quality. It can breed resentment or simply become the stagnant unhappiness of unspoken need. Suppressed anger is sadly the most common cause of depression.
We can recognise healthy anger because it’s problem focussed rather than people focussed. Its energy burns bright but it isn’t directed at anyone to cause pain. Once it moves through us, we can rationalise it, and we feel lighter. Unhealthy anger, on the other hand, is irrational, disproportionate and we often feel it’s beyond our control. Its heat is searing, its energy more like blinding rage. It can be projected out, seeking punishment, revenge or hurt onto others.
The key is to accept anger as a healthy and natural emotion that we all experience. To embrace it as a signalling tool that something needs to change, and utilise its energy to make that change.
The Spin
Anger is a healthy emotion with the power to transform unhealthy situations
Anger helps us understand personal boundaries. It helps us identify when we feel they’ve been crossed and where we might need to set them
Many misunderstand anger because they’ve seen or experienced expressions of anger that were unhealthy and frightening
Healthy anger is problem-focussed not people-focussed
Suppressed anger is held in the body as toxic energy. It can spill out in expressions of unhealthy anger later down the line, or it can lead to chronic depression
Adding More Weight
16 Reasons It’s Good to Get Angry
Why You Should Embrace Your Anger
Suppressed Anger Doesn’t Go Away
Podcast: Blame and Anger - The Blindboy Podcast
Podcast: Misguided Anger - Where Is My Mind?
Option to Go Deeper
Think of something that made you angry recently.
What was it? What rule (perhaps personal or social) did you feel had been broken? What boundary had been crossed? How did you respond?
As Lydon said 'Anger is an energy.' How you use that energy, however ...
Love this!
Been discussing this very emotion with my little sister this week, specifically in relation to parenting our children, and how expressing anger constructively can also teach our children that they are safe to do the same.