How Anger can be both a friend and a useful tool at work and in life
A client and I were discussing the other day how seductive it can be to assign blame for whatever it is we’re experiencing in our life and our business. This seduction extends to even our own emotions and how we tend to talk about them.
Maybe you’ve heard (or even said yourself!) something like, “She made me so angry,” or “Those rambunctious, disrespectful kids make me anxious,” or “I feel worried about whether I’ll have a job tomorrow because the economy is so bad.”
Both the allure and the trap is if our situation or emotions are dependent on the whim of someone or something else, we don’t have any control over anything.
Which also means we don’t have to take responsibility for it, either.
Let’s take Anger, for example.
Another client was telling me that he stopped going to counseling because the therapist kept telling him that he had to stop getting angry, that anger was bad. This labeling of any emotion as bad is not helpful, since what is repressed eventually gets expressed, whether we like it or not.
I bring this up in the context of this blog because Magnetism or Attraction is all about emotions. If you’re having anger issues in your personal life, you will (if you haven’t already) have anger issues when interacting with coworkers, managers, and/or clients and colleagues.
Let me tell you about an incident that illustrates why the client’s former therapist may have offered this judgment about anger.
A few years ago, I was at the gym doing some cardio. I had my headphones on watching Good Morning America on one of the many television screens they have there at the gym.
A story came on about a young man who got into an argument with a woman and became so upset that he pushed her under a bus, whereupon she was killed instantly. Now he’s facing charges of second-degree manslaughter.
Initially I thought that this was a powerful lesson on how important it is to control our anger. Yet, on further consideration, it occurred to me that what happened in this case was not because of anger, but because of the subsequent very unacceptable actions.
I am probably not the only one who has witnessed sales professionals, professional business people, and entrepreneurs become blind with anger, spitting senseless epithets or coming to near blows because of some perceived injustice.
Not very inspirational or magnetic, let me tell you!
But, it’s not the anger that’s the problem. Anger, after all, is a very natural emotion.
I am reminded of Adam Kahn’s analysis of whether anger is useful, and he gives a very logical argument in favor of anger — and all of our emotions, really. He offers the point of view that emotions are a natural feedback mechanism. As such, we have little choice whether we feel the emotion (except when we try to repress it).
However, the choice comes when we decide how to respond to the emotion. To give a related example, if you fall and scrape your knee or if you place your hand on hot stove, it isn’t possible to choose not to experience the pain.
But we can choose to pursue healing, rather than rubbing salt in the wound.
For all I know, perhaps the man who shoved the woman under the bus (Can you even believe that?!) may have been justified in his anger. We’ll never know because he chose to rub salt in the wound over healing salve.
The inspiration is found in the choice to heal. How can you choose this for yourself?
It may not initially be easy, particularly if you have a history of choosing to let anger express itself unproductively.
But practice makes it easier.
As Adam Kahn points out, the “sanest response to anger is to calm down. And then think . . . [rather than perpetuate] the hateful, angry, self-righteous actions of this world.”
Rather than resist the emotion, notice it. Feel it.
Imagine asking yourself in the moment of feeling this uncomfortable feeling, “What is there in this specific set of circumstances that’s causing me grief that is inspiring and loving?”
It may sound hokey, but there is always something to love in everyone and everything. So assume this is true, especially in these angry moments.
What is absolutely hilarious in this moment?
How can you choose healing salve over rubbing salt deep(er) in the wound?
(Image by Chris Willis, CC BY 2.0)
Tshombe, thank you for encouraging people to not judge their anger or judge themselves. Self-judgment is a form of resistance and it only perpetuates the problem.
Your recommendation to notice their emotion – to feel it – rather than resist it, is great.
I always tell people that there are no negative emotions. There are just emotions that don’t feel good. We have one energy and how we experience this energy (i.e. feel-good energy vs. feel-bad energy) is based on how we filter this energy; it’s based on our habits, our beliefs, our perspectives.
For instance, my wife can be seen as stubborn sometimes which most think of as a bad quality. But the flip side of this is that she’s very persistent and is quite successful because of this quality.
Anger can be perceived as a bad quality. But on the flip side of anger is passion. It’s the same energy – except that one is very draining (anger) and the other is very opening and expansive (passion).
So, again, I commend you for encouraging people to not judge their emotions because there’s value in everything we experience.
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