Temper, Temper: Handling the Intense Emotion of Anger.

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Anger is one of the strongest of human emotions...

It has led to murders. It has led to arguments of slashing sarcasm, leaving wounds that ached for decades. Smashed crockery, furniture and sheetrock follow in its wake—not to mention broken hearts and relationships. What does one do when anger reaches a tipping point and threatens to spill over into harmful words or deeds?

Some turn their anger in on themselves and then suffer from depression. Some “vent”—either to the person who made them angry or to friends or by engaging in a heavy racquetball game or by scrubbing the kitchen floor on hands and knees. Some people go for walks. Some go for runs. Some count to ten—or to a hundred.

The fact is, when we are angry, we are “flooded” with body chemicals that take a while to simmer down. Sometimes our bodies feel the heightened effect of anger for twenty-four hours before our heart rates return to normal.

When we are flooded, it is hard to deal with issues in a rational way. An advantage of going for a walk or a run is that it gets you away from the person who made you angry—it removes the immediate stimulus of your anger. Separation is a good step here. Getting away from the person or the situation so the flood tide can go out and you can start thinking straight helps. While you are angry with someone, it is unlikely that the two of you are going to engage in positive communication to resolve your issues.

Twelve Step programs tell people to “Mean what you say, say what you mean, but don’t say it mean.” This down-to-earth motto means that you can express your offense about issues without becoming offensive yourself. As we all have experienced, becoming nasty ourselves results in guilt and consequences to the relationship. A person can say the exact same things—even asking another person to radically change—without being offensive. This can only happen, though, once the tide of anger has gone out.

Buddha said, “You’re right, so why be angry?” This is a calming thought to dwell on when anger strikes. An angry person usually needs some form of validation of his or her point of view. If you are fortunate enough to have a marriage partner, child, co-worker, boss or handy person who knows how to validate you when you are angry, half the battle is over. Your anger will recede immediately. One clever teenager always answered his parents’ concerns with: “I can see why you would feel that way. Still, I see it this way…” Many arguments were avoided in this family by the fact that this teenager validated his parents’ feelings. If someone can validate your point of view, or you can validate theirs, you are halfway toward resolving the issues that sparked the anger in the first place.

Alas, it is more likely that, rather than validating you, the person you have an issue with is going to become defensive. He or she will stonewall, deny, or make false claims. Let’s face it:  that is what we all tend to do when someone accuses us of something. No one wants to be that something he or she did or said was wrong. People will lie themselves blue in the face to avoid admitting they said or did anything reprehensible, especially in the face of someone’s anger.

If you are going to get any validation, it may have to come from inside you. You can say to yourself, “I have a valid point here. I have a right to be upset about this. This really did happen, and anyone would be offended by this.” You can repeat Buddha’s adage: “You are right, so why be angry?”

Unless the whole thing was a total misunderstanding (and this can happen) you probably do have reason to be angry. Validate yourself if the other person will not or cannot do so. Validate yourself until you calm down.

However, in the course of validation, do not rehearse your anger. It isn’t going to help you one bit if you keep going over the anger-producing incident in your mind, telling yourself how right you are. Simply assure yourself that you have reasons for feeling the way that you do, and that you don’t need the other person to affirm that. He or she will validate you and affirm that you have a point once you’ve calmed down and explained the situation in a reasonable way. In the meanwhile, validate yourself without rehashing or reliving the whole thing. Otherwise, you will simply keep the adrenaline flowing and reason at bay.

When you feel the tides of your anger going out, maybe it is time to try to set up some communication. Try to translate your angry feelings and accusations into more sensible language.

For example, a wife may feel like saying: “You never listen to me! I warned you and warned you about the credit card debt, but did you listen? Now you bought a plasma TV! You selfish hog!”

However, she can express the exact same points and get closer to the core of the issue by saying something like: “I feel like you and I are in a rowboat together but we’re rowing in opposite directions. When you don’t listen to my warnings, when you want to spend when I want to save, when you want to deepen our debt when I’m looking to pay it down, I feel we’re rowing in different directions. I just don’t see how we can get to shore that way. It’s frustrating.”

In the second case of expression, the wife is closer to the core of her fear and alienation—the driving forces beneath her anger. She is also affirming the marriage bond rather than acting to break it.

In scenes of anger, words like “never” should “never” be used. They’re simply too global. Telling someone they “never” do something is to invite defensiveness, denial and stonewalling, and the other person is probably right—they probably perform well on occasion! Likewise, calling names and character assassination aren’t likely to win many friends or influence many people. Stung, the accused will, at best, retreat into injured silence and stew over the unjust words for a long time.
   
The next time you are caught in the storm of anger at someone, try these steps. Physically and mentally separate yourself from the situation until you can think straight. Validate yourself. Recite the Buddha’s admonition, but don’t make it into a “Yeah! I’m right! The other person is wrong, dang it!” Validate yourself. Reassure yourself that you have viable reasons for your strong feelings. Then, when you’re calm, sort out the reasons why you are angry. Begin to script a way to express yourself to the other person in a respectful and dignified way. If you do this, you may very well receive from the other person the validation you seek—and the rewards of new bond forged through reason rather than rage.

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