Anger has been much maligned in our culture, due to the harm done by its destructive cousin, rage. But anger—like sorrow, joy, and fear—is a basic human feeling that in its pure, direct, boundaried expression can have positive impact. Furthermore, such expression can cleanse both the person carrying the issue and his or her relationship with the other person.
The suppression of anger can cause a lot of trouble, giving rise to virulent progeny such as malice, passive aggression, hostility, rage, sabotage, hate, blame, guilt, controlling behavior, shame, self-blame, and self-destruction. Passive aggression—hit and run rage subtly disguised as sweetness or concern—has the particular characteristic of causing harm without the initiator looking wrong.
As a rule, my clients have spent years suppressing anger. They’ve pushed it so far down that they don’t even know they are angry. Most of their feelings come forth in the form of tears, sadness, or self-blame. But if anger is the true feeling, sadness or any other stand-in will never fix it.
True, direct, boundaried anger flares, then fades. It gets brighter, and then it is done.
In contrast, rage, hostility, malice, passive aggression, and hate tend to breed. Because the focus of each of these expressions is directed at some external target, the true feeling—anger or grief—ends up not being expressed.
This is why rage never gets used up. Rage begets rage. When a person gives way to rage, it feeds on itself and gets hotter and more destructive. Hate crimes escalate because rage becomes directed at the wrong event or wrong person. The original anger about the true cause gets lost.
If I’m really angry at my spouse, but instead I yell at my goldfish, nothing moves forward. When we take out anger on an innocent being, we haven’t fixed anything.
Even if my cronies and I were to organize a society against goldfish, and get people to wear leather jackets with a bold slash across a leering goldfish, and picket pet stores with signs denouncing the slimy nature of the average fish, my rage would only increase. Goldfish would just be a patsy for some underlying righteous anger that I was not expressing appropriately.
A surefire way to tell the difference between anger and rage is that rage takes prisoners. Rage doesn’t back off until the other person is hurt. Rage seeks to draw blood, or its emotional equivalent. It needs to cause damage before it starts evaporating. Allowed to escalate, rage can eventually kill.
Anger is different. Anger is an energy that flows from an internal place. It does not need a target. It does not seek to hurt others.
In order for anger to dissipate, we must feel our true feeling, express it accurately, and talk about the true event. If I say I’m angry because my sister is late, but I’m actually angry because I feel her pets are more important to her than I am, I won’t feel relief, even if she apologizes and promises to be early next time.
Only the truth will shift a feeling. In addition, the truth is an opportunity to let someone else know us. Thus, it improves our chances of being treated better in the future.
If I’m mad that you took the last of the milk, but I say I’m mad because you didn’t mail my letter, I’m not going to feel better. Plus, if you care enough about me to want to change, you’ll be paying attention to getting my letters mailed while guzzling up all the milk. I’m bound to be angry again.
Expressing our true feeling about a true incident lightens and enlightens. All the energy tied up in keeping the anger contained is released. After we’ve been angry in a healthy way, we have more energy.
In addition, we enlighten ourselves and the person we’re talking to. They get accurate information about something that matters to us, and they might change their behavior in response. (Even if they don’t, just the act of talking about our concern will help.)
When we express anger in a direct, healthy, boundaried way, we learn something about ourselves. We get a new slant on an old problem; we access a memory that has been in the shadows; we may even discover a subtle way in which we set up the problem ourselves.
A thousand times I’ve heard clients say, “It won’t do any good if I tell her I’m angry. She doesn’t hear me. It won’t make any difference.”
It’ll make a difference to you. Changing the other person is not the primary reason for expressing anger. The primary reason is that it’s there, and it’s the truth. Like any other feeling, expressing it lets you release it.
Anger has good boundaries when it is expressed with direct, clear, honest words about the true issue, with your focus on your own insides, rather than on the person who triggered the anger.
Here are some examples of clearly expressed anger:
“I am angry.”
“I am angry that you took the last piece of bread without telling me. I was so disappointed when I went to make the turkey sandwich that I was looking forward to all week, and the bread was gone.”
“I’m angry that you laughed when I told you something that matters to me.”
“I am angry that you said you would do this and you haven’t. I am angry, angry, angry.”
“I am angry at the choices you made. I am angry that you let this simmer between us an extra two days instead of engaging emotionally and letting us take care of this.”
“Grrr.”
A grrr is neither self-parody nor rage, but simply an expression of anger without accusation, blame, or apology. Sometimes we have a physical need when angry to make an angry noise. Growling—expressing anger through sound—can sometimes release the energy of anger swiftly.
In expressing healthy anger, it’s natural to work back and forth between the specific behaviors that led to the anger and the feeling itself.
The boundaries that keep anger healthy include the following:
• Let your listener set the physical distance between the two of you. If the other person needs to move apart from you in order to feel comfortable hearing your anger, don’t make that another issue.
• Avoid “you” statements. Don’t call the other person names. Don’t demean, undermine, degrade, disparage, or put down the other individual. Use “I” statements: I feel, I want, I hurt.
• Avoid sarcasm. That edges you into indirect anger and shifts your focus to the other person.
• Never, ever hit, squeeze, pinch, shake, yank, punch, corner, physically or emotionally threaten, throw, slap, or beat the other person. This is rage. If you do any of the above even once, get help. Talk to a therapist or counselor as soon as you can.
• If you need to express your anger physically, that’s fine, but use an inanimate object. To help the energy come out (and to help the other person stay calm), announce what you’re about to do. “I’ve got to hit some pillows now.” “I’ve got to punch the couch.” “I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs for a couple of minutes.” “I’ve got to walk around and shake my hands and yell.” Even while doing this, keep looking inward at what’s going on inside your own body.
• Protect children from being frightened by the working-out process. If children are in the house and they haven’t been taught what happens with healthy anger, have your conversation where they can’t hear you. If a baby is in the house, you can still have the conversation, but without raising your voices. (High volume is not essential to moving through anger.) Or get a baby-sitter and go someplace where you can be free to be loud.
• You are responsible for the feeling you have and your expression of it. You are also liable for any harm done if you go too far. It is never accurate to say, “You made me hit you.”
• It’s not easy to listen to someone who is powerfully angry. Don’t expect to be heard perfectly.
• If the other person interrupts you, sidetracks you, misses the point, drags up unrelated events, or responds to the small stuff but misses your main message, say so. Ask them to return to listening.
• When you’ve completed expressing yourself and the other person has listened reasonably well, say a genuine thank you. If you’ve gone deep enough within yourself, you’ll feel a shift inside, sometimes a rush of relief or energy. The other person’s listening played an important part, so acknowledge that.
BOUNDARIES FOR LISTENING TO SOMEONE ELSE’S ANGER
• Listen respectfully as long as the expression of anger is direct, honest, and clean.
• If you start to feel scared or too close to the energy of the other person’s anger, move back. If the room is too small, go to another one, or go outside, or stand in different rooms in such a way that you can see each other through the doorway. (Again, be careful to stay out of earshot of children unless they’ve been taught about anger.)
• Do not accept sarcasm or any comment that is demeaning, degrading, or undermining. Give a warning by holding up your hand like a stop sign. If the demeaning behavior doesn’t stop, say, “I’m willing to listen later when you’re able to talk in a healthy way. For now, I’m going to do something else.” Then do it. Never listen to sarcasm and “you” statements for more than a few minutes.
• If you feel defensive, the best thing to say is, “I feel defensive.” Changing the subject, using humor inappropriately, focusing on minutiae while ignoring the big picture, or dragging up some old fight are not likely to help.
• Listen as best you can, trying to remember that the other person is a human being with legitimate concerns. Listening to someone else does not invalidate your side or constitute agreement.
• If you really did whatever the other person is mad about, admit it and apologize.
OTHER ANGER BOUNDARIES
1. Deal with issues in a timely fashion. Don’t put off working them out.
2. Do not vent your anger at Steve by badmouthing him to Susan, who knows both of you. Sooner or later, this snake will come back to bite you.
3. If the person you are angry with is dead or impossible to communicate with, you can still vent your anger. Express the whole enchilada to a trustworthy friend or a competent professional.
4. Good anger boundaries include:
• Speaking your feelings
• Focusing your attention on your insides, not on externals
• Physically expressing your anger by pacing, gesturing, or hitting inanimate objects, such as pillows
• Announcing your intentions before making a loud noise or beating on a couch or pillow
• Identifying the actual issue that triggered the anger
• “I” statements
• Letting the listener determine their physical distance from you
• Protecting the children in the house from fear
5. Good anger boundaries do not include:
• Disparaging, demeaning, or shaming the other person
• Indirect, passive-aggressive comments
• Rage
• Physically hurting the other person
• Threatening the other person
• Sarcasm
• “You” statements
• Scaring the children
By keeping anger within healthy limits and expressing it in a healthy fashion, you strengthen your own integrity, and protect the wholeness of your relationships as well.
Healthy anger is like a thunderstorm that cleanses the air and returns humidity to a comfortable level. It may flash and thunder, but it’s always flowing from that central place, opening a fresh, easy comfort behind it.