It has been a while since I last felt called to put pen to paper to add to my blogs. I wanted to add a piece for the ‘wisdom keeper’ series, knowing that the place I wanted to move to next was discussing anger and how I navigated it.
Since then, unfortunately, I have lived and breathed the sensation of anger in my body nearly every single day over the last year. Its source has been a long battle around my role and professional identity in the workplace. The thing about this type of anger is, that for me, such was the intensity of the emotion – because of its importance to me, that I couldn’t truly zoom out and write about it, whilst active living through it.
Even as someone who understands the building blocks of anger, cognitively knowing about, being able to step away from it and channel it, is difficult. The ability to sit with the emotion, see it as data and then work with it before acting, takes some deft skills. In my case, the insults that led to the anger kept on coming. The violations, slights, inconsiderations, rumours, actions and surprises were each a chip or a blow eroding confidence and trust in the system I supported. Not only that, but the people who were leading the ‘process’ and causing the anger, bore no responsibility because they ‘were only doing their jobs’.
It wasn’t supposed to be personal, and yet it was… deeply. And because I couldn’t do anything meaningful to change the situation and any attempts to were pushed away, so, it just kept on eating away at me. Even in micro moments when I had managed to navigate something that had happened that day, the build-up of all the accumulated incidents would mean, that for me – anger didn’t start at the starting line again but somewhere deeply along the track. And here was the thing, I began to predict the next steps that hadn’t even happened yet – getting caught in the ‘worst case’ scenario trap, feeling angry before it even happened – and then validated in my anger when it did. I imagine this could be similar for people seeking justice in a court room or going through a divorce. It is pervasive and eats away at you, demanding headspace, nearly all the time and one can’t truly get away from it.
I have heard it said many times, that anger is the emotion that loves you most. It is an internal protective response that literally rises and expands within the body to tell you that something is challenging you: your values, your identity, your integrity, your beliefs… the essence of you. The discomfort you feel in your body is the strongest call to action.
The call of anger is an agitator directive to act. To change the status quo or to be seen and heard for your identity, or purpose. Anger can be white hot, burning red, or chronically building and self-sustaining. It is deliberately not an emotion we, as humans, are designed to settle into. The energy that it takes to be angry is vast. The cost to one’s wellbeing is high. Anger demands a response. But in life, we cannot always act on the anger in the way we choose. And here is the crux of it. Now a days, the media, marketing strategies and politicians leverage anger as a call to rise to get behind a cause, often to speak to a claimed identity and to respond in a certain way. These demands are often self-serving. Often self-promoting. Often ineffective. The incitement of rage can be very effective to bring attention to an issue but here is the thing… as humans our anger can only give us strength for long enough to begin to act it out, and then the heat and strength of the anger abandons us when we need it most, often reducing us to tears, shame, grief and other strongly felt emotions.
Let me explain this in a bit more detail. ‘Triggers’ can be a good place to start. As a trauma informed professional, I recognise that when triggered, it can provoke an anger response. The classic ‘fight’ response. But for others, depending on the stimulus, it can also provoke a flight, freeze or fawn response. Anger can be provoked when trauma in the body is surfaced and the memory of that anger, is re-experienced and then the body reacts again to the initial trauma in the context to what is happening in the moment. There can be significant intensity that might feel disproportionate to others in that moment, because they are only reacting to what is in front of them, without the understanding of what is driving the memory and the trigger for the person involved. A trigger can be conscious or unconscious depending on how self-aware someone is. In my case, even understanding the triggering I was experiencing, and the causes for them, I could articulate them, but felt too vulnerable to speak to them as I wasn’t feeling safe, and my perception was that it would weaken my position because I couldn’t reveal fallibility.
There can no universally prescribed way to ‘deal’ with anger. It is as unique and complex as the person experiencing it. Sometimes it can be experienced as almost out of the mind or body. On the anger curve, the angrier you are, the less you hold on to logic and reason. Anger sparks an urgency, a necessary narrowed attention span to allow the person to navigate that emotion and in doing so, in that moment, they will have difficulty finding perspective, and context and thus can lose sight of the logic, reason and ability to slow down and even breathe. When layering on other trauma responses and behaviours such as hyper-vigilance, or dissociation, it can be difficult to predict the degree of response experienced by someone or what they might do with it.
Karla McLaren offers two questions for exploring anger: ‘What must be protected?’ and ‘What must be restored?’ These questions can give us somewhere to place our attention when the intensity of the feeling makes it difficult to know what to do next and what we may need. They invite us to consider what feels threatened, what has been damaged and what a meaningful response might involve to work with and through the anger. An anchor if you like, or a starting place.
Protection might concern our safety, dignity, boundaries or professional identity. Sometimes anger arises because something we have tolerated for a long time has now become unbearable. Sometimes an incident challenges a belief we hold deeply about fairness, belonging or how people should be treated. Understanding what we are trying to protect can help us find words for why an experience has affected us so profoundly.
Restoration often needs something more from us, something deeper. What would need to happen for trust to become possible again? Would we need an explanation, an acknowledgement of harm, a change in behaviour or an opportunity to influence what happens next? These are all different needs, and being able to identify them may help us communicate more clearly. An apology, for example, may carry little meaning if the behaviour persists.
The difficulty is that some forms of restoration depend on other people. We may never receive the acknowledgement we seek, or the process may conclude without addressing what it has cost us. That can leave anger with an unmet need, repeatedly drawing our attention back to something that still feels unresolved. I find this one of the hardest aspects to consider: how do we care for ourselves whilst continuing to want an answer that lies outside of our control?
Brené Brown describes anger as a catalyst that can motivate an action towards justice and equity. This is useful to consider alongside the question of what anger is protecting. This energy may help us recognise a boundary, challenge a decision or offer us the courage to speak up. What follows requires us to decide how to use that energy and what we hope our actions will achieve.
The idea of anger as a catalyst can be helpful in considering what it can do. Alongside this, there is room to explore the other emotions present within an angry experience. Fear, grief, frustration, shame and helplessness may accompany it, with different feelings becoming more apparent at different moments. But we also need to be mindful not to assume that anger always conceals something else, or that discovering sadness makes the anger any less valid. A person can be angry about an injustice and grieve what it has taken from them.
In my own experience, anger about how I had been treated existed alongside fear about what might happen next and the erosion of trust in a system I had supported. My professional identity was involved, as was my confidence in and how others saw me. There was much more happening than I could convey simply by saying, ‘I am feeling angry.’
Honouring that complexity may help us understand what support we need. A challenge to a decision may address one part of the emotion, whilst another part needs time, reassurance or the opportunity to speak honestly with someone we trust. A practical outcome can matter enormously and still leave an emotional impact to work through.
This also has implications for how we meet anger in someone else. An angry response can make us feel accused, misunderstood or compelled to defend ourselves. We may begin preparing our explanation before we have fully heard what the person is saying. When both people feel threatened or unheard, the conversation can become increasingly difficult.
Empathy and validation may help create enough space to understand the concern. Acknowledging that someone has felt humiliated, frightened or dismissed gives their experience an anchor in the conversation. We can remain curious about the facts and recognise the impact they are describing. Sometimes a useful starting point is simply to ask what has happened and allow enough time to hear the answer.
There must be boundaries to holding this kind of space too. Understanding someone’s anger doesn’t mean we need to tolerate threats or harmful behaviour. A conversation may need to pause, move somewhere more appropriate or involve additional support. The possibility of returning to it is important, particularly when the person already fears that their concern will be brushed aside.
When I am the person feeling angry, finding that space can be much harder. Giving myself time before replying, stepping away whenever possible or allowing my breathing to settle may help me choose the words that represent what I actually want to say. Especially if I am coming from a hurt or triggered space. Writing in a journal often offers another way of finding out what I am asking for before I enter a conversation. I always recommend journalling. It can be surprising or validating, confronting or simply a way to organise your thoughts.
I am conscious, though, of how painful a request to ‘calm down’ or ‘just relax’ can feel when the cause of the anger has barely been acknowledged. The way we might invite a pause is sensitive, as is our willingness to return to the substance of the concern. Asking someone to regulate their response carries a responsibility to listen when they are ready to speak.
For me, this brings the reflection back to protection and restoration. If I can understand what feels threatened, recognise the other feelings involved and identify what I need, I have more information with which to choose my next step. I may still be angry. The situation may still require challenge. I can give myself time and support to decide how to respond, whilst continuing to ask for the fairness and accountability that matter to me.
As I reflect on this year, I keep coming back to what restoration might mean when I cannot determine the outcome. Some of it is about the process itself and the answers I still want. Some of it concerns how much of my life the process has come to occupy, and how I might make more room for the people, practices and experiences that truly sustain and nourish me. Some of it is allowing myself to accept, detach from the outcome and surrender to the things I have no control over.
I am still working out how to do that. I can understand why I am angry and recognise how exhausting it has been to hold. I can want accountability and deeply feel the need for rest. As I always say, many things can be true at the same time.
The question I now contemplate is this: alongside everything I have tried to protect, what part of my own wellbeing needs my care and how do I honour both simultaneously?
My anger has been trying to tell me that something important was at stake. As I find words for it, I want to listen carefully to understand what it needs, and then to give myself time, grace, forgiveness and support to honour my response.
