Self-Awareness and Anger

Today, I wanted to talk about Self-Awareness, one of the Four Wings of Transformation, and how it can inform one of our most common emotions, anger. In this blog, I will discuss this emotion from an individual standpoint and address it from a global perspective. I apologize in advance if I confuse my readers in the process. 

Our emotions are not good or bad. They are messengers. Strong feelings offer the possibility of self-awareness. They contain information about who we are, what we want, and our relationship with others.

If not correctly processed and expressed, anger can result in some of the most primal and aggressive forms of human behaviour. And we too often see this played out in movies, society, and the media. We have yet to quite get a handle on anger, and the truth is it too often controls and overwhelms us. 

We've seen way too many examples of this lately. This may be because some of us feel that simply expressing our anger using our words is not enough.  

If our emotions are to serve us as a society, and they should, two things need to happen. 

We must learn how to understand, process, and communicate our emotions. And we must learn how to listen with compassion and respect when others express theirs.   

I will focus on the former in this article, but I stress that the latter is just as crucial. 

"We need to learn how to understand, process, and communicate our emotions."

What causes us to get angry? There are many common triggers to anger. 

• fear of rejection or abandonment
• a sense that our needs, wants or even fundamental rights are not respected
• fear of not being heard
• impatience
• feeling our opinions or our efforts are not appreciated
• injustice
• worrying about our problems

Often, we do not even get to the point where we've understood exactly why we are angry. We go immediately into a fight or flight mode. Our lizard brain takes over, and we react to our feelings.  

Anger = Counterproductive Reaction

These knee-jerk reactions are not always in our best interest or the best interest of those around us. 

Some of these reactions might include:

• yelling, screaming, name-calling
• lashing out with accusations and blame
• talking trash behind someone's back
• revenge
• and at worst, violent, aggressive or dangerous behaviour

When we go immediately from anger to reaction, we usually make things worse.

Adding a filtering element between the anger and the reaction allows us to process and find a more suitable way of dealing with the offence. We let the prefrontal lobe part of our brain step in and manage the primal lizard brain.  

Anger + Filtering elements = Productive and Peaceful Actions and Solutions 

So, what are those filtering elements? The following questions can help identify them.

1. What is the underlying cause of the anger?
2. What is the underlying need or want?
3. How can this information be communicated calmly and productively? What tools and resources are available?
4. What is the feeling possibly hidden behind the anger? Fear? Sadness? Frustration? Worry?
5. Once the underlying emotion is processed and expressed, what would be the ideal outcome, the desired result?

Anger often has one or more underlying emotions. These underlying emotions are indicators of the root cause of our feelings. The following "Feelings Wheel" can help you better understand your anger. This understanding can allow you to identify your desired outcome. 

For example:

• If your anger stems from worry, you can find strategies to manage stress and anxiety. 
• If your anger stems from impatience, you can work on expectation management.
• If your anger stems from frustration, you can develop awareness of what you do and do not control in any situation. 

Clearly identifying the filtering elements will allow you to pinpoint the best possible actions and steps you need to take to solve the problem that created the emotion in the first place. Let's be clear. This is a process, and it takes time. This is not a quick solution to every one of our challenges. However, it is a fundamental self-awareness skill and ability that we can all develop and master over time, which can create profound and positive changes in our relationships and lives.

Joanne