You are allowed to be mad
Why anger matters and what happens when we numb out
In my life, when anger has knocked at my door I have not let it in.
I did not invite them into the foyer with a cup of tea and listen to what they had to say. I did not even open the door. I let them incessantly knock outside my door until it grew too tired and went on its way, only to come back again, haunting me with the reverberation of their knocks.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that anger wasn’t ok. That getting mad was bad, instead of inevitable.
I noticed that early on in college I would feel angry about things, particularly silly things, and be panicked. I would be upset that my roommate left the door unlocked, or by a comment my friend made and I felt a quickening of my pulse, a rush to my head and a pit in my stomach because I knew that I needed to talk about it, but I didn’t know how. I would go back and forth in my head because what I was upset about seemed trivial.
Put simply, anger is a signal that our expectations for something have been violated or not met. Psychologists call it a secondary emotion, meaning it is usually preceded by another emotion such as sadness or fear.
So, when you are angry about something, it usually is not the thing itself, it’s the thing behind the thing. If your roommate never unloads the dishwasher, it seems silly to be angry about it, but it may bring up feelings of not feeling considered or cared for.
I’ve noticed a collective panic amongst my friends anytime a situation like above plays out. It can feel easier in the moment not to say anything, but that can make it harder to bring up next time. Then, suddenly you have a mountain of problems with somebody that was built off of tiny moments of anger that were left unaddressed.
When you get angry, how do you usually respond? My gut response is to internalize what I am upset about, meaning I feel like I should not say anything, even if something makes me really upset.
I used to think this was a badge of honor. A signal of maturity. “I won’t be crazy or irrational” I would think.
While I abhor the all-too-familiar image of the guy punching a hole in a wall because he could not contain his anger, I think extreme expressions of anger have put us all off to expressing it at all.
While it is admirable to not fly off the handle when something brings up difficult feelings for you, you’re not a martyr for not responding to it. You’ll have to answer for your anger eventually, it can either be difficult now or difficult later.
I used to look down on people who expressed their anger about “pointless” things. It did not seem fruitful to me to flail my arms around or stomp my feet and make my case for why I was upset, especially when I felt like when I did work up the courage to say what I was thinking I didn’t feel heard.
My relationship with my husband has been such a gift to me as I have been learning how to communicate anger throughout college. Our years of dating taught me that it is an inevitable emotion, that deserves to be heard and needs to be thoughtfully stewarded. Our marriage has been a place where we both can safely work out our relational dysfunction, together. It has been so healing because it has taught me that feeling angry is ok, and it is almost always fleeting if we let ourselves express it genuinely and gently.
In therapy, I learned the importance of making “I" statements. Meaning, if something makes me upset and I need to share it with somebody I’ll say:
When you do X, it makes me feel X.
It is a whole lot easier to have a conversation structured around that, because it does not assign blame or motivation. It allows both parties to be curious and open, and to honor their anger.
It can be easy to rationalize our emotions, meaning we think through them and understand why we are upset and then think that’s enough. But to properly reconcile our anger, we need to share it with somebody else, mainly the person we are upset with, and say the vulnerable cringe-worthy words, “That hurt my feelings.”
When we do not do this, and we opt out of sharing our anger, it does not just go away.
Anger can get dangerous when we let it build up inside of us. It’s like a boiling kettle of tea. If you leave it on the stove for too long, the kettle gets louder and louder, until eventually all the water dries up and there is nothing left but the kettle, which is too dangerous to touch. That’s what you’ll become if you don’t take off the lid, turn down the temperature and let some steam out.
One of my favorite non-fiction books, “Why Emotions Matter: Recognize Your Body Signals, Grow in Emotional Intelligence, Discover an Embodied Spirituality” has a great chapter on anger.
The book is co-authored by a married couple, with the wife being a trauma recovery therapist and the husband a co-founder of the Bible Project. In each chapter, they tackle different emotions and what they teach us.
The authors emphasize our tendency to overlook anger as a meaningful emotion.
Anger is something that I misunderstood as a sin. Growing up, I heard Bible verses or church teachings that made anger sound like a sin. It wasn’t until I had Ephesians 4:26 explained to me that it finally clicked.
In your anger do not sin.
Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.
Here, Paul emphasizes the importance of not letting the sun set on your anger, meaning do not wait too long to bring up what you are upset about – this does not mean you need to literally resolve it before bed. Oftentimes, a day's rest can be regenerative for both parties and help a conversation be more fruitful.
In his letter, Paul was speaking directly to new churches that were growing quickly. He was teaching them how they should handle their anger. It was not a question of if they would get angry, but how they would handle it when it came up.
Shutting off our anger is not a sin-management method that is helpful. I find the inclination to internalize emotions common amongst Christians, particularly Christian women.
A lot of the traits women are expected to hold, especially in religious cultures, are focused on gentleness and remaining demure. So, for these women, accessing anger can feel hard because it feels unkind to be confrontational or direct. However, that permanent positive disposition is not realistic and can lead to the tendency to bury negative emotions. And when seeds of anger are sown, resentment grows.
A piece from the New York Times about the benefits of anger noted,
“For a long time, there was this idea that being positive all the time was a life well lived, and that’s what we should strive for,” Dr. Lench said. “But there’s more and more evidence that it’s actually a life that’s balanced by a mix of emotions that seems to be more satisfying and positive long-term.”
Christian niceness was something that I encountered at my Christian college all too often. The all-too-predictable response of, “So good!” after asking how somebody was doing used to drive me up a wall. It made me wonder if I was crazy for not feeling like Joy from Inside Out all the time.
While my faith has formed me into the grateful, content and upbeat person I am, it has not stripped me of the full range of my human emotions. I am able to authentically maintain my disposition when I honor my emotions instead of repressing them in the name of being “nice.”
So next time you stub your toe, get cut off in traffic or get your feelings hurt, take a deep breath and permit yourself to feel the frustration in the moment, then let it go.
When your anger is more serious, commit to having a difficult conversation. Throughout college, I noticed an inclination within myself to avoid these conversations until I heard a quote that changed my perspective. In life, you get to choose your “hard”, meaning everything is difficult.
It is had to be out of shape and it is hard to be fit. It is hard to write every day and it is hard to sit in untapped potential. It is hard to have a confrontational conversation but it is hard to resent somebody. You get to choose.
Choose to honor your emotions, yourself and those you love. It is hard, but so is the alternative.
Your friend,
Jenna