This is Part 1 of a 6-part series in which we take a closer look at the basic emotions: Anger, Happiness, Sadness, Love, Fear, and Guilt/Shame. Simply click on each link to view the associated article.
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Anger
Flying into a rage. Smashing something on the ground. Lashing out. These are some of the behaviors that are commonly associated with anger.
Anger manifests itself in many ways and to different degrees, depending on the situation we find ourselves in. Irritation, annoyance, frustration, exasperation, dislike, resentment, rage, they’re all forms of anger which, like any emotion, varies in intensity. That’s because anger is a feeling like all of the other basic emotions. But, it is perhaps the one that continues to be misunderstood the most.
When we think of anger, many of us will picture scenes like those mentioned in the opening paragraph. People yelling, lashing out, smashing objects. It’s the archetypal unhealthy and destructive behavior that’s commonly associated with anger.
But notice the use of the word behavior. Those behaviors mentioned above and other equally aggressive examples are separate from experiencing the feelings of anger inside of us. They are examples of attempts to discharge anger, to expel anger from ourselves by taking out our frustrations and rage on something or someone. We end up doing such things when we don’t know how to regulate and move through our emotions. In fact, research has shown that venting our anger in this way – screaming, pounding a pillow, lashing out, does not serve us. It only intensifies and prolongs the feeling and can actually make us even angrier.
Yet the feeling of anger, as is the case for all our primary feelings, is meant to be useful to us. Anger alerts us to an injustice, can bring us clarity and strength, and enable us to respond and move forward in a healthy way. And it is one of the most essential human emotions. So how can we use it to our advantage? How can anger be empowering and productive rather than destructive?
The role of emotional mindfulness
Whether we’re aware of it or not, all of us will have a degree of anger inside of us at times in our lives. The key to making anger work for us is learning to tolerate it being there, and to mindfully feel our way through it to a better place.
Mastering the feeling of anger entails staying with it and seeing it through to completion. This process is detailed in the four step approach to emotional mindfulness that is featured in my books Loving Like You Mean It and Living Like You Meant It. Following the steps of Recognize and Name, Stop, Drop and Stay, Pause and Reflect and Mindfully Relate takes us to a new and different place where we’re no longer stymied by fear or beset with hopelessness. Instead, we feel empowered and determined to stand up for ourselves.
It’s vital to approach our emotional experience from a place of openness and acceptance with zero judgment. To practice this, we first need to stop and ask ourselves what are we feeling. Then we need to tune-in to what’s happening inside of us at that moment, concentrating on the reality of what is actually happening, not what we think should be happening or want to be happening.
Each time we bring our focus back to the bodily sensations we experience when we’re angry, we’re developing a new habit. We’re training our mind to be aware of and pay attention to our emotional experience. But we can’t reap the full benefits of our emotional experience if we start to feel our feelings and then back away from them. Only partially experiencing them isn’t enough. We need to ride the wave of emotional experience all the way to the shore.
How problems can arise with anger
Many of us are inhibited to some degree or another from freely experiencing and expressing our emotions, including anger. Even though we may not be aware of being uncomfortable about this, with a little examination, we can uncover issues we may have with accepting anger as a key human emotion. These issues may manifest themselves as:
Being afraid of showing our anger or assertiveness.
Never allowing ourselves to get angry
Stewing over something and not being able to move on
Feeling resentful about situations, sometimes for a long time.
Avoiding angry feelings until it’s too late and we do something rash
Expressing anger in a passive way, perhaps by showing up late to a dinner date, or not retuning a phone call
Having difficulty standing up for ourselves or voicing an opinion that goes against what others are thinking or saying.
Feeling like we have to be pleasant to someone, even when resentment is bubbling up inside of us
Sometimes, instead of feeling anger toward a person who has wronged us, we unconsciously turn our anger inwards and end up feeling bad about ourselves. Despite the personal suffering that this causes, on some level, this response may feel safer than confronting the third party. We’re just not used to experiencing our anger in a healthy way or using it to address people in our lives.
Finding a way through starts with recognizing your habitual response to anger and turning it around. Ultimately, it’s about becoming more comfortable with our feelings and honoring and expressing them.
Anger Awareness Exercise
Try to remember a time in your life when you felt wronged. Perhaps your rights were violated by an individual or institution, or you felt you’d been treated unfairly. When you recall these times, notice what happens inside your body. What physical sensations do you become aware of?
It’s likely that during this exercise, you will experience at least one of these common physical symptoms of anger:
Clenched jaw
Rapid heartbeat
Increased body temperature
Feeling flushed in the face – turning red
Pressure building up inside of you
A compulsion to move toward what’s making you angry – perhaps to lash out
A sense of empowerment and strength.
If you experience something that’s not on the above list, that’s totally okay, as it means you’re becoming aware of your individual felt experience. You’re developing emotional mindfulness, a skill that can be learned and needs to be practiced to help you recognize when you’ve been triggered and better manage your emotions.
By becoming aware of the ways in which we defend against anger – which often happens without us even knowing it – and then moving through our feelings to the other side, we can better manage situations in which our anger threatens to boil over. And by learning to concentrate on our breathing to keep ourselves grounded, we give ourselves valuable time to calm down and stay centered which, ultimately, will benefit us and those we care about most in our lives.
