What Your Anger is Trying to Tell You
Therapy & EMDR in Colorado Springs
Anger is a misunderstood emotion - many people are afraid of anger or have had painful experiences with it
I remember once seeing a meme that had a little girl sitting on a bridge next to a shadowy figure, and it had a caption that said “I sat with anger long enough that she finally told me her name was grief.”
I had to pause and think about it - something didn’t totally resonate with me in the message. Anger can be part of grief - but I don't think anger is always grief. If I were the creator of this meme, I would rewrite the caption to say…
I sat with anger long enough that she finally told me she was there to protect me.
Anger is often a self protective part of us that holds important information about what we need
I always say that anger is an underrated emotion. I think people are very often scared of anger, or they've had bad experiences with anger. Maybe it was used against them in an abusive way. Or perhaps they were taught in their religion that anger is bad, that it's a sin.
But I think anger is actually one of the most important tools we have at our disposal to protect ourselves and to set healthy boundaries. Anger is often a protective emotion that signals when a boundary has been crossed or a need is unmet.
Anger is one of the most important tools we have at our disposal to protect ourselves and to set healthy boundaries
The thing that's important to know is that you're not going to act on your anger. But you can talk to your anger, and listen to what comes up. You can ask your anger for more information, because your anger usually knows where your lines are being crossed. It senses where a boundary needs to be set. It feels where a need is unfulfilled.
All feelings are just information about what you need.
Anger comes up in any situation where we're in some way feeling violated, harmed, or threatened. If you can get curious about what anger is trying to tell you, it usually offers immense clarity, tremendous courage, and a drive to make things better.
Anger comes with courage
Anger has energy behind it. When we're sad, we want to turn inward, curl up in bed, shut down - we can feel like it’s never going to change. But what happens when we’re angry? We want to get up and do something. We want to fight.
And while fighting isn’t usually the solution, all of that energy can be used to problem solve, make decisions, set boundaries, identify what we need, and know what we can do to meet the need.
But what if my anger causes problems?
It’s important to recognize that you can have a feeling, but then still choose an action that's in alignment with what you value.
If you get curious about the feeling first, you can start to understand where it’s coming from and how you want to respond. The hardest thing about anger is recognizing that reacting before you’ve had a chance to think is likely to cause problems - but responding after you’ve made sense of what’s happening can be productive.
How do I respond to anger constructively?
3 simple ways to respond instead of react when anger feels like it’s taking over…
1. Calm and reset your nervous system first
Anger is a normal emotion to experience when a line is crossed - anger that seems out of proportion to the situation, bigger than you would expect, happens when something from the past gets triggered in the present.
Maybe someone does something and it instantly connects back to feelings from an earlier experience, or to a belief like “I’m not good enough,” or “I’m unloveable,” or “There’s something wrong with me.” The person’s behavior can feel like confirmation of deep insecurities or negative beliefs about yourself and the world around you.
When this happens, it sends us into Fight or Flight. The body feels flooded and the thinking part of the brain goes offline. Before we can use our anger constructively, we have to calm our nervous system, restore a sense of safety, and bring our thinking back online. There are many ways to do this, but the quickest and easiest is slow, deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth until the mind feels quieter and the body feels more relaxed.
2. Get curious
Curiosity is the antidote to overwhelming emotion. Why? Because it brings thinking back online. It creates a little emotional distance from the problem. When we ask ourselves “Why am I feeling this way?” we shift into observing our thoughts and feelings instead of being so swept away by them.
Also - not everything we think or feel is completely true. When we treat feelings as information instead of facts, they become invaluable in helping us find clarity and make decisions that move us forward. Curiosity is the vehicle that gets us from triggering thought loops to calm clear-headedness.
Sometimes it helps to try to separate what’s happening in the present vs what’s coming up from the past. If you can recognize what’s getting triggered from the past, you can try to set it aside. Usually when we do this, the problem at hand feels much more manageable and loses its emotional charge - when we look at the present without the weight of the past attached to it, it feels easier to make decisions in our best interest.
3. Meet the need
Now it’s time to use anger without acting out of anger - to take action or set boundaries where needed.
Sometimes it takes time to come out of Fight or Flight, or feeling highly reactive - it may be important to repeat steps 1 and 2 until there’s enough clarity to take action. This can be hard, because anger will often tell you that you have to act now. Anger can feel like it lit a match and told you to burn everything down - using anger wisely means waiting until there’s a sense of calm before taking action.
Once that happens, decisions can be made. Sometimes there’s a need to communicate about what happened, or to set a boundary with someone verbally. Other times an awareness may arise that something comforting or refreshing is needed just for yourself - responding to anger and meeting needs doesn’t always require seeking resolution with another person.
I like to think about actually sitting down with anger, and talking to anger like it’s a friend. Sometimes if you just ask - What do you want me to know? What do I need to do? - your anger will give you so much wisdom. And of course, you'll know if it tells you to do anything that doesn't align with your values, you don't have to act on that. You can sit with the feeling and digest it until things feel more clear.
Anger can reflect deeper, unhealed wounds
Even when you’re trying your hardest to respond instead of react, anger and high reactivity can persist because of unhealed trauma or pain from the past. This doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and it especially doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you like so many people believe - it may just mean that unprocessed trauma gets triggered more easily and makes it much harder to get out of Fight or Flight. When this is the case, therapy can help heal what’s driving anger that feels out of control.
