We Need to Talk About Anger

We need to talk about anger.

We live in a culture that, in general, does not like to talk about anger.

We may talk about things like “frustration” and “frustration tolerance.” We may admit to getting annoyed sometimes, or perturbed. We might even dare to acknowledge that we’re “pissed off.”

But dare to admit that you are angry and you might find yourself receiving suggestions for anger management classes to get your anger “under control.”

Consider that it’s your desire to get — or keep — things “under control” that contributes to your anger.

Anger is a natural response to not getting what we want, and to feeling that we can’t control a situation.

Anger is a natural human emotion, same as joy, happiness, love, and fear.

In fact, it’s a sign of just how much we devalue and dismiss anger that most people would sooner admit to fear than anger. They are related, of course: unacknowledged fear is often underneath anger.

But I’m talking about your pure moments of anger.

Someone wronged you. Your efforts on a project failed to generate the results you wanted. Nothing is going your way. There are situations in the world impacting people you love and you have no control or influence over the situation.

You’re angry. You have every right to be.

The Real Problem With Anger

I’m going to suggest to you that the problem is not your anger, but how you channel it, how you express it, how you use it — or how you allow it to use you.

Anger is often conflated with violence, because this is often how people — men, especially — express their anger. Unexpressed and unexamined anger has no place to go until it boils over into rage or explodes in a firey crash.

In a culture that doesn’t teach us how to express anger constructively or create safe spaces for us to even acknowledge our anger, some people resort to the only source of expression they know.

When we don’t know how to constructively express and work with anger, it can wreak havoc in the body.

We Need Anger Expression Skills

This just reinforces the need for us to create safe spaces for conversations about anger and to teach skills in how to work with anger.

We cannot avoid anger. Instead of anger “management” skills we need to teach anger expression skills. We must learn — and teach — how to work with anger.

Anger, when used constructively, can be the fuel for advocacy on behalf of people who are marginalized and suppressed. It can ignite the sparks of change. Anger can certainly create destruction, but it can also spark innovation and rebirth.

Anger has wisdom buried within it.

Noticing the things that ignite your anger can serve as vital clues for where you might do your best work and make your biggest contribution.

But for any of that to happen, we need to talk about it.