Anger Part 2: Toxic or Tonic for Health?
Erik’s anger wasn’t obvious at first glance. He was polite and conversational, and took an interest in almost everyone he met. He had a wide variety of interests and invested his time and energy in causes that were important to him.
It wasn’t until someone disagreed with him that his inner composure would begin to falter. It could be anything from which route to take to a restaurant to a significant Supreme Court decision. The tension in his voice was palpable.
In some ways, Erik’s anger served him. His passion motivated him to act purposefully and advocate for countless others. Yet, the spark within him could ignite a blazing fire at even the most inappropriate times. He unintentionally wounded others with hurtful remarks, and burnt bridges he (figuratively) helped to construct.
Most significantly, his anger created a hostile internal environment. His capacity to experience joy, gratitude, and connection with others diminished, as he set out to vengefully right the “wrongs” in the world.
How anger hurts us:
If we’re not paying attention, it causes collateral damage to our health and relationships.
Anger takes various forms. We are most familiar with explicit expressions of anger like outrage, frustration, irritability, impatience, wrath, and resentment.
Overt and dysregulated anger can result in impulsive acts of violence, hateful speech, destructive belief systems, and contagion effects with devastating consequences.
When we flounder in fury, without inquiring what lies at the root, we also risk the likelihood that our anger will backfire or hit an unintended target.
Displaced anger may inadvertently hurt ourselves or those closest to us (our partners, children, parents, pets, etc).
Anger that is disproportionate in response to an error or situation is typically about something else altogether. A screaming parent at a little league game or a driver who endlessly lays on their horn at a busy intersection can indicate anger that is misdirected or displaced. Erik’s anger at the injustices in the world could rear up at a partner during an innocent card game or someone who accidentally bumped into him at a concert.
Like playing “whack-a-mole” at the video arcade, efforts to stifle or suppress anger often pop up elsewhere.
Suppressing it by attempting to avoid, deny, or ignore our emotional experience is futile. It almost always makes its way to the surface, somehow, someway.
Passive aggression like jealousy, victimization, criticism, hopelessness, or dissociation are ineffective attempts to contain anger, and can be emotionally toxic for us and our relationships.
Some people direct their anger externally, while others are more inclined to express anger internally or toward themselves. Internalized anger may appear less obvious, but can be just as damaging, often resulting in self-sabotage or self-destructive behaviors like addictions, substance abuse, etc.
Anger, like steam in a pressure cooker, needs a way to vent. According to Eastern approaches like Ayurveda or TCM, we accumulate excessive heat ("fire") in our body when we have a disproportionate amount of anger or don’t effectively discharge or express it. Over time, this inflammation negatively affects our bodily systems.
Medically documented symptoms of dysregulated anger include digestive challenges, metabolism issues, stress hormone imbalances, and cardiovascular problems.
On the other end of the continuum, repressed or insufficient anger can also impact our wellbeing in unsuspecting ways. Just as an underactive immune system makes us susceptible to illness, an underactive anger response can cause deficits in energy or motivation that mimic depression. Symptoms may include sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and hopelessness.
Whether it’s a lack of self-awareness or actively suppressing our anger, denying it is a way of disconnecting from ourselves. It’s a form of self-abandonment.
Although most of us don’t enjoy being angry, acknowledging our anger and its impact on us is an important part of defusing it’s harm and harnessing its power.
How anger helps us:
It’s protective!
Part of our survival response, anger is instinctively designed to keep ourselves, and those we care about, safe.
When the amygdala, or alarm bell in our brain sounds, the defensive or protective mode of our nervous system gets activated. Just as a healthy immune system distinguishes between healthy cells versus invasive or threatening cells, personal boundaries help us to distinguish what feels safe for us.
When we feel threatened, thwarted, or provoked, anger signals danger, wrongdoing, or pain. It acts as a knight in shining armor, rushing in to defend from harm and to correct situations that seem unsafe or unfair. It helps us to discern and defend our values as well as those who are important to us.
Our anger communicates with us when our boundaries are inadvertently crossed or blatantly violated.
In an effort to keep us, and/or those we care about, safe, this internal knight is especially concerned with autonomy and respect. We may feel the need to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of, misunderstood, or misrepresented. Or we may be compelled to advocate for someone else’s rights, safety, or dignity.
Creating and honoring healthy boundaries for ourselves, depends on our ability to differentiate (ie. to acknowledge our beliefs and experiences as separate and unique from others’).
Where do I end and you begin? Can we respect the space between us?
Lack of differentiation results in blurred or ambiguous boundaries and a precarious type of inter- or intra-personal fusion. When we don’t have clarity, we may become susceptible to relationship complications like enmeshment or codependency.
Without appropriate differentiation, we might project our opinions, beliefs, and values onto the people around us, or set unfair expectations. Conversely, if our boundaries are too porous, we may tend to be taken advantage of, manipulated, or pressured to do things that might not feel right for us. We may over-identify with the feelings and needs of others, or chronically forfeit our own needs in order to accommodate others. These dynamics often result in relationship challenges like power struggles, resentment, and chronic conflict.
Paradoxically, when we understand how to establish clear and appropriate boundaries for ourselves, the more we are able to honor the perspectives of others.
Our interpersonal relationships benefit from our ability to differentiate. We tend to take things less personally and react less defensively. We develop mutual respect, cultivate empathy, and create opportunities to resolve conflicts peacefully. We may even find more common ground, and become increasingly aware of the interconnectedness of our shared human experience.
It’s mobilizing!
In its most influential form, anger leads to agency and can take the form of assertiveness and advocacy.
It’s tempting to take anger at face value, but frequently, anger acts as a subconscious decoy. We may not be aware that our anger is actually masking an implicit experience of fear, pain, depression, or powerlessness.
In the words of Ruth King, “Anger is initiatory, but it is not transformative.” It’s a mobilizing emotion that inspires action, and can instinctively cause us to react to a perceived threat by attacking or counterattacking. However, if we take time to understand what is happening behind our reaction, we engage the more evolved and rational areas of the brain. In doing so we can shift anger toward a purposeful response.
Our anger not only connects us to our values (eg. fairness, integrity, compassion, etc) and what we care about most (eg. relationships, reputation, etc), anger also motivates us to take action.
When we are in danger, our fight-or-flight instincts direct blood into the muscles in our arms and legs so we can mobilize to escape or defend ourselves. Similarly, when we experience something that threatens our sense of self or violates the rights of others we care about, anger becomes the catalyst to do something about it.
In her book SuperNormal, clinical psychologist Meg Jay states, “(Anger is) an energizer and organizer, moving us to close the gap between the way things are and the way we think they should be.” Erik has turned his anger into action by volunteering at community shelters for people who are unhoused and traveling to border areas to distribute water and first aid supplies. He has advocated in political arenas for human and civil rights of marginalized communities. His anger was the impetus and inspiration for his activism.
Jay explains how anger and happiness both activate the brain in surprisingly similar ways. “While happy people tend to believe good things will come their way, those who feel angry are more likely to believe that they will make good things happen for themselves,” she states.
Anger can fuel us with strength and courage. Rather than giving up or giving in, it invites us to resist or refuse. It urges us to focus our efforts, speak up, move forward, persevere, adjust, and ultimately affect change. Though anger may not be transformative by itself, when met with creative problem-solving, attuned communication, and empathy, transformation is inevitable.