The Good Anger
Anger is usually described as a “negative” emotion. Anger is associated with rage, destruction, hurt, fights and sometimes even leading to the killing. People, who don’t own and understand their anger, end up committing acts they come to regret later. Unintegrated anger in a person is a tragedy in making as evident from a recent headline “N Carolina man pleads guilty to killing 3 Muslim students”. The prosecutor, Montgomery-Blinn, described the killer as “The defendant was an angry and bitter man,”
Anger is an emotion like other primary emotions of fear, hurt, sadness, disgust and joy. The function of emotions is to keep us alive and functioning. Ordinarily, emotions manifest in us as we interact with the world. We can always choose to tap into our emotions and use them to live a more fulfilling life.
The analogy I came up, for myself, is seeing anger akin to a fire in a stove. I can adjust the knob to heat, stir fry, simmer or even burn the food. It is the same fire and its intensity serves different needs. If we are not careful, we can get burns from it or even put the whole house on fire. Both, suppressing anger or not expressing it responsibly can lead to devastating side effects. Either, it can lead to an explosion similar to a pressure cooker blowing its lid off or it can lead to depression when turned on oneself.
Anger cuts both ways. Used consciously, provides focus and energy. Used unconsciously turns into rage or depression. Either you subsume anger or be consumed by anger.
I grew up feeling anger is bad and bought into its common understanding and implications. My first-hand experience of anger was terrifying. I grew up in a household with a dad who suffered from untreated bipolar disorder. His display of anger was violent as it involved yelling, scolding, things breaking or sometimes corporal punishment for me and my brothers.
Dr. Brene Brown defines courage in her book, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame, as
To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.
Courage is also defined as doing something despite the fear. When a person stands against injustice and challenges the power, he or she is speaking up at the cost of his or her safety. And the emotion that enables courage is anger as it transforms fear into the assertion.
I have been working for years now to own, harness and change my relationship with anger. I have grown to appreciate usefulness of anger as one of the primary emotions. Now, I associate anger with action, assertion, expression, fulfillment, intention, personal responsibility and satisfaction. It has been helping me to step out of Drama Triangle, as well.
If you have questions or want to master your emotions, start a conversation with me at saymbash33r@gmail.com or reach out to leaders in Social Emotional Intelligence at the Wright Foundation for the realization of human potential.
