Recently I’ve identified a pattern in myself. As soon as I start feeling angry it instantly ramps up to MAXIMUM RAGE and suddenly I’m shouting at the people I love the most. After some reflection I realised that feeling angry in itself makes me feel more angry.
A quick google surfaced that “Why am I angry that I’m angry?” is a commonly asked question, so I know I’m not alone. But Google didn’t give me a satisfactory answer. So here’s mine.
Accurate mathematical representation of my anger escalating
Seeking a healthy relationship with anger
Anger has always been one of my most troublesome feelings. Until a few years ago I genuinely thought I was very slow to anger. I believed I’d only been angry a handful of times in my whole life. Now I realise I’d built so many anger-smothering layers inside that my anger very rarely managed to erupt through them all. But it was all still there bubbling away somewhere deep inside.
I’ve dismantled many of those layers now. But on my quest to get more in touch with my feelings, anger continues to be the emotion that I don’t have a healthy relationship with. I recognise it in myself much more readily now—becoming a parent has certainly given me plenty of practice at that! Sometimes starting to feel angry helps me notice that a boundary has been crossed and I take swift action to change my behaviour in response.
But often I find myself exploding seemingly out of nowhere.
Being “patient” is not the same as embodying patience
Sometimes if I’d been paying attention, it wouldn’t be out of nowhere of course. These are the times I’ve been being “patient” through gritted teeth for too long. Usually with my daughter. Until the moment I can’t be patient any longer. That’s when words I don’t mean come flying out of my mouth in a voice I don’t recognise.
Or course, I’m not being genuinely, wholeheartedly patient in those moments. When I’m telling myself I’m “Being Patient” I’m usually letting a boundary slide and trying to stay calm about it. In those times “patience” means choosing to let things happen that I’m not ok with. Meanwhile my anger slowly builds, trying harder and harder to get my attention. My body is trying to tell me that the situation is not ok with me. If I ignore it for long enough, pressure builds and I explode in fury.
What a contrast to when I’m genuinely patient. That takes far less effort to sustain. Like when I sat up all night with my daughter through a vomiting bug. Yes it was unpleasant and I would have much rather been sleeping. But there was no anger rising—it didn’t feel like a boundary was being crossed.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines patience as “The calm, uncomplaining endurance of pain, affliction, inconvenience, etc.; the capacity for such endurance.” Supressed anger has no place in that—by definition suppressed anger is not calm.
Explosive feedback loops
It’s not always a slow burn though. Sometimes I really do explode so quickly no one could have seen it coming. In those times it’s often a response to something my husband says—usually something relatively benign. I think the common thread is that something is threatening my identity as a “good person”.
In fact, often it happens when my husband says he thinks I’m angry. Whether I was or wasn’t angry to start with, there’s I good chance I’ll be exploding with rage the second he suggests I might be getting cross.
What is anger?
I really like Brené Brown’s definition of anger.
“Anger is an emotion that we feel when something gets in the way of a desired outcome or when we believe there’s a violation of the way things should be”
Brené brown, Atlas of the heart
When I’m “Being Patient” with my daughter it’s usually because she’s acting in a way that’s not in line with my desired outcome—maybe that she gets ready quickly so we can move onto the next thing.
When I’m exploding at my husband it’s often because he’s said something that violates my image of myself as a good person or us as a happy family.
Anger as a secondary emotion
Primary emotions occur directly as a result of a stimulus. We see, hear or think something that directly triggers an emotional response. These emotions occur instinctively and exist to help us navigate the world—to run from danger or towards joy, or to fight off a threat.
We use secondary emotions, generally without realising it, as a “cover up” for primary emotions that we don’t want to feel. These are learned responses that we accumulate over a lifetime.
Feeling hurt, sad or scared can feel disempowering and be very hard to sit with. In contrast anger has a tremendous feeling of power behind it. Letting rage fly can feel really good in the moment! As soon as a feeling we don’t want to face pops up, anger (or another feeling that we’re more comfortable with) swoops in to help us feels better. This isn’t a conscious choice. It can happen so fast and effectively that we often don’t even notice the primary emotion underneath.
This is what’s happening in the dynamic with my husband:
- He suggests I’m getting cross
- That violates my image of a “good girl” who doesn’t get angry
- My shame starts to rise
- Shame feels awful
- So I cover it up with anger
- Now I’ve proved him right and I am, indeed, angry
- That brings up even more shame
- 💥Rage explosion💥
So why am I angry that I’m angry?
To come back to my original question. I’m angry that I’m angry because getting angry violates my self-image as a good person. Even the mere suggestion that I might be angry brings up so much shame that I instantly cover it up with… more anger.
What can I do about it?
In my head I’m very clear that anger is a healthy and important human emotion. I wouldn’t consider for a second telling my daughter that she shouldn’t feel angry. Instead I try to help her learn healthy ways of releasing her anger. But deep down I’ve internalised the belief that good girls don’t get angry. I’m definitely not in the minority of women there!
Outside of my awareness, that belief has been triggering my rage. It’s clearly not serving me. In fact it’s bringing up even more of the very feeling it’s trying to suppress. And it’s hindering my efforts to build a healthy relationship with all my emotions.
These sorts of internalised beliefs are known as limiting beliefs—the messages that consciously or unconsciously we believe to be true, and affect our behaviour in ways that stop us being the person we want to be.
My next task is to dismantle my limiting belief that “good girls” don’t get angry.
Hopefully I be along soon with a follow up post to celebrate my progress in letting go of that belief!