Anger

It’s important that we have anger. It’s a good thing. It tells us when our boundaries are being crossed. It tells us when we’re being threatened. It tells us when we need to act in order to ensure our own emotional and/or physical safety. Anger can also be clarifying and calming, although the stereotype of expressing anger is the opposite: snapping, or exploding, or throwing a good ol’ fashioned temper tantrum.

Unfortunately, that stereotype turns out to be true for a lot of us. Anger is often described as a secondary emotion, meaning that it comes after some initial feeling. Something scares us, or hurts us, or stresses us out, and we respond angrily. It makes sense, but sometimes responding with anger can be counterproductive. If we could take a minute, figure out which emotion came first, figure out what we’re really feeling, then we could respond to the situation appropriately, and not knee-jerk react to it by snapping at our loved ones. 

I think many of us were taught that anger is the only negative emotion we’re allowed to express. It’s not okay to cry because we’re sad or hurt; it’s much more okay to yell about it. The problem is that yelling about it won’t fix the first feeling, and meeting our loved ones with anger generally makes solving the problem harder, not easier. Anger comes across as an attack, and people get their backs up when being attacked. Put another way, offense makes people play defense.

So, what to do? Well, maybe try to identify the feeling that came first and express that emotion instead. Listen to your anger, feel it and understand it, but bring sadness, or hurt, or fear, to the table instead. Therapy can help with this. It can make it easier to understand the underlying causes of your anger, and help you increase the gap between feeling the anger and reacting to it, giving you more time to choose a different response.

If any of this resonates with you, come talk to me. We’ll come to understand your anger and figure out a way for you to be and act less angry.

If you want to book a free, 15-30 minute long consultation, or maybe even jump right in and book a first session, click the button below.