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Love is not easily angered…
1 Corinthians 13:5
Anyone can become angry…That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not easy.
Aristotle
You are not alone.
Are you a mom, and find yourself irritable and seething more often than you’d like?
Are you a dad, and have discovered you can get frighteningly angry at your toddler, or teenager?
Are you a spouse, and often feel the urge to criticize, talk down to, or snap at your significant other?
Do you feel sometimes like the people closest to you get the worst of you?
Relatable examples from books and media
On the one hand: As boys and girls we dreamed of getting married, having careers and goals, having children. Some of us feel like we pretty much have it all. We have a lot of what we prayed and hoped for. And yet, a lot of time is spent worrying and feeling exasperated and irritable. The day-to-day frustrations and stressors of life that are relatively normal can start to feel overwhelming. Why is it so hard to just enjoy what we have? | On the other hand: Some of us have been through truly frightening, traumatic, damaging experiences. Some of us have not received what we hoped and prayed for when we were growing up. And all of us deal with the reality of human life that things can go very wrong, that someone we love might die. As adults we carry the weight of responsibility over our children and those close to us—the truth that we could do something that will cause lasting pain. |
“I don’t know if we can beat anxiety. Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.” | “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” |
So for various reasons a lot of us find ourselves…
More irritable
Less patient
More bitter
Less fun
More resentful
Less benevolent
More caustic
Less kind
More hostile
Less warmhearted
…than we would like to be.
Sometimes we call it anxiety, or emotional load, or rage, or stress. Or as Sarah Molitor puts it in her book Well Said:
“The discontentment, the lack of joy, and the bitterness mixed with resentment and disrespect.”
Most of us do “handle” it to some extent, around most people. You might think you’re hiding it most of the time, with small explosions here and there. You may not be known for your temper. Your coworkers and people at church may think of you as polite and friendly for the most part.
But we’re not doing as good a job as we think we are. Our spouses notice, our good friends notice, our children notice. And pretending it doesn’t exist, ignoring it, suppressing it doesn’t really help it get better. In fact it might make it worse. And pretending everything is fine doesn’t model or teach our children how to manage their difficult emotions.
At the dinner table recently I felt like I got shut down and ignored. I instantly became dysregulated and emotionally shut off. I felt blurry and distant and stopped participating at the dinner table. I find my parenting tanks when I become dysregulated. I feel foggy and isolated and sad, and anger often follows. I’m no longer able to see the needs of my children because I've mentally shut down.
-Anonymous contributor
We somehow have to manage emotions that are powerful but sometimes not super helpful in a particular moment. There must be a way to feel and express emotions that doesn’t at the same time cause more damage and hurt to those we care about. And as followers of Christ, we have a commitment and duty to become more like Him.
This project is a collection of thoughts, ideas, resources, and tools to support a community of believers who want to:
Communicate effectively and lovingly to those we’re closest to (which we believe is essential to becoming as God wants us to be)
“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”
Colossians 4:6
Experience greater joy and meaning in day-to-day life (which we believe is possible, especially with the help of the Holy Spirit)
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
Romans 15:13
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Galations 5:22
Emotions have the power to make pleasure incredible and hurt unbearable. They burst out naturally from the time we’re little children and we deal with their ups and downs our entire lives. Why are emotions so tricky? Is it even possible to control or change our emotions? What does it look like to be able to manage our emotions well while still being passionate and vibrant?
At the most basic level, emotion is a feeling plus a motivation to act. (Although there’s still lots of different opinions about the definition of emotions—they’re complicated.) As this psychology textbook explains,
“An emotion is a mental and physiological feeling state that directs our attention and guides our behaviour. Whether it is the thrill of a roller-coaster ride that elicits an unexpected scream [or] the flush of embarrassment that follows a public mistake…emotions move our actions.”
In this sense, emotions are a universal part of being human. And research has shown that the six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) are recognized similarly across cultures. But different languages also have unique words for nuanced emotions that have meaning in that culture. And more granularly, emotional experiences vary a lot person to person, with a certain incident causing rage in one person while only sparking mild irritation in another. This is because emotions play out on a backdrop that includes individual temperament, or disposition, genetic makeup, and a lifetime of experiences influencing how we interpret and understand our world and our place in it.
Understanding your general disposition (your prevailing mood and emotional tendencies) is helpful for identifying potential problem areas. The Philosophy of Emotion says,
“...there are dispositional mood states. An example of such a mood propensity would be the tendency to feel anxiety. Such mood propensities appear to define the temperament of individuals. If you have a happy temperament, for instance, you will tend often to feel moods of happiness.”
So knowing that we tend to feel a certain way can provide some perspective about our emotional reactions.
Do you have a tendency to feel a certain emotion more than others? If so, which one?
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But a tendency for a certain mood doesn’t mean you need to always feel that way. There does seem to be general agreement in psychology that emotional regulation and gaining emotional resilience is possible, although challenging, and that they are important elements of successful adult relationships and interactions. (For more info, see here, and here).
In Shift, a book by Ethan Kross about how to manage emotions, he writes,
“Our ability to regulate our emotions isn’t fixed. It is malleable. While there’s no blood test that tells us how good we are at regulating our emotions, there are signs to watch for to alert us when things have gone awry. For instance, when it takes months to get a colleague’s backhanded compliment out of our minds, or when we find ourselves exploding at our spouse over a dirty dish left in the sink. The problem is not that we feel hurt or anger; it’s that we feel them too intensely and sometimes can’t stop feeling those emotions long after we’ve gotten the message.”
So what helps us get better at controlling and managing our emotions? It turns out that examining and understanding them is the first step. Brene Brown, in her book Atlas of the Heart, writes,
“Research shows that the process of labeling emotional experience is related to greater emotion regulation and psychosocial well-being.”
(Here’s one example of that research.) Figuring out what we’re feeling, why, and where it’s coming from allows us to shift from being controlled by the emotion to considering it as an input but not necessarily the final word. That’s what this project is all about.
Emotions are part of us and part of being human. They are integral to decision making and have the power to drive good deeds—or lead us astray into negative behaviors. We need them for our lives to have meaning. But we also need to have control.
“Sometimes I have to desperately cling to what I know, rather than act on what I’m feeling in the moment." Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart
How do you feel about emotions in general? Are there particular kinds of emotions that are especially worrisome or especially desirable?
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There’s a concept in our culture called “mom rage.” Here’s a pretty apt description from Poppy Therapy:
“That seething, hot, unrestrained, explosive anger that shows up sometimes at even the smallest things. These anger outbursts in response to daily life...make many moms feel they aren't doing a good job parenting their child or like something is wrong with them.
“As a maternal mental health therapist, I have had mothers in my office telling me the most surprising thing about the postpartum period is how angry they feel. Women who are usually level headed and calm find themselves asking, ‘Why can't I control my emotions?’ and ‘What is going on with me; I can't believe how angry I get with my children!’”
A lot of times moms bear the brunt of the burden because they are handling more of the day-to-day frustrations, along with experiencing physical and hormonal changes through pregnancy and beyond that can be discouraging and emotionally draining.
As many have pointed out, it’s not only moms who feel this way and who deal with unexpected anger and irritation, especially toward those they are closest to. It’s common to let some of your propriety and politeness down around those that you know are safe and who you feel comfortable around.
The “angry dad” is also a common trope in the culture today. In much of media, you see a bumbling and incompetent father figure, an absent one, or one who will start yelling at a moment’s notice. Encouragingly, many fathers today want to be more involved with their children’s lives and upbringing. They know they don’t want to be the cliche of those media caricatures. But there’s still a lot of unknowns happening with that transition:
“A Pew Research Center survey…found that dads cared just as much about their parental identity as moms did about theirs. 57% percent described it as being ‘extremely important,’ versus 58% of women. But all of that caring served as fuel for new-found insecurity. Most of the moms surveyed (51%) said they did a ‘very good’ job of raising their children. Among the dads, just 39% said the same…‘The lack of clear-cut standards for successful masculinity,’ Harbin said, ‘causes a lot of dissatisfaction that gets expressed as anger. Men who defined themselves as “modern fathers,” more nurturing than their own dads had been, could be flummoxed by that rage.’”
In general, there’s still a sense in our culture that masculinity is tied to aggression and anger, along with strength. But the Bible shares the opposite advice:
“Better to be slow to anger than to be a mighty warrior, and one who controls his temper is better than one who captures a city.”
Proverbs 16:32
Wanting to be a different kind of father, or mother, or Christian doesn’t make it easy to actually do. Change is hard.
What makes you angry? Write down 3-5 things that quickly come to mind in everyday life:
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In the current cultural ethos there’s a sense that “mom rage” and “angry dad” is real, expected, and almost necessary. There’s a feeling especially that moms nowadays are supposed to do everything for everyone without expecting any help. And that rage is a natural and unsurprising consequence of those unrealistic expectations.
Society right now praises transparency and authenticity, celebrating who we are rather than hiding parts of ourselves. Some of this is surely helpful. In the essay that originated the phrase “mother rage” the writer says being open about her anger was one of the things that helped her the most:
“When I talk about it, I don't feel so afraid.”
But transparency can also start to wander into normalizing unhealthy and unhelpful behaviors. In a review of Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Motherhood, Merve Emre discusses a more recent essay that launched the term “mom rage” into the viral realm:
“She sensed that her reactions were excessive, but she made no real effort to understand. Understanding was not the point of her essay. The point was to unleash the primal scream of a mother who had regressed—spectacularly, obscenely—into a tantrumming child, not unlike the three-year-old who had spurred her rage in the first place.
“The tantrum had its desired effect; immediately, Dubin started to receive messages from mothers around the world. They confided that they, too, struggled with uncontrollable anger and that her story ‘made them feel less alone,’ she reported.”
So being open about what we’re dealing with and how things are going can be helpful to find support. But our goal is to use that as a boost to move forward and make progress, rather than justification for leaving things as they are.
There’s also a historical and lingering pressure on women to be “nice” and agreeable, always smiling, always looking pleasant. And this certainly plays a part. If our habit is to stamp down negative feelings and let them fester, rather than understand and process them, is it any wonder that they come out in mini explosions?
“What kind of emotion is considered appropriate…is likely to depend on cultural norms… In North America, for instance, men who express sadness or fear are viewed as ‘unmanly’, while women are expected to express less anger, compared to men (Brody 1999).” Christine Tappolet, Philosophy of Emotion
As Christians we can’t shrug off a problem with anger simply as being a result of societal shortcomings. In the Bible it’s framed as a personal and moral issue, one that needs to be addressed as we go on our spiritual journey becoming more like Christ.
“Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret—it only causes harm.”
Psalm 37:8
“A fool lets fly with all his temper, but a wise person keeps it back.”
Proverbs 29:11
“Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.”
Ecclesiastes 7:9
While we probably shouldn’t be surprised when we or others deal with anger and irritability, we can take it as an opportunity to delve deeper into ourselves, rather than look outward for somewhere to blame. We can work to find a healthy way to vent our frustrations, communicate in an authentic way, and address real issues without lashing out or falling into sarcasm or shutting down. That’s what this project is for.
It’s not that my daughter is “good/perfect” (nobody is all the time), and therefore I should never get irritated or frustrated. It’s not that I don’t have a “right” to be angry. It’s more that she has value and potential, both in a physical sense (she has so much she could become) and a spiritual sense (she is another potential member of God’s family). But somehow it’s easy to forget that. At the basic level, she needs help to grow into her potential. And if someone needs help, we give it, as Christians. How can my heart be turned toward her and see her as the little child she is? Actually I’ve prayed similarly for my husband when he was job searching for a challenging period. I prayed for him that others’ hearts would be turned toward him, and see the best in him and look at him in a positive light. And we all want that for ourselves. So why is it so hard to give it to our children consistently? How can I increase my attention and curiosity about who she is and who she could become?
-Anonymous contributor
There seems to be somewhat of a pervasive religious myth or tradition that the ideal Christian is unemotional, as in not led or influenced by their emotions and instead led by truth/reason/logic. But this is maybe more a relic of stoicism and Greek philosophy rather than Biblical example.
There are places in scripture that show at times it’s best to act contrary to our emotions:
He went away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will but yours be done.” [Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.]
Luke 22:42-44
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
Matthew 16:24
But there are also many examples of God and Christ as both fully emotional and positively driven by emotions like zeal, compassion, and even anger. These emotions play a part in their motivation to pursue righteous, helpful, good actions:
Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”
John 2:13-17
And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.
Matthew 14:14
But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant [some translations say “angry” or “displeased”] and said to them, “Let the little children come to me and do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Mark 10:14
So at least some of the time emotion is a beneficial and important driver of good actions. Emotions can spur godly action—compassion can push us to serve others; awe can push us to humble ourselves before God, for example. But they can also be a force for acting according to human nature—fear may urge us to run away or avoid danger when God says to be courageous; anger may urge us to take revenge when God says vengeance is His (see Galatians 5:16-17).
It seems we need to acknowledge and understand our emotions and then evaluate whether the actions or behaviors they are pushing us toward are aligned with God’s Way and character. It’s not about getting rid of our emotions; it’s about making sure our emotions are motivating us toward godly actions, rather than harmful decisions driven by human nature.
“Reason and emotion are not separate and opposed. Reason is nestled upon emotion and dependent upon it. Emotion assigns value to things, and reason can only make choices on the basis of those valuations.” David Brooks, The Social Animal
Culturally, God also has a reputation for being angry. The famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” used an image of a spider hanging by a thread over the flames of God’s wrath as a visual reminder that used to be commonly referenced in many churches. And we surely know God experiences anger from stories in the Bible.
But it’s easy to get a false impression of God’s character if you attribute all of the violence of the Old Testament to God’s anger. Scripture portrays God as, yes, able to become angry. But also as having a nature that is quickly and easily compassionate and merciful, rather than quick to become angry at every human failure. Indeed, at the burning bush it takes five episodes of Moses trying to get out of what God has called him to do before the Bible tells us God became angry (Exodus 3-4). And in the flood story, scripture describes God’s grief but not His anger (Genesis 6:6). So He can handle human folly with patience and decide on intense judgments without those decisions stemming from anger or rage.
Exodus 34:6 gives us God’s description of Himself. It’s the verse that is most quoted within the Bible itself; it’s what the writers of the Bible keep going back to to show what God is like:
“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness…”
To expand on what it means for God to be compassionate, a podcast by the Bible Project explored how in Hebrew the word “compassionate” is related to the word “womb.” And in Isaiah 49:15-16 the comparison gets even more clear. As they explain:
“God is actually depicted as a nursing mother. The image is really powerful—a mother holds her nursing baby eight inches from her face and looks into their big baby eyes and sustains them with her own life. This is what God says he is like, but even better.”
Another Bible Project podcast delves into the “gracious” element of God’s character. We may think of gracious as meaning simply courteous and kind, but the Hebrew meaning also connects it with showing mercy and treating someone undeserving with an extra measure of kindness and generosity. As the podcast notes explain:
“The most genuine acts of grace are shown toward those who don’t deserve it. Grace in this sense is the ability to treat something as beautiful and deserving of favor when it is not.”
The Bible goes out of its way to show God as both awesome and powerful as well as gentle, nurturing, caring, tenderhearted. In Psalm 18:35, David writes of God,
“Your gentleness has made me great.”
Seems surprising coming from a man surrounded by violence. And Jesus tells the disciples,
“I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”
Matthew 11:29
Jesus does get angry a handful of times in the gospels, but these instances are far outweighed by times when He showed mercy, patience, kindness, and compassion.
This all seems somewhat contrary to common sense. It feels much more powerful, full of authority, and even effective in the face of wrongdoing to be full of anger, or at least full of that “I have had just about enough of you right now” wrath. And we see from the Bible that God does get angry. But discovering His true character involves seeing that His anger is never out of control and always used for a good purpose. As pastor Gary Petty put it in His sermon Love Is Not Provoked,
“righteous anger always produces a positive result.”
Our thoughts about becoming more like God and Christ need to consider that the core of His being is slow to anger. Are we moving in that direction as we mature spiritually?
“Do not be angry and frustrated. Do not fret. That only leads to trouble”
Psalm 37:8
“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience…”
Col 3:12
“...live worthily of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, putting up with one another in love…”
Ephesians 4:1-2
What if anger was a last resort, rather than a first response?
What if your heart was easily spurred to compassion, rather than rage?
What's one takeaway that stood out to you or resonated with you from this section?
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