We don't all agree that anger can be both harmful and helpful so I'm going to make my case.
Anger is a normal response to threat and injustice, real and perceived.
Useful, functioning anger will increase awareness of your surroundings. It will make you more alert of your body, those around you, and your environment, so that you can react to the approaching threat.
In the moment it can feel good. We feel powerful and confident.
On the flip side.
Later that can erode into guilt and shame as the angry feelings fade.
The further you reach into anger the less reliable your decisions will be. It's meant to be a temporary, emergency measure.
Making decisions from a place where everything looks like a threat is never going to produce a well balanced or reasoned decision.
Holding onto anger long term hurts your physical health, raising blood pressure, creating digestive issues plus the complications this brings.
So why do we?
Anger, like anxiety, is one of the emotions that we don't teach our children to manage. Anger is labelled as naughty, selfish, tiresome and embarrassing, amongst others. How different would our culture be if we could normalise a throw down in a supermarket by getting on the floor with the kid and having a moment to recognise that yeah, this sucks, chores suck, there isn't enough playing in the day and it doesn't seem fair to push past all the bright stuff and not have it all, right now.
Because we don't get taught how to verbalise and metabolise these difficult emotions, most of us have had to make it up as we go along. Most wouldn’t know what to teach a toddler, and honestly, not many adults are very good at letting these emotions fully go.
Effective anger release is a really important skill to learn.
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