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How is anger portrayed in movies and on TV? The hero is insulted or assaulted by the villain. He or she resolves to avenge this attack and at the next encounter the hero unleashes his or her righteous anger, attacks and overpowers the villain and basks in a glow of certainty that his or her actions are justified. Righteous anger is portrayed both as powerful and as a way to solve problems. Make my day.
Outside the world of fantasy, in the real world where we live, anger is often misperceived as powerful and as a way to solve problems. In fact, the opposite is most often true.
Anger is a normal human emotion that is aroused when one feels threatened or unfairly treated. It is a survival tool, but one that needs to be properly channeled.
The Dalai Lama says anger is an “afflictive emotion.” An angry outburst afflicts the person who is the target, but it also afflicts the person who is projecting their anger. Researchers have proven that people who are chronically angry or hostile are prone to heart disease.
In family life, overt displays of anger are destructive and in-effective. The louder one speaks, the less the other person listens. Those on the receiving end learn to build a wall and block out angry speech. Or, they learn to match the speaker and the conversation escalates into an angry confrontation. Over time, angry exchanges erode the respect and the loving-kindness that holds a family together.
An angry person is often screening out or distorting information. Their state of mental agitation impairs their ability to think clearly about a situation or to feel empathy for the other person. They are stuck in a narrow, self centered view of the problem and this serves to screen out options and alternatives.
An angry person feels powerless or threatened. They are trying to regain a sense of control over their environment. However, a parent or spouse who fails to channel his or her anger is actually losing power – the exact opposite of their objective. Other members of the family learn to shutdown, to actively resist or to passive-aggressively refuse to cooperate. This can spiral downwards into a very unhappy and sometimes dangerous situation. Anger becomes rage and rage may lead to violence.
What Are Alternatives to Angry Speech?
A person who gets excessively angry needs to take total responsibility for his or her behavior. Without this nothing will change. It is an excuse to say that “he pissed me off”, or “she pushed me too far.” One either chooses to be responsible for his or her own life or else he or she is a puppet who can be manipulated and other people will pull the strings.
An angry person needs to fully accept the fact that un-controlled anger is a losing proposition. It is not effective in getting the desired results - in fact it is counter productive and self-defeating. It doesn’t make sense to behave in a self-defeating manner.
The person must learn how to recognize the triggers and the internal early warning signals of arousal. Once aware of their building anger, they need to learn to self-sooth when they start to get angry. This can mean taking a time out from the conversation to calm oneself. It might mean taking a walk or a drive. It could mean doing a relaxation exercise.
Another tool is to recite a mantra such as this:
“Calm down. This situation is not life threatening.” Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “I know that getting angry will only make the situation worse and I will lose respect. Who wants to do that?” Take another deep breath and visualize the wave of anger passing by and slowly receding to the horizon.
Recite this mantra and visualize the wave receding as many times as necessary to self sooth and regain a calm state of mind. You can devise your own mantra and your own visualization.
Another visualization technique is to imagine yourself in the surf at the beach confronted with an approaching wave of anger. Imagine yourself diving under the wave of anger and then watch it expend all of its energy as it crashes and washes up on the beach. Dive under as many waves as you need to calm down.
An angry person needs to learn how to communicate in an effective manner. Often angry behavior was modeled when the person was a child and now as an adult he or she has a limited repertoire of effective communication.
Learning to Communicate Effectively
- Learn to speak in a moderate tone of voice. Yelling might be emotionally satisfying in the moment, but it doesn’t help, it hinders communication. A person on the receiving end of an angry outburst learns to shut down and screen out loud, angry speech.
- Speak from the “I” position rather than make blaming statements. Blame elicits defensiveness rather than cooperation. Say, “I disagree” rather than “You’re wrong.” Say “Moving forward, I would like you to be more careful” rather than “You really messed up this time.” Sounds simple, but it is a powerful way of speaking.
- Learn to look at a given situation from the other person’s point of view. Practice cultivating empathy for the thoughts and feelings of others. In a quirky way, developing empathy for others is self-serving. People like to be listened to, they like their thoughts and feelings to be acknowledged. Empathic listening and a meeting of the minds elicits cooperation rather than resistance.
- Get out of angry punishment mode and into reasonable incentive mode. Punishment is initially effective and then rapidly fades out. The punishing parent raises a defiant child. Instead, learn how to create incentives. Incentives are very powerful in shaping behavior and they get more powerful over time.
- For example, punishment mode would be to say, “if you don’t do X right now, then I’m going to take away Y!” Taking something away is a punishment. This same situation can be transformed into incentive mode, “if you do X on time, then you can earn Y.” This frames the situation as an opportunity to earn a rewarding outcome. Most situations can be re-framed out of punishment mode and into incentive mode.
- Make every problem a learning experience. When a person reacts to a problem by losing his or her temper and projecting anger and blame, the initial problem often gets lost in the argument that erupts as the accused gets defensive and counters with a salvo of anger and blame. Very little is learned and the initial problem remains un-solved. In contrast, when a person is calm and reasonable they are able to learn from an encounter and they can adjust their behavior to be more skillful and effective in the future.
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