A recent article on NPR explores the age old question of whether it’s therapeutic to act on your anger. Alex Spigel writes about a woman in San Diego who has built a store for the sole purpose of letting people in, covering them in protective gear, and giving them plates to smash to vent their anger. He then brings up new research by professor Jeffrey Lohr of the University of Arkansas that points to evidence that says venting this anger isn’t effective and the anger just continues to return.
I love Alex Spigel, but sometimes these topics can be oversimplified. It’s kind of like much of the spirituality research out there that measures level of spirituality by church attendance. Just because someone goes to church doesn’t mean they’re spiritual, they could be doing it out of family obligation or a longing for community. What’s not explicitly spelled out here is the difference between anger and aggression. Just because someone is expressing anger, it doesn’t mean they are aggressive or hostile. He points to this briefly when he says “Now, to be clear, Lohr isn’t pro-repression. Repression, he says, can also be bad for you. The key is to speak out your anger without getting emotional about it. Basically, we’re not supposed to yell at anyone anymore.”
To be clearer, there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling or expressing anger. Whenever we’re frustrated or irritated we are feeling angry. We can be angry for a myriad of things from our partners making plans for us without asking to being abused as a child.
How we express this anger does make a difference.
Daniel Goleman writes about how the expression of anger can be a good thing. It is at times our outrage over injustice that moves us to action to help. It is our anger over the atrocity in Darfur that creates the motivation to help out, or maybe it’s the anger in getting abused that leads to the cry out for help, or if you’re a teenager, maybe it’s the anger over mom or dad just opening your door without knocking that leads to a discussion around new boundaries. Goleman calls this “constructive anger.”
It’s not that we need to express anger without emotion, because then we’d be like robots. It’s that we need to learn to express anger without acting out with aggression. It’s this aggression that may breed more aggression. In his book Taming the Tiger Within, Thich Nhat Hanh writes about how anger could be held mindfully. We can see our anger as a child within us that needs to be taken care of. He endorses the idea of noticing when you’re feeling aggressive, taking time-out to care for that struggling emotion and then returning to the scene in a calmer state. At this point it is more constructive to express the anger.
It’s the differentiator between anger and aggression or hostility that makes the difference. Learning to become aware of the space in between the stimulus and our reaction is a practice that can get better over time. The next time you notice anger, see if you can take a moment to pause and breathe and acknowledge your anger, without judgment. This anger is not good or bad or right or wrong, it is simply an emotion that you are experiencing right now. If it is very strong, excuse yourself from the situation, see if you can practice being kind to yourself in this moment as you are struggling. Sometimes we find that underneath the anger is sadness or another emotion. Feel free to write out what you are experiencing. Sometimes getting it out on paper can help it not swim around so much in the mind.
When you have calmed down, return to the situation and if it feels right, express what made you so upset. See if you can also see the other person’s perspective.
As always, please share your thoughts and questions below. Your interactions here provide a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.
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Thanks again for the great posts. You always give me something to chew on.
Thanks Paul, I look forward to our future interactions…
It’s nice to see someone talking about useful anger. It’s a fantastic power source and sometimes clarifying; throwing it away because it scares us is an incredible waste.
I remember going to one of those neopagan crunchy Earth-goddess women’s retreat things one time that ended up illustrating to me how repressive it is to fall prey to the “we must never be angry” mentality. There was a facilitator there, and the rest of us sat around and were talking about various things in one of those “get to know you” chat sessions. It was tense, since a lot of those things tend to be women looking shiftily at one another making sure everyone else approves of what they’re expressing.
She asked us what things we had been told as women that had been bad for us — lots of women started talking about things, and she was very welcoming to them all, including the typical crippling “young ladies are NICE!” business. I remember saying something that was, for me, quite mild: “Yeah, I got your nice right here, pal!” just as an aside.
The thing I recall most clearly is that the entire group instantly laughed and relaxed, the way people do when a taboo is broken. Well, the facilitator wasn’t having any of it. I was told like a little kid that She Was Hearing Anger, Anger Was Bad, and We Had To Be Nurturing. Basically, just another form of Young Ladies Are Nice. The group instantly tensed up worse than it had been before. It was like the whole room went silent and felt scolded. Thankfully, I didn’t but just rolled my eyes since I tend to do that. 
But just that one little drop of allowing yourself to get irked over something unfair was all it took to let those women loosen up — and one little drop of disapproving Anger Is Bad from the facilitator was all it took for them to all feel ashamed and revert to shiftily making sure they were being spiritually empowered, but in the right, politically acceptable way. It was such a damned shame. Women can stand to learn the creative, constructive, useful uses for anger instead of trying to suppress it or fritter it away as meaningless, inconvenient energy when, properly used, it can move mountains.
And I still got yer nice right here.
Mindfulness is so powerful, calming, and kindly enlightening with it’s noticing without judgement. I struggle to remember to apply it.
I self harm when I am angry from frustration and feel overwhelmed with “I don’t know what to DO!” (the child within, I believe). It happens so fast and I have tried to slow it down to intercede it, but the speed and intenisity of it is fierce. The idea of just stopping and being mindful feels like it will be very helpful. Thank you so much!
i believe if anger wasn’t expressed properly it would turn into depression,however, we should make sure that we are expressing our anger at the right people and not projecting it on innocent ones who have caused us no harm
I sure do have alot of incidents each day where I get really mad. The Bible says the taking of offense rests in the bossom of the stupid one, …..it says that we should be slow to anger. I analyzed my anger and find its arroused when my expectations are matched with reality. I seem to expect so much from people and then get mad when they fail to line up. I think I expect imperfect people to be perfect, I expect inherently wrong people to act right. I guess I am unreasonable because I am not judging others based on the facts that we all make mistakes many times and for the one that doesnt, that one is a perfect man.
I have decided to slow down my anger and not verbalize it immediately. I have told myself its not worth going off on people. I need to seek peace and pursue it. Mild, quiet, long-suffering, putting up with one another…. Anger–thats a very unpleasant emotion that can just knock me completely off balance. I am noticing that being tuned into it when it shows up, recognizing it for what it is, and making the decision to withold my verbal expression of anger seems helpful–I have self-control of the anger and that makes me act better. I try to preserve harmony. I am learning to communicate the anger in a beneficial way which is experienced as positive by both parties.
I’m interested in your thoughts about the best ways to express anger (and other stressful emotions) and what you might recommend for someone who is angry.
I recently launched a new company and produce a Screaming Pillow which is designed as an outlet for those emotions we want to express (in private). It came about after my mother was counselled to scream into a pillow following the loss of her daughter and grandson in a car accident - and I would appreciate your feedback about the benefits (or not) of screaming into a pillow.
Thank you.
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