Anger: The Emotion You’ve Been Using Wrong

“Anger is one of the biggest indicators of a change that needs to be made,”

All Emotion has Positive Intent part II

Welcome to the next part of your helpful “negative” emotion series, where the goal is to teach you all about how there is no such thing as negative emotions.

Today we’ll talk about something that we see as destructive, yet it’s probably one of the most important and helpful emotions you can utilize… Anger.

The Cycle

For those of you who are familiar with my story you may know I’ve been bullied and lived as a victim for most of my life, in a state of helplessness, anxiety, and sadness.

However, one thing I’ve left out is in addition to those emotions, I’ve lived with a lot of anger.

In moments of glory through the sadness, came moments of strength, through fury and rage.

Most people who struggle with a level of sadness and helplessness also tend to struggle with strong feelings of anger.

There is a cycle that is actually born out of this and it forms an infinite loop of sadness sliding into anger, and then anger sliding into sadness again.

The Outlet

As an anxious teen this cycle became my norm.

Helpless and depressed throughout the day, fits of anger and rage in moments where I couldn’t bear the pain of my own sadness anymore.

I was the classic teen, a hole punched in the wall, and then promptly hidden so I wouldn’t get yelled at by my parents.

Because let's be honest, no one who punches holes in sheetrock walls is tough, and I most certainly didn’t want to get in trouble.

Why would I do this?

Well I needed an outlet, and I couldn’t punch my bullies, so these damn walls would feel my wrath.

The problem with punching a wall is you eventually run out of holes you can make and posters you can cover them up with.

The Release

But here’s the really interesting thing, and maybe you can relate to this too.

I felt better after I let it out.

That moment of anger and frustration when your hand seemingly smashes through a hollow wall would make you feel unstoppable.

(I am not advocating for putting holes in your wall by the way so don’t do it, it’s expensive to fix)

However, I will say, it’s one of the few times I would feel strong, powerful, in control of my own life, and for a moment, not as a victim.

You see anger is actually an attempt to gain strength and feel powerful when you would otherwise feel like you’re collapsing.

The Phrase

I’ve come up with a little phrase you may like,

“If you have trouble trying to get through it, anger will help you do it.”

The Shift

When we feel helpless for too long, we attempt to flip the scale, as we don’t want to stay in that position, anger is the quickest way to meet that end.

Think about it, when you’re angry your whole body shifts, not just emotionally but physically.

We go from a shrunk physique, and shallow breathing to upright, tense, larger than life, and breathing heavily.

We feel unstoppable in the moment, as if we are on a high of life.

It’s a lot like a drug and we can become addicted if we don’t find a better way to channel our strength and break free from situations that make us feel weak.

The Misuse

Anger is meant to be your helpful friend, however we don’t always contain it, we don’t always harness and channel it in the best ways and this leads to the perceived negative outcomes many of us experience when anger shows up in our lives.

What if you channeled it differently?

What would your life be like if you knew anger was there to help you instead of lead you down an impulsive road of smashing walls and yelling at loved ones?

Aside from the story above, I’ve learned to use anger to my benefit, and here’s another illustration.

The Example

When training to become a firefighter, I began to truly despise some of the fitness instructors, mostly when they would taunt us.

“Come on you’re all weak, but it’s not your fault your parents raised you that way, I will always outwork you!”

This was a pretty common phrase echoed by one of the instructors.

Deep down though it pissed me off because he was right, my body was aching, I was shaking, and ready to fall over, when this guy was barely breaking a sweat.

I wanted to curse this guy out honestly, but instead I just decided that I would continue to stare him in the eyes (mind you there was like a 100 of us and he probably didn’t notice me) and despite the pain I was in, I’d keep going, as my very own form of f*ck you to the instructor.

The Control

When channeled silently with a good and intentional goal in mind, anger can give you the strength, focus, energy, discipline, and longevity needed to overcome difficult tasks.

If you can learn to master your anger you can have quite literally an unending source of strength when you need to truly overcome hardship.

Harnessing your anger is done through understanding what the source of your current pain is, and what you need to overcome it, most importantly it’s about understanding that feelings aren’t facts, they are just indicators.

Anger is one of the biggest indicators of a change that needs to be made, figuring out how you will take action to achieve the change is a major key to properly utilizing anger without lashing out at others… or walls.

The Perspective

Overall, anger is extremely important in our lives, most of us are just utilizing it improperly and letting it control our actions/behaviors, however if you sit in the driver seat and don’t let your emotion guide you, you’ll have a new powerful tool in your toolbox to reach your goals and overcome hardships.

In fact if you’re interested, here is a really cool article published in the APA (American Psychological Association) that shows the power specifically in how anger helps you reach your goals: Click Here for Article.

The Actions

If you want to get the most out of your anger take these actionable steps:

Identify what makes you angry about this situation you’re currently in? (Think about what you need to change about it)

What actions need to be taken to avoid making the situation worse, and what actions would improve the situation? (This is your challenge to be mindful before acting)

Is this the right time to take action or do you need to wait to regain control over yourself? (Knowing how emotionally impaired you are is VERY important when it comes to taking action under the emotional influence. Think of this like driving after you drank. Is it logical to do based on how much you had tonight, did you have one beer or 10 shots?)

Based on the actions you CAN take, which ones would give you your most desired outcome, and what would that look like for you? (See the future, look past your present)

Create your action plan going forward, it will help mitigate impulsivity from heightened emotion and begin to give you back a sense of control by creating a proper framework to follow to achieve your desired outcomes.

Closing Thought

Anger isn’t good or bad, it’s just like everything else in this world, dependent on the person who is using it and for what ends.

I hope after today you can begin to see your anger as another tool to achieve your goals and live the life you want to.

You have more power than you may know, and more capability than you show, allow yourself to harness your emotions, step into your power, and make a change for good, with your anger as your guide.