“The angry man is aiming at what he can attain, and the belief that you will attain your aim is pleasant.” —Aristotle

Anger has a negative reputation when compared to positive emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm, and hope. Perhaps the lack of respect for anger is rooted in social, cultural, and religious reasons, as well as the obvious manifestation of its often destructive outcomes, such as aggression and violence. In fact, many believe we would be better off without anger as an emotion. However, more and more social and evolutionary psychologists, brain scientists, and mental health professionals are suggesting anger has valuable qualities and can be beneficial to the human condition.

From an evolutionary perspective, all emotions are appropriate in certain circumstances when experienced at an optimal degree, providing the resources to effectively operate toward a desired goal. For example, certain levels of stress and anxiety push us to perform at a high level. Sadness can be cathartic, filling us with appreciation for what we have lost while signaling to others we need support to recover and heal. Similarly, mild to moderate anger can help us positively move forward—yet, of course, extreme or chronic anger can be detrimental to our well-being.

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Anger is not just aggressive reaction. It often provides us with information that allows us to better engage with the world around us (as well as ourselves). If we see anger as something that makes us more informed, we can adapt our response accordingly to better our position. To this end, the following is a list of benefits anger can provide when the appropriate level of the emotion is attained.

1. Anger Is Designed to Promote Survival

Emotions evolved to keep us safe. Our fight response, which evolved so we could defend ourselves from an enemy or danger, stems from anger. Anger is embedded in our primitive need to live and protect ourselves against aggression. Anger drives people to be extremely vigilant about threats and sharpens our focus. When we are threatened or attacked by a predator, anger is automatically activated and pushes us to fight back and act quickly and forcefully to protect ourselves.

2. Anger’s Discharge Is Calming

When you are angry, you experience physical and emotional pain. When you experience physical and emotional distress, anger strongly motivates you to do something about it. As such, anger helps you cope with the stress by first discharging the tension in your body, and by doing so it calms your “nerves.” That’s why you may have an angry reaction and then feel calm afterward.

3. Anger Provides a Sense of Control

Anger is related to a deep need for control. Anger protects what is ours, helping us feel in charge rather than helpless. The function of anger is to inflict costs or withhold benefits from others to increase our welfare. Individuals who experience and display their anger appropriately are in a better position to fulfill their needs and control their destiny than those who suppress their anger. That said, it’s important to guard against becoming obsessed by the sense of power anger may elicit.

4. Anger Energizes Us

From a survival perspective, we defend ourselves when we retaliate and make other people fear us. Anger guards us when someone wants to hurt us. It gives us the strength and aggression to help us overcome a stronger enemy. In day-to-day situations, anger serves as a positive force to motivate us to stand up for ourselves and creatively find solutions to the challenges we face. As Richard Davidson says, anger “mobilizes resources, increases vigilance, and facilitates the removal of obstacles in the way of our goal pursuits, particularly if the anger can be divorced from the propensity to harm or destroy.”

5. Anger Motivates Us to Solve Problems

When we feel like things are out of place, we can get angry. If things are not the way they are supposed to be and need to change, anger propels us to do something and motivates us to find solutions to our problems. Anger is triggered when we face an obstacle or individual (or something else) that blocks our needs. It prepares us to deal with the obstruction or problem in our path so we can get to where we want to be.

6. Anger Makes Us Aware of Injustice

We often experience anger when we are denied rights or when faced with insults, disrespect, injustice, or exploitation. Anger serves as an internal guidance system that indicates something is not quite right, that someone has treated us unjustly or unfairly. Anger helps communicate to others: “You’d better treat me fairly; otherwise, you’ll pay a high cost.” On a global level, standing up for a lack of fairness can prevent people from taking advantage of others. This type of anger can bring about positive change in society and increase the social cost of misbehaving.

7. Anger Drives Us Toward Our Goals

Anger pushes us to pursue our desired goals and rewards. When we don’t get what we want, anger is triggered and indicates we have moved away from our desired objectives. Anger tries to eliminate whatever prevents us from realizing our desires. It energizes and pushes us to act in service of achieving our goals and working toward our ideals.

8. Anger Injects Optimism

Surprisingly, anger can trigger optimism. It can encourage us to focus on what we hope to achieve, rather than merely focusing on the pain, insult, or victimization. The anger system is geared toward what is attainable, not the impossible. When we are angry, we often feel positive about our ability to change the situation, empowering us to take action and move from an undesirable position to a desirable one.

Anger serves as a social and personal value indicator and regulator. It is activated when our values are not in harmony with the situation we face. Accordingly, it makes us aware of our deep-seated beliefs and what we stand for.

9. Anger Protects Our Values and Beliefs

Anger serves as a social and personal value indicator and regulator. It is activated when our values are not in harmony with the situation we face. Accordingly, it makes us aware of our deep-seated beliefs and what we stand for. It also motivates us to rectify the discrepancy and take action to change the situation (or our belief) to align the reality we face with our values.

10. Anger Is a Bargaining Tool

Anger erupts naturally when someone puts a lower value, or weight, on your welfare relative to their own. Anger is designed to recalibrate the situation and thus increase our value. Anger also strongly asserts our position and may lead to compliance by others. Anger drives us to respond to conflict in a way that helps us bargain to our advantage. It causes others to rethink their positions against our position. It signals to the other side: “What you propose is too costly for me. You would be better off if you changed the value you assign to me (decrease my cost or increase your value).”

11. Anger Increases Cooperation

If anger is justified and the response is appropriate, usually the misunderstanding is corrected, leading to increased cooperation. Anger tells others it is important to listen to us—that we feel annoyed and it is wise to pay attention to our words. Anger communicates: “I don’t like the situation, and we need to work together to find a better solution.” Anger makes you stand up for yourself and constructively challenge the other side. As such, anger encourages cooperation.

12. Anger Improves Negotiating Positions

Anger may lead to better outcomes in business negotiations. While two parties negotiate, the negotiator who seems angrier may be in a better position to tilt the agreement in their favor. Similarly, when one party believes the other negotiating side is angry, they may be more willing to compromise. In that regard, anger serves as a negotiating tool used to persuade, reach a deal, or improve the negotiated position.

13. Anger Covers Painful Feelings

Similar to Sigmund Freud‘s defense mechanisms that exist to protect the personality from an unbearable anxiety when the ego is under attack, anger serves this critical psychological function. Anger is a raw, “superficial” emotion that prevents (defends/blocks) you from feeling even more painful emotions. For example, a person who was betrayed by their partner may use anger to control their partner rather than share their own pain, which is difficult to bear.

14. Anger Pushes Us to Reach a Deeper Self

Anger is generally a very apparent emotion and at times can be volcanic. Yet—like a volcano that is formed when magma pushes up through the earth’s crust from below, depositing lava on the surface—there are many forces that push anger to surface, such as fear and defensiveness. It might be a fear of losing control or fear of being alone, rejected, abandoned, unloved, etc. Anger provides insight into ourselves, as it is the layer of deeper issues that are most hidden. This is why it is important to trace the trail of anger and dig down to find and address its source. Only after addressing the blockage that leads to anger can we free ourselves from the misery it sometimes induces.

15. Anger Can Lead to Self-Improvement

Anger can make you a better person and can be a force of positive change. It provides insight into our faults and shortcomings. If looked at constructively, this can lead to positive outcomes. Just like motivation, it can lead to self-change. For instance, if one knows certain things make them angry, they can work on these triggers to improve their response to them and, by doing so, improve their quality of life and relationships.

16. Feeling Anger Enhances Emotional Intelligence

Individuals willing to embrace uncomfortable emotions such as anger, rather than avoiding or repressing them, have greater emotional intelligence. Emotionally intelligent individuals do not resist anger, instead utilizing its “wisdom” to gain its positives. As a result, they have highly flexible emotional response systems and are more adaptive and resilient.

Conclusion

Despite an unfavorable reputation, the concept of constructive anger is gaining more empirical support from researchers and can have a beneficial role in our lives. Anger is an integral part of our fight-or-flight mechanism. It had a survival necessity in the past and has some positive value in the present, too. The motivation and action that is powered by anger can move us toward reaching our goals. It pushes us to fix the wrongs we see in the world and make it right.

Extreme anger is effective in serious life-or-death situations. Yet, this modality is rarely useful in day-to-day living. The key to its effectiveness is for anger to be expressed with the appropriate intensity to the situation, while feeling it (rather than repressing it) and utilizing it in a wise manner. As Aristotle said, we have to be angry “with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way.” He added this is not easy.

I would like to end by using a metaphor: Anger, like a fire, is a primal force. When left unchecked, it can be destructive, yet when managed and used wisely, it can be a beneficial and powerful instrument that leads to enlightenment.

References:

1. Davidson, R. (2012). The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel and Live—and How You Can Change Them. London, UK: Penguin Books.
2. Fischhoff, B., Gonzalez, R. M., Lerner, J. S., & Small, D. A. (2005). Evolving Judgments of Terror Risks: Foresight, Hindsight, and Emotion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11(2), 124-139
3. Ford, B. Q., & Tamir, M. (2014). Preferring Familiar Emotions: As You Want (and Like) It? Cognition and Emotion, 28, 311-324.
4. Henk, A. et al. (2010). The Art of Anger: Reward Context Turns Avoidance Responses to Anger-Related Objects into Approach. Psychological Science 21, 1406-10.
5. Lerner J.S., & Keltner D. (2001). Fear, Anger, and Risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 146-159.
6. Lickerman, A. (2012). The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc.
7. Sell, A. et al. (2005). Regulating Welfare Tradeoff Ratios: Three Tests of an Evolutionary-Computational Model of Human Anger. Diss Abstr Int B Sci Eng. 2006;66(8-B):4516.
8. Van Kleef, G. A. (2010). The Emerging View of Emotion as Social Information. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4/5, 331-343.

Do you have a grievance you think about more than the positive things in your life? If so, do you think the same, repetitive thoughts about it? Do you seek out people who will listen to you tell the same painful story many times? Does this story have a villain?

If you recognize these patterns in yourself, maybe it is time to forgive.

Why Forgive?

When we hold on to hurt, we remain locked in an unhealthy bond that keeps the people in our lives from having all of who we are. Hurt also robs us of our personal strength. Left unresolved long enough, it can even develop into a victim story that becomes part of our identity.

Some research suggests forgiveness correlates with fewer health problems and less stress (Luskin, 2002).

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What Is Forgiveness?

Some question what forgiveness is and is not. According to Dr. Frederic Luskin, author of the 2002 book Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness, forgiveness is:

• Taking back your power
• Taking responsibility for your feelings
• For you and your healing, not the offender
• A choice

Per Luskin, forgiveness is not:

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• Excusing bad behavior or unkindness
• Minimizing or denying your pain
• Forgetting a painful event happened
• Reconciling with the offender

Focus on the personal aspect of a hurt often comes from our beliefs and expectations that were not met. Luskin (2002) shares some common beliefs and expectations he refers to as “unenforceable rules”:

• My partner must be faithful.
• No one should ever lie to me.
• People must treat me the way I want to be treated.
• My life should be easier than it is.
• Life should be fair.
• My parents should have done a better job.

Challenge Unenforceable Rules

Forgiveness centers on giving back peace of mind. It prevents a past hurt from determining a negative future. Luskin (2002) offers the following steps to address unenforceable rules:

A big part of forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be anything other than what it was.

1. Acknowledge your feelings: confusion, anger, indignation, etc. Ask yourself if you are experiencing feelings in the present over events in the past.
2. Concede that you feel bad because your expectations were not met.
3. Give yourself the grace to challenge the unenforceable rule underlying your hurt.
4. Identify the unenforceable rule. What is the experience in your life that you demanded to be different?
5. Change the unenforceable rule you demanded into something you hoped to get. Express it in positive terms. “I wanted a partner who did not cheat on me” is different from “I wanted a monogamous partnership.” The latter is a positive expression.
6. Notice what changes for yourself when your demands change to hopes. Do you feel more peaceful?

HEAL

Luskin (2002) further offers a HEAL (hope, educate, affirm, long-term) method to help forgive:

• Hope: Hope statements remind us of what we wished went our way. They remind us of life’s uncertainty. They are a statement of power when we understand not all our hopes manifest. They declare we will continue to hope for good things to happen.
• Educate: This is to remind us there are limits to what we control and we don’t always get what we want.
• Affirm: Affirm your positive intention. For example: “I want to use my experiences to be a more compassionate person.” This reminds us that we can grow from any hurtful experience. Consider repeating the intention to yourself.
• Long-Term: Make a long-term commitment to healing and well-being. Practice the HEAL steps. Set aside 15 minutes each day to mull over the grievance and write about your feelings for a period of time. Ask someone close to let you know if you slide into old habits and repeat the grievance story. What else could you do to take care of yourself? Would counseling, an exercise program, or parenting classes help?

A big part of forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be anything other than what it was. It is important to acknowledge the feelings that come with an injustice, but also to not remain locked in them. If you have tried to forgive and not been successful, a therapist can help you process a grievance.

Something happened that we did not want to happen, or something did not happen that we wanted to happen. Forgiveness is the power we receive as we assert that we have a well of resilience to draw upon. It gives us the chance to rewrite a story about a victim into a story about a hero (Luskin, 2002).

Reference:

Luskin, F. (2002). Forgive for Good. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

We all experience love in one form or another. We all experience hurt and pain. It’s part of the human condition.

Likewise, people can be insensitive sometimes. They say or do things either intentionally or unintentionally that hurt others. At times, a careless action or critical remark can really hurt us, especially if we attach too much importance or meaning to it. The more closely connected we are to the person, the deeper the pain.

An infraction that is relatively minor or insignificant to one person may be devastatingly painful to another. For some, resentments are difficult to release. The tighter the hold, the harder it may be to let go.

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When ruminated about over a period of time, a resentment can transform into a grudge. If these negative feelings are left unresolved within ourselves, they can lead to unhappiness, bitterness, and permanent unforgiveness. Research has shown that prolonged anger can have devastating effects on our health and longevity.

Although we may feel justified in our anger, what can we do to stop feeling the pain and upset feelings that the hurt has caused? Not every infraction requires forgiveness. However, if the hurt is personal, profoundly deep, and seems unjust, the following ideas may help you begin to release your anger and bring back a sense of peace and joy.

1. Decide to Forgive Yourself

Remind yourself that you are doing the best you can at any given moment. Try not to replay the “what-ifs.” Validate your feelings by acknowledging your anger and pain. Anger is a helpful emotion that signals to us that something is wrong and needs to be corrected.

When you are ready, make a conscious choice to release the anger and hurt and let go of the past. Be kind to yourself and set yourself free from hurt. Being able to forgive solves many problems.

2. Decide to Forgive Others

Everyone is imperfect and flawed. Everyone makes mistakes every day. Everyone is doing the best they can given their personal life history and the impact that history has had on them.

Make a conscious decision to let go of offensive words and behavior. Decide to not let what others do or say have power over you. Stand firm in your truth.

3. Redirect Your Thoughts

What we believe may become true for us. Thoughts are powerful, either positive or negative. Dwelling on past hurts only serves to reinjure ourselves.

Challenge your negative thoughts and reframe them in a positive and more balanced way. Bitterness can cloud your vision and alter your perspective. Be truthful to yourself and allow yourself to be aware of how you may have hurt others in similar ways.

4. Change Your Perspective

Allow yourself to see things from a more positive perspective. Try being able to see the person or situation in a new light. Look for things that the person is doing right rather than emphasizing their flaws.

5. Live in the Present

Realize that the past is in the past. You only have the present moment to live in. Focus on what is going well right now, and try not to allow negative thoughts about the past to creep into your consciousness.

Our existence provides us both positive and negative experiences. Life offers us numerous opportunities to be hurt and offended by others. It can be difficult to let go of the past, forgive ourselves, forgive others, and try to experience life differently, but the benefits of forgiveness far outweigh the benefits of unforgiveness. Working toward creating a happier, more peaceful existence through forgiveness is worth the price.

If you’re struggling with forgiveness, contact a licensed therapist for compassionate support and guidance.

Reference:

Smedes, L. B. (1984). Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

If your partner’s anger leaves you feeling drained, hurt, or unsure how to respond, you’re not alone. Many people in relationships struggle to navigate intense emotions in ways that protect both their well-being and their connection. An angry partner’s behaviors can strain communication, erode trust, and damage the relationship’s health.

The good news is that you can take steps to respond calmly, protect yourself emotionally, and create space for healthier interactions. Drawing on therapeutic principles, here are eight strategies for dealing with an angry partner and restoring harmony in your relationship.

Understanding the Impact of Anger in Relationships

When anger becomes a regular presence in a relationship, it can harm emotional safety and trust. Anger can be detrimental to relationships when it’s expressed through criticism, defensiveness, or hostility. It may leave you feeling unheard, frustrated, and disconnected.

However, learning to respond constructively—not with equal anger—can shift the dynamic. Using skills like emotional regulation, respectful communication, and boundary setting, you can protect your well-being and possibly encourage positive change in your partner.

8 Strategies for Dealing with an Angry Partner

1. De-escalate and Neutralize Emotionally

If you try to control an angry partner, they may become defensive and even less cooperative. Instead of reacting with your own anger, recognize their feelings and stay calm. The calmer you remain, the quicker their anger is likely to subside.

The ultimate goal of de-escalation is to reduce emotional intensity and redirect the conversation toward cooperation.

2. Be Assertive and Respectful

Assertiveness means expressing your needs and boundaries clearly, while respecting your partner’s feelings. This approach shows confidence and honesty without aggression. When you communicate assertively, you empower both yourself and your partner to take responsibility for their role in the relationship.

3. Communicate Constructively, Understand, and Validate

People often become angry when they feel unheard, dismissed, or unappreciated. Actively listening—without judgment—can help de-escalate their anger.

Validation doesn’t mean agreeing with everything your partner says; it means acknowledging their perspective and emotions. You might say, “What I hear you saying is ____. Is that correct?” This slight shift can make your partner feel respected and understood.

If you’re struggling to find common ground, consider finding a therapist who can guide you both toward more constructive conversations.

4. Practice Patience and Compassion

Beneath anger often lie more vulnerable emotions like sadness, fear, or pain. While anger may help someone feel in control temporarily, it can cause long-term harm to both partners. Practicing compassion toward your partner can help shift the focus from blame to empathy.

Patience allows you to pause before reacting, creating room for more thoughtful responses and mutual understanding. While patience helps keep emotions in check, it’s also important to consider which conflicts truly need addressing—some disagreements are better set aside.

5. Pick Your Battles and Think Long-Term

Not every disagreement needs to become a conflict. Choosing which issues are worth addressing can protect your energy and the relationship.

Let go of minor grievances and focus on the topics that truly matter for your shared future. Exercising restraint can sometimes be the wisest strategy.

6. Reflect on Your Actions and Understand the Triggers

Being accountable for your role in conflicts can reduce defensiveness on both sides. Consider what actions may trigger their anger and how you can adjust your own responses.

Greater awareness often leads to more constructive behavior and improved relationship health.

7. Address Your Challenge When Your Partner Is Calm

Problem-solving is rarely effective when emotions are running high. Wait until both you and your partner are calm before addressing concerns.

If your partner has a pattern of angry behavior, use the calmer moments to discuss underlying issues and explore solutions.

8. Think Influence, Not Control

You cannot control another person, but you can influence them by modeling respectful behavior and creating an environment that supports cooperation.

Treating your partner with kindness, even when tensions are high, may increase the likelihood of positive change. The saying, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” applies here—empathy and patience can open the door to better communication.

When to Seek Professional Support

Self-help strategies can be powerful, but there are times when professional intervention is necessary. Consider reaching out to a therapist if:

• Your partner’s anger feels threatening

• The anger is frequent and intense

• You feel unsafe, emotionally drained, or unable to communicate effectively

A trained professional can help both of you explore underlying causes and develop healthier patterns.

The GoodTherapy Approach

For over 17 years, GoodTherapy has been committed to connecting people with ethical, compassionate therapists. Our therapist directory includes professionals specializing in anger management, relationship counseling, and emotional regulation.

If you’re struggling to navigate a partner’s anger, remember you don’t have to face it alone. A qualified therapist can help you both develop healthier communication and coping strategies—find a therapist today who can support your relationship’s growth.

One of the most common types of questions I get as a therapist pertains to people wanting to know if they are “normal” in some way. Here’s an exchange I had with a person in therapy recently:

Person: “Well, you’re the expert, so please tell me. I think it’s normal that I’m angry at my husband for cheating. Am I right?”

Me: “Yes, in a sense it is normal that you are angry at him. But we’ve been working through this for many months, and it seems the intensity of your anger has not decreased and you are not just angry at him, but you seem angry about a lot of things in general in your life. I’ve noticed that you get angry often.”

I think people tend to ask if their emotions are “normal” when they suspect that the intensity of their reactions or the frequency of their negative feelings are problematic. I’m not a fan of the word “normal” because, to me, it is a statistical term. It also seems to imply that a large majority of people experience the same thing, and because of this, it must be “healthy.” It is entirely possible many people experience intense emotions on a frequent basis, but that does not mean this is healthy.

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One benchmark of emotional and psychological health is the ability to regulate affect. In other words, if your emotions frequently impact you, or if you find it difficult to let go of negative emotions; reduce the intensity of your emotions; or shift from a negative emotional state (anger, anxiety, etc.) into a positive state (calm, joy, optimism, etc.), then your emotional regulation may not be entirely healthy.

What Causes Emotional Dysregulation?

There are many reasons a person’s emotions may not be well regulated. These can include growing up in a home where the adults did not have good emotion regulation skills, growing up in a family where there was substance abuse, not being taught emotion regulation skills as a child, being raised by parents who were afraid to hold appropriate boundaries, and experiencing trauma.

Research (Thompson & Calkins, 1996; Thompson, Flood, & Lundquist, 1995) shows that children raised in emotionally difficult environments have more difficulties with how they feel later in life. Trauma in either childhood or adulthood can lead to a dysregulation of affect (Seligowski, A. V. et al., 2015). Psychology researcher Allan Shore writes, “A large number of studies now demonstrate that alterations of brain development are associated with less than optimal early maternal care, especially with severe ‘relational trauma’ such as abuse and neglect” (Shore, A., 2011). (Author’s note: Although Shore uses the term “maternal,” it is generally accepted that this is taken to mean the child’s primary caretaker[s], male or female.)

What Does ‘Healthy’ Emotional Regulation Look Like?

Here are examples of emotional reactions I would consider within the range of “healthy”:

• You are frustrated by your toddler who is constantly pouring liquids in various places. You take a deep breath and let the realization set in that he is learning containment and volume. You lovingly direct him to a pouring station you set up on your patio.
• You feel angry, hurt, and betrayed that your husband cheated. After your initial anger subsides a bit, you begin to think about the situation more clearly and realize he has been expressing loneliness in the marriage and you have ignored that. In time, you are able to acknowledge your role in the marital dynamic and feel some empathy for the emptiness that led your husband to seek comfort elsewhere. You know people sometimes make errors in judgment, and you forgive him and work toward rebuilding your relationship. (Or you decide you prefer to part ways, but move past your anger and rebuild your life.)
• You are frustrated by both the person in front of you in the grocery store checkout line who has 50 coupons and the cashier who is much too slow. But you realize not everyone has the same abilities or the same life challenges, and you wait patiently.
• You are anxious about a family member being several hours late to an event, but you assume that more than likely everything is fine and they will call you as soon as they can.
• You are annoyed that your contractor didn’t return your call quickly, but you understand that sometimes people are busy and get overwhelmed. You give him a reasonable amount of time and follow up cordially.
• Your boyfriend breaks up with you. You are hurt and disappointed, but you practice good self-care and remind yourself that you will get over the pain and find a relationship partner who is a better match for you.

What Does ‘Unhealthy’ Emotion Regulation Look Like?

The reactions below indicate you may have trouble regulating your emotions:

• When your toddler pours liquids in various places, you yell at him, tell him he is being a “bad boy,” and punish him somehow.
• When your husband strays, you hold onto your anger for months or even years, unable to forgive. Many things trigger your anger: It comes back in full force when you hear of someone cheating on their spouse, when you see infidelity in a movie, or when your husband does something inconsiderate.
• Irritated, you tell the person in front of you in the checkout line that they are being inconsiderate and holding everyone else up. You tell the cashier to speed things up, too.
• When your family member is several hours late to an event, you call and text the person multiple times. When you do not hear from them, you begin to worry that something horrible has happened, or you become angry at them for being rude.
• When your contractor doesn’t return your call quickly, you leave a message telling him he’s unprofessional and the way he is treating you is unacceptable.
• You are devastated when your boyfriend breaks up with you. You call him several times and angrily insist he meet with you to talk things over. You ask for explanations and beg him to try again. When he refuses, your rage intensifies and you act out.

3 Ways to Improve Your Emotional Health

1. Find the right therapist. If you relate to any of the “unhealthy” reactions above, you may benefit from working with a therapist. In particular, a therapist trained in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and psychodynamic therapy would likely be able to help you reduce the intensity of your emotions and improve your emotion regulation skills.

2. Get a DBT workbook. Dialectical behavior therapy has an excellent track record for helping improve emotion regulation skills. Make a commitment to spending 30 minutes a week reading and doing exercises in the workbook for as long as it takes to feel your emotions have moved into the “healthy” range.

3. Practice good self-care. Self-care is immensely important to maintaining emotional wellness. Self-care includes:

• Positive self-talk. Practice self-compassion by talking to yourself in a supportive way—the way you would speak to a good friend experiencing the same issue.
• Getting the sleep you need. For most adults, this ranges between seven and nine hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. If you have difficulty sleeping, read some articles on good sleep habits, and make them part of your evening routine.
• Connecting with others. Good self-care includes spending time with supportive friends.
• Nutrition and exercise. Giving your body the nutrients and energy it needs will help the areas of your brain responsible for emotion regulation to function better.
• Leisure and recreation. Regularly spending time doing activities you find fun can help keep strong emotions at bay.

It’s perfectly normal to feel a range of emotions, and individuals vary in how strong or frequent their emotions are. But when negative feelings are too intense or linger too long, it may affect your health and relationships. By learning emotion regulation skills and practicing good self-care, you may begin to feel more joy and inner peace, and less anxiety, stress, sadness, and anger.

References:

1. Schore, A. N. (2011). Bowlby’s “Environment of evolutionary adaptedness”: Recent studies on the interpersonal neurobiology of attachment and emotional development. Human nature, early experience and the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, ed. D. Narvaez, J. Panksepp, A. Schore, and T. Gleason. New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Seligowski, A. V., Lee, D. J., Bardeen, J. R., & Orcutt, H. K. (2015). Emotion regulation and posttraumatic stress symptoms: A meta-analysis. Cognitive behaviour therapy, 44(2), 87-102.
3. Thompson, R. A., & Calkins, S. D. (1996). The double-edged sword: Emotional regulation for children at risk. Development and Psychopathology, 8(01), 163. doi:10.1017/s0954579400007021
4. Thompson, R. A., Flood, M. F., & Lundquist, L. (1995). Emotional regulation: Its relations to attachment and developmental psychopathology. In Rochester symposium on developmental psychopathology: Emotion, cognition, and representation (Vol. 6, pp. 261-299).

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” —Dalai Lama

Attachment is inherent to our nature, as is the desire to have pleasant experiences. We are attached to feeling good, comfortable, and secure and to things we think will bring us happiness. Attachment is the emotional dependence we put on situations, objects, or people. Strong attachments come in many forms—including overindulgence in or pursuit of food and drink, sex, power, fame, even principles or ideas—and can manifest in potentially harmful ways, such as gambling and addiction.

Living without desire is unrealistic. There is nothing wrong with wanting, but when we are too attached to our desires, we risk becoming captive to them. An attachment to pleasure, for example, becomes an obstacle when it continually compels us to chase it, even when it may be unwise or unhealthy to do so. So, while pleasure is a good thing, these powerful forces—attachment and desire—can cloud our reality. Reality is always changing and includes a mix of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. When we pursue desire to the exclusion of reality, suffering can happen, and happiness may become harder to attain.

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When the fulfillment of a desire is obstructed or when what we want slips out of our grasp, it may give rise to fear and anger. Reducing our dependence on desired outcomes is critical. We can pursue our desires, but we must be able to drop them when needed. We can embrace our desires, but we must not be bound by them. Our desires should not run the show.

Controlling the Desire for Control

In our desire to control the external, we may lose control over the internal. The more we want to control things, others, or situations, the angrier we may become when things don’t turn out the way we expected. If we understand that our desire for control is the source of our anger and a hindrance to our happiness, we can change our perspective on desire. We can aspire to reduce our need to control situations or other people and accept the feelings that result from not getting what we want.

If we set our expectations as a “wish list” rather than a “need list,” we may experience less anger.

As human beings, we cannot avoid having expectations. Expectation is the gap or discrepancy between what we have and what we want. With expectation comes disappointment, which may lead to anger. By having expectations, we give power away. Accordingly, to reduce disappointment and anger, adjusting our expectations and decreasing our attachment to them is imperative. If we set our expectations as a “wish list” rather than a “need list,” we may experience less anger.

If we want to be empowered, we have to own our expectations and the choices we make as well as the feelings that result from those choices. No one can make us feel angry; our expectations lead to anger. Again, expectations are a part of life, but it is up to us as to whether we are attached to them.

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Reversing Desire and Achieving Happiness

In their book The Tools, Phil Stutz and Barry Michels describe a method to overcome or “reverse” desire. The goal is to embrace the opposite of our attachment tendency. Instead of clinging to our desire, we welcome pain so we can continue moving toward our goals. Once we accept pain, we notice that our state of feeling moves from attachment (clinging energy) to non-attachment (flowing energy), a state in which we are free and open to all experiences. This state of accepting whatever comes is, in a word, happiness.

I want to end with a word from Thich Nhat Hanh, the well-known Buddhist philosopher and peace activist. His powerful quote summarizes this article: “Letting go [of attachment, desire, and expectations] gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.”

Reference:

Stutz, P., & Michels, B. (2013). The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower—and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau.

Dear GoodTherapy.org,

I figured it was time to write in with this question since I just got out of my car shaking with anger for the third time this week. I’m not sure whether my luck is worse than most when it comes to near-accidents and inconsiderate drivers on the road, whether I deal with these instances worse than most, or what.

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Obviously, I think I’m a great driver. But everyone thinks that. To me, it feels like I get cut off in traffic all the time, people honk at me when I’m doing perfectly reasonable things and obeying the law, and I’m usually very considerate when it comes to people merging, etc. But I find myself yelling at other cars and drivers multiple times a day, flipping people off, and having strong emotional reactions to other people’s behaviors on the road. I can’t arrive anywhere without feeling anxious and very angry. I’m willing to admit I dish it out, to some extent, but it still feels like the bulk of the injustice is done to me.

I know you can’t help other people (or me) become better at driving, but can you help me figure out how to get from point A to point B without seething and compromising the health and safety of myself and anyone around me? —Driving Me Mad

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Dear Driving,

Oh, so you’re the one who flipped me off yesterday?

I’m kidding. I also would agree with your assessment that, yes, most drivers (myself included) seem to think their driving is just fine and it’s all the other bozos on the road who need to get it together. You’re not the only one muttering, “Hurry up, slowpoke!” … and so on. In that sense you are not alone, especially should you live in (or ever visit) a major metropolitan area such as Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Boston, Seattle, or Washington, D.C., all with notorious commutes.

I could not presume to tell you what, exactly, is at the root of your so-called “road rage,” but I think it’s a good thing you’re addressing it. All of us get irate from time to time, but this sounds like it could be escalating and ought to be curbed somehow, lest you get so distracted you end up in an accident or an altercation with another driver. It also might be affecting your blood pressure, digestive system, and so forth. A surplus of stress always takes its toll.

One facet of your letter has to do with, to my ears, control or lack thereof. We are of course powerless over other drivers, though it’s easy to forget that when we’re sitting in our cars, in our own little bubble of comfort. It can be jarring, even scary, to sense chaos threatening that bubble, with other drivers following very different rules and protocols, or appearing to not give a damn about anyone else. Sometimes it seems every driver (except us, of course) has the attitude of “Me first, out of my way!” So it goes in the age of the selfie.

Combine this with our typical American individualism, our assumption of a right to “do things my way,” and our ever-expanding demand for speed and you get a prevailing ethos of anxious impatience and jitteriness. As one billboard for a smartphone recently declared, “It really is all about you.”

But look a little closer and I think you’ll find that anxiety, even existential dread, is a subtly unacknowledged factor behind much of this. It may sound like a stretch, but hear me out.

Driving is a quintessentially American activity, and our sense of community has shrunk so much that, in a way, our freeways and highways are some of our last shared public spaces. But we seem to have lost, in many ways, even this fleeting sense of “shared” space; all of it seems to have morphed, at least in part, into “my space.” Stop by your local Starbucks and what do you see? Everyone doing their own thing with their personalized headphones, laptops, or smartphone screens, tuning out the world. We crave a comforting bubble within which to operate, free from intrusion, the borders of which are under our control. This may be a kind of bulwark against chaos, a way of self-soothing our era’s growing uncertainty, where the rules of engagement (see our current national election) seem as undefined and disorderly as ever.

At the same time, most people I know feel enormous pressure to perform in a variety of ways: as a student, parent, worker, partner, all or some of the above. Strangely, the need for speed has only ratcheted up the pressure on expectation for faster, more. Some of us have more than one job while juggling big payments and debts. Our economy is now globally competitive. Thus our bubbles of comfort—within our cars, homes, and laptops—may become a way of soothing the terror of not being productive or inventive enough in an ever-more-fierce, demanding, chaotic world.

I’m sensing a deeper fear or resentment against having to make these hazardous journeys, without proper protection, almost like a child being sent into a school full of bullies, without anyone realizing what hazards you’re actually facing.

One senses this on the road, where there is anxiety about feeling blocked or treated as insignificant, or aggressively affronted by a stranger; one Buddhist author I admire, Chögyam Trungpa, said speed is equivalent to aggression. I might tweak that a little to say assertion, as a defense against anyone intruding on “my space,” or the equally unsettling prospect of feeling insignificant or intruded upon (“This is my road, not yours”).

Thus you might develop compassion for the situation as a whole, including your own anxiety—make space “around it,” as it were, as anxiety is basically fear. I often find the outside world becomes a reflection of our own internal state. (Pema Chödrön writes nicely about this in her books.)

Finally, there seems to be an almost childlike terror in your message, a fear of loss of control, of frightening or sudden intrusion. I don’t think one has to take a strictly Freudian interpretation toward “They cut me off!” as (literal) castration anxiety. Though perhaps there is a symbolic fear on your part along the lines of feeling disempowered, helpless, that takes the concrete form of anxious agitation and anger on the road.

My therapist’s ears perked up at the phrases “injustice” and “compromising health and safety.” My intuitive mind wants to link these two together and start to speculate on how such a compromise feels imposed upon you, whether you like it or not. I’m sensing a deeper fear or resentment against having to make these hazardous journeys, without proper protection, almost like a child being sent into a school full of bullies, without anyone realizing what hazards you’re actually facing. What, in other words, is the larger or broader emotional context of your life? It can be easier to be angry at faceless drivers than those closest to us, loved ones or family; is it possible these rude drivers (and there are many) are not the only ones you’re resenting? If this is the case, why? What is making you angry or anxious in your other situations—at home, at work, with family, and so on? (Anger is usually the “first line of defense” atop deeper emotions.)

I sense, in other words, a more personal injustice being felt by you, one that is coming out behind the wheel. You might confide in a counselor to release some of whatever angry or hurtful emotions you might possibly be sitting on, maybe communicate them to the right people to help you with whatever feels burdening or imposing. Perhaps a counselor can help you figure out what these emotions are, as sometimes we genuinely don’t know, only that they keep popping up out of nowhere.

Most of all, allow some empathic space for yourself to be human. This is a more common problem than you might think, which is why I’m so glad you wrote in. More often than not we are, for all our hyper-individualization, in the same collective boat, trying to right said boat through choppy waters. Thanks again!

Kind regards,

Darren

Envy doesn’t get talked about much these days. I’m not sure why. Maybe because in these times of personal empowerment, everyone is supposed to be pursuing personal bests and following their own destinies, independent of everyone else. In such an environment of individualism, it’s a little gauche, maybe, to admit (to oneself, but especially to others) you could be envious of someone else.

Maybe because envy seems tinged with old-school morality, something to be thrown out with the raised eyebrows and tsk tsks of past convictions of superiority. We are more straightforward now. We say it like it is. We have no need for spurious or vague emotions that cause messes in our souls.

Think so? I’m not so sure.

Envy has not vanished from the face of the earth. Envy is hardwired in the human heart. It has only gone underground. If you’ve ever tried to eradicate moles or gophers from your garden, you know how difficult it is to rid your life of things that live beneath the surface. The problem, of course, is that you can’t see them. You can only see where they have already been, because they leave a trail of wreckage.

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Just like envy.

So what is it, this envy?

One thing it is not is jealousy. The words are often used interchangeably, but this is incorrect. There is a vast and meaningful difference between the two.

Jealousy. You are jealous of someone if they have something you want. For example, that girl in your economics class has the shoes you covet but can’t afford. No fair. Or, that man who is a major slacker has a bigger office than you do. No fair. The feeling you have when you imagine yourself in these two scenarios is jealousy. Another word for it is covetousness. The Ten Commandments are all over covetousness; in fact, 20% of the commandments are spent in outright ban of it, both spouses and goods. It doesn’t matter who the other person is or what their circumstances might be: they have something you want; you, on the other hand, do not have it; you are jealous.

In my estimation, this is a garden-variety offense. It doesn’t hurt anyone but you. It makes you stew in your own juices until you wake up, which you will eventually do, one hopes. If you are even halfway conscious, you will find it becomes boring after a while to covet everyone else’s stuff because it finally dawns on you that you could buy yourself your own pair of shoes if you were a little more prudent with your finances. Your feet and the feet of the suede-shod woman are existentially unrelated. What she has is completely independent of what you have/don’t have. You’re on your own. Get your own shoes and get over yourself. They will look great on you if you like them so much.

Envy, on the other hand, is insidious. Envy targets the person with the shoes you covet, the person with the bigger office. Envy tells you that you are better than they are, that they don’t deserve the shoes or the office, that in order to get them, they probably did something unsavory or were born under a lucky star (no fair!) or had better parents than you did (no fair!) … and you are the one who really deserves these things. So to hell with them and their stupid shoes and their stupid office. You want to pour red wine into the taupe suede shoes. You want to hide a stinking, rotting chicken carcass in the big office. You want to hurt those people. At the very least, you want to spit venom about them behind their backs. That, my friend, is envy.

Envy attacks another person.

It is envy, for example, that makes you writhe with hot discomfort when your sister executes an ethereal Chopin piece while you know you had the attention span of a gnat during the two years of forced piano lessons you endured. Sure, you wanted to play. But you didn’t want to practice. You wanted to go do other stuff. Therefore, the whole enterprise for you—the boring piano lessons—was a burden your parents forced upon you and which you could not manage to see as anything but punitive.

Plus, your sister was born with a gift, you tell yourself. This music comes so easily to her she could play in her sleep. I wasn’t born with that. She got all the talent. Look at her! Everyone is all admiring and things. What a show-off! If I had had half the advantages she had, I’d be sitting there playing even better than she does. Crap.

You snipe at your sister every chance you get. You make it your business to examine her life for all the unfair advantages your parents extended to her but denied you, forgetting already that you had the exact same opportunities at the keyboard. But the piano is just the start. You could recite an entire litany of examples of favoritism, if anyone gave half a damn about you and the way you’ve suffered while your sister got all the attention. Crap.

With your unbridled envy, your sister gets hurt. You are mean to her. You devalue her accomplishments by attributing them to luck or parental favoritism or natural talent (as if talent required no discipline in order to bloom). You ignore the hours of practice she put in while you were off doing who knows what—and you don’t even remember what now, do you? You debase her well-developed discipline, focus, and personal goals. And you take shots at her about other things to keep her in her place, which to her feels arbitrary and nasty, making her question herself and what she may have done to provoke you. She is hurt and anxious.

So are you! You also are hurt and anxious. Can you see that? Envy is a pitchfork with two sharp tines: you pierce the other person’s accomplishments with one while you let the grace seep out of your own soul with the other.

So if envy is this bad, why do I claim it is hardwired? Because like all emotions—positive and negative—envy is an indicator. It is a message. It alerts us to something in ourselves that requires our attention.

We can look at anger as an example of a familiar negative emotion. Anger is our red-alert system that tells us something seems wrong. People think anger is wild acting out in behaviors of rage or even violence. It’s not. Anger is just a feeling. How you act upon that feeling is your choice.

You could react and blow gaskets in the form of wild behaviors—the so-called knee-jerk behavior we see in road rage, for example. Your anger is telling you that you are approaching your limit with driving in traffic and with disrespectful drivers. You blow up. How does that help? You’re likely still in a white rage when you walk in the door at home an hour later. Everyone at home gets the fallout. What a crummy evening that is likely to be. Meanwhile, your morons, the ones who inflamed you, are still moving on down the highway, not only unaware of your meltdown but also unpunished for the transgressions you detest so much. It will be just like this again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, by the way. And next week. Why would anything change?

When you respond, you take charge. It may not be a good feeling to admit to yourself that you’re stewing in envy toward another person. But if you take a deep breath and ask yourself where it is really coming from, you might be surprised to discover it is rooted deeply within the inaccurate narrative you are repeating to yourself about your life.

Alternatively, you could respond—and take note of the cause and the extent of the anger that the red-alert evokes. Then you can decide what you’d like to do about it. If you give yourself the time to respond, you give yourself the time to learn from your anger and to utilize it as notice that something in your life would suit you better if you were to change it. You are empowered. Your anger has pointed you right to the solution. You get to decide what to do next. Maybe drive a different route. Maybe change your hours. Maybe Uber to work. You realize your anger is about yourself. It has nothing to do with the drivers in the other cars. They have their own problems.

Extend this pattern of choice between reacting and responding to envy.

When you react in envy, you do things that not only hurt you, but also hurt the other people who are the targets of your envy, as discussed earlier. You do yourself no favors, because you stir yourself up into a hot mess while comforting yourself with the concept of some vague but gross injustice which places you squarely in the victim role. Oh, lick those wounds, and hate that transgressor!

But when you respond, you take charge. It may not be a good feeling to admit to yourself that you’re stewing in envy toward another person. But if you take a deep breath and ask yourself where it is really coming from, you might be surprised to discover it is rooted deeply within the inaccurate narrative you are repeating to yourself about your life. Like anger and the drivers, envy has nothing to do with the person you envy. It is an inside job.

You might catch a glimpse of yourself as lacking in discipline, and you might feel guilt attached to that. Well, you can learn a great deal about how to bring discipline into your life, if you put your mind to it. You can work with a therapist to reshape your personal narrative so that you can create openings for growth in your life. You don’t have to remain enslaved to old, ineffective stories about who you are. You have the power, given the desire, to change anything you’d like to change.

Jealousy and envy. They are both opportunities. Next time you feel one of them arise, stop for a moment and take a good look at it. Remember you are not your feelings. You are the feeler of your feelings. You are the thinker of your thoughts. As such, you are the creator of your life.

Try it in small steps. Mindfulness techniques are excellent tools for slowing down the crashing, reactive aspects of strong negative emotions. Becoming aware of your feelings and your environment (internal and external) and your hopes and your dreams at any one moment can create the space you need for grabbing the reins of your behavior, and bring the muse of discipline into your life to create the peace that is ultimately what you would most like to have in your heart.

You can do it. You will amaze yourself.

And oh, how you will sleep at night!

Some people say they do not want to come out of therapy blaming their parents for everything. After all, their parents did the best they could at the time, especially with what they were given—so leave them out of it.

A therapist once told me that if you end therapy still angry at your parents, then you haven’t gone far enough.

Some people come to therapy with a lot of apparent, upfront anger toward mom and/or dad. Others are wary of saying anything negative about the people who raised them. Rarely does either of these versions of parents represent a full understanding of who they were or who they have become.

Seeing Your Parents as If You Are Still a Child

A major task in treatment is to understand who your parents were to you through how you saw them as a child. I know, you’re not still a child, but often we didn’t get to express those full-throttle feelings when we were kids. Luckily, we get to do so now—and it can be extraordinarily helpful to us as adults.

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As a child, perhaps you didn’t fully understand that a parent didn’t attend any of your baseball games because they had to work overtime in order to provide for you; you just experienced hurt and anger that they weren’t there. Your parent had a valid reason not to be there, but that doesn’t mean your feeling wasn’t also valid. As an adult (who may be missing your own child’s games because you have to work), there may be guilt on top of the anger and hurt you felt. Perhaps you’re ashamed you were ever upset. Seeing the situation through an adult lens, you think: “They were doing something for me, so how dare I be angry?”

Therapy says to let yourself be angry. Feel the anger. Feel it deeply. This way, you don’t squelch it and have it come out somewhere else, perhaps in passive-aggressive remarks to your own children; over-emphasizing every game, play, and recital your kids have; or avoiding conversations with your parents for fear you’ll “lose it” with them. Consequently, you don’t wind up judging yourself for having those reactions.

Attachment Style Without Logic

You also had an understanding of your parents pre-verbal memory. Did they come when you cried? Maybe they did most of the time, maybe they weren’t very quick about it, or maybe they never left you. You were an infant, so you didn’t know they were also taking care of a sibling, going to the bathroom, heating up your bottle, or just needing a rest. Attachment theory shows us that these early experiences, apart from the logical reasons behind them, matter a lot for us now.

Therapy says to let yourself be angry. Feel the anger. Feel it deeply.

I want to reiterate that the object is not to blame your parents. It’s not to be mad and stay mad.

We do damage to ourselves when we refuse to fully express and feel our feelings. That’s not a license to punch someone, break things, or intentionally hurt someone’s feelings. Therapy is tailor-made for the space to express your deepest self. It’s a safe space to face fears of abandonment, retaliation, or ungratefulness, any of which (and more) your therapist should be trained to be on the lookout for and provide an alternative to.

You may have felt any number of difficult feelings toward even the most loving, present, and available parent. Those feelings, your feelings, are valuable. And they’re not going to just go away.

So if it’s hate you felt, express it. So you can love even more deeply.

Anger is a misunderstood emotion.

Some people believe they’re not supposed to get angry. They think they should go to therapy to get rid of it. Often, a partner or parent has told them their anger is a problem.

Anger is something many people feel like they have to control. Yet so much of life is set up to blunt a free expression of feeling—from sitting in a regimented circle in preschool, to not crying too loudly at a funeral—and the only response that often makes sense is to feel angry. Why do we need to control that, too?

Anger can sometimes just be the loudest thing in the room. If there are other issues going on (spoiler alert: there are almost always other issues going on), these can be conveniently drowned out by the destructiveness and imperativeness of the anger. I say “conveniently” because anger is often the easiest emotion to notice and to deal with.

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It’s also perhaps the scariest. Anger can lead to uncontrollable, destructive actions. People go to jail or prison for such actions. People stay away from other people because of anger. Actions that typically present as anger are unacceptable in school, in the workplace, in church, and in many other settings.

Anger Can Be Healthy, Too

But anger can also be healthy. There are a lot of things in the world people should be angry about, things worthy of anger. In such cases, we seem to not want to call it anger, though. I remember learning the phrase “righteous indignation” as a child, as if people were so concerned we’d learn to be okay with anger that we had to create a new term to distance ourselves from it.

Anger can emerge in different forms. Some people, the ones sent to anger management, are typically destructive or otherwise problematic with their anger. They may punch walls, kick things, or get in fights. To many of them, their anger feels uncontrollable—they say things such as, “I saw red,” or, “I couldn’t stop myself.”

We often fixate on how negative anger can be—how it can take hold of us, how it can hurt others and ourselves. We talk about wanting to get rid of it. The thing is, it’s not going anywhere.

Others turn their anger inward. They are self-destructive, whether physically or emotionally, and beat themselves up. Depression, among other mental health issues, can look like this.

We often fixate on how negative anger can be—how it can take hold of us, how it can hurt others and ourselves. We talk about wanting to get rid of it. The thing is, it’s not going anywhere.

Anger is here to stay, no matter how happy you are, no matter how much you are in sync with the universe, no matter how much enlightenment has touched you. You are going to get angry.

And thank goodness for that. Because anger can point the way. It can spring us to action; many forces of change are motivated by anger. If it were the only motivation, we’d be like 2-year-olds, but combine anger with a conscience and a sense of justice and you have the makings of a social movement.

It’s especially important to get in touch with your anger if you tend to turn it all inward and it brings about self-hatred. It’s important to find healthier ways to express it if you are someone who physicalizes it. But it is also important to not feed it all the time.

Letting Go of Anger

Anger can be intoxicating. Think of a time you replayed an incident over and over in your mind. Perhaps something happened during your morning commute. You texted your girlfriend about it, called your mom, emailed your friend, and talked about it over lunch, yet you’re still thinking about it as you try to go to sleep. You’re not letting it go. You’re practicing it.

You’re just getting better at being angry. It’s not propelling you to change a social ill. It’s not allowing you to move on by expressing it. It is keeping you stuck, perhaps nursing your own self-righteousness.

You are suddenly at the mercy of a powerful and misunderstood emotion—one that gains more energy the more wood you throw on its fire.

So what does this mean for you? What can you do differently?

The idea is to feel the anger and let it go. Don’t deny it; you need to recognize it within you. (Many people I work with are unaware when they feel anger.) You can also learn to express it in a non-destructive manner—write it out, meditate, cry, draw, let someone know, etc.—and leave it there.

If that seems impossible, it may help to explore the themes stopping you from letting it go. Are you angry when you feel misunderstood or feel like you’re being taken advantage of? Do you respond with anger when you are shamed or when you feel helpless?

Spending some time exploring the themes around your anger, looking deeply at the topics that “get your goat,” will likely be helpful in finding productive ways to express your anger. It won’t stop you from getting angry, but it may help you stop staying there.

Healthy anger requires self-awareness, open communication, and the ability to self-soothe. When you can clearly describe your thoughts and feelings, be open to alternative perspectives, and problem-solve, you keep your anger in check and promote intimacy in relationships. On the other hand, if your anger feels out of your control, makes you “see red,” or even scares the people around you, you must develop a new way of expressing your anger.

Before you can rein in your anger, however, you must stop minimizing or justifying it. Look in the mirror and acknowledge your responsibility for your actions. Refrain from pointing the finger at others for setting you off or provoking you. Physical and verbal aggression never have a place in your relationships. There is always another option.

Once you have fully owned your anger, it is time to understand it. Explore the following aspects of your anger to learn more about its origin, its purpose, and how to address it.

1. How Long Has This Been Going On?

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Ask yourself if the way you manage your anger is new to your life or if it precedes your current situation. When you are honest with yourself, you may recognize a long-term pattern of losing your temper or expressing your anger in unhealthy ways. Perhaps you’ve always had a short fuse and taken your anger out on others. Perhaps you’ve taken your anger out on yourself through self-harm (substance abuse, self-injury, risk-taking, etc.). Allowing yourself to recognize the pattern will help you continue to take responsibility for your actions. You will have further evidence that something inside of you needs to heal.

If your anger does feel new, assess your life for anything unhealthy that impacts your behavior in a negative way. Substance abuse, toxic relationships, and recent trauma can all impact how you manage your anger. Traumatic brain injuries have also been known to alter personalities. Please be sure to address any emotional, situational, or medical factors that could be involved in learning to control your anger.

2. Is There a Cycle?

Use a diary or calendar to chart out when your angry episodes occur, their frequency, and what is going on in your life when they happen. Pay attention to the time between episodes, too. Describe your mood, physical sensations, stress level, and any events or interactions that take place on a daily basis. You might become aware of a gradual increase in tension or irritability that eventually builds up to an explosion. Be sure to note how you feel after an episode, identifying any remorse, shame, or even relief. This can help reinforce consequences of maintaining your angry behaviors and/or offer you valuable information regarding your stress-management needs.

When you tune into your daily experience, you will learn how your anger develops over time. You will gain a clearer picture of what triggers you; even small triggers add up! Even if your anger seems like it erupts quickly and without warning, there is usually something bubbling under the surface. For example, a low tolerance for frustration, a need to control your environment, or anxiety about your life situation can all lead to uncontrollable anger. The more you understand about what fuels your anger and how it progresses, the greater chance you have to address it with therapy, coping skills, or relaxation techniques.

3. Consider Your Family History

Who were your models of emotional expression? The way your parents or caregivers expressed feelings can influence how you recognize emotions and cope with them.

As you begin to uncover the roots of your anger, you can begin to separate your past from your present.

In some families, anger is the only emotion expressed, which can limit your emotional vocabulary. Disappointment, hurt, and embarrassment can become confused with and communicated as anger. Your response to distress also depends highly on what you witnessed as a child. If you watched the important adults in your life act in aggressive or hurtful ways, you might learn to do the same.

Furthermore, families who struggle to experience the vast array of emotions may also struggle to accept and validate you for who you are. Long-lasting anger can develop when we have not been permitted to be ourselves and communicate our thoughts, feelings, and needs openly.

4. Consider Your Personal History

Traumatic experiences of abuse, violence, or other life-threatening circumstances can create an unsafe view of the world and fuel a need to be on guard at all times. This kind of hypervigilance can make you interpret those around you as critical or deceptive, even when they have good or neutral intentions. You may also be justifiably angry at those who hurt you in your past; instead of healing those wounds, though, you take your pain out on those around you. It’s as if your current relationships are being asked to pay the penalty for crimes they did not commit.

As you begin to uncover the roots of your anger, you can begin to separate your past from your present. You can live in the here-and-now with your loved ones, rather than reliving horrific experiences that no longer exist today. If it feels appropriate, you can learn to forgive those who hurt you, thereby letting go of the weight of the pain they caused you. You may also need to forgive yourself for any pain your anger caused the people you love.

Be kind and patient with yourself during this process, as it may reveal aspects of your life that are painful or uncomfortable. Seek support from a professional who is trained to assist you in your self-discovery. A therapist, meditation teacher, spiritual/religious advisor, etc., can help you learn valuable tools to heal past hurts, respond appropriately to a variety of emotions, and cope with the present-day experience of your anger.

Several minutes after I had asked my husband to skip the gym so we could go straight to a “Fall Fun Festival,” I could tell something wasn’t right. His answers to my questions were monosyllabic and devoid of warmth. I was frustrated that going to the gym was more important to him than spending time with me. “Are you mad at me?” I asked, feeling confused and annoyed. He said, “No, it’s fine,” and walked out the door to run some errands.

For a long time, a lot of our arguments looked this way—me probing for how he was feeling without revealing anything about my own emotional experience. Often, my husband would shut down even more after I asked him this question and our arguments stalled as I fumed and waited for him to own his feelings. I know he’s mad, but he’s not TELLING me he’s mad. This is CLEARLY all his fault. Why can’t he tell me how he feels?

There’s nothing wrong with checking in on how your partner is feeling (“What’s going on for you right now? You look angry”). The problem with asking your partner if he or she is mad at you is it sends the message that (1) his or her emotional experience is the only one that’s responsible for whatever issue has arisen, and that (2) if he or she is not mad at you, there is no point to further discussion. It also allows the questioner to avoid owning his or her own feelings.

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Ultimately, whether your partner shares his or her emotional experience with you is up to your partner. Many people struggle to put words to their feelings for a variety of valid and sometimes painful reasons. However, if you find yourself constantly wondering how your partner is feeling in tense moments, you may want to try some of the following suggestions:

1. Acknowledge that people process emotions in different ways and at different speeds. While one partner may want to talk things out immediately, another might need more time. Both ways of coping are valid. Sometimes, the best time to talk about emotions is after the intensity of the moment has passed.
2. Check in with yourself about how you’re feeling in the moment. Do you feel distant from your partner? Confused? Alone? Sad? Do you feel increasingly angry or annoyed the more distant and alone you feel? By sharing these feelings with your partner, you can increase his or her sense of safety by showing that you are open to also being vulnerable and honest with your feelings. You can also work together to understand what’s going on between the two of you. Maybe your partner isn’t mad at you and is actually exhausted, stressed, or was reminded of something else he or she is angry about. Either way, telling your partner you feel distant lets him or her realize how his or her own mood is impacting you and the relationship. This is much more productive than accusing your partner of having a feeling he or she may or may not be having.
3. Assume your partner’s feelings and reactions make sense and approach the situation from a place of curiosity. The idea here is to better understand and connect to your partner.

It took a long time for me to find the words to say, “Hey, I’m feeling really distant from you right now. It’s a lonely, sad way to feel, and the more distant I feel, the more I start to feel angry.” It feels risky and vulnerable to approach someone when it seems like he or she is avoiding you, but the potential payoff for vulnerability is connection. I found when I approached how I felt, my partner was much more likely to meet me with his own emotional experience—whether he was actually angry at me or feeling a variety of other ways.

If you need help communicating your feelings, contact a qualified therapist.