Anger… the emotion with a bad rap
Have you ever felt ashamed about your anger, felt uncomfortable about feeling angry, or concerned about others expressing anger towards you. Have you tried to talk yourself out of feeling angry, or maybe someone has made you feel like you shouldn’t be angry. Oh I know the feeling well.
Awww poor anger. I have been on a mission to try and change people’s opinion about this wonderful emotion, and have been trying to educate folks a little more about it, in order to learn to give yourself some grace, and befriend the poor little thing.
So, let me give you some possible reasons why anger has a bad rap. Some people are raised in an environment that does not allow for anger, and anger can be seen as disrespectful and a lack of self control. Many folks also have experienced a pretty shitty and fucked up childhood. And anger may have been modeled at home as to “how you should deal with problems”, and children may have learned through role modeling or adapting/fighting back (as a form of protection).
As mentioned some people have been raised in situations where there was a lot of unhealthy anger, where you may have learned to think of anger as danger/dangerous.
But anger is really just a protective part, or an assessor of things that tells us if things are ok or not. For example, boundaries are those things that we communicate to others of what we are comfortable with and what we are not comfortable with. Because we are all UNIQUE, and everyone is unique is what they allow and don’t allow in their relationships, anger is a signal to the person that something is off, someone has done something that is not right and has probably crossed a boundary. Anger also appears when some has reminded us of something terrible from the past, so terrible that we avoid at all costs.
Of course anger can be bad when it becomes too BIG, destructive, hurtful. Anger when it becomes out of control can cause people to be reactive, verbally and physically aggressive, and destructive of things.
Now anger is very important thing when you think about our early human experiences (think caveman days). So imagine this, a person venturing off to find some dinner (maybe in these days some wild animal). On this walk to hunt for some dinner, the person encounters a lion/tiger/bear, the the person acts scared and runs always, chances are that person becomes dinner and easy prey for this wild animal. On the other hand, responding with anger, becoming loud and big, might have been to scare the animal away, thus anger saving the life of this brave caveman.
I get it, we are not cave men, but the emotions still holds the same purpose, to sense danger and to protect us! But instead of becoming big and loud, learning how to use that thinking brain, communicate yourself in a healthy way, regulate yourself (body and mind), then you can still manage to protect yourself from the “perceived danger”.
So all in all, anger is awesome, critical to us as humans, and loves you so much and wants you to be safe. It also doesn’t like when you talk badly about it (or to yourself), and just wants you to learn to be more in control and out of danger.
Tips for improving your relationship with anger
If you are looking to explore your anger more, here some things you can do:
Internal Family Systems is a great way to get to know it, grow some compassion, and give yourself some grace about feeling angry (aka GO TO THERAPY!)
Practicing mindfulness and meditation
Jot down some of your triggers to your anger (then take this to a therapist to help you explore it further!)
learning to listen to your body before your anger gets too out of control
Teach yourself to take a break, take a walk take some breathes may also be a game changer!
Get some therapy! hahaha.. yes I said it, I love therapy, and I’m sure a therapist (me) would love to help you through this relationship you have with good ole anger
