Anger Management 101

We all feel angry, often daily. There is such a stigma about feeling angry, especially for women. We tend to immediately get the title, and even give the title to ourselves, of being a b@%$ if we express anger, which is not accurate. That title does not belong to angry women, but mean women. So now that we have cleared up the fact that you aren’t a b, let’s move on to actually dealing with it appropriately.

It is vital that we express our emotions thoroughly, but in a healthy manner, right? How do you do that with anger, which we know is scary and can hurt people? It is instinctual to express anger in a physical manner, and we can go with that (whoohoo!). The trick is that we do it alone, so no one else is traumatized or even victimized by our anger, when all we want to do is get it out. There are so many ways to do this: punch a pillow or a punching bag, jump up and down, rip up a telephone book (that one is from a client), or my personal favorite: get into your car and scream. I have screamed things in my car (namely about my husband, God love him) that would make a biker blush. The beautiful thing about expressing your anger fully in a physical manner is, that it will automatically bring you down to the next step of understanding. The understanding piece is the one we want to express to the people in our lives, and not the expletives that I tend to scream in the car.

If we don’t express our anger, we can get stuck in it. If we don’t reach a place of understanding it, we can get stuck in it. Anger is a secondary emotion, which means that something else comes first. Hurt and/or fear can lead to anger. We have to know this because understanding what we are truly feeling hurt and/or afraid of is the key to being able to gain insight, which will help us to deal with the originating problem.

There is also a positive aspect of anger, which is the feeling of empowerment that it brings. It feels powerful to express anger! This can be helpful when we are stuck in the other direction of hurt and/or fear, and need to be able to move from despair. Anger can help us feel empowered to move into action.

This cycle of moving from hurt and/or fear to anger and back again is healthy and needed for both understanding into our feelings and an ability to feel empowered enough to take care of ourselves.

 by Jennifer Yaeger, LPC, CPCS, CMAC