What do we do with our anger?
Venting
“How are you?” she asked, at the beginning of our Zoom appointment.
“Angry,” I blurted out.
On that day, we were both angry about a series of political decisions in our province.
“This misery was completely preventable,” I fumed.
But somehow, being “right” did not make me feel better.
My colleague and I had a specific task to accomplish during our call. Typically, we would say a few chit chat things and then get to work on the task.
Chit chat? We spent the first ten minutes of our call being angry. More accurately, with me in angry venting mode.
“Okay, enough venting,” we finally said, and shifted gears.
A lot of it going around
I regretted that I wasted precious time venting when we could have been working on our project. I wished I had just acknowledged I was feeling angry and quickly moved to the task.
I’m noticing, though, that a lot of people are expressing anger these days. On social media and in conversations, lots of us are angry about lots of things in our personal lives and in the world.
Maybe you’re angry too. There are topics people are angry about, but there’s also just “generic anger.”
Lynn McTaggart recently posted these statistics.
“In America, polls show that three-quarters of people are upset or angry about something, such as:
“· 74 % of women get angry at news every day
“· 80 % of people are out of control in a car
“· 71 % get furious on social media
“· 45 % get furious on the job
“In Britain, where Brexit caused two-thirds of Remainers to say that it affected their mental health, a recent poll gave Boris Johnson and his government a mere 3% approval rating, largely for the way that they’ve handled COVID.”
In Canada, we’re cranky about an unnecessary federal election being called in the middle of a pandemic. In my province, we’re angry about extreme restrictions having to be put in place once again because our provincial leader disappeared and did nothing for more than two months while COVID cases surged.
Something is even more scary than our anger at external circumstances. Groups of us are pitted against other groups of us. Divisiveness and polarization are increasing.
Not who I want to be
I don’t like being a flame-thrower, which is how I felt about my angry venting. I did not have a speck of anger about anything to do with my colleague, but she was still subjected to my venting.
It’s totally appropriate to feel anger – or any emotion. On the other hand, we are responsible for how we express our emotions. I was not pleased that I spent unnecessary time venting.
Here are some things I’ve been reflecting about since my venting day.
What came before anger
Sometimes we move to anger so quickly that we miss what came before it.
Joyce Irvine said, “Anger is a secondary emotion. What came before anger was some other emotion.” Often, the emotion that came before was fear or grief.
Rachael Boehm makes these points about anger:
“Anger is a natural and normal human emotion. Whether you feel slight irritation or great rage, all anger stems from a sense of violation. Some “should” of yours, some expectation or rule, has been trampled.
“If you’re angry, you feel threatened. The most common response to a threat is fight-or-flight. When your life is in danger, your brain quickly increases energy and turns to instinct to handle the threat. Most of the time, though, your life isn’t actually in danger and you don’t get to expend that energy fighting or running. You only feel angry or anxious.”
Gifts of anger
Rachel Boehm says, “Your anger is a clue. It reveals your values. Your anger can help you better get to know yourself and your boundaries.”
In addition, she says, “Anger energizes. It can stimulate you to overcome anxiety, fight for what you want, and work for change. There is strength in anger. As Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘Anger to people is like gas to the automobile—it fuels you to move forward and get to a better place. Without it, we would not be motivated to rise to a challenge.’”
Most efforts to make the world better probably began because somebody was angry and decided to work for change.
Moving beyond anger #1: compassion for others
Lynn McTaggart says, “We could continue yelling at each other. But there’s another way. In my Intention Experiments and Power of Eight® groups, I’ve discovered a fast-track method to healing these deep divides. And it all has to do with a little understood nerve inside your body.”
The vagus nerve has three functions:
to connect with all the communication systems involved with caretaking;
to slow down your heart rate, calming the effects of any fight-or-flight activity, the body’s response to stress of any sort; and
to initiate the release of oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in love, trust, intimacy and devotion.
In experiments, one group of students were shown photos of malnourished children. As soon as the students saw the photos, their vagus nerves went into high gear. The same effect was not produced in another set of students, who were shown photos designed to elicit be-true-to-your-school pride, such as images of landmarks on campus or of sporting events.
The most interesting effect occurred when the students were shown photos of 20 other groups of strangers who were markedly different from them.
Those students love-bombed by their own vagus nerve reported feeling a far greater sense of similarity to all the diverse groups compared to the students who had been exposed to photos designed to elicit pride.
Moving beyond anger #2: The Challenge Response
Fight-or-flight produces a burst of energy but so does the challenge response. In both cases, your body increases breathing and certain hormones to allow you to overcome what you’re facing—often with strength you didn’t even know you had.
With a challenge response you get the energy and confidence boost, but with heightened thinking power and creativity. You have more energy and greater focus. It’s like the difference between a brushfire and a laser beam. There’s a lot of energy in both. One causes destruction; the other is a tool.
Here are two things you can do to switch from fight-or-flight to the challenge response:
1. Change how you stand. In fight or flight, your breathing speeds up and gets shallow. If you’re ready to fight, your body language is twitchy and aggressive. If you want to flee or freeze, you shrink and stiffen. You can take control of your emotions by moving into the same confident posture that comes automatically when you’re facing a challenge you expect to win: stand up tall, breathe deeply, open your body language, focus your eyes.
2. Remember the point. Keep your values and what you are fighting for in the front of your mind. You cannot control the outcome but you can control your actions and words. Figure out how you want to BE; what value you want to embody and communicate; and that will inform your words and actions.
Moving beyond anger #3: Use anger as fuel
In my venting conversation, my colleague helped me move to a different place by saying, “Let’s use that anger as fuel.”
And that’s exactly what we did. We did not try to use the energy of anger to deal with what I was angry about. We had no power to influence that. What we did do, though, was direct that energy to a project that lit up both of us. It was so fun!
A resource
My all time favourite book about anger – especially women’s anger – is “Rage” by Ruth King. She had me on page 1 when she said, “I’ve been angry my whole life. For most of my life I didn’t know it.”
She’s identified six “Rage Disguises” – Dominance, Devotion, Depression, Dependence, Defiance and Distraction.
I did not find the book easy reading – not because it was difficult reading but because it was uncomfortable to recognize my patterns.
And in conclusion…
Anger is part of the human condition. It’s an energy. Like nuclear energy, it can be used for good, for purposes that build and heal, or it can be used for evil, for destruction and death.
We are going to be angry. That’s a given. As wise women, we can get better and better at using our anger as fuel to make a positive difference.
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This week’s reflection questions
What’s something that makes you angry?
What does that tell you about your values?
How do you use the energy of that anger as fuel for something good?