Anger

• We may not like it, but we need anger, and we have the capacity to experience it for a reason.
• For so many of us our anger has created problems for us; we can’t connect to it because we don’t trust it, or when we feel it we do so in ways that we (or others) experience as out of control.
• Anger is a signal that something (internally,  externally, or both) isn’t working for us and needs to change. It can motivate us and help us protect ourselves from being harmed by situations, experiences, or people.  
• When we are not accepting of our anger we are at risk of repeatedly falling into situations that are hurtful to us; we need our anger as a cue to us that something isn’t working. 
• The key to having a productive relationship with our anger is noticing and responding to it in a way that doesn’t create problems for us or our relationships.
• Part of having a harmonious relationship with your anger is learning to sit with it, be curious about it, and identify what it is signaling to you about your needs, limits, expectations, environment, and relationships.
• When you feel anger, it becomes your job to identify what isn’t working about a situation, and address that situation in a manner that holds respect for you; your values, limits, and well being; and the emotional (and physical) well being of those around you. 
• We can be quick to confuse our “trigger” (what set off the anger) with the cause (which might actually be about an expectation, our limits, our needs, etc). The fact that we feel anger means something isn’t working, BUT that something isn’t always the “thing” we get angry at.
• Because anger narrows our focus and intensifies our drive to act it can be counterintuitive to zoom out and sit with the big picture, but often that’s exactly what we need to do. 
• The more we can embrace the need for anger, and accept that it serves a functional purpose, the less we fight it when it arises, and the the more able we are to tame it, and express it in ways that protect us and our relationships.

Many of us have an uncomfortable relationship with our anger. It feels threatening, overwhelming, and potentially damaging to relationships. If you’ve followed this account for sometime you know that I am an advocate of building a harmonious relationship with your inner world, which includes all of your feelings – even anger.

In moments of an immediate threat our anger can help us protect what is ours; we can get physically aggressive or we can yell and intimidate. When we want to maintain positive relationships with others, however, our relationship with our anger needs to shift; we still want to feel it to receive cues about our needs and limits, but we need to be careful about how we express it. This does not mean that we “don’t want to feel angry”, what it means is we need to have our anger AND be thoughtful about what we do from there.

Anger, like all emotions, serves a functional purpose about the intersection of our needs and our environment. When we feel anger we are receiving a cue about feeling exploited, threatened, unsafe, or wronged. It can help to think of your anger as a signal that a limit has been passed, that a boundary is needed, that something needs to change, or that we feel unsafe.

To have a productive relationship with our anger we need to learn to sit with it, be curious about what’s causing it, and then address that cause in a manner that’s consistent with our long term goals and values. Anger has a heat and an energy about it that can make us want to act quickly. It can be intense, but we need to work towards learning to slow down, unpack it, and act on it with care.

This is where the thoughtful reflection and awareness about the function of anger is essential. Your anger has arisen to try and keep you safe. Trust that, then ask yourself what feels threatening and why; what expectation has been violated and how universal is that expectation; what is your anger telling you about the gap between what you need what you are getting; what is making you feel unsafe, exploited, or unseen and how can you address it? Try and be open to both internal and external causes of your anger

Comments:

1. Like all emotions, our ability to feel and manage our anger is informed by prior experiences. Emotions that were welcomed when we developed will be easier for us to access, tolerate, and regulate (i.e. turn the volume down on). Emotions that were not welcome may get twisted and we may have to work to learn how to feel them, or they may only come out in big ways, or jumbled up with other feelings.  If anger wasn’t tolerated in your development, or if it only erupted in ways that were hurtful to relationships, chances are you too have internalized that “anger is bad” or “problematic” or “to be avoided” etc. It’s not uncommon for someone to tell me they don’t feel anger, or they perceive it as bad. In my experience, this generally means anger exists within this person’s inner world, and they need help learning how to feel and tolerate it. Without that tolerance, the anger can shift into guilt, shame, anxiety, or depression. For more on how our development shapes our ability to access and tolerate certain thoughts and feelings see my post on how our brains work as an association machine.  
2. I mention that anger has a heat about it in the post, it most certainly does, and if we don’t have adequate emotion regulation skills or distress tolerance skills one of the only ways we know how to cope with it is to push it down (i.e. pretend it’s not there) or let it build up and erupt. For more on how emotions effect us even when “we don’t feel them” see my post on emotional blocking and its impact. For more on distress tolerance skills see this post on in the moment coping mechanisms, and this one too , and this post on why we need distress tolerance skills. There will be more emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills to come, but one huge way to improve your tolerance of your emotions (and decrease your impulsivity to release them in a burst) is to take up a meditation practice. And of course, any very intense emotion can be quickly tamed with grounding skills (though they work best when you practice them in low intensity situations first).
3. For those of us that have a history of not feeling heard in relationships, we are more prone to express our anger in a way that is “larger”, as an attempt to control situations through intimidation, or as an attempt to be taken seriously and heard. Part of grappling with changing how you express anger, may be grappling with the secondary gains you experience about the ways your expression of anger helps you feel heard, empowered, and in control. Read more more here on secondary gains and how to work through them.
4. Anger and conflict is inevitable in relationships. For tips on how to manage moments of anger in relationships in a constructive manner see posts on problematic dynamics to avoid, the importance of taking time in conflict, and this post on fair fighting.
5. I mention in the post that all of our feelings are signals about the intersection of our needs and our environment. It’s true. For more on how we can learn from our emotions see this post on emotions as traffic signals.
   Moments of anger can push us out of our window of tolerance (and leave us vulnerable to overly internalizing or externalizing. Read here for more on how to recognize when we (or others) are internalizing or externalizing . 
6. Do you have a hard time with your anger? Perhaps it feels unjustified or not ok. See my post on acceptance for help working to trust it.
7. I talk in the post about how our “short term” selves often want to release our anger, at the expense of our “long term selves”. For more on this concept and how to grapple with these different priorities see my post on our long and short term selves.