Transforming Anger

Anger is a natural human emotion that is evolutionarily wired into human beings for purposes of survival and protection. But sometimes our anger can feel unwanted or uncontrollable. We become angry at ourselves for feeling angry, and it activates the nervous system hijacking our thoughts and behaviours. It can take a toll on our mental and physical health.

We are conditioned to believe that anger is inherently bad. Anger is an action emotion - we want to do something when we feel it and when we’re on the receiving end of it. Yes, there are situations and many instances of anger that boarder on homicidal and can be harmful to others, but more often anger surfaces in response to be wronged, rejected, used, or betrayed in some way.

Behind the anger there might be many other feelings including shame, guilt, jealousy, helplessness or loneliness. Anger can be a mask for deeper emotions that feel unbearable or unacceptable. I recently worked with a patient who shared that he “just wanted his anger to go away”. He hated his anger, and was deeply ashamed of it when it arose.

Instead of helping him disown his anger, I asked him to befriend it. To invite it in for a conversation. When dialoguing with this angry part of himself he was able to provide it with the space and compassion it needed to feel validated and even vindicated. Like a person needing to be witnessed in their pain, this angry part of him melted and transformed into something else.

When the sadness underneath can be felt, the anger moves over creating the room for other feelings to surface. The anger has been transformed into something that can be healed.

Anger is a strong indicator that something is not right or safe. It sends messages to the brain to fight and defend, to make things whole. This alarm signal is essential for survival and for having healthy boundaries. Our anger tells us to protect ourselves from harm.

So listen to your anger, give it space to breath in the same way you would a campfire. Let the flames dance a little bit, let yourself have a moment of being angry.

Then work toward understanding what is really going on. What are the deeper feelings that need to be felt and understood? When we deny ourselves the right to be angry, we deny our pain. We all have the right and need to feel and own our anger. It’s an important human experience, but over a long period of time it is not sustainable.