How to use anger to transform your relationship with yourself—and others
Though he was doing his best to hide it as we settled into our session, it was obvious that my client Steve was upset. His jaw was tense. His voice was harsh. He struggled to string words together when I asked him how he was doing.
Right before our session, Steve had spoken with his father.
“He doesn’t know how to relate to others besides telling stories about himself,” Steve told me. “I go to him with something important, or something painful, and somehow he always manages to turn it around and make it about him. I’ve had it!”
Steve had had it with his father. He couldn’t take it anymore. But he admitted he wasn’t sure if anger was the only way, or the best way, to cope with the situation.
What is anger? Why do we experience it?
Anger or judgment—which is the intellectualization of anger—is how we protect ourselves from our vulnerability. Think of a dog growling in a corner when it feels threatened. It’s not growling because it’s angry. It’s growling out of fear, out of a desire to protect itself. Similarly, we revert to anger to shield ourselves from emotional harm.
But there’s a problem with anger. If we stay in it, it simply continues to build, as in Steve’s situation with his father.
Anger is almost always rooted in fear. So in order to break free from anger, we need to identify the fear beneath it. (Learn more about the 5 most common anger-triggering fears.)
Why is it so important to identify the fear? When we figure out the fear/vulnerability driving the anger, we can respond to that fear—and eventually transform it.
In other words, if we’re afraid of something, we can address that. Whereas if we’re angry, or wishing someone or something was different, we’re at a stalemate. There’s nothing we can do to change the situation, or our response to it.
In the following exercise, I’ll show you how to work with anger, and how to use it as a bridge to a better relationship with yourself and your emotions.
Exercise: How to use anger as a tool for self-transformation
Pick someone in your life who triggers you/makes you angry.
Write down all the reasons why you have a right to be angry/judgmental/irritated with this person.
Close your eyes and feel where you feel the resistance to that person in your body. If you want, place your hand there. Don’t try to change what you’re feeling.
As you sit with your emotions, ask yourself what you’re afraid of. What color represents this feeling?
Now pick a color that represents love. Breathe this color into the place in your body where you feel the most resistance/fear. Open your eyes when you feel ready..
Note how you feel. If you’re feeling vulnerable and/or uncomfortable, you’re doing it right! This is precisely the moment when you can expect your mind to resist. This is where most people tend to get stuck and/or turn back to anger. It might not feel like it, but a state of vulnerability/fear is your place of power. It’s the place where you can transform.
Ask yourself what you need. In Steve’s case, it was accepting that his father wasn’t capable of offering him the understanding and support he needed—so he turned to a friend he trusted instead. When you ask yourself what you need, you’re practicing self-compassion and self-love. When you give yourself what you need, you’re acting in the spirit of your true self. And when you’re in your true self, you can approach people—even the people who trigger you—with empathy, acceptance, and unconditional love.
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “This all sounds great on paper, Jesse, but how am I supposed to get to a place of unconditional love from a place of anger?”
Think of this exercise as a practice. The more you practice it, the easier it becomes to bridge the gap between anger and acceptance, between wanting someone to be different and feeling unconditional love for them.
This is exactly what happened with Steve. Once he was able to identify the fear of not getting his needs met when it came to his father, the easier it was for him to have compassion for himself. And the more compassion he showed himself, the more compassion he could show his father, “He is the person he is,” Steve told me, “because somewhere along the line he didn’t get his needs met either.”
Steve learned what I’ve learned in my own life and what I’ve committed to helping my clients learn: The best chance you have to protect yourself and your loved ones is to approach them with empathy and unconditional love. Unconditional love is the most transformative power you have, and it’s only when you’re communicating from that place that you have a chance of anybody truly listening to you.
When people feel understood, accepted and loved first, their capacity for listening expands infinitely. When you’re in your place of power, the other person can be in their place of power, and your interactions become more fulfilling—for everyone involved.
Want to learn more about how use anger to transform your relationship with yourself? I have just the course for you.
During my three-month group course, I’ll guide you to create your own unique formula to build, nurture, and sustain self-love. Click here to learn more!