Anger As Our Friendly Protector
“Make room in your heart for the pain, make room in the pain for your heart”
“Someone asked how I became such a kind person and I told them it is because I spent time looking at how unkind I am. Ram Das and are both anger temperaments. “
-In the Heart Lies the Deathless, Stephen Levine
Our friend Anger is a defense mechanism. It is a signal the body sends us to warn us of danger. Anger is our friend that wants to take care of us. Our blood pressure goes up, we grit our teeth or we have trouble thinking, it is preparing us for battle. Once we are at an anger scale of 10 on the 1-10 or in the fight-flight-freeze state our capacity for rest, digest, and focus, and our access to our frontal cortex goes away because battle needs us to have a narrow focus on the dangerous. But it’s like a rocket taking off, we don’t usually start at a 10, usually, there are some signals that also let us know that we are either in a place of hypervigilance or that we are nearing fight-flight-freeze. What’s the first sign your body gives you that you are feeling anger?
“Studies show that repeated noticing and naming of our emotions increases cell volume in the corpus callosum, the integrative fibers linking the two hemispheres of the cortex, making it easier to integrate the intuitive meaning of the emotion with the cognitive understanding of it. Self-empathy makes this process safe, even with difficult or “negative” emotions.”
― Graham MFT, Linda, Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being
Usually, emotions don’t come by themselves. Emotions come with other emotions, and some emotions are more culturally acceptable for certain people to have, depending on social factors like gender, race, social role etc. Typically, the emotion that comes out first is the socially acceptable one for us. As we are recognizing and naming our feelings we might also look to see if there are some emotions underneath the one that came out first. I like to boil things down to:
happy, sad, scared, angry, grief, shame, safe.
People often like to resort to the word frustrated instead of using the word angry. It is generally more accepted but has the potential to be avoidant of the actual feeling. We can be a little angry or a lot angry, and the word frustrated is a way of saying something other people might be more comfortable with. I encourage people to play with using the word angry.
What emotions do usually express? What emotions are usually afraid to express? What are the social-cultural, and familial reasons?
Big reactions, that seem bigger than the event that triggered the feeling, are information that there is an older wound maybe a core identity wound (I am stupid, not loveable, etc because xyz…) being activated. This means it’s not entirely about the interaction or person that you reacting to in the present moment, there are likely some historical experiences at work too. One way I usually get into discovering what that historical wound is is by asking where I feel this feeling in my body and then, is there a time earlier in my life, maybe the first time, I experienced that feeling? Maybe this is a way I often felt in school or within my family, or within our culture and communities. As you become aware of these historical wounds that feed the reactions and sensitivities and patterns in daily life you might like assistance in healing them. Parts work, EMDR, family systems, and the feeding your demons process are all therapy modalities that can assist support the uncovering the patterns and assisting healing. EAP can be a good place to start.
In-the-moment ways to help reset the nervous system
Breath & eye movement are the quickest way to reset the vagus nerve.
Notice your breath, take long deep breaths, you could even hold the out-breath and then the in-breath.
Allow your eyes to look around the room, and move where they want to move - especially side to side. This helps the body assess for safety.
I see three things, I hear three things, I feel (physical) three things.
Move your body or ask your body how it would like to move. (trauma is truncated movement)
Communicating your Feelings
Blame, anger and the desire to be right are besties. We want to point our finger and say this is why my feelings are happening and you or that needs to stop, be different, and go away. So when anger comes up there are a number of ways you can communicate your experience so you can receive the support and connection you might need to process those feelings, come back into your body, and decide what the next steps are. The first step is usually finding a person with whom it feels safe to name and explore the feelings that are coming up.
Resources & References.
Reframing Anger
Anger is universal and complex: it can be quiet, festering, justified, vengeful, and destructive. This hour, TED speakers explore the many sides of anger, why we need it, and who's allowed to feel it.
https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/769449387/reframing-anger
Brené Brown: Listening to shame | TED Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame/transcript?language=en
How To Control (And Even Use) Your Anger — With Meditation Lama Rod Owen, Love & Rage
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002446547/how-to-control-and-even-use-your-anger-with-meditation
I'm Triggered - #imtriggered - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRhitIPEr0Y
Tara Brach: Talks on Working with Anger
https://www.tarabrach.com/anger/
Bessel Vander Kolk https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score
Brittney Cooper on Eloquent Rage in 2019