Anger is an emotion we often struggle to navigate. In this solo episode, I'm sharing the recent experience of one of my clients, who was grappling with intense feelings of anger. As a psychologist, I recognise that anger often masks deeper vulnerabilities like sadness and fear, but this episode isn't just about identifying what's underneath anger; it's about understanding the importance of expressing our anger in healthy ways.
Many of us, particularly women, have been socialised to suppress anger, and unresolved anger impacts our own physical and mental health. I emphasise in this episode that anger has a purpose, and that is to alert us to injustice and motivate us to take action. Therefore, it's crucial to acknowledge and express our anger rather than bottle it up.
I provide practical advice on how to navigate these feelings, and the importance of clear, assertive communication without veering into aggression. By sharing my client's experience (with her permission), I hope to encourage you to embrace your anger as a valid emotion and learn to express it constructively.
This isn't just about venting but learning to advocate for yourself, communicating with intention, and ultimately finding resolution, whether that be with another person, or within yourself.
Takeaways:
Anger often serves as a protector, alerting us to deeper vulnerabilities that we need to address.
We need to find healthier ways to express anger rather than suppressing or denying it
It's crucial for us to differentiate between being assertive and being aggressive in our communication.
Expressing anger constructively involves being clear about our feelings without resorting to accusations.
Understanding that anger is a natural emotion, and learning how to express it can improve our well-being.
Beyond Confident is an online, small group coaching program that helps you to overcome self-doubt and imposter syndrome and cultivate unshakeable self-confidence.
This is Crappy to Happy and I am your host, Cass Dunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course, author of the Crappy to Happy books.
In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Foreign welcome back to Crappy to Happy. Such a pleasure to have you join me today.
This week I had a session with a client of mine who was really struggling with a lot of anger, obviously more emotions underneath anger, the sadness, vulnerability. And she was really having a hard time knowing what to do with that to stop it from really impacting her.
She knew that she was ruminating and she was unable to let this situation go.
And sure she won't mind me using this to share on the pod because it really, as we worked through this situation together and helped her to come to an outcome and a something like a resolution, it really got me to thinking about how we struggle with anger, all of us, how we are not trained really, we're not really very well equipped to deal with anger in a healthy and productive way.
And I think that's especially true for women because we are, you know, just, we're socially kind of conditioned to be the peacekeepers and the nurturers, to be the kind ones, the compassionate ones. It's unbecoming to be too shouty and ranty and angry, which is kind of the way we think about anger, right?
We think about being shouty and ranty and aggressive. And also our experiences of anger when we are on the receiving end are often shouty and ranty and aggressive.
So there's not a lot of role modeling out there for what do you do when you feel really angry and you need to find a way to express it or contain it or manage it. Like, what do you do? We are naturally conflict avoidant. Typically we don't like to be confrontational with people.
Partly, again, we're not trained to have those conversations. But also we, we can be fearful of the repercussions. We don't quite know how that's going to turn out.
And so we are more likely to want to avoid inflaming a situation or creating a situation that might get heated and hostile.
And if we don't know how it's going to go and if we're feeling particularly angry, we either don't know what we're going to get back from the other person or, or we maybe don't trust Ourselves to be able to manage our own anger. And we might be concerned about what we might do or, or, or our own emotions being out of control if we are feeling really riled up about something.
So let's talk about anger today. When we talk about anger, generally, some people are more prone to be angry than others.
You know, some people have what we call a low frustration tolerance, A low tolerance for frustration, which basically means that they kind of have this personality that it only takes something quite minor to set.
They're either really explosively angry, or they're just the kind of person who spends a lot of time just being grumpy and irritable and unhappy with things. There are certain aspects of your personality that you're born with just your temperament.
Everybody's born with higher and lower levels of sensitivity, higher and low levels of distress tolerance. Some are really chill and some are a little bit more sensitive. That's just individual differences.
But then obviously your upbringing, how you're RA will have an impact. And then what is modeled to you in your own family home.
If it's very normal for people to be very vocal and, and loud and shouty, but then everybody's best friends five minutes later, then that could be what has been normalized for you. And you, you might operate in the same way.
Conversely, you might have grown up in a home where there was a lot of anger and shouting, and that has made you very anti anger. So you are the person who really tries to contain any strong emotions that you have if you start feeling upset or irritable with somebody.
So there's a whole lot of stuff going on.
There's a whole lot of individual differences that will impact how likely you are to be angered by something and also how you choose to respond to that.
Whether you're a person who is likely to just express that, get it all out, whether you're a person who's more likely, try to contain that and bottle it down and suppress it and try to manage it on your own.
And I guess the other thing to say about anger, just broadly, especially in psychology, when we talk about anger, we often talk about anger being a protector. It's almost like a surface level emotion that is there to protect something that is more vulnerable underneath it.
Often if you are feeling very angry, I mean, and sometimes you are right to be angry, there are, there are things worth getting angry about in your life, in the world in general.
But sometimes if you sit with anger for long enough and you be present with it, we do this in some of the meditation practices That I, that I do is that often if you allow and acknowledge the anger, it will shift and there'll be something more vulnerable underneath it. There will be a sadness, there will be a fear, there will be a rejection, a disappointment, there will be a sense of, of loss.
You know, there is very often something that is underneath anger that is more vulnerable. So it can also be really helpful if you're experiencing anger.
If you're angry about something towards another person for something that they have done and how they have treated you, then it can be just helpful for yourself to be willing to consider what might be underneath that. Because sometimes we are reluctant to go to something that's more vulnerable. Sometimes it feels easier to stay in the anger.
We can feel very self righteous and very justified and, and that can be nice and convenient and a way to avoid touching on something that is a little bit harder to look at or to admit to, particularly to somebody who has hurt you. But you know, we're just talking about admitting it to yourself at this point.
When we think about anger and things like anger management, or needing to control your anger or contain your anger, I think the problem is that we talk about containing anger or controlling anger, which is a natural human emotion, when what we're really talking about is managing or controlling how we express that anger. It's fine to feel angry. I mean, it's not great for your health if you hold on to too much anger for too long.
Which is why you have to find a way to either express it or, or to find a way to resolve it within yourself. But it is not anger itself that's the problem.
When we talk about anger management, we talk about people who have really uncontrolled outbursts, people who become aggressive, who cause destruction, who become violent, who do harm to other people or to property because they're not effectively able to manage their anger.
So they're highly volatile, they're highly reactive, and then they have an inability to effectively regulate not just their emotions, but their behaviors. And again, this is why I think we're all tuned into. We've got to control our anger.
Any parent knows that with your kids, you know, like you're allowed to feel what you feel, but it's what you do with that feeling that is the important thing. It's how you express that, what you do with it that matters.
That's where we need to exercise some self regulation, A little mindfulness, a little slowing down and taking a breath before we impulsively act on and express our anger in an unhealthy way. I also think people have a really tricky time discerning the difference between aggression and assertiveness.
And again, I will say, I know it's not just women, but I think women especially have a hard time discerning what is being assertive and what is being aggressive. They're concerned. Women are concerned that if they are assertive, they will come across as aggressive.
So they often struggle with expressing themselves clearly, particularly if there is some anger or some frustration or some irritability. They will often avoid saying anything about it because they don't want to be aggressive. And again, there's a difference.
There is a difference between a healthy expression and being assertive, being really clear and articulating what your complaint is and what outcome you would like or what you would like to happen differently, or how you need to set boundaries, whatever the situation is.
And being aggressive, one way to think about that, just while we're on that topic, aggression is really like steamrolling over other people's needs, other people's opinions, other people's thoughts, feelings, their perspective, really prioritizing your perspective, what you want, what you need, how you want things to go, and pushing that through, like bulldozing that through, without regard for anybody else and without regard for the damage that that might cause, or without consideration of anybody else's perspective.
Assertiveness, on the other hand, is when you are able to hold and be clear about and be willing to express your needs, your perspective, your preferences, how you want things to go, what you like, what you don't like, while at the same time being able to hold somebody else's perspective, being willing to acknowledge that there is another perspective.
So it's not about you having to be right or having to steamroll over anybody else, but it is holding your opinions and preferences and needs and desires and thoughts and feelings in a situation at the same level as another person's.
So it still allows for the other person to be able to equally express their perspective, their thoughts, their needs, their opinions, whatever, and from there, have a dialogue.
From there, decide whether there is some room for compromise, to decide if there's some room to resolve the situation, or to decide that this isn't going to work, and I need to set a boundary and I need to go a different way. But it's after hearing and allowing space for everybody's perspective. So being passive.
Because unfortunately for many women, in their desire to not be aggressive, they instead default to being passive. And being passive means that the other person steamrolls you.
So all of the airtime goes to the other person's needs, desires, preference, opinions, thoughts, feelings, et cetera. And there is no room for yours. So you are not heard and you are not considered. Your perspective isn't taken into account.
So we don't want passive, which is what many women default to, and why they end up carrying this bubbling away anger and resentment, which is not good for you. But we don't need to go to aggressive either. So not being passive doesn't mean that the automatic second choice is to go straight to aggression.
Being assertive is that middle ground.
And I think it can be helpful to remember that being assertive is not prioritizing your perspective and your opinions or what you want over somebody else's. It is just making sure that your view gets equal air time, that it is held at the same level. It's not diminished and it's not elevated.
It is given the same consideration. So if you struggle with assertiveness, maybe that might help you so that you don't feel like you're being aggressive.
So coming back to my client situation, something happened. She was treated badly by a medical professional. Now, medical professional, you could substitute legal professional, dentist, plumber.
She has a professional relationship with some people and also a history, so there is some personal relationship there as well. And she felt that she wasn't listened to. She felt that she was really devalued. She was talked over. And this has consequences.
Like it didn't just impact how she felt in that moment that she wasn't listened to. You know how people in certain professions can get a bit of a God complex. And I don't mean to be judgy.
I mean, even as I say that, I'm thinking it is probably actually more like that they are very busy. They're probably stretched. You know, they don't have the best bedside manner because they're getting straight to the point.
And they also can tend to be defensive. And especially if they think that you think you know better. If you come across that you've googled your symptoms, you know, they don't like that.
And I'm not saying that's what my client did. I'm just.
I'm just using this as examples of why people can get a little defensive and then they start to get their backup in some of these interactions. My client was just trying to express herself and advocate for herself, and which she has every right to do.
And what she was getting was talked down to, condescended to, talked over, really dismissed, really not heard at all. And so naturally she was very upset. This is a medical situation too. So she's also unwell and you know, she, she needs medical help.
And the people that you're relying on to support you, when they're the people who are diminishing you and making you feel unsafe, then that is a really, that is a very vulnerable situation to be in. But like I said, it can go for any professional relationship.
You're relying on somebody's professional expertise, but you also are relying on them to treat you like an actual adult with a brain and to hear your views. So she was naturally very upset and she was also really angry. And she is a not a person with the low tolerance for frustration.
She's a person who's very calm, she's very thoughtful and measured. And I would say that I, I think it would take a lot for her to get really angry, but that's how she was feeling when she and I got together.
Now the reason that I am bringing this example in in particular is because it was really interesting to kind of work through it together in real time. It was very present when we spoke.
And she has a lot of practices, a lot of self care practices that she uses to manage her own self and, and manage her own emotions. And she's, she practices meditation and she practices mindfulness. And so she was really doing the work.
She trying to get this anger under control, but she was finding herself ruminating about it. And she knows full well that this is not good for her, this is not good for her health.
And at the same time she was actively avoiding having any other contact with these people. So the first thing that I want to say about that, the first thing that I did say is that anger serves a purpose. Anger has a function.
There is a reason we get angry and anger acts to mobilize us. It activates fight or flight. Literally fight, fight is speak up, stand up for myself, stand up against injustice.
Anger serves a really useful purpose.
So trying to calm ourselves or meditate our way out of anger, which obviously we don't want to be consumed by anger, obviously we're going to do those things. Ideally you want to do those things rather than continuing to ruminate and do yourself more harm and keep you stuck in that place.
But sometimes anger needs to be expressed. Like sometimes it's not sufficient to try to bypass it.
Even some of the strategies that we use to try to get ourselves out of that angry state, to like take the high road, it's almost bypassing it's, it's almost an avoidance because actually what needs to happen is I need to express that anger, there is something, there is an unfairness or an injustice here that needs to be addressed one way or the other. Now, maybe sometimes you can't always deal with that person, the person or the situation that has caused you to feel like that.
Maybe sometimes it's not appropriate or you're not able to express it, in which case there are other ways that you can try to just get that out of your system. You can express it physically. You can punch punching bags, you can scream into a pillow, you can write letters that you never send.
You can send voice notes to just get it out, like, get it out of your system, as opposed to it kicking around in your head.
There's a big difference between you just ruminating and crafting all the things that you would say, thinking of all the things that you would say in your head, versus actually sitting down and writing it on paper.
Even if you never send the letter, even if you never send the email, it is much more helpful to actually get it out of your head and get it down on paper. That's if you choose to articulate and you're a person who wants to express and put words to your experience.
Sometimes it is just a case of moving that through your body, like just getting it out through your physical actions. Running, punching, kicking, yelling, whatever it is that you need to do to move it through your body and get it out.
But when we discussed the possibility of actually expressing how she felt and how this interaction had made her feel, there was not a reluctance, because I think she was actually quite keen on saying how she felt. A bit of, what would be the point? The relationship is destroyed anyway.
A bit of, I might as well just tell them what I think, because there's nothing to lose here in trying to find the balance between saying what I want to say, but trying to be a bit careful and considered and mindful in how you communicate that so as not to inflame the situation, there was a bit of, well, what does it matter anyway? I should just feel comfortable to say whatever I want to say.
So what we talked through was, and what you might want to consider if you're in a similar situation, is what would the ideal outcome be like, what would be the preferred outcome? And the preferred outcome really would be whatever the situation is, it's usually you want to feel heard.
If you feel like you haven't been heard, you want to at least feel heard.
Even if the person doesn't acknowledge your perspective or your opinion, even if they get more defensive, even if they say you're making it all up or it's all in your own head, you want at least the opportunity to have expressed your position. So there's value in that. Given everything that I just said.
The disclaimer there is that writing a letter or having a conversation with somebody who you're angry with, with the view to getting some resolution or getting an apology, or getting that person to understand or getting that person to acknowledge your perspective, that can be a dangerous game to play because you have no control over what that person's response is going to be. You have to go into that situation, however you choose to express yourself.
You have to be willing to completely let go of any expectation that that person's going to respond in a way that is of benefit to you, that feels good for you, that acknowledges or validates you. Because a lot of the time that doesn't happen.
People have got their own defenses, people have got their own stuff going on, they've got their own issues, and they've got their own perspective about everything. You know, oftentimes people are not going to be willing to acknowledge your perspective. So sometimes people end up feeling worse.
If you go in with what you want to say, hoping for somebody to acknowledge and validate or apologize, you can be really let down and it can make you feel even worse than when you started. So key is be willing to let go of the outcome. You might not get the response that you want now.
The other thing is that when you express yourself, you are only expressing your perspective. You can only express your opinion or the impact it had on you.
As soon as you start using words like you humiliated me, you belittled me, you treated me like a child, that person's wide open to say, no, I didn't. All I did was this. All I said was this. Because what you're expressing is your experience.
So therefore, again, it can just be helpful in terms of mindful communication to consider the language that you use in order for there to be no comeback and to get into a tit for tat. And that's not what I did more. Yes, you did all of that back and forth.
It's expressing my perception was this, from my perspective, this, this is how I felt as a result of that interaction. This was my experience during that interaction. This is how it impacted me.
And therefore, this is the impact it has had on my behavior, on my willingness to engage with you. This is how I felt, it's my experience, it was my perspective. That's all I have. So when you start going for opinion, be careful.
We gotta try as much as possible, as much as you're angry, as much as you really feel justified in really letting them have it and really telling them what they've done.
As much as possible, taking a breath and checking your language and checking that you are using kind of non accusatory language, more stating the facts rather than delving into emotions and accusations. The other thing is again, what is the ideal outcome? Like, what would be the ideal scenario at the end of this?
Sometimes, even if your relationship has completely broken down, if you never want to see this person again, sometimes just you expressing your perspective or how this behavior or whatever impacted you, then that can sometimes be useful.
If you're talking to a person who is likely to take that on board, then potentially that that might have them consider their interactions with other people. So the benefit might not even be for you, particularly if it's a professional relationship.
Like sometimes it's giving that feedback so that hopefully they learn, so that the next client or customer or whatever they're dealing with might think differently. Take that on board. You're only going to get that outcome if you remain pretty calm and measured and thoughtful in how you express yourself.
Because if you come across as very ranty and emotive and accusatory and use a lot of that kind of language based on your position and your emotions, they're not going to hear that. People aren't going to hear that. People are going to go immediately into being defensive.
So there's lots of reasons why, as justified as you may be and as angry as you might be, that it can be really helpful to just yes, express yourself. But be considered in how you express it.
Depending on the relationship, depending on the person, and depending on what the outcome is that you're looking to achieve. If all you want to do is just vent and rant and tell somebody what an awful person they are, then, you know, go for your life.
But often that's not going to have any positive outcome. It might help you temporarily feel better. It's not likely to change another person's behavior.
Have them consider or take on board anything that you have said. They're not likely to hear you without going into their own defensive justifications for their position and argue for their position.
Now the other thing that was coming up in this particular conversation was a lot of assumptions about I could send this, I could say this, you know, I could express myself. They're not going to listen, they're not going to take it on board, they're just going to double down, they're going to be Defensive.
And again, you've got to check your assumptions.
You don't know that the only thing you have control over is yourself, your own actions, your intentions, and how you manage yourself, how you regulate yourself and how you regulate your. Not just your own emotions, but your behaviors. You don't know how the other person is going to receive that.
So expecting them to fall over themselves with an apology is a mistake.
But also if you're expecting that they're just going to shut the door in your face or tell you they're not going to have a bar of it and that they're going to be defensive, that's not helpful either. That's making a whole lot of assumptions. You don't know that's the case.
And so if you choose your actions, if you decide what you're going to do about this based on a lot of assumptions, a lot of stuff that you don't know, then that's going to influence how you craft that, how you, how you express yourself. So I think it's really so important to just let go of all of that.
Let go of any preconceived ideas or assumptions that you might have about how they're going to respond and really just come back to your own intentions, your experience, your perspective, why this matters, why it's important to you to express this and what your objective is. And when you're able to do that, then you don't have to be aggressive. You can be assertive.
You can make your decisions about whether you continue to see that person or not. But you have your voice heard. And that's. That's important. I think that's really important.
I think when we are so often will default to just shutting up, keeping the peace, and then carrying that within us, like carrying that, never really knowing what the outcome would have been.
You can make a lot of assumptions about what would have happened if you spoke up for yourself, if you said something but you don't actually know and it's still unresolved, like you're still carrying it around with you and it's still living in you. And sometimes that leads to being passive aggressive.
It leads to this underlying resistance, resentments, it leads to your frustration tolerance being lower because the more you wear, the more that you tolerate these injustices and don't stand up for yourself, don't express yourself. The more worn down you become, the less patient, the less tolerant you become. And nobody wants that.
And not to mention that you carry it in your body and it causes you stress. If you're carrying around unresolved anger in your body without expressing it.
No matter how much you think that you're managing it and you're controlling it, if all you're doing is just suppressing it, it's living in your body and it is attacking you from the inside. So it is really important to find a way to get it out of you.
But more than anything, I just think we need to start being more willing to speak up, to not find all of the excuses or the reasons or the justifications why it's not worth it, why nothing would come of it, they wouldn't be willing to hear it, or just avoiding it because we are so unwilling to express how we really feel or to be perceived as difficult, confrontational, hard work. Anger serves a useful purpose. It alerts us to an injustice or a danger or potential harm.
And it is really important that we find ways to express our anger in a healthy way after we have done some work of sitting with our anger just to check if it's really anger or if there is something more vulnerable underneath that maybe we need to tend to and give ourselves a little self compassion for and be a little honest about. Which is not to say that you can't still be angry because anger will come in to protect against a vulnerability.
But just before we go expressing the anger, we want to really be honest about whether we're just using anger as a shield against something more vulnerable that we're having trouble admitting to or acknowledging within ourselves. And again, you don't have to acknowledge it necessarily to another person, but it's really important that you acknowledge it within yourself.
If you struggle with anger, if you struggle with assertiveness, then I really hope that there is something there that is useful for you. Journaling also is a really useful way to express yourself.
If you don't like journaling, you can write a voice note, you can just talk to yourself, but I'd really encourage you to find ways to get it out of you. Alright, that is it for me. I hope that's helpful and I can't wait to catch you next week for another fabulous episode of Crappy to Happy.
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