What if anger can be a force for good?
Hello Friends!
Last Friday we celebrated the 4th of July in the US. For those who celebrate, did you feel a mix of feelings? Personally, I felt a big mix—happiness for good things (like friends and family), outrage and despair about some of the things happening on the political landscape of this country, and exhaustion. Each of us may have had our own mix, and all of the feelings belong.
Today, I’d like to highlight the powerful emotion of anger. I’m writing a series of posts (including short videos for my paid subscribers—see last week’s post here) on the topic. Anger is a fascinating emotion—a potentially powerful force for motivating positive change as well as a potentially destructive emotion. As I say in Volume 2 of my workbook for kids, “Anger is like fire. Use it with care.”
But what does it mean to use anger with care?
Disclosure and disclaimer: My lessons from anger have been shaped by Kristin Neff’s book, Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive. It’s important to note that her book was written with a focus on women. Additionally, I am a cisgender woman, which means that my hormone profile and lived experiences growing up are female. For these reasons, my experiences and suggestions do not necessarily equally apply to all. This post, and my teachings on anger, may be more helpful and relevant to those who have been socialized as female. Additionally, I’m not a therapist, so please use your own wisdom and consult with professional resources as needed to find skillful ways to relate to your anger.
Note: In my interview with Kristin Neff for the Upcoming Intergenerational Healing Summit, Kristin shares about how women can counter traditional gender roles and embrace their strength. We also talk about how this can inform our parenting of children (especially girls). You can register for FREE for the summit HERE.
Okay, now back to the question—how do we harness the potentially caring force of anger?
Step 1: Learn to View Anger Differently
There is an exercise from pp. 77-78 of Kristin’s Fierce Self-Compassion book entitled, “Understanding Your Anger” that unlocked something for me. She instructs you to think about a time when you got angry at someone else, and then she invites you to reflect on a series of questions about your anger, including…
- How did your anger express itself?
- Did it have any constructive or destructive results?
- How did you feel after getting angry?
This first set of questions cultivate mindfulness of your experience of anger, which is helpful and needed, but was not transformative for me. The next questions take it deeper:
Can you be curious about what your anger may have been trying to do for you? Was it trying to point out a danger or protect you in some way, even if the end result of your anger wasn’t beneficial? (For example, was it trying to prevent you from being hurt, or help you to stand up for the truth or draw clear boundaries?)
Note: I bolded the words that jumped out at me from the exercise, which played into the next instruction:
- “Try writing some words of thanks to your anger for its efforts to help you. Even if the methods your anger used to express itself were not ideal or the consequences of your anger were not actually helpful, can you honor this energy inside of you that was trying to protect you?”
OMG, I had never thought of this. I had never thought about honoring the positive intention behind my anger, even when my execution was unskillful. I proceeded to write a letter of thanks to my anger, and my relationship to my anger was forever changed.
Anger was my ally! I just had to learn how to listen to it, be with it, and channel it effectively.
I will share more on these latter parts in the weeks and months to come, but I’d like to stop here with an invitation to begin to befriend your own anger. It is here to protect and empower you…for good! We just need to learn how to be with it, understand it, and harness its potentially caring force.
Note: There is an early bird discount on my Fierce Self-Compassion (FSC) course this month. FSC teaches us to harness our own caring force! Learn more about Fierce Self-Compassion HERE.
Thank you for being on this self-compassion journey with me. I welcome all parts of you on this journey (including your angry parts!).
With love and caring force,
Jamie Lynn
Thank you so much. I have had some great insights. That is anger produces both positive and negative aspect. Anger on positive side sometimes protect depending how you use it. Anger is a fire. It better to use it with care. Anger is also destructive depending the level. Thank you very much.