Why We Should Be More Sensitive to Our Feelings of Anger
The main reason why feelings of Anger have a bad reputation is because when we’re consumed by them we become irrational, out-of-control, and potentially violent. And because of this, we’ve been taught that we should make every effort to control or even suppress those feelings. That those feelings are “bad” and we’re “bad” for feeling them. Unfortunately, this is completely the opposite of what we should do.
Anger can be broken down into three zones: Nonreactive, Reaction Threshold, and Reactive
In the Nonreactive Zone, we’re irritated or slightly annoyed. But we’re composed and clear headed and we can still make rational choices. Something is bothering us but it’s only a minor issue.
In the Reaction Threshold, this is where we typically acknowledge our feelings of anger. We’re being pulled between the Nonreactive and Reactive Zone. We’re still able to maintain our composure but, if we’re pushed any further, we’ll blow up and react to whatever is bothering us.
In the Reactive Zone, we’re in a rage. We’ve lost our composure and we’re in complete reaction. We’re consumed by our feelings of anger and we’ve become irrational and out-of-control.
Our feelings of anger are the same feelings regardless of the zone they’re in. The only differences are the strength and volume of them. So if we’ve developed the habit of ignoring and suppressing them, we’re ignoring and suppressing them regardless of the zone they’re in. And this is the problem.
Our feelings of anger are at their weakest in the Nonreactive Zone so they’re easier to ignore and suppress. And if we only acknowledge our feelings of anger when we can no longer ignore or suppress them, it usually means we’re already in the Reaction Threshold. We’ve already missed the opportunity to resolve whatever issues we were having when they were only minor ones in the Nonreactive Zone.
Imagine coming from outside wearing a winter jacket and entering a nice warm house. Once we stepped inside, we naturally started feeling warm. But because we ignored these feelings, we eventually started feeling hot and then uncomfortably hot. By deciding to continue ignoring these feelings, we eventually started to uncontrollably sweat.
At the beginning, our body temperature was in the Nonreactive Zone. We felt slightly bothered by the warmth but it was something we could tolerate and ignore. When we started to become hot and then uncomfortably hot, we were in the Reaction Threshold. It was still tolerable but if we didn’t do anything or the temperature didn’t cool down, we’d eventually fall into the Reactive Zone. And, once we fell into the Reactive Zone, we went into reaction and started to sweat.
Because we ignored our feelings when we we’re only feeling warm and since the reasons why we were feeling warm didn’t change, the feelings simply got stronger and louder. As we continued to ignore those feelings, we progressively got hotter and more uncomfortable until we reached the point where we started to sweat.
Had we done something at the beginning, like removing our jacket, we would have been able to resolve the issue without ever going into the Reaction Threshold or Reactive Zone. And we could resolve our feelings of anger in a similar way.
Instead of learning to ignore or suppress our feelings of anger, we should learn to become more sensitive to them so we can feel them sooner in the Nonreactive Zone rather than later in the Reaction Threshold or Reactive Zone. By doing this we can take action and resolve things that are bothering us when they’re still only minor issues rather than waiting for them to get bigger or to the point where they’re so big that they push us into reaction.
