The High Cost of Anger

Posted On October 3, 2019

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 ‘Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.’

William Shakespeare

In a moment of jaw grinding and fist-clenching rage, I realised that I had to get really angry, mad, and totally wound up one more time over an old issue, to acknowledge the high cost of my anger.

As usual, the experience left me feeling drained, vaguely ill, and absolutely powerless, this anger is outdated, it’s not like I’d had an outburst of any kind over an issue that had just happened, no, in this instance I was chewing over events and circumstances where I had been wronged long in the past, and also played a role in my own pain. In fact, I was driving at the time, thinking back and remembering, going over and over what should have been done differently and how I could have allowed the things to happen the way that they did, and then there it was, that swell of anger, lying just beneath the surface of my outer calm.

To write this article, I had to sit down and take stock of the damage of keeping my own anger on a slow boil and take a long hard look at the dynamics that kept me hanging onto this anger for so long.

Anger in itself is not necessarily bad, and healthy anger is one of our natural and necessary survival tools as human beings. It wakes up our fight or flight responses and allows us to defend ourselves when necessary.

Anger is a very natural human reaction, and yes, of course, there are times when it is justifiable to be angry and even appropriate, it’s in the channelling and use of that anger where most of us fall down. We don’t know how to manage our anger, and we don’t know how to prevent the damaging effects of our anger from turning in on ourselves rather than the target, it’s aimed at, and more often than not we don’t even recognise that this is in fact what happens, and when living angry becomes a habit, it turns into a destructive and debilitating force in our lives.

In its many guises, anger is insidious and subtle, the most easily recognisable anger is the explosive and volatile kind when the release of anger is evident, is only one variety.

The more hidden anger which is generally more long term and often turning to bitterness hatred and resentment and is nurtured by a person which is then allowed to take over and manipulate is yet another.

Anger that expresses itself as continual snappiness and irritability and unreasonable and irrational reactions that are out of proportion to the circumstances at hand is again another.

A constantly contemptuous, sarcastic and antagonistic person who often criticises others and the efforts of others is concealing long-term anger and animosity.

Self-Anger is one of the most damaging kinds, turned inward; it leads to depression, which in turn leads to a victim mentality and feelings of hopelessness, apathy, and non-action are then the result.

Anger over the years is killing. Uncontrolled anger of any kind whether it is expressed as volatile outbursts or slow-acting long-term anger is ultimately paralysing as it prevents and blocks out the possibility for positive action.

Anger also disempowers you and makes you feel helpless and in this way, it renders you ineffective so that the very things that you are trying to achieve and the needs you want to have met, keep alluding you, which makes you angry, and so the anger cycle perpetuates itself.

Redford Williams

Professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Centre has the following to say about anger:

‘….. getting angry is like taking a small dose of some slow-acting poison……..long term anger with no forgiveness is deadly. It may lead to carrying a grudge, which in turn, hurts the one who harbours the grudge more than the one against whom it is directed.’

Think of your life as a tree. A beautiful, strong, tall, and majestic tree. A tree that is resourceful, productive and adept at shifting and changing with the seasons.  If you have a strong and deeply rooted sturdy tree that is capable of coping with all sorts of external elemental pressures such as strong wind and driving rain, and even drought, a supple tree, bending and yielding to the external elements upon which it is also reliant, then you have a well-formed, healthy tree. When conditions are good and plentiful, your tree can regenerate and grow, when conditions are harsh and unfavourable, your tree needs to adapt to its environment to survive. If your tree were to become uprooted by every environmental change, it would not survive and therefore has to be as flexible and adaptive as possible for its survival needs.

If you are not able to cope with the changes and circumstances that life hurls at your tree of life, in the form of frustrations, hurt, pain and not getting your needs met as you expect them to, then you resort to anger of some form, and anger is one of those strong and incredibly controlling emotions that if not dealt with effectively and controlled, it will control you.

You will find that you are at the mercy of your anger when it becomes a habit and a lifestyle it will ultimately uproot your tree of life and threaten your survival. If you do not find ways to become resourceful, and yielding to external pressures, if you do not find ways to become adaptive and able to shift with the elements of life, if you continue to feed your anger with negative thoughts and emotions, you disrupt the entire energy flow in the tree of your life, that vital life force that is necessary for your existence.

‘I’ve learned how to not be broken from life’s unwanted things by watching a willow in the wild wind tossing and bending rather than pushing back against the storm. It’s taught me that I can’t always have everything go my way. Sometimes I need to bend a bit.’

Joyce Rupp  “The Cosmic Dance”

Suppressed anger over the long term turns to bitterness, hate and illness and an inability to be objective and to maintain perspective it becomes locked into the body and can lead to illnesses such as arthritis, (think of a gnarled, bent and buckled tree), also illnesses such as hypertension, heart disease, and severe depression.

Dealing with, controlling and managing anger starts with recognising the dynamics of anger and taking active steps to channel that anger in a positive and resourceful way, rather than in destructive and harmful ways to yourself and others.

Here are some of the basics

1. Very often, we use anger to disguise hurt and pain. The saddest thing a close friend said to me recently was ‘I have to be angry, If I’m not angry it hurts too much, it’s the only way I can go on and get things done’.  While this may be true and initially you can ‘get things done’ because you are angry enough, this also means that you are not dealing with the real emotional issues that are causing pain and distress, by using anger to cover up those emotions only means that they will be internalised along with your anger and do far more damage in the long run.

• Understand and learn to identify what your crumple buttons and triggers are. Learn to interrupt the angry cycle by giving thought to what it is that arms your anger and sets it to fire like a nuclear weapon.

• Examine whether your anger is really justified (especially if it is old anger and grudges you are looking at), and question whether holding onto this anger is serving you in any positive way.

• Realise that you will not be able to control circumstances and you definitely cannot escape the actions of others

•  Ask yourself the question who’s got the power? Whether you react (reactive = knee jerk, unconsidered, reflexive, and unconscious behaviour) to a situation or whether you respond (responsive = approachable, receptive and open behaviour) is up to you, you have the choice, and you have the power when you choose to respond rather than to react.

• Unlearn your learned reactions to anger and find ways of responding positively. In calm and reflective moments, think about how you usually react and come up with new responses and ways to deal with old issues, for they will keep presenting themselves under differing circumstances until you do. Also, go back to childhood and examine where and how you learned your anger reactions, these probably have not served you thus far, looking back will also help you to find the hidden triggers that could be impacting on adult life.

• Become an empath, really listen. Hear what someone is trying to tell you, try to see beyond the words and hear the real message, when someone else is acting out in hurt and anger, diffuse the words by hearing the real message and ask questions, establish what it is you are dealing with before responding.

• Give yourself time to respond. Take a moment, don’t send that email immediately, leave the room if necessary, not to re-arm your argument, but to talk yourself off the angry ledge and focus on the issue at hand.

• You may not always agree and often in the case of anger, strongly disagree, and in anger, we often make demands for respect, recognition, validation, justice, and fairness. Respect that if that is what you want, you can be sure that it is what the other party to the situation wants too. If you can learn to agree to disagree with respect, both of you win in the final outcome and can start on a working agreement for resolution.

1. Become acutely aware of the effects of getting fired up and hot-headed have on your physical body. Notice the jaws and fists clenching, notice the shorter faster breathing and the knotted stomach, and the throbbing temple headaches, and the sound of blood roaring in your ears (blocking out the sound of what you might otherwise hear), become aware of how unpleasant and in some cases how painful this feels, and remind yourself and your body that it hurts to be angry.

1. Do you really want retribution? Question what getting retribution would do for you? Will it really make you feel any better? It certainly doesn’t change what has already happened, does it? Plotting and daydreaming about retribution may give you an ego kick of validation, but it is fuelling the fire of negative thoughts and emotions and is damaging you more than anyone else, why do it?

1. Engage the I THINK rather than the I FEEL response. Engaging your brain rather than your emotions brings logic and reason to a situation, and logic outwits anger hands down. Doing this will enable you to see the situation for what it is not how you perceive it and will allow you to gain some perspective and objectivity.

1. Assertive vs Aggressive. This has to do with getting your needs met. Aggressively demanding in a hostile, antagonistic and violent manner is very unlikely to get you what you want. The other side of the coin is, of course, requesting what you want in a firm, self-confident and self-assured way. This is more likely to garner the results you desire.

1. Anger can also stem from the doormat syndrome. If you are putting your own needs ahead of others in a way that is costing you more emotionally/mentally/physically and even financially than you can afford this will make you resentful and bitter, and ultimately you will start seeking to have your needs met aggressively. By stating firmly and calmly what your needs and expectations are, by making sure you give what you need to yourself first, you will avoid this very common trap.

1. Being assertive also means dealing with an issue when it arises. By not allowing a situation to simmer and boil, and tackling it straight away, directly with the parties concerned you establish control over yourself immediately. The more dissatisfied you become, the more likely you are to spread it around too, which just fuels the situation.

1. Understand that it is a common myth that every problem is solvable immediately. Some just aren’t, there are some things we just have to deal with. So, learn to manage your problems instead of trying to solve them if an immediate resolution is not at hand, this will reduce the frustration involved in trying to fix something that may for the moment be unfixable.

1. Recognise when your anger is truly out of control. If you think you are chronically angry, you probably are. If you are not prepared to seek professional help to manage and get your anger under control, consider talking about it to a close friend or family member who can empathise, at the very least get it off your chest in a controlled and constructive environment. You know that your anger is out of control when it significantly impacts your relationships, your job, and your family life and your health.

15.  Finally, employ the use of humour, sometimes the things we get really angry about, especially irrational and reactional anger are totally out of our control, like the traffic not moving fast enough on the highway. Don’t let those things that are so out of your control you could no more impact or change them than you could change the cycles of the moon ruin your day or anyone else’s for that matter.

Don’t let your humour in anger slide to cynical or sarcastic, keep it light and use it as a tension breaker. Remember ‘ who laughs lasts’ …… anon

Chinese Proverb

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.