Handle your anger in a healthy way

How does anger work?

Sometimes we can’t quite pinpoint the thing that has happened that has triggered our anger. Sometimes we just gradually start getting pissed off at life.

This is perfectly normal as anger is a very complex emotion humans have to deal with. Interestingly enough it is also a really exciting one that brings thrill but a lot of anxiety as well. 

Anger is an addicting emotion. A lot of people are addicted to conflict and most of them don’t know it as this happens subconsciously. This happens because during our childhood anger was recurrent in the household and it got included in our comfort zone. And now we seek peace in the conflict, especially when it helps us hide emotions that we are not used to feeling.

This is when it’s important to explain that anger is a secondary emotion. It is one we feel along with other ones but it’s louder. 

For example:

You fight with your partner and you are not feeling heard and you are being ignored. Your reaction is going to be anger. You might scream and curse to try to get the attention you need. You are angry. But behind that, we can see that you are also feeling fear. Fear of being abandoned and fear of those inner child wounds being opened up. 

How can we deal with anger?

Anger is a hard emotion and most of the time we want to keep feeling it. We want to stay mad to stay angry at the other person and stand our ground.

It is almost like our anger is our greatest protector and barrier against vulnerability. Maybe if we stay angry enough we can avoid being hurt by what happened.

The truth is that we have already been hurt and that is why we are mad. We are just scared of feeling the emotions beneath the anger because they are tougher and harder to process. 

To deal with anger we have to let it pass first. Maybe even distance ourselves from the situation in a non-avoidant way.

For example:

If you just fought with your partner and you are feeling this anger, this rage bubble up. Ask for the space to navigate this emotion. You can say something like: “Hey I understand that we are both angry but if I stay in this conversation I’m going to say something I really regret so I am going to have some minutes to myself to think.”

This might work for you, but let’s imagine that you are the person on the other side of the conversation. You might rage up with the idea of them wanting to leave the conversation without them feeling the full wreath of your anger and all that you have to say.

Obviously, this is your anger acting now. To deal with this you might want to take some time to yourself as well.

How to help anger pass?

Now that you have the time to yourself you might have to really fight back the urge and the need to go say some really disrespectful things to the other person.

What I like to do is, if the fight occurs in a call I would mute myself and say all the curse words and all that I want to say but I know that if I say it will only start 30 different new fights. I get it all out, so now that it’s not in our head, we might feel it heavily in the body.

This is when I decide that I need to exercise until I feel like I couldn’t punch anyone in the face. If it helps you can pretend that you are getting ready to fight this person and that you are getting stronger to fight them. I

am not inciting any source of physical violence or advice to do so. But this might help you feel empowered. This works surprisingly well for women with male partners. If this hasn’t worked maybe screaming into a pillow will do the trick. Anything that leaves you breathing heavily helps. 

The spiritual approach:

Of course, we always have our peaceful approach which is the one we might want to do towards the end of our screaming. Or if you have a strong will, from the beginning. This might include a meditation to calm down and some journaling to process the anger along with some breathing exercises and more journaling to understand ourselves better. 

I hope these tips help you guide your anger in a better direction and show you that anger is one of the most common emotions to feel. And that we have every right to feel it whenever we want and no one can take it away from us.