Anger: Friend or Foe?
I often speak with clients, usually early in our professional relationship, who warn me they don’t want to completely eradicate their anger. I’ve often heard a new client say, “My emotions are a part of me! Why should I just get rid of them?” These folks tend to cling to their anger - treasuring it like a favored tool in their garage. In one sense, this is understandable: although their anger has caused difficulties for them, they can usually think of situations in which the anger helped them. For example, they might have been bullied and lashing out may have made the bully leave them alone. On the other hand, some folks fear their anger so much, they bury it deep inside and never confront it. Which of these two approaches is right? Is anger good or bad? Friend or foe?
The truth is, anger is, in itself, rarely good nor bad, but a force or energy directing us toward change. Anger can often be the motivation that leads a person to address injustices, whether those injustices are in one’s romantic relationships or in society. The key to making anger our friend instead of our foe, of turning that anger to healthy, productive ends, is how how we address the emotion. NAMA breaks down the ways to address anger into 3 major approaches: burying, escalating, and managing.
If we fear our anger, we’ll usually lean toward burying it. Burying, stuffing, or hiding our emotions often results in us feeling unfulfilled or bullied and it is commonly associated with poor mood, insomnia, and even GI problems. Escalating – which includes yelling and screaming, threatening violence, or destruction of property - as you might expect, can result in scaring or harming others, disrupting our relationships, and even legal consequences. Managing our anger, on the other hand, is the conscious effort to let our anger motivate healthy and socially acceptable behaviors.
Remember: if our anger is well-managed, we won’t be seeking vengeance or destruction. We will clearly and calmly express our dissatisfaction with the state of things. We will have good boundaries. We will be assertive, not aggressive or a pushover.
If you’d like to learn more about how to make anger your friend and not your foe, give us a call!
