Shadow Work 30 Day Challenge - Anger Intro
The first emotion we will be focusing on for this series will be the emotion of anger. This is an introduction post to the emotion of anger and what it means.
Noun; a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.
Verb; fill (someone) with anger; provoke anger in.
The emotion of anger itself is not a mental illness. Everybody experiences anger, however I should add that certain mental illnesses do cause an emphasis of the emotion.
Anger is not anything to disown or feel bad about experiencing. I really want to place emphasis on anger being a natural, human emotion. Human emotions are meant to be felt, dealt with, worked through, and integrated into our being. Disowning this aspect of our being can be very harmful. It is not the emotion itself to feel bad about or disown or question, it’s the way in which you display and manage the emotion that should be taken into consideration.
This is a tough question to answer because the reality is that anything can cause anger, sometimes there is no cause, and the anger trigger highly varies by each individual.
Like the Limp Bizkit song “Break Stuff”, some days just are not your day. Some days you just wake up pissed off, everything is annoying you, and you just have little patience for life. In this sense, sometimes there is no identifiable cause for people to be angry, and that is completely okay and valid.
I have to really emphasize that anger triggers HIGHLY vary by each individual. Some people have anger triggers that others would view as “irrational,” but to that individual, their trigger is their trigger, that’s their thing, and if it’s a trigger to them it should be respected as such regardless. Keep this in mind throughout this post; anger triggers highly vary by individual, and no trigger is invalid.
1. Stress: Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. Anger is one way people react to stress.
2. Situational/Environmental: Having poor or weak boundaries, or having others cross your boundaries, feeling ignored/invisible/unacknowledged/unappreciated, financial/social/family struggles, growing up in an angry environment, etc.
3. Psychological: Certain mental illnesses classify anger as a symptom, lack of sleep, anxiety, sensory overload, difficulty controlling emotions, bottling up too much angry emotions, and trauma.
4. Physiological: Certain bodily illnesses can cause anger such as thyroid or hormone imbalances. Feeling bodily pain, and many other dysfunctions of the body can cause a person to feel angry.
Substitute/Distraction: Sometimes people make themselves feel angry, whether on purpose or not, so they can avoid feeling an emotion that may be more painful to them. Example: Somebody found out their spouse is cheating on them, when they confront their spouse, they outwardly react with anger, meanwhile the underlying emotion being substituted for anger is actually guilt.
Anger as a distraction emotion can be due to an aspect of not wanting to focus on the self, although that is obviously not the only reason, for some it could be wanting to avoid feeling or coming across as vulnerable amongst many other reasons. For some, it’s a lot easier to direct their feelings of pain or betrayal as anger onto other people, because honestly, who wants to feel pain? Example: Uncle J. broke his ankle, instead of displaying outward emotions of pain, he yells, “Shit! God Damnit! What the Fuck!” and won’t let anybody help him to the hospital, displaying anger to people who try to help him. This describes using anger as a distraction to his pain because anger tends to raise your adrenaline levels, therefore reducing sensations felt, and as a distraction to not seem vulnerable to others.
The short answer is that everybody experiences anger. Anger is a human emotion, even some of the animal kingdom experiences anger. The degree to which anger is felt and experienced by each individual varies. Some experience anger as their primary emotion, meanwhile others would have to endure a lot of annoyance and/or triggering things to become angry.
Is Anger Necessary? The Good & Bad Sides to Anger.
Absolutely! My own, semi-professional opinion is that anger is one of the most necessary and useful emotions that humans have. Anger has a negative reputation rooted deeply into society, culture, and religion, but there are many upsides to the emotion.
Anger can push us to do many things, both good and bad.
Thinking about primal, evolutionary humans, anger is an emotion that allows for survival. We all have a fight, flight, or freeze response to us. “Fight” is a response with an underlying feeling of anger. It’s rooted into our DNA as a survival response to keep us vigilant, sharp, and strong to fight off what needs to be fought off.
It motivates us to find solutions to problems and drives us to work further on our goals. Example being if somebody makes you so angry that you just long for the day where you can show them how well you’re doing without them.
It protects what we believe in and makes us aware of what we feel is unjust. Revolutions are caused by anger the underlying emotion. People may feel outraged, sad, burdened, hostile… those are feelings of the emotion anger.
When used properly and in the right situation (such as a fight or flight scenario), anger can encourage cooperation and “scare off the perpetrator”. Anger can be very scary looking to others. So when used in a situation where somebody wishes you harm, it can be very beneficial.
It motivates us and makes us optimistic. Think about the last time you were REALLY mad… Many people note feelings of being invincible, like they’re on top of the world, they can accomplish anything. When managed and displayed in healthy ways, anger can bring great feelings of optimism and motivation.
Anger is energizing. Angry music is highly energetic.
Consistent, bottled up feelings of anger can cause many health problems such as high blood pressure, adrenal fatigue, tachycardia, and so on.
Unhealthy displays of anger can ruin your reputation, relationships, career, and wellbeing.
Anger can cause arrests. Unhealthy displays of anger can cause you to physically lash out at others, or become quite loud, and can cause people to be put under arrest.
Hurting yourself or others.
Chronic: When anger occurs for a prolonged period of time, feels hard to manage, and/or becomes bottled up. This can be a symptom of a mental illness, although that is not always the case, some just have a more difficult time managing this emotion, and that is okay.
Passive: Passive anger is not displayed in an apparent way, that’s why it’s called passive aggression. This can be displayed in many ways, often in emotionally harmful ways towards others. It’s displayed in an indirect way for many reasons.
Volatile: This is often aggressive anger. Anger that causes people to display outward aggression, harm to self or others, substance abuse, or damage to things or people.
Overwhelmed: Overwhelmed anger is a reaction of feeling as though you have more things on your plate than you can manage. This can also be a reaction of sensory overload or stress.
Self-Inflicted: Self-inflicted anger is anger that you display in a substitutional sort of way. Perhaps you feel guilty, therefore you feel angry at yourself.
Resentful: Anger that occurs out of resentment, dislike, or hostility towards another person or thing.
Fight or Flight Symptoms - Racing heart, sweating, large pupils, shaking/trembling, feeling hot (specifically in the face/chest), clenching your teeth, etc.
Feeling like you need to get away from a situation at all costs
Feelings of irritation, sadness, guilt, anxiety, and/or as if you might not be able to control your actions or words (aka., feeling like you might act out verbally or physically)
A sudden loss of sense of humor
Speaking sarcastically, loudly/yelling, or feeling unable to speak in fear you may say something harsh or abusive.
Feeling like you need to yell, cry, or feel a physical sensation (some may pull their hair, punch something, etc.)
When Anger Becomes A Problem
Anger is a healthy emotion to have, but there are points where anger does become a problem for some and therapy or anger management techniques may be necessary.
Anger is persistently directed inwards. Depressing thoughts, negative self-talk, denying yourself basic pleasures and happiness, and a feeling of hatred towards yourself for unknown reasons.
Verbally or physically attacking things or other people in an uncontrollable and unreasonable way. While punching a pillow or punching bag is a healthy way to manage anger, punching other people or harmful objects like walls is not. Yelling in the privacy of your own car is healthy, yelling and verbally attacking others is not.
You are uncontrollably sarcastic, degrading, shaming, sulking, or giving others the silent treatment.
You avoid certain things because you know they make you feel uncontrollable anger.
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