Thoughts on anger as a secondary emotion.
Anger is a complicated emotion. It is necessary, and often painful. Sometimes it is driven by external events; sometimes, an underlying sense of inner dissatisfaction. Whatever the cause, anger is often a signal to our bodies that something is wrong. Perhaps the way we are being treated goes against what we truly desire - anger can be a flag that we are being treated unfairly or with disrespect.
Often, however, anger is a mask we use to cover up and control other emotions. Emotions that are harder to express, like loneliness, grief, exhaustion, shame, or depression.
In this article, I will teach you to notice the deeper emotions underlying your anger, communicate your honest feelings to your (perhaps perplexed) loved ones, and become more emotionally intelligent in the process.
Why We Often Use Anger to Cover Up Deeper Emotions
Anger is an emotion that allows externalization. We can project our deeper hurts and vulnerabilities onto the world around us, and therefore we can attempt to avoid hurt and shame.
We may use anger to displace our deeper feelings and lack of control. For instance, imagine you come home from work. Your boss is putting increased demands and micromanaging you. To regain a sense of control, you may be subconsciously spurned to yell at your spouse because he burnt dinner.
In this example, anger has little to do with the external "trigger" that caused you to yell (your spouse burning dinner) and more to do with your feelings of inferiority and inadequacy that result from having a job that makes you feel powerless (and miserable).
It can be easier to take out our feelings on others, rather than look within and take note of the shame and exhaustion we feel from certain aspects of our lives.
Think about a time you were angry. Your loved one said something demeaning to you - perhaps without even meaning to hurt you. Or maybe they were ignoring your needs.
Our first reaction may be to use anger as a tool for communication. Expressing our inner rage to someone and blowing up can seem like an effective way to show the extent to which they hurt us: "LOOK WHAT YOU DID! THIS IS HOW YOU MADE ME FEEL!" Perhaps we believe that the more expressive we are of our emotions, particularly our anger, the more effectively we will communicate the message: e.g. "NEVER DO THAT AGAIN."
Some of us may use our anger in ways that aren't as bombastic, but still attempt to hurt and displace our feelings onto those around us - for example, through ignoring people we care about, or treating them with disdain.
This is an example of using anger for control. Anger can be a way to monger fear in others. If you are striving to create an unfair power dynamic, or reduce open communication, then expressing ourselves through anger is one way we can do this.
There is no such thing as "bad" emotions. Even anger has its place. However, using unprocessed anger as a weapon towards those who have wronged us is ineffective and does not provide a learning opportunity for anyone involved.
Rather, communicating solely through anger often targets and blames the other person in the discussion.
This is why moving through our anger and accepting the fact that we have also been hurt is the first step in communicating effectively with those we love.
What Emotions Could You Be Hiding?
Anger is an emotion in its own right, and is a powerful one, at that. But, as I mentioned, anger is also often a sign that we are emotionally hurt.
We may be...
Disappointed
Our first reaction when our friend cancels last minute on us may be to be angry at them - "what a flaky loser." If we move the emotion from our external feelings (we are feeling angry at our friend) to internal feelings (we are feeling disappointed because we enjoy hanging out with our friend and we miss them a lot), we understand that our feelings of anger come from a place of hurt and disappointment. This may help us move from a place of turmoil to a state of gratitude - "This must be a sign that I really enjoy my friend's company."
Discouraged
We studied like mad for our bio exam, and still ended up barely passing. All the time feels like a waste. We throw our textbook across the room and tell ourselves we are going to drop out of school. But if we move the emotion from our external feelings (we are angry at school for being a waste of time) and towards our internal feelings (we feel discouraged because we tried very hard and still did not do as well as we hoped), we understand that our feelings of anger come from a place of discouragement. This feeling of being discouraged can also result in a sense of shame, which makes the feelings even more intense - "I am a horrible student and will never amount to anything."
Grieving
One of the normal stages of grief is anger. We may feel angry at ourselves for not spending more time with who we lost, or angry at the world / God for taking our loved one away from us. As we process our grief, we may begin to realize this anger also comes from a place of deep hurt and grief. Anger can be a way we displace the uneasiness of dealing with loss, using blame to give us a feeling of more control.
Anxious
The unknown and the out-of-control aspects of our lives can be anxiety-inducing. We may feel extreme irritability and anger towards people who make us feel worried, especially about their perceptions of us: a nervous schoolteacher on her first day wants to yell at people who whisper as she speaks. We may also feel anger in regards to situations that make us feel uneasy and insecure. Although the secondary emotion we experience is anger, underneath this rage is a sense of anxiety. We may use anger as a tool to give us a sense of control in these situations that cause us anxiety, by externalizing our emotions and blaming those around us. We may also feel anger towards ourselves - "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST RELAX?"
Sad
Processing our sadness can feel useless and ineffective because we live in a culture that is obsessed with control and staying positive. Allowing ourselves to feel sad is difficult; we may choose to be angry at the things that make us sad rather than feel our sorrows. In some cultures, anger is also more normalized, especially when it comes to ideas of traditional masculinity. By repressing our deeper feelings of sadness and displacing it with expressions of anger, we can continue to seem strong and domineering and avoid showing signs of "weakness". A football player who is upset and disappointed by losing a game is generally more accepted if he yells and screams at the other team than if he sits on the bench crying. Sometimes, even acts of violence can feel easier than allowing ourselves to cry in front of others. The disparity of emotions within ourselves can lead us to wanting to act impulsively or hurt those around us - anger is not an effective cover-up for sadness, at least not for long. The easiest way to welcome sadness into our life is to rework the mindset that suggests that any "negative" emotion other than anger is a sign of weakness. Rewire yourself into viewing emotional expression and vulnerability as a symbol of inner strength.
Lonely
When we are lonely, it can be easy to blame the world surrounding us for being cold and harsh. We view rejection as a sign that we are unworthy of being loved, and we may feel a deep sense of anger to anyone or anything that denies us or drives us further into isolation. An example of this is "incels" (short for involunatarily-celibate), an internet hate group for men who feel victimized in their consistent rejection by women. In 2003, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, who, upset with women for rejecting him, shot and stabbed six in his self-proclaimed "incel rebellion" before killing himself as well. In his video manifesto, he claimed he had "no choice but to exact revenge on the society" that had "denied" him sex and love. One can assume that underneath this misogynstic rage of incels is also a deep sense of loneliness and alienation. Although this is an extreme example, anger driven by loneliness usually only creates further disconnection with those around us. In the case of incels, the desire to blame others for their sense of alienation only furthered their feelings of being unable to communicate with women and gain a romantic/sexual partner. Rather than admitting to their deeper vulnerabilities of being lonely and ashamed, they chose to view themselves as "victims" - "nice guys" who were wronged by the unfair world around them. When we move to a place of anger and despair towards our circumstances and "externalize" our deeper feelings of shame, we only create more disconnection and loneliness. Noticing these feelings of loneliness allows us to become more honest in our vulnerabilites, work to overcome our sense of unworthiness, and aim to find ways of connection that doesn't revolve around blame or hatred.
Exhausted / Burnt-Out
We only have so much room in our minds to take in new information, emotions, and experiences. Sometimes, when we overload ourselves with school, work, or socializing, we experience "burn-out". Often, we may use burn-out as evidence that there is something wrong with the world we live in. We may feel angry at society, at our institutions of school or work, or other people for overloading us. This anger gives us a sense of control when we feel utterly powerless, enslaved to a lifetime of exhaustion. But anger often drains more of our limited energy, making us even more susceptible to feeling overworked. Coming to terms with our exhaustion means viewing "burn-out" constructively - as evidence that something must change with the way we live, rather than how we feel.
Using Our Understanding of Emotions to Breach Connection
As I mentioned before, anger can be used in a way that weaponizes our language and hurts those around us. When we speak from a place of anger, we can poison those we love with overdramatized truths. Anger can provide us a temporary sense of control (especially if we use this anger to scare or nullify those around us), help us repress our sense of guilt or blame, and create scapegoats for us to project our deeper sense of inadequacy or shame.
But this raw, unprocessed anger will often result in disconnection. When we don't take the time to analyze what truly made us upset, and verbalize the motives behind our rage, we will end up in a cycle of disconnection. And when we use our rage to fuel our communication with others, we often hurt those we care about, or unknowingly push people away with our overreactions.
So how do we communicate effectively with those we care about, as we begin to understand what emotions may be beneath our feelings of anger?
After identifying what emotions lie beneath your anger, use "I feel" statements rather than blame and externalization. If we yell at our spouse for burning dinner after having an exhausting day at work, we can apologize and explain: "I feel so exhausted from work. My boss makes me feel inadequate. I am sorry for taking it out on you." Or, instead of shouting at our fellow employee who makes us feel stupid and insecure by being a know-it-all, we can say, "I feel discouraged and ashamed when you tell me what to do. I feel like you don't trust my abilities, or see me as inferior." This will help to branch understanding - it is often difficult to pinpoint what lies beneath other people's angry outbursts if they are not clear in what is really going on.
Use your underlying emotions to find out what your needs are. If we understand what lies beneath our anger, we can begin to understand what we really want. If we are secretly anxious, maybe we need someone to listen to our worries and give us reassurance. Or if we are lonely, perhaps we just need someone to spend some quality time with us. Often, anger might have us acting in ways that are opposite to what we really need! Rather than pushing people away, we reveal that what we actually need is connection.
Allow yourself to feel anger, but avoid weaponizing it. As I mentioned before, anger is not a bad emotion. It is necessary and a valid emotion, even when there are other feelings intertwined in its web. The problem is when we weaponize anger and use it to create fear or suffering in those around us. Although it may difficult to voice our opinions and concerns to someone that makes us enraged, it can be helpful to understand where the anger is coming from. It can be a helpful tool in voicing our problems, and can help them understand your point of view. Rather than just telling your friend that their way of talking down to you makes you angry, tell them why: "It hurts me when you talk down to me, and makes me feel like you don't really care. It makes me feel unloved and insecure." Because this way of communicating requires the vulnerability of admitting your feelings were hurt, it makes your friend understand your anger is not out of hatred or spite towards them.
Validate the feelings of those around you (and your own). The two rules I live by is that there are no "bad" or "good" feelings, and no one can tell you or anyone else how to feel. Your feelings are entirely your own, and most of the time are out of your control. This is why telling someone they are wrong to feel hurt by something you did is just a way to shatter connection. Even if we don't completely agree with someone's emotional reactions, in order to breach connection we must learn to accept it and understand why they felt that way. Similar to the way we can learn to communicate about our deeper insecurities and emotions, we can help steer those we love towards verbalizing what their true emotions are. We begin to understand that some of their behaviour is not driven from a place of anger or manipulation, but rather out of a place of anxiety or insecurity. We must also be sure never to invalidate our own emotions. One way we do this is seeing our emotions as something we must "fix" (Read: The Dangers of Psychoanalyzing Yourself).
Working with our anger can be a constructive process that leads to greater understanding of our feelings, an improved connection with those around us, and even to inner peace. Rather than seeing anger as the "complete picture", learn to view it as a sign of something deeper. You will be surprised at how it improves your life.
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