Category: Anger

In Chapter 5 of my Amazon bestselling book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool, I discuss 3 anger myths. In this post, I will introduce you to the concept of the anger myth and present these myths to you.

A myth is an idea that may  be popular, widely believed, or even partially true but which, in its entirety, is false or unsupported.

An example of a myth is that brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs.  The truth is that egg color is related to the breed of the specific chicken and there is no correlation between egg color and the nutritional value of the egg. One inconvenient truth is that advertisers and merchants have found that they can charge more for brown eggs than white eggs.  This is why the myth persists. So, while you may think you are getting more for your money with brown eggs, all that is going on is that you are unnecessarily spending more than you need to.

When it comes to anger myths, the problem is that, because the validity of the myth is not challenged and our behavior is impacted by the myth, our ability to strategically deploy our anger gets impaired.

There are at least 3 anger myths.

Myth #1: Anger is a negative, dangerous, or bad emotion.

This myth is both widely believed and widely quoted although the form you see it in may change.

Examples of this myth include:

• “Anger is a negative emotion.”,
• “Anger is one step (or letter) away from danger.”, and
• “It is bad to get angry.”

The myth probably persists because some people, when they get angry, do bad or regrettable things. And, because anger motivates us to take quick action toward a threat, it is easy to assume that the anger causes the negative behavior that becomes associated with it.

It is the association between anger and behavior that gives anger a bad reputation.

That anger causes behavior is another myth we will discuss next.

The truth is that there are no negative emotions.

Anger is a primary emotion and a threat detecting tool, the function of which is to alert us to a threat we believe we can eliminate if we throw enough force at it.  Anger prepares us for battle.

We can always choose, however, not to go to war.  Which takes us to Myth #2.

Myth #2: My anger (or some person or situation) controls me.

Examples of this myth include:

• My anger made me do it (whatever action “it” refers to).
• I had no choice (to do what I did).  I was so angry.
• You made me angry.

The implication of the myth is that you are a robot without free will when it comes to the emotion of anger.

This myth persists in part because of the nature of anger and all emotions. Emotions have existed since man, as a species lived in caves or on the Savannah.  Emotions evolved to help us survive as a species. Humans survived by constantly scanning their surroundings for threats that would kill them.  When a threat was perceived (consciously or subconsciously), the brain automatically engaged a fight or flight reaction to protect the individual from the threat.  This process, initiated through the Amygdala and the Reticular Activating System in the brain,  was (and continues to be) fast and automatic as it should be if a genuine threat exists. The emotion that was experienced always matched the nature of the threat and prepared the person for appropriate action.

Today, because most of the threats we face are psychological in nature and not survival based, the match between the emotion and the reaction is less reliable.

Because of the automatic emotional reaction, it is easy to see why some people may believe the emotion forces them to act.

As humans continued to evolve and develop a bigger, more complicated brain, the cerebral cortex, or thinking part of the brain, gave us more alternatives.

Today, the emotional reaction still exists but we now have the opportunity to evaluate the nature of the threat and choose how we want to respond.

So, while the myth persists, the truth is that you are not a robot and you can choose what you want to do.

The myth also persists because it offers those who act out inappropriately both an excuse for and a way to avoid taking responsibility for their behavior and a way to blame someone elce for what they have chosen to do.

In other words, “I didn’t (mess up) because I am a bad or hurtful guy but because my anger gave me no choice. You are responsible for what I have done because you made me angry!”

Anger Myth #3 is the most disempowering.

Myth #3: (I, women, men) should not get angry.

Examples of this myth include:

• I should never get angry (because every time I do, I mess up).
• Women should not get angry (because it isn’t famine or the consequences aren’t worth it).
• Anger is a problem when it is outwardly expressed.
• Men should not get angry (because anger, as a secondary emotion which substitutes for feelings of anxiety, hurt or vulnerability, is dishonest).

This myth picks up where myth #1 ends.

This myth persists because the kernal of truth is that some men do mess up when they get angry, some men do use anger as a secondary emotion, and, for some women, expressing anger (especially in a professional office setting) can lead to unwanted consequences.

But, to conclude, as the myth does, that because there might be some unwanted consequences (or, in other words, risk), anger should be eliminated or avoided is faulty reasoning.

Based on this reasoning, no businesses would ever get started, we would never drive our cars or fly on airplanes and marriage–forget it.  All of these examples involve risk.

The truth is that everyone can both be aware of the risks and learn to strategically deploy their anger.  My book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool shows you how to do this. And, because these issues are rarely addressed, I have a whole chapter devoted to Professional Women.

In this post, I introduced you to three widely held myths about anger.  My goal was to show you these myths, make you aware of the various ways these myths present themselves, help you understand why the myths persist, and empower you to overcome these myths and strategically express your anger rather than be hobbled and let your anger be taken away from you by  half-truths, misinformation, and ingrained misunderstandings.

I welcome your comments.

 

Have you ever needed to address the anger of yourself or another person and got resistance, justifications, or rationalizations whenever you opened a discussion on the issue?  Read on.

Anger is often portrayed as a negative emotion.  Not only is this portrayal incorrect but it is also potentially destructive as it implies that anger should be eliminated.

This is like saying that you should toss the smoke detector in your house because it sounds an alarm when you burn the toast or it wakes you up at night with that annoying chirp when the battery is low.

Anger is never a negative emotion.  It is always adaptive and should not be eliminated.

Let’s take a closer look at the concept of negative emotions.

Emotions as Tools

I maintain that there are no negative emotions. 

My reasoning has been that all the emotions are adaptive tools in that they provide us with actionable information we can use to improve our lives and our relationships.  Emotions as tools are neither positive or negative.  While you may get annoyed at it, your computer is neither positive or negative.  It is just a tool you need to learn how to use.

With emotions, you need to learn how to strategically deploy them and the information they provide.

Experiencing an Emotion

Emotions can also be viewed in terms of their hedonic quality. 

In other words, how is the emotion experienced?   Is it experienced as “good” (I like this feeling and want it to continue.) or as bad (This feeling sucks and I want it to end.) An emotion that feels “bad” tends to get incorrectly labelled as “negative” based on how it is experienced.

Emotions and Behavior

The function of emotions is to motivate us to take action.   As I illustrate in the Anger Mastery Cycle, our senses constantly scan our surroundings for threats.  When a threat is subconsciously perceived, the body automatically goes into fight or flight.

The emotion that you experience is linked to the perceived threat and automatically prepares you to deal with it.  This is the message of the emotion.  The actions you want to take should match the nature of the perceived threat.

Hence, when you are sad, the perceived threat is loss and you want to withdraw and recover. With anxiety, the threat is a future based something that might occur and you want to either escape from it (distress) or prepare for it (eustress).

This fight or flight process is very quick, happens outside of our immediate awareness (until we experience the emotion) and was designed to save our lives when we lived on the Savannah (or in caves).

Today, if the action our emotion motivates (not causes) us to take is seen as destructive, the emotion gets blamed for the behavior.

Anger

The message of anger is that you perceive a threat you believe you can eliminate if you throw enough force at it. Anger prepares you for war.

Anger often gets labeled as “negative” because some people tend to do negative things when angry and then blame their anger.

Interestingly, anger (hedonically) feels good.  Anger is energizing.  We feel powerful and ready for action. It is the action we take that is often problematic.

Incidentally, this is the reason that men may choose to use anger as a secondary emotion.  Anger is substituted for emotions such as anxiety, vulnerability, hurt and guilt which do not feel good (are hedonically negative).

A Different approach: Constructive verses Destructive anger. 

I developed the Emotions as Tools Model because I needed a way to talk about feelings such as anger with the under-educated incarcerated teen age girls I was treating in therapy and the often jaded men and women correctional staff I was training to deal with the girls I was treating. What I learned in graduate school didn’t prepare me for these tasks. 

I needed a new model and the Emotions as Tools Model worked well.

And, it still does.  But, sometimes, a different approach might be useful.

From the perspective of talking about anger to others or understanding our own anger, the idea of constructive and destructive anger might help you open up a discussion.

Constructive anger moves us forward and is beneficial. 

Destructive anger elicits actions we later regret and wish had never occurred.

Anger, per se, remains just a tool that is used constructively or destructively. If you take a hammer and destroy a vase when you are pissed off, this is using the hammer destructively.  If you use the same hammer to build a house… I think you get the idea.

Let’s explore the idea of constructive anger in more detail.

Constructive anger is strategically deployed.

• You have assessed the nature of the threat and determined it is valid
• You use the motivational impact of your anger to propel you to take action.
• You match the amount of anger force with the nature of the perceived threat. This is what it means to strategically deploy your anger.
• You may use additional anger force, if necessary, to deal with the threat.

This is called assertion and escalation.

Destructive anger is problematic.

• The actions you take when angry are either excessive given the threat or unnecessary in that no threat exists.
• The anger is a substitute for another feeling (secondary anger).
• Anger is used to manipulate others into taking the action you want them to do (instrumental anger).

Using this Approach

Your teenager, spouse, employee, or friend gets angry and does something they later either regret or make excuses for.  You need to address their actions but get resistance when you do.

Note: This discussion can also apply to you if you put up a wall whenever your anger (and behavior) are discussed.

Here is a way to open a discussion and avoid the resistance.

When you need to address your own anger or the anger of another person, talking about constructive and destructive anger enables you to discuss the topic of anger without placing blame or establishing responsibility. While you may have to address the issue of responsibility for one’s actions, it can be done at a later date once you have opened a dialog about constructive and destructive anger.

How helpful was this post?

I welcome your comments.

And the judge said:

“Guilty! You are sentenced to 30 days in county jail and anger management classes!”

You see it in movies, on TV and in the newspapers.

Someone (usually a public figure or a celebrity) acts out inappropriately, goes to court, and gets sentenced to, among other punishments, Anger Management (emphasis added) classes.

This is one way that many people get introduced to the misuse of anger. The other way is by observing their own behavior. Observing the misuse of anger is responsible for maintaining belief in the anger myths. One myth says that anger is a dangerous emotion which should be eliminated. A second myth says that one should not get angry because there is always a negative outcome.

All the myths are false.

So, what is wrong with this scenario?

There are two implied assumptions behind anger management classes that are rarely acknowledged.

Two implied assumptions.

1. The first implied assumption is that anger is like a wild animal that must be tamed, caged, controlled, and managed or it will turn a person into a wild robot who has no choice but to act out and hurt others.
2. The second implied assumption is that this person’s behavior is caused by his out of control anger and that he needs to go to classes to learn how to regain control of his anger.

Both are incorrect and misleading.

The basic (misunderstood) facts.

Anger is just an emotion, the function of which is to prepare your body to fight off a perceived threat.  Anger is a motivator of action but does not cause any specific behavior

Each person is always responsible for the actions they take based on the decisions they make.  There are always options.

Those people who act out and get in trouble when they get angry represent only a small minority of people who get angry.  For the vast majority of people who get angry but who do not break the law, anger management as a general approach to dealing with anger falls short.  For these folks, anger mastery is a more fulfilling option.

The facts explained.

Anger is one of 6 primary emotions.

The other 5 are sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise.  While some writers say there are only 3 primary emotions and some say there are more, 6 is a standard widely agreed upon number.

Emotions have existed in humans since we lived on the Savannah and/or in caves and, it can be reasonably argued, are responsible for our survival as a species.

Here is how emotions worked when we were a very young species.

Our senses constantly scanned our surroundings for threats which, if not dealt with, would kill us.  All threats were survival threats. When a threat was perceived, a subconscious process was set in motion which involved a fast track message going to the Amygdala and from there to the Thalamus.  The Thalamus prepared the body for action. This is what you would want if your life depended on your reaction.

Each primary emotion elicited a different reaction based on the nature of the perceived threat.

Anger prepared us for war as the threat was perceived to be one we could eliminate by throwing enough force at it.  By contrast, disgust prepared us to move away from a threat which could harm us and fear prepared us to run away (or freeze) from a threat that would kill us.

Today, the same primitive reactive process still exists. However, the nature of the threats we face has changed. Most of the threats we face are psychological.  In addition, we now have the ability to respond to the threat.

As our brains grew and developed over eons, the cerebral cortex gave us the ability to assess the nature of the threat and choose a response. So, while a fast track message still goes to the Amygdala for fight or flight, a slower track message goes to the cerebral cortex and gives us options.

Revisiting the original implied assumptions:

1. While anger autonomously prepares us to take action relative to the perceive threat, it does not force us to take a specific action.  Anger is a tool we need to learn to use not a wild horse we need to break.
2. The cerebral cortex always gives us an option to choose the actions we take relative to the perceived threat.  Consequently, we are always responsible for what we do. 

By the way, the perpetrator who hurts others and blames his (or her) anger is trying to avoid taking personal responsibility for their actions so blaming the anger is an easy out.

The statement: “If I wasn’t angry, I wouldn’t have done (xyz).” may very well be true.  The implication that the anger made him do it is always false. Unfortunately, this distinction is often not recognized.

Managing versus Mastering an emotion:

Managing anger involves lowering your level of physiological arousal by taking a breath or using relaxation techniques.

This is fine as far as it goes.

However, while the anger management folks concede that anger is a natural emotion, it is viewed as the cause of the behavior and the focus of treatment.

This is where most anger management classes often fall short.

To be fair, good anger management classes will teach you ways to develop empathy and build trust and to use good communication and conflict resolution skills.

This is excellent. But, I maintain, for many people it doesn’t go far enough.

I believe there is a place for anger management skills. But, I believe you should learn to master your anger as a tool.

In my Amazon best seller book, Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool, I discuss the Anger Mastery Cycle. You can download a copy of the Anger Mastery Cycle by scrolling up to the welcome post on this blog.

The Anger Mastery Cycle does not demonize anger.  Anger is viewed only as a tool which provides information about one’s surroundings. As a tool, anger can be mastered so that it works for you. The Anger Mastery Cycle includes the assumption that you are always responsible for how you use your anger as a tool.

The Anger Mastery Cycle starts with you constantly, and subconsciously, scanning your surroundings for threat. When you perceive a threat you believe you can eliminate by throwing enough force at it, you experience anger and your body automatically goes into fight mode.

This is the fast track primitive reactive process I noted above.

Once you recognize that you are angry by knowing how your body alerts you to this emotion (your physical correlates), the Anger Mastery Cycle suggests that you create some “space” between you and the threat.

This takes us into anger management.

Creating space serves to protect you both physically and psychologically. By taking a step backwards (physical space), you protect yourself and you communicate to the person who you are angry at or who is angry at you that a moment of reflection is needed.

The skills you learned in your Anger Management classes to lower your arousal level serve to create some psychological space. Psychological space is needed to give your cerebral cortex some time to kick in so that you can decide how you want to respond rather than react.

This is where we move into anger mastery.

The anger mastery process begins with assessing, or validating the nature of the threat.

The perceived threat may be genuine in which case action to eliminate the threat is justified.

Or, the original perception of threat is not accurate and something else is precipitating your anger.

When you realize there is no threat, your anger should subside. If you are still angry and there is no threat, you are either using your anger as a secondary emotion or you are using anger instrumentally.

Anger mastery includes but goes beyond anger management in its conceptualization of anger as a tool that can be understood and utilized in different ways.  The skill sets which comprise emotional intelligence imply an anger mastery approach to this emotion.

For some people, managing their anger may be the best they can do. These folks may not be very emotionally intelligent and may not be able to move beyond a behavior-focused concrete approach to anger. And, they may not do well in anger management classes.

For others, however, mastering their anger gives them an understanding of what anger is and provides more options for dealing with their own anger and anger directed at them.

I value your comments on the above.

 

This is a question someone asked on Quora.com and as I hadn’t really thought of anger in this way, I decided to address it.

YES    Anger, as an emotion, is an objective term as it can be as it can be clearly and “objectively” defined. We tend to think of anger only as an objective term and as I will discuss below, this can be problematic.

NO Anger  as experienced and expressed by an individual is a subjective term because how you experience and express your anger is very “subjective”, or unique, to you.

Objective

Anger, as an emotion is one of the 6 primary emotions “discovered” by Paul Ekman. These emotions are mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise. All of them can be seen across human cultures and in some subhuman species. If you have kids, you have learned to recognize these emotions in your kid’s faces when they were too young to think about, or subjectively configure what they were feeling.

With the exception of glad and surprise, all of the primary emotions are primitive threat detectors the evolutionary function of which is to alert us to the presence of a threat and subconsciously prepare our bodies to deal with the threat. You can think of emotions as tools. I have written about this emotional process in my first Amazon best selling book entitled Emotions As Tools: A Self Help Guide to Controlling Your Life not Your Feelings. You can download the first chapter of this book by scrolling up to the Welcome post on this blog with no opt-in.

When a person is subconsciously alerted to a threat through the Amygdala and the Thalamus and experiences anger, he or she is “set up” to REACT to the anger. With anger, we are set up to go to war.  When we were living in caves, this was a good thing and helped insure our survival.

Subjective

There are two aspects to anger as a subjective term.

The first is how you experience anger physically.

How does your body alert you to the emotion of anger?  This is important information to have as your “physical correlates” of anger are the first indicator to you that you are getting angry.  I have included several checklists to help you identify how your body reacts in anger in my first Amazon best selling book Emotions as Tools A Self Help Guide to Controlling Your Life not Your Emotions.  You can download the first two chapters to this book by scrolling up to the top of the blog.

The second aspect of anger as a subjective term is how you respond when you are angry.

Today, we have a choice about how we want to RESPOND to a perceived threat because our nervous system alerts our cerebral cortex (thinking part of the brain) about the situation we are facing.

While our brain automatically sets us up to react, the threats you face today are psychological not survival based. How you choose to respond to the threat is highly subjective and can either be adaptive and useful or maladaptive and problematic.

There are three general subjective responses to anger.

The first personal subjective response to anger is to go with the anger rather than learn to master it.  It this tendency to go to war without really assessing the nature of the threat that has given anger a bad reputation. This choice can get a person in trouble in that it leads them to blame their anger for their inappropriate behavior. They feel their anger controls them and do not take personal responsibility for their actions. This may not feel like a choice but it is. In addition, this choice is very maladaptive in that it does not work to the advantage of the angry person

The second personal objective response to anger is to master the anger as I discuss in my current Amazon best seller book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool.  By the way, you can download the first chapter of this book for free with no opt-in by scrolling up to the top of the blog.

The choice to master your anger is adaptive because it takes into consideration what is happening in the situation, what your strengths and weaknesses are and what works best for you and the other person.

A third personal subjective response is to use anger as a secondary emotion.  This is dishonest anger as the anger is used to cover up other feelings such as anxiety, vulnerability, sadness, hurt and so forth.  While the emotion looks and feels like anger, there is not obvious threat and the “angry” person knows the emotion is a cover-up.

Problems can arise when we treat anger as if it is always an objective term. This implies that anger is the same for everyone. With the exception of anger as a secondary emotion, it is true that everyone who gets angry perceives a threat. But, and this is the important part, how a person defines, perceives, and responds to that threat is highly subjective.

When we deal with another person who is angry, we need to find out how they are subjectively responding to the situation.  We can use this information to develop our response to them.

As always, I welcome your comments.

I was asked this question on Quora and wanted to address it here (in greater detail) as I believe it raises an important issue involving anger and whether or not you should express the anger you feel.

Well, as you might suspect after reading some of my posts, the answer is: it depends.

No, this is not an attempt to evade the question.

Rather, there are three elements which go into determining whether (how and if) you express you anger:

1. understanding the message of anger
2. assessing the nature of the threat (is it valid or due to a misunderstanding)
3. whether to express anger or not (and under what conditions) and the nature of your expression (direct or in.

The message of anger.

Anger is one of six primary emotions, four of which are primitive threat detectors. Anger is a primitive threat detector which has been around since we lived in caves, can be seen in all human and some subhuman species, and functions today as it always has.

In other words, your brain is genetically programmed, just like in your ancestors, to both search for threats and subconsciously prepare your body for fight, flight or freeze to “deal” with those threats. This happens very fast, as it should if you are facing a valid threat to your survival, and is not consciously mediated. We call this the fast track message. Your brain prepares you to react.

Each emotional threat detector informs you about the nature of the threat you have perceived and your relationship to it.

If the threat is more powerful than you, your body is “set-up” to freeze or flee and fear is the emotion you experience.  The message of fear is that the threat will “kill” you so get away from it.

If you subconsciously size up the threat as being “weaker” than you (You are more powerful than it is.), your body is “set-up” to go to war with the threat and the emotion you experience is anger. The message of anger is that you have detected a threat you believe that you can eliminate if you throw enough force at it. Thus, when you are angry, the Adrenalin that flows through your body makes you ready to attack and overwhelm.

While the primitive emotional cycle unconsciously prepares your body to REACT and fight off the threat has not changed, your human brain has evolved giving you the option to respond rather than react.

The reactive aspect of the emotional cycle involves a fast track message from the sensory organ (eyes, ears) through the Amygdala in the brain to the Thalamus. If the threat will kill you (as all of them did in the lives of our Savannah or cave dwelling ancestors), your survival would necessitate a quick (and unconscious) reaction.

As humans evolved and the brain grew, the Cerebral Cortex developed to give us options beyond our primitive drives.

The element of the emotional (or in this case Anger) mastery cycle which allows you to choose how you want to respond to the threat goes through the thinking part of the brain, the Cerebral Cortex, and is referred to as the slower track message.

Thus, you have a choice about how you want to respond to the threat. The Anger Mastery Cycle reflects this choice.

As a reader of this blog, you are probably aware that I have discussed the Anger Mastery Cycle in other posts and that you can download a copy of the Cycle using the link in the “welcome” post at the top of this page.

Assessing the threat.

It is important to note that, in our “civilized” world, the threats we are most likely to encounter are psychological (not physical) and involve our goals, our egos,  or our values rather than our lives (although this can happen).  We feel (and we may actually be) vulnerable and this vulnerability elicits anger.

Once you become aware of your anger by noticing how your body physically alerts you to anger, your next step is to create some “distance” between you and the threat.  The purpose of the “distance” you create is to protect you from the threat and give you time to assess the nature of the threat. You create physical distance by taking a step back and you create psychological distance by taking a breath to calm yourself so that you can respond rather than react to the threat.

You then need to assess the validity of the threat.

If there is a real threat to your life, your core values, your finances and so forth, then you will need to take action (This is the third element above.) Here you are expressing your anger.

If the threat is not valid, you will need to choose a different response.

Whether to express your anger (or not) and the nature of the expression.

How (or if) you express your anger depends on three factors:

First: is the threat valid or not?

•          If you are facing a predator who wants to hurt you (physical threat), you should, if you can safely do so, use all the energy your anger provides and attack the predator.
•         If the threat is real but not life-threatening (psychological threat), then you need to make a plan to effectively nullify the threat and execute your plan.
•        If you decide that there is no real threat because you have misunderstood the other person, then the “expression” of your anger is a genuine apology or doing nothing.

Second: Do you express your anger directly or indirectly:

• Direct action.

If you can directly address the threat and resolve it, do so.

• Indirect action.

Sometimes, directly attacking the threat may not be “safe” for you to do because your “adversary” is too powerful, too influential, or too evasive.  The risk (unwanted consequences) to you is too great.  In other words, the threat may be real but your surroundings do not permit you to directly express your anger.

An example is a professional setting in which women, who are legitimately angry because boundaries have been violated are demeaned or marginalized by the men in their office when they (the women) express their anger.

Under these circumstances, a more indirect approach is needed which eliminates the threat without directly focusing on the the threat or the person who is engaging in the “threatening” behavior.  The “project manager” approach I discuss in Chapter 10 of my book Beyond Anger Mastery Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool is a possible suggestion.  I’ll discuss the “project manager” approach in a future post.

Third: Match the response to the situation.

Whatever you do (or do not do) should match the context of the situation in which you find yourself. This will help to avoid either an inadequate (ineffective) response or an inappropriately aggressive (attacking) response.

I hope this information is useful and I welcome your comments.

Everyone has “experienced” anger.

If the word “experienced” in the context of an emotion seems odd to you, that is because it is odd.

You “experience” a sunset in that you see the sunset and you “choose” how it will impact you.

You may be overwhelmed or touched by its beauty. Or, you may just notice it and move on. You don’t control a sunset, you master it.

This is a subjective, or unique to you, emotional response.

With anger, however, most people believe that you get angry. Or do you?

The implication is that anger just happens to you.  While some people believe this, and it is partially true, overall, it isn’t either the whole story or even accurate.

So, back to sunsets and anger.

Psychologically, you subjectively “experience” anger similarly to how you experience a sunset.

The sun sets every day and you have seen many sunsets.  But, you may only have stopped what you are doing to interact with the sunset and let it impact you.

With anger, as I discuss both in previous posts and in my book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool, you are constantly scanning your surroundings for threat. The anger mastery cycle begins with the perception of threat and quickly moves to the unconscious reaction to the threat.

This is the ONLY part of the emotion of anger where the anger “controls” you.

You engage the threat when the cycle proceeds to the conscious recognition and labeling of the emotional reaction as anger, validating the nature of the threat and choosing a response.

Objective and subjective “definitions”.

You can look at sunsets and anger both objectively and subjectively.

Sunsets (objectively)

Objectively, you can talk about how a sunset is caused when light is scattered in the atmosphere by different molecules and how clouds in the sky reflect the light in different ways the scattering of light.  There is no emotion in this description and unless you are interested in the science, none of it matters.  In fact, to stand in awe of a great sunset and have someone tell you what is really happening would be a “buzzkill”.

It is a bit different with anger.

If your goal, as in many anger management courses, is simply to control, minimize, or eliminate anger, then you really don’t need to know what anger is.  Once you recognize you are angry,  you put on the brakes, and you are done.

Well, many anger management approaches are unsuccessful because they do not provide a context for anger which explains what anger is, why we, as humans, have anger, and how we can use, or master, our anger to improve our lives.  Being able to objectively understand anger facilitates our subjectively learning to master it as a tool.

Anger (objectively)

Anger, as an emotion is one of the 6 primary emotions “discovered” by Paul Ekman. These emotions are mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise. All of them can be seen across human cultures and in some subhuman species. If you have kids, you have learned to recognize these emotions in your kid’s faces when they were too young to think about, or subjectively configure what they were feeling.

With the exception of glad and surprise, all of the primary emotions are primitive threat detectors the evolutionary function of which is to alert us to the presence of a threat and subconsciously prepare our bodies to deal with the threat. You can think of emotions as tools. I have written about this emotional process in my book entitled Emotions As Tools: A Self Help Guide to Controlling Your Life not Your Feelings which is available on Amazon. You can download the first chapter of this book from my blog for free with no opt-in.

When a person is subconsciously alerted to a threat through the Amygdala and the Thalamus and experiences anger, he or she is “set up” to REACT to the anger. When we were living in caves, this was a good thing and helped insure our survival.

Sunsets (subjectively)

If you stop the car to “take in” the sunset, your “breath is taken away” by its beauty, or you “stand in awe” of this magnificent display, you get the subjective “definition” of a sunset.

Anger (subjectively)

Subjective

Today, we have a choice about how we want to RESPOND to a perceived threat because our nervous system alerts our cerebral cortex (thinking part of the brain) about the situation we are facing.

It this tendency to react to one’s anger and go to war without really assessing the nature of the threat that has both given anger a bad reputation and has negatively impacted lives and relationships.

While our brain automatically sets us up to react, it also, by a different pathway, allows us to assess our situation and choose how we want to adaptively respond to what is going on.

This response to anger is anger subjectively defined.

If you choose to go with the anger rather than learn to master it, you may get in trouble and blame your anger for you inappropriate behavior.  You may believe the anger controls you but this is still your choice. This is one subjective response.

Other people choose to master their anger as I discuss in my current book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool which is available on Amazon. By the way, you can download the first chapter of this book for free with no opt-in on my blog TheEmotionsDoctor.com. Here is the download page.

This is another subjective response.

My goal has been to give you another way to look at and understand your anger.  I hope this article has helped.

I welcome your comments.

This is similar to a question that I was asked on Quora.com.  I thought it was a good question that you, my readers, might enjoy so I decided to post my answer here.

To whomever asked this question.. I really like the fact that you did NOT ask “What makes me angry?”

While it may seem like the two questions (What makes me angry? and What is the cause of my anger?) are the same, they are not.

When one asks about what “makes” me angry, they imply that the source, or cause, of their anger is outside of themselves. Not only does this change their relationship to their emotions but it gives away any power their emotions provide them to deal with their surroundings and the challenges they face. I mention this because you will hear people question what makes them angry or, worse, blame someone else for making them angry.

In order to understand the cause of your emotions, you have to know what emotions are and how the emotional process works.

There are 6 primary emotions (mad, sad, glad, fear, disgust, and surprise). This number will vary depending on whose list you read but 6 is representative. The emotions in bold are primitive threat detectors and focus our attention on a threat that could hurt us. The other two emotions focus our attention on an activity we might like to engage in. All emotions are adaptive.

Here is how the emotional process works today and has worked since we lived in caves. You are hard wired to unconsciously scan your surroundings for any threat. When our ancestors lived in caves, there were many threats all of which wanted to kill them. These are called survival threats and the emotional process developed in response to these threats and helped us survive as a species. The problem is that today, while survival threats still exist, most of what we face are psychological threats such as traffic jams, difficult deadlines, and exasperating co-workers. While the nature of the threats we face has changed, the emotional process has not.

Once you perceive a threat, your senses alert the emotional center in your brain (the Amygdala)which unconsciously prepares you to deal with the threat. This is the fast track message. Your body does not distinguish between types of threat. It just reacts. Your body’s reaction to the perceived threat informs you that you are experiencing an emotion. At the same time, a slower message goes to the thinking part of your brain (the cerebral cortex). This slower message gives you the opportunity to examine the “cause” or your feeling and choose a response.

So, let’s look at anger and directly address your question.

Each of the emotions has a unique message.

The message of anger is that you perceive a threat that you believe you can eliminate if you throw enough force at it. Your body is prepared to go to war and you have unconsciously determined that you can win the war. Your anger prepares you for battle.

Once you know how your body reacts when you are angry (which muscles tighten, how your breathing changes, the thoughts you have about to eliminate the threat), you are on your way to finding out the cause of your anger.

Your next step is to take a step back from the situation and take a breath. This gives you both physical and psychological space between you and the threat. It also can stop you from reacting and later regretting what you might have done.

Your third step is to assess the nature of the threat. This is the cause of your anger and is the information you are seeking. You can ask yourself, “What is the threat that I am reacting to?” In most cases, it will involve a challenge to your beliefs in right/wrong, your values, the way things should be, your goals, your finances, and so forth. When you identify the perceived threat, you know the cause of your anger.

You master your anger when you take the fourth step which is to choose how you want to respond to the threat. My book Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool discusses the anger cycle and anger mastery in more detail.

I welcome your comments.