What is Anger?
When we look at all the things that make us angry and why they make us angry, we can find a common thread to define what anger is. And what anger is the feeling of powerlessness.
For example, if someone is making fun of us and we tell them to stop and they stop. We don’t feel angry. But if we tell them to stop and they don’t, then we might start feeling angry. If we’re driving to work and we’re a little bit late. If almost every light for us is green, we won’t feel angry. But if almost every light for us is red, then we might start feeling angry. Or, if we’ve spent some time building a shelf we bought from Ikea and on the first try, we got it right. We won’t feel angry. But if we’ve built and rebuilt the shelf three times and we still got it wrong, then we might start feeling angry.
From being slightly bothered to be in a blind rage, whatever the intensity of anger we’re feeling, there is a part of us feeling and believing that we’re powerless. If we’re frustrated because the grocery line is moving too slowly, we’re frustrated because we want the line to go faster but we feel we’re powerless to do anything about it.
And this feeling and belief that we’re powerless when we’re angry become even more obvious when we factor in blame. When we’re angry, we’re in a victim state because something or someone is to blame for why we’re angry. By blaming them, it becomes their responsibility to do something about it. Meaning we’ve made ourselves powerless since it’s no longer up to us to fix the issue but the person or thing we’re blaming. And, ironically, the angrier we get, the more we want to blame making us more powerless which causes us to get angrier.
Anger is the feeling of powerlessness but powerlessness is an illusion because we always have a choice. We have the choice to Love It, Leave It, or Change It.
If the line is taking too long, we have the choice to change the time we go there to a time that’s less busy. We can also choose to leave the store and start shopping somewhere else that has more staff. Or we can choose to love the time we have in line by chatting with someone next to us. Instead of looking for someone or something to blame, we empower ourselves by looking at the choices we can make instead.
Our feelings of anger come from the perspective we’re choosing to take. If we choose to be a victim, then those feelings are feelings of anger because we’re feeling powerless. But if we choose to be empowered, then those feelings stop being feelings of anger but feelings telling us to make a choice.
