The tools experts use
Things to consider
If you’re tired of the status quo of snippiness and periodic rageful outbursts, it might be time to look under the hood, so to speak, of what’s really going on. Explore this section to find what’s relevant for you.
Your anger may be hiding something…
Anger is often a quick and effective strategy to put up your defenses. It can be a kind of armor against potential pain and other challenging feelings, deflecting and avoiding having to be vulnerable. It can side-step other emotions like fear, sadness, and shame. Unfortunately, expressions of anger don’t aid in processing or addressing the other emotions involved. And adding anger usually makes discussions with others more difficult, discussions that could have a chance in resolving conflict.
It’s hard to know what’s underneath anger because it is usually quicker and stronger than other emotions. You may need to take some quiet alone time to reflect after an angry episode to figure out what your anger was hiding.
“I think we all know–deep within our being–that the rage that flares against our children is usually rooted in something greater than the children themselves. But it is so much easier to lay the blame on our children. Blaming them requires less effort than actually examining our lives and considering the real sources for our erupting anger.” Julie Ann Barnhill, She’s Gonna Blow
Try answering the questions:
Did I notice any emotions just before I felt angry?
Do I feel any other emotions about what happened, now that I have calmed down?
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When your anger is masking grief, sadness, depression
Many of us, especially men, learned in childhood that it was safer to hide feelings of sadness than express them and be rejected. Most parents probably say “Don’t cry” or “You don’t need to cry” as kind of a strange way of trying to make their kids feel better. Parents don’t want to see their kids sad (and often the crying is about something so small).
However, even if we learn to not show the emotion externally, it’s still there internally and will find a way to get expressed eventually. A lot of times anger feels like a safer expression than the vulnerability of crying.
As adults we end up saying “You always let me down” instead of “I feel very sad and disappointed that happened.” Or saying “How dare you say that to me!” instead of “That really hurt me.”
“A lot of us go around feeling quite enraged, angry, privately, about the way our love lives have gone. My task…is to turn that anger into sadness. If we manage to turn rage into grief, we will have made psychological progress.” Alain de Botton, Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person
Ask yourself: Is it easier for you to yell than to cry? We’ve all heard “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” But do we need to add a maxim for ourselves as parents: “Don’t rage over spilled milk”? It may be less damaging to our children and partners to let ourselves express our sadness rather than let our anger hide our vulnerability.
When your anger is masking fear or feeling threatened
Anger can feel a lot more powerful and in control than being overwhelmed by fear. As psychotherapist and author David Lieberman explains in his book Never Get Angry Again:
“Emotionally, anger redirects our attention away from the fear/pain, which also mimics the sensation that we have seized control.”
Sometimes it’s hard to even know that we were afraid in the first place. Take the example of getting cut off while driving from psychologist Leon F Seltzer:
“Virtually everyone I’ve ever asked has responded emphatically that their immediate reaction to such an event is anger. But when I further inquire…they realize that in the fraction of a second before acting successfully to avert a collision, their emotion must certainly have been one of apprehension or fear.”
If you find yourself getting angry often in instances where there’s also fear involved, try meditating on some Biblical verse about fear and bravery, and where true courage comes from: Isaiah 41:10, Ephesians 6:10-18, Matthew 10:28-31, Psalm 56:3-4, 2 Timothy 1:7
When your anger is masking a sense of dread or general anxiety
Whether it’s our access to news 24/7 or the political and cultural volatility in the last few years or a bunch of things all rolled into one, lots of folks are feeling worried and anxious, like something bad is always just about to happen. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon these days. Here’s one Reddit conversation as an example.
This doesn’t set a great foundation for mood and makes it more likely to turn smaller inconveniences and obstacles into major anger triggers.
If you’re dealing with general anxiety or a feeling of dread, stepping away from social media and going back to the promises in God’s Word can be steadying. And writing out or speaking your worries to God or a trusted ally is often helpful. If you want a starting point for those conversations, try the following from a Psychology Today article:
“Remember three things: order, meaning, and value. What brings order to your life? What brings meaning to your life? What do you value? Let those three things be your navigator’s components as you make your way through these wild waters.”
37% of respondents in the U.S. indicated that they were more anxious in 2023 than they were the year before. Preeti Vankar, Statista
When your anger is masking embarrassment
Sometimes we explode around our children more easily when they don’t behave in a certain social setting. It’s easy to react more strongly than you would at home because of the added social pressure. Admitting, “Well, this is embarrassing” to yourself can be a way to release some of the tension directed at your child. Or finding some way to laugh at the situation rather than rage about it.
Being okay with being embarrassed is actually a skill we want our kids to have, so that they feel somewhat comfortable taking risks and trying new things without getting cowed by self-consciousness. If it’s a helpful motivator, you could try to remind yourself that, although irritating and uncomfortable, you’ve got a chance to model how to handle an embarrassing situation and move past it.
Try these tips for handling embarrassment from this medically reviewed article from PsychCentral:
1. Focus on the future: Will this matter to me in five years?
2. Reroute your energies: What’s something I can do right now that’s productive?
3. Rethink the situation: What can I learn from this?
“Anger and embarrassment are often neighbors.”
Amy Poehler, Yes Please
Optimism or pessimism?
There’s opinions all across the spectrum about whether optimistic or pessimistic thinking is beneficial for our emotional well-being. Everything from “toxic positivity” to “learned optimism” to “toxic emotional negativity” to “tragic optimism” get discussed excessively in society today.
Compare the following two quotes:
1
“Research has shown that there is a strong link between what you think and the mood you feel. The more negative the thinking, the more anger a person is likely to feel, particularly when the thoughts are based on perceptions of threat or on injustice. For example, John a thirty-eight-year-old financial controller, was made redundant when his department was outsourced to another country. He made a large number of applications to other firms and got a number of interviews, but his redundancy money was running out and he had still not got a job. When he returned home one day, he found a letter stating that he had been unsuccessful for a post he particularly wanted and was more than qualified for, and that evening a water leak caused severe damage to his flat. At this point, all his fears about the future were triggered and, whereas some people would experience anxiety as their primary emotion, he experienced a deep sense of rage at what he saw as the injustice of his situation. If an individual’s thinking style is adaptive and healthy, he or she may feel worried or frustrated, but if it is pessimistic, then, as in the case of John, anger is a more likely outcome”
2
“Pessimism has a bad reputation, but it is one of the kindest and most generous of philosophies. That’s because what often makes us sad and angry isn’t disappointment, but a sense that our hopes have not come true and that our lives are unusually bitter; that we have been singled out for particular punishment. Pessimistic ideas suggest otherwise. Life isn’t incidentally miserable, they tell us, it is fundamentally deeply difficult for everyone. This functions as an antidote to the oppressive modern demand to look on the bright side; allowing us to bond with others around an honest of admission of some truly sobering realities”
There may be an optimal balance between the two. If you have a tendency to:
Dread and fear the worst,
feeling sure of all the worst
outcomes…
…consider that all the world may not be out to get you at every moment
Overestimate your time, money, what people will do for you, etc…
…consider coming down a bit out of the clouds and realizing the world is pretty well known for its tendency to let people down
Anticipating and presuming the worst can lead to anger when it feels like life’s not fair and everyone’s out to get you.
Unrealistic expectations and assumptions can lead to anger when they don’t end up matching reality.
The physical connection
We can handle irritating situations at certain times with grace and aplomb. Then there’s other times when the same situation feels like it warrants a complete meltdown. So, what gives? Sometimes, the answer might be a physical need.
If we can address what our bodies are trying to tell us, we may be less likely to take our anger out on others.
Ensure you’re taking care of your body with:
Nourishing food
Strengthening exercise
Adequate rest
Supportive social community
Spiritual connection and reflection
Simple enough, but easy to forget when caring for others.
Based on the 5 moms who contributed to this survey project, anger-triggering events build during the day and outbursts are more likely to happen in the evening.
As the day goes on, often energy levels (mental and emotional) can deplete, so finding ways to take little breaks, get some help for an hour, or just be more aware that you don’t have much left in the tank can help when dinnertime/bedtime chaos rolls around.
Also, there can be a bit of a negative loop that happens:
Not taking care of physical needs
Feel more anger more often
More tired and less motivated to take care of physical needs
“...regulating and coping with anger rather than holding on to or expressing chronic anger is crucial for the health of our brain (it reduces psychiatric problems) and other organs in the body.” Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart
In No More Anger, author Gladeana McMahon explains,
“Anger is a tiring emotion to experience. Your body is working hard producing and coping with a range of stress hormones and their effects. It is hard to cope with life when you are angry. Once you are able to manage your anger, you have more energy. Although you may feel energized when you are angry, the surge of stress hormones that you produce at the time and your subsequent behaviours tire the body, and it is therefore not surprising that you may feel drained following an angry episode.”
In the words of my midwife as I asked her how to prepare for the birth of my first child: “Do what you can.” (Which was disappointing and perplexing to me at the time, but has turned out to be helpful ever since.) I work on reminding myself: Try something, if it doesn’t work, try something else. But keep doing what you can each day.
–Anonymous contributor
What physical activities or habits have you found to help in managing your anger?
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