Anger - the Hardest Emotion

Many people think that love is the hardest human emotion. I disagree. To me anger is the hardest emotion. What do I mean by that? It is easy to get angry – the hard part comes with expressing our anger in a way that is productive. Unless we are effective in our anger management, the outcome of our anger is often much worse that the thing that triggered it in the first place.

In relationships I often see one person “holding” the anger for the other person in the relationship. One person is the grumpy one and the other is the peacemaker. The challenge comes in that the peace-maker does get angry, but does not know how to express it effectively within the relationship so “swallows” it and over-compensates with niceness. In this situation, the peacemakers’ anger tends to seep out in less productive ways such as passive aggression.

In work teams I see all sorts of interesting anger behaviors – this can range from a culture of “everyone likes everyone else here and never gets angry” which means that no one is allowed to express any conflict right through to open hostility and warfare wrapped in the stated culture of we “always get our feelings out in the open”.

I have seen teams where staff are lovely to each others face, but behind each others backs they gossip and backbite. They never confront directly, always talking to someone else about their problem, but not to the person who could resolve it.

The most commonly requested learning and development programs by staff relate to dealing with angry people, conflict resolution and assertiveness skills. People find it hard to deal with angry people. In recent years we have also seen a growth in anger management courses, for people that have a hair trigger and fly into rages or passionate tirades at the drop of a hat.

So why is expressing our anger in ways that are constructive, so hard? With love, we take time to think of ways that we can express our love to the object of our love. With anger, we tend to react rather than reflect. Anger itself is a natural human emotion. If we look at it correctly it is a pointer to where we need to look deeper. It could be that our boundaries are being transgressed, or that we are not looking after our health or it could even be that there is something from our past that needs healing.

When we have an extreme emotional response to something, it is very rarely relating to the situation that triggered it. It is more likely that the situation has reminded our subconscious of a past event that has not yet been healed.

It could also be that we are carrying beliefs that “good girls or boys don’t answer back”; or “if I answer I will just be bringing myself down to their level”; or “I am no good with conflict”; or “I am just a passionate person who can’t help how I vent my feelings”.

When we get angry, we should reflect after the event what was this anger trying to tell me? If we are unhappy about how we expressed our anger, then we may need to look at our communication strategies. Were we waiting until we “burst with rage” rather than communicating early enough to be constructive. Do we feel we need anger to give us permission to say what we want to say to the person who we want to talk with? Do we not express our anger at all and bottle it up inside? Do we gossip as a strategy to defuse our anger, rather than confront the person causing us distress?

If we are unhappy about how often we trigger into anger, then maybe we need to go to some anger management classes. We need to work out why our everyday life is triggering our anger response. You get what you look for in life – if you feel that the world is out to get you, then that is what you attract. If you believe there are only idiots on the road, guess what sort of drivers you attract? If you need to cope with angry people around you – either customers or family members, then definitely learn some skills on how to listen and defuse anger. I liken it to learning verbal martial arts, so that you do not end up injured in the verbal battle.

Anger is a hard emotion and tackling it effectively can be a challenge. Just make sure that you do deal with it and not ignore it!

Ingrid Cliff is a Brisbane based Business Development and Human Resources Consultant to Small and Medium Businesses with her company Heart Harmony www.heartharmony.com.au.