ANGER: How to deal with it responsibly.

People are angry. 

​There are lots of reasons why. Among them, the Internet fosters a confrontational environment and our political discussions often display hatred, animosity and denigration on a massive scale. People end up talking (often heatedly) at each other instead of with each other.

In the 1970s, Humanistic Psychology developed as an alternative to Freudian analysis. One of the areas this new type of psychology focused upon is how to deal with anger in a constructive way. Our modern world for the most part ignores the lessons learned from this movement. In this article, I describe approaches that help us understand how to respond to others' anger as well as how to express our own anger responsibly.

Anger translates into engery, often toxic.
Anger expressed responsibly can be transformative.

The most egregious thing I see people do is aim their anger directly at other people. It is a hostile and aggressive action to take, almost as aggressive as challenging someone with a weapon. The effect is often to generate an in kind response at an accelerated level and before long yelling ensues. A parent directing anger personally at a child can inflict severe emotional damage that can affect that child for the rest of their life.

In general, as a society, we do not teach about how to handle feelings, especially negative feelings. Because of this, people who are wonderful and loving can turn into vicious attackers at the drop of a hat. 

  • Driving in traffic seems to bring it up more than anything. When someone cuts us off or does something otherwise dangerous or aggressive, we react by directing our anger right at the person who has wronged us. We may even take it a step further and do something more aggressive in turn toward them, like following them to challenge them. 
  • On the Internet, anger is even more vitriolic with people calling others out using the most extreme language, hurling insults like they are candy. And of course the recipients return in kind.
Anger expressed this way is inflammatory and very contagious.
​It causes incredible tension and anxiety. 

Even though we feel like we don't, we have choices when these things happen. We have a choice when we are attacked personally by someone else verbally and we have a choice when our own anger overwhelms us.

A note about emotion: In general decisions made in the midst of strong and overwhelming emotion often turn out poorly. Just look at the stock market for example. If it plunges, our automatic response is to sell, exactly the wrong thing to do. The same is true when you have had a fall. The fear of falling often results in our choosing to become less active, a choice that actually increases our fall associated risk. Emotions are very important to be aware of but not run by.

How you deal with angry emotions depends greatly on what your upbringing was like. How did your parents handle it? This might be the time to learn to react differently.

Bad ways to deal with being angry:

  • Direct it personally at another: Often the power of this action is strong because heightened emotion carries a verbal punch. If you are on the other end of it you know what I mean.
  • React defensively: Whenever dialog is directed at us personally we automatically react to protect ourselves. We insist we are right. We stop listening and instead react instinctively to defend ourselves.
  • Suppress it: Perhaps you have been taught not to show your anger. Usually that means that you are repressing your feelings. When that happens, the suppressed anger takes it out on your body in other ways, often through elevated blood pressure, coronary heart disease, digestive ailments, depression or a heightened level of inflammation in the body. There is no such thing as eliminating those feelings by concealing them. The feelings always find another way. One possible result: depression which many define as anger turned inward.

I have observed that many who habitually direct their anger at others are not aware of the harm it can cause, Internet interaction aside. These people probably will read this article and think that it does not apply to them. If you are of that opinion I would encourage you to do an experiment. Sit in a chair in front of a mirror and pretend the mirror is another person. Play act being angry at that person. Are you looking at yourself as you express your anger? If you are, you are directing your anger personally. Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. What does it feel like to receive anger from another this way? What does it automatically cause you to do?

Good ways to deal with being angry:

  • Use "I" messages: Instead of confronting others and accusing them of anything, try instead expressing how their conduct affects you. "What you said disturbs me" is quite different than "What you said is disturbing". It changes the path of communication significantly. 
  • Diffuse the anger by directing it at something inanimate: Hit a pillow. Yell into a pillow. Erupt to the cosmos like you are a teapot letting out steam. "Throw" the anger at the ground instead of another person.
  • ​Let others' anger roll off your back. Step aside and let that person's anger pass right by you.​
  • Deflame: In January, 2015 I wrote an article for BALANCE NEWS about how to handle the inflammatory rhetoric that had become common in American political dialog. Treating it similarly to how we handle inflammation yields new insights.

Aikido, a modern Japanese martial art, teaches a fantastic mental approach to deal with others' toxicity. In Aikido, when a force comes at you, either verbally or physically, instead of fighting it or turning it back on the other, simply step aside. The act of stepping aside neuters the oncoming force, causing it to dissipate and even transform.

A personal note: My relationship with my mother was quite quarrelsome. I moved from New York to California in part to get away from it. My mother tended to ask me questions that had a punch to them. Automatically I would rise up defensively in reaction. This went on for most of my adult life until one day...

I had just taken an introductory class in Aikido and had become familiar with the concept of stepping aside when I returned to my parents' home for a visit. My mother, as usual, said something that normally would have triggered an angry response from me. This day, I decided to do something different. I simply stepped aside. I did not react. This produced an immediate result, transforming the relationship with my mother forever! Amazing how transformative something like this can be.

Other BALANCE NEWS articles that address the effects of intense emotion:

Published May 28, 2019