Why we get angry and what to do about it?
Anger is essentially a defense response to a threat. The purpose is very clear: protection from the incoming threat, physical or emotional. It can be compared with a canine you have, which growls, barks, or even attack anyone who it perceives as a threat. Anger therefore is primal, autonomic, and it will happen at a perception of a threat just like your hand will automatically move away if it touches a hot iron by mistake. Though, the perception can be incorrect sometimes.
Gabor Maté suggests if we keep protecting our boundaries and preemptively prevent the intruders or anyone who may cause undue or unwanted discomfort or harm, then the need to get aggressive does not arrive. We can even protect ourselves by communicating assertively yet politely if that serves the purpose.
However, often this is not the case. Like kids can keep crossing the line, and if they are too young then we can’t even expect them to understand. Or if its a boss who has a habit of getting unreasonable often, and ignores despite you have insisted a multiple times. Annoying neighbors, even politicians etc, can get on to our nerves, but we can’t do much about it. There can be many examples.
So, often one has to bottle it up, and when we bottle up the anger or frustration, even grief, it can turn into rage when triggered by an external event, and cause sever damage. Or if we do not have a medium to let it out, and if we keep bottling it up out of fear of the consequences, then Gabor Maté even writes (in his When the Body Says No) that bottling up can build up chronic stress, and if it remain high enough for decades it can even cause cancer in the long run, if there a genetic tendency.
We also bottle up to appear good, or pleasant, perhaps we have a sense of inferiority that if we are not pleasing enough then we are not good enough, so we allow others to cross the boundaries, or avoid saying ‘no’ when we should. This eventually builds up the frustration, which can cause outbursts of rage at places or people where there is no risk of repercussion.
There is another less discussed but a very common cause!
If we have a wound, which is unhealed, either physical or emotional, any thing which hits the wound will cause pain, depending how bad the wound is. This is easy for others to understand when we are physically injured, and if we react on someone’s clumsiness around our wound.
But emotional wounds are invisible. We might have an emotional wound, but we may not be aware of its presence, let alone have any recollection to what caused it. So, how do we know we have one? A triggering external event will make us react much more than necessary. An honest joke by a co-worker may hit that tender spot, for example. If our reaction to an event appears too much than necessary afterwards, then we can infer that the overreaction was perhaps due to an emotional wound which we are not aware of.
Depth psychology and trauma psychology suggests that in such cases the reaction was not to the event in present moment, but to something that happened in the past. The event only takes us back into the past, into the very moment where we once got hurt badly, and the emotional charge generated could not be resolved, integrated, or digested right after. Perhaps the circumstances forced us to suppress it, or perhaps it was too much for our nervous system to handle.
Jay Earley in his book Self-Therapy (which is based on IFS method developed by Richard Schwartz) explains that parts of our psyches can get stuck in the past. These parts carry the emotional burden of the events which may have happened years ago, often in childhood. These parts of our psyches are referred as ‘exiles’ or even inner-children. So when we are reminded by an external event, our reaction may not be against the present stimulus, but to the undigested event from the past. Its like the part of our psyche is still in that moment, and reacting to it.
All this happens spontaneously, unintentionally, unconsciously, and one may not even remember unless after using some meditation techniques. If the memory belongs to a place in the past when you were like two year old, or even younger, then you might not even remember the details of what happened. But through meditation or hypnosis you may feel the nature of the threat you might have experienced back then.
For an adult that threat may appear insignificant, but it was a big deal for a two years old. So, it gets hard for the conscious ego in particular who refuses to accept the actual cause, as it appears non-sensical. However, for the two year old still inside, the event or anything which reminds of it, is still a threat.
This part of the psyche, explains the experts, resides in the primal parts of the nervous system, aka reptilian brain, more specially the amygdala, so when a threat is perceived this part of the nervous system has a far greater capacity to influence our reactions. Its the same part which jerks our hand away when it touches a hot item. It will even react to a perception of a threat, a perception which makes the threat appear much larger, even if the actual threat is insignificant. This perception is the viewpoint of the so called inner-child which distorts our view of reality, making a threat appear bigger than it actually is. Our inner-child can even perceive threats when none exists.
All of this internal dynamics is invisible to the outside world. So, others, your children, spouse, or some one on the street, may not understand where exactly this reaction is coming from. So the obvious invalidation or rejection or protest received from others can further sprinkle salts on the wounds. And if after a few moments, you realize that you have overstepped, the guilt may also make it worse.
So, the long term permanent fix, as per the best of my understanding, is to allow the wound from the past to heal, and help bring the healed inner-child in to the present moment so that he or she gets integrated with the conscious self. The healing essentially involve releasing that emotional energy which the inner-child has been carrying. Often its a long process, more on this later.
Why emotional injuries happen?
Emotional injuries happen when we are unable to complete an emotional response either due to the habit of suppression, or perhaps the circumstances does not allow, or perhaps because the emotional load was much beyond the natural capacity of our nervous system to handle. When we are young our nervous system can only bear a certain amount of emotional load, and when an event creates an emotional load beyond the capacity of our nervous system, it goes numb naturally.
But if it goes numb, the emotional response is on a pause, which would be completed once the nervous system is developed enough, even if take decades. But after a few decades it is very unlikely that we remember the original event, so when an external event reminds us of the event in the past, we are unable to understand, thus keep bottling it up. Trauma is another term used by experts to describe this emotional charge which is stuck and unable to find a release. Its too irrational for the conscious ego to accept, and allow a release.
It could be a single event, or a perpetual experience which might force a person or a child to bottle-up emotions in order to survive in an environment. If so, the result is a split between parts of the psyche. One part going against the other. For the sake of acceptance, we might suppress an authentic expression of our discomfort because of the consequences, in words of Gabor Maté. This inner conflict is often externalized as well when something reminds us of the pain we are trying to suppress, the reminder thus appears like a threat. The greater the force of suppression, the greater our reaction would be.
So, when an external event will remind you of a past event which caused huge amount of grief, frustration, sense of loss, fear, etc. that is still lying undigested in some hidden parts of your psyche, your reptilian brain may overreact to the external cause instead, because it would appear to the reptilian brain that the pain is being caused by the external event.
Behaviors are also learnt in the upbringing process. Like growing up with an elder who was at war with himself or herself. Your mirror neurons are likely to copy the same behavior, making you handle your emotional reactions likewise. Further, if acting in a particular way, which can include aggressive behavior, has helped you get what you want, during your early childhood, then the behavior could be hardwired and difficult to resist consciously. But self-reflection, conscious evaluation, and willfully choosing an alternative response can slowly reconstruct the neural pathways which in turn help you shift to a different set of responses. But before we do this, there is a necessary detail that we must understand.
Solutions, short term and long term
Short term fixes can work only in situation when you can pre-emptively sense that anger is building up. If so then you can take some deep breaths, clench your muscles, walk around, or leave the situation if possible, or try changing the conversation.
But if the reaction is too spontaneous, so rapid that you do not have time to even reflect on the situation, then a short term solution is out of question. The only way is to heal the wound which is triggering the reaction as explained above. The process however is long. It can sometime take years. Depending on how deep and ancient the wound is.
The first step is to understand what is happening in your body and nervous system when you are overreacting. That was the purpose of the description in the first half of the article. Once we understand what is causing the reaction, it eases the internal conflict, and help us get closer to the parts which are in pain.
The real question is not ‘why the anger’, but ‘why the pain’ (rephrasing Gabor Mate’s words)
Jungian psychology suggests that when our pain is pushed into the unconscious, invalidated, denied of acceptance or acknowledgement, when our conscious ego refuse to understand its legitimacy, instead prefer to suppress it, the pain gets worse and cause a more powerful reaction when triggered. Don’t children also react often in a similar way when ignored?
So, the first step of the solution is to become aware of it, accept it, validate its cry, bring it into awareness, understand its source, and specially acknowledge the complain it has against the one who caused the wound(could be one’s own parents). The moment you will achieve this step, you may feel that the wounded part was overreacting on triggers to achieve exactly the same, that is to seek the attention of the conscious self, to feel validated at least by the self.
Interestingly, the universe somehow also brings circumstances which pokes into the specific wounds . And if you ignore the cry, the universe try again, and again, until you bring the emotional charge, the pain into your full conscious awareness. Peter Levine calls it ‘reenactment’, where the universe around synchronously bring exactly the event which can make you feel the very pain that your ego was trying to hide. In Jungian terms, this is perhaps ‘synchronicity’ and ‘enantiodromia’ occurring simultaneously, with a noble purpose, that is to initiate the healing process, for which become fully aware of the pain, is the next critical step.
The words of Mastin Kipp offer some more insight here:
But here the emotion is not the anger, but the hurt which is causing the overreaction. Becoming aware of the original cause or hurt can massively shift the perspective. You become aware that the source of the actual hurt is not the event which just happened, but the one in the past! The present moment rather only took you back to that undigested moment. With practice you can become conscious of this very fact, and reflect — when ever something triggers you — if the reaction which is coming powerfully, is either from the present moment, or it is coming from the past. Is it the behavior of your son or spouse or your subordinate which is causing it now, or it was some undigested past experience in your own childhood which is fueling the overreaction.
However, this require massive amount of practice of bringing the source of the pain into your awareness. And eventually with practice, at the time of trigger, you would know if you are reacting to the present or to a past event. This may take years, as mentioned earlier, depending how big or deep the wounds may be, but its necessary for obvious reasons.
The act of gaining awareness of your responses has a flip side, that is you also become aware of your potential to make a choice by separating your higher consciousness with the emotional charge carried by the wounded parts. You can witness them, while knowing that the act of witness is being performed by a separate entity, which is your higher self-consciousness. This practice of becoming aware of the contents of your psyche and witnessing them from a mental distance with a sense of self-compassion is referred as ‘mindfulness’.
Knowing or becoming aware of the wound, and validating or accepting its complain or cry, is a key step. Often this in itself is enough if that’s what the wounded part needed. However, if the emotional charge is related to a fight or flight response mere validation will not suffice. Any fearful incident generates a fight/flight response, and if the fear is too much, then we can also freeze in that moment, only to release the pumped up energy in a burst to fly away from the threat.
Peter Levine writes that other mammals naturally release this energy if fighting or flying away is no more necessary. They release it by various physical actions like fidgeting, shivering, sweating, breathing deeply, tightening of muscles, remaining hyperactive for sometime, crying, running, urinating, etc. However, humans are often conditioned by their nurturing environment to resist a natural response. Peter Levine calls such physical activity ‘somatic experiencing’ which if needed has to be done consciously to release the fight/flight energy from the body. There are some technical details to this solution, for which I would recommend reading Peter Levine’s book Walking the Tiger. There are videos of the author on YouTube explaining the concept and process of somatic experiencing as well.
Anger is also a stage in the grieving cycle, where it naturally emerges while experiencing a loss. The following infographics explains the grief cycle as described by The Kübler-Ross. So, if one keep accumulating grief, and do not allow to feel through the natural process, while resisting the emerging emotions, the anger can also get accumulated. Losses can be small, like breaking a jam bottle, or huge like losing a loved one in the family.
The TV showing us bad news about the society all the time can cause grief as well. The antisocial habits of the public you witness yourself or harmful policies by politicians can also cause grief, and anger eventually. So, taking out time to complete the grief cycle as and when it arrives must be an essential self-care we must perform like bathing. Consider it a kind of psychic bathing, which is perhaps as essential as cleaning the body externally.
The energy of anger in this case can be used to work on solutions, on individual, family, and community level, by channelizing the energy and using it as a motivation to implement a solution to a problem. Many work to raise awareness or create solutions to problems which have caused immense pain to them on a personal level, like a lose of a loved one to rare disease. Anger thus can be turned into a force of good, which can also help complete the grief cycle.
In the end, I would like to say that anger should not be seen as a negative force, like it is often perceived by most in the society. It can turn into something ugly and harmful when ignored constantly, so when understood, and allowed to play its part, it can be a source of self-preservation. Anger emerges from the part of our being which is essentially meant to protect us from harm. When appreciated, and used with care, we can prevent it from becoming a source of harm for others as well.
Thank you …
