Anger has a bad reputation, which is completely understandable, because it can be a precursor to violence, pain and horror. But, like everything, there’s an upside to anger that’s almost as dangerous to ignore as it is to misuse the force of rage. There’s a middle path.
Clearly, it's how we choose to express anger that determines whether it’s a danger, or a motivating force for care and change, right? Anger is just a feeling running through us, like any other emotion. However, so often in therapy, people avoid the word, preferring to soften it to ‘a little frustrated’ or ‘I get annoyed, but I wouldn’t say angry’.
It’s like it’s a dirty word, even though anger is completely normal. After all, there’s plenty going on the world to be angry and dissatisfied about and it would be a damn shame if nobody felt enough anger to do anything about it.
Anger is powerful emotional energy which can drive us, help us to survive under pressure or threats, and motivate us to create positive changes. Anger can be an expression of your caring and life-force, bubbling up and urging you to fight for something better, in a non-violent, strategic way.
Where we typically go wrong with anger is in expressing it as contempt, criticism, pettiness, bullying, blaming, striking out at others to diminish them, or by attacking ourselves with self-harming habits and hurtful self-talk. Those behaviours damage. They are a separate behavioural choice to the feeling of anger - choosing to express it as some kind of violence.
I’m advocating here for accepting when we are angry without making the feeling shameful, then making helpful choices with anger, rather than lashing out, or shoving it down, firstly because it can be such a force for good. Secondly, shoving it down and not expressing it at all can be bad for our health.
But how do I deal with anger in the moment of feeling it?
That is a question I’m often asked in therapy.
When I feel anger these days, I acknowledge it and feel into its surge of power. I call it by name and own it in all its discomfort - usually it makes me feel physically hot and restless for starters.
So, I breathe and breathe again, releasing any ideas of lashing out with anything hurtful. I value love and my relationships above all else so I'm not going to compromise them with angry words or actions towards others.
Sometimes it's good to take breaks from discussions to restore calm and perspective, if anger's arising. Storming out is an escalation and not healing, but a compassionate time-out can help.
Dealing with residual anger from old hurts or abuses can take patience, courage and repeated efforts. It's not so much that you must get rid of old anger, but sometimes you must let yourself feel it if you’ve never fully acknowledged it before, and let it flow through you to a new place of safe acceptance.
Fear of anger is something I see frequently in therapy. It can cause you to feel stuck and hopeless, almost afraid of yourself and your own power to act. But it can help to explore whether anger may be playing a part when you’re suffering because, if that is the case, anger safely expressed can liberate you, stoking your courage to take positive action and save yourself emotionally.
Interestingly, depression and anxiety can contain a good portion of anger and grief turned inward. It isn’t always the case, but depression and anxiety can be fed by anger, rage at injustice, fear, or grief, depressed and held down hard inside. Fear of the anger can help keep us trapped in anxiety and depressive states.
It’s a possible sign of anger locked down and turned inward, if a person becomes shutdown emotionally, or is stubbornly refusing to do anything to help themselves to potentially feel better. Conversely, being unreasonably angry in ways that hurt others or damage relationships, can suggest deeper unacknowledged distress and grief is beneath. On the most basic level, self-destructive behaviour directs anger inwards, instead of finding healthy non-harmful means of expression.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
Maya Angelou
There is no sweeping away pain, trauma or bad things that have happened to us, or to others we care about. Nor do we have to find silver linings in pain, or believe in any mysterious, cosmic reason for things happening, unless it helps you to see it that way.
Before we can move through feeling pain to recovery, we must accept that we cannot change the past. We must accept that whatever happened did happen, even though it was wrong, unfair, unwarranted. It’s fair if that makes us very angry.
In coping with trauma or pain, the idea of presence comes into its own for healing – both having the presence of compassionate others to hear you, and being present for yourself. That means, when we’re struggling, we must let our emotions be expressed, within safe boundaries.
By letting go, letting emotions rip, letting the water of pain flow, we inhabit the full reality of our experiences. You can feel pain and not be taken over by it or disappear into it. It takes courage to let pain or grief be expressed, but feelings do eventually place you down in calmer waters.
Often, the best help we can give someone going through difficult feelings is to stay present with them, listen and companion them, like a life saver, letting them surf the waves, but there to pull them out if they feel like they’re drowning.
Never let your anger destroy. Let it drive, let it create, let it direct better outcomes and better ways for the world, through finding better ways in you. The key rule of expressing rage is to do no harm to yourself or others, but by all means, let yourself feel it.
Love to you.
The soundtrack to writing this piece is the glorious badass Nancy Sinatra, expressing some anger through her music.
Extracted from How to Be Your Own Hero by Debra Campbell