'My Guardian Anger'

 

Years ago, before I left my beautiful country, I got to know a poem/song by Jaroslaw Szubrycht called ‘My Guardian Anger’. It confused me for a while, before it turned into a light bulb moment. I chewed and chewed and chewed on the meaning of it. Then I finally got it! People feel angry when something is wrong!! Anger can protect me! And it has ever since. Every time I failed to call that anger - I suffered the consequences. The guardian anger was always there to tell me that something wasn’t right. It helped me to negotiate healthier boundaries with people and change dynamics in different relationships. It made me speak up when essential and brought me to many wonderful insights, conclusions, twists and turns, people and events. It gave me the energy to reach for things that I dared to dream of. It kept me going through the many obstacles that appeared on my path and clear it.  I believe if a person is in touch with their anger – they are healthy. Feeling anger might stop the motion and allow to make a different choices or decisions. Anger has a very important regulatory function. Sadly it is often confused with aggression or violence. Feeling angry doesn’t mean to be on a crusade. It is absolutely necessary to acknowledge the dividing line here – anger is an emotion; aggression and violence are the behaviours that occur due to poorly managed anger.

Dr. Paul Eckman, one of the most influential psychologists ever, dedicated his life to researching emotions and facial expressions in different cultures and ethnic groups. He identified six emotions that are present in all cultures from birth. These are: anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust and surprise. All of these emotions have important and irreplaceable functions and roles. They are called Primary Emotions and all of them create facial expressions when felt. These emotions cause all sorts of bodily sensations or states (more in ‘On being whole’ and ‘Silence teaches you how to sing’ ). The Primary Emotions developed during the process of evolution to maintain the human race. Their purpose is to enhance survival and navigate life. They are often interconnected and co-exist in the same time. The Primary Emotions fostered Secondary Emotions that appear as a reaction to a primary emotions e.g. shame follows anger. Emotional literacy is as important as emotional safety. I actually think these are two sides of the same thing. Books were written about the primary emotions, so to summarize:

•     Anxiety has a very important function – to alert us to all potential dangers in order to aid our survival. Anxiety is closely connected to fear.
•      Fear makes us respond to a threat in a variety of ways. The most well-known responses to fear are fight, flight or freeze (more in The end of the world tomorrow).
•     Happiness consists of moments of joy, optimism and gratitude. Happiness helps us appreciate various aspects of life.
•         Surprise is the reaction to  an unexpected, sudden and significant event or news. Surprise can lead to happiness or sadness.
•      Sadness may be described as the opposite to happiness. It follows loss, feeling disadvantaged, helpless, hopeless, lonely, disappointed, betrayed and so on.  
•          Disgust is meant to protect us from dangers such as poisons and can give us a strong message that something is not to be accepted e.g. disgusting behaviour or images.
•      Anger occurs when we feel something is wrong. It is a response to hurt, injustice, aggression, disrespect, mistreatment, abuse, oppression and so on.

Emotions are felt and expressed in a variety of ways. There are people who are full of emotion and are always involved in some sort of drama. Others feel their emotions not so intensely and may not act on them. There are people who suppress their emotions because it is too dangerous to feel them, or worse, act on them. There are people who are cut off from their emotions and feel nothing (except maybe for anxiety that often turns against them). Some individuals don’t want to be governed by their emotions and follow logic and calculations instead of ‘a gut feeling’. There are families who never speak about emotions and people in those families are often emotionally illiterate. Certain people are blessed with high emotional intelligence and are able to ‘read the room’, whatever room they are in.

I have been observing emotions (my own and others) for a very long time. I am confident that people in general don’t like too much of any emotion, when it is being expressed. Think of someone being too happy or disgusted with things all the time. Many find this obnoxious. Some emotions have to be hidden, in order for a person to not be judged and perceived as weird and to fit in with the rest.

Anger is a very disliked emotion. Why? Perhaps because it is a primitive but very powerful emotion that when felt can lead to a shift. Perhaps it is a more powerful emotion than other emotions and has to be controlled by some sort of external system like social norms. It is extremely important to highlight again that anger does not equal aggression. Anger is an emotion, aggression and violence are harmful and often desperate behaviours.

Anger led to many social and political movements. Imagine how you would respond to hurt and all things that are wrong if you had no anger in your emotional make-up? Acceptance follows anger, not the other way around. How would you know something is wrong? We need anger. Perhaps Mahatma Gandhi would disagree with that, he promoted a different philosophy that brought change. It worked. Fortunately the world has changed since and it is much more accepted to be angry and fight for whatever rights we want to fight for. Very few of us can be like Mahatma Gandhi and become the change you want to see the way he did it, but everyone can express anger in the name of injustice or abuse. I bow my head to all these brave, angry people in the history of our world – women and men equally who were not afraid or intimidated to show their anger and suffer the consequences to demand change.

In some cultures or environments – feeling angry is not tolerated. It is bad. Shame on you. Anger is forbidden. Good people do not feel angry. Does the lack of permission to feel angry remove it from your emotional make-up? No. Does it remove it from existence? No. Does it resolve anything? No. What happens if anger is not allowed to be felt? Many things happen. Some people feel they are boiling inside but wear a smile on their face. Some people feel very sad. All unprocessed hurt encourages more anger. Every unresolved, unexpressed angry feeling builds up. It creates an angry feeling the size of a mountain. When it blows up - it can be very, very destructive. There is lots of research linking unprocessed anger with a high blood pressure or other physical illnesses.

I feel that anger can be classified into two categories: 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' anger. Healthy and unhealthy for us, our bodies, our lives, our communities and environment. We need to understand our anger in order to work with it. There is a thing called Anger Management that, amongst many techniques, teaches you to breathe instead of blowing up and leaving the room, instead of smashing a plate on the wall. Anger Management is great and it might take a diverse form for diverse anger issues, however sometimes it might be a work done on the surface. I believe that going to the root of that anger, not the symptoms or behaviours, might be more beneficial in a longer run. I suggest that understanding, processing and maybe letting go or channeling that anger into something worthy and healthy might be of a great worth to a person and it might improve quality of life. It can motivate people to change the world, win sporting competitions, have great careers and so on. The unhealthy anger can be destructive inwards – suppressed anger kills from the inside and might take the form of self-harm, addictions,  risky behaviours etc or outwards – it can turn into violence causing people to destroy things and argue with the people around them. That is the dark side of anger. Unfortunately, prisons are full of people who acted out on their anger in the most terrible ways. It is heart breaking.

The dark side of anger can express itself in pathologically angry people. Or toxic individuals who bring a dark cloud with them wherever they go. They erupt often over everything and anything. Their anger can be triggered over any small thing, that the rest of the population wouldn’t notice. It is a condition and people who suffer with it need help. Anger management can support them in changing their lives to happier ones, as could psychotherapy.

Lots of people are ‘too nice to be angry’. They either suppress anger and get ill or become passive aggressive individuals who show many different acts of microaggressions in their behaviour. I dare to say that they haven’t connected to their own guardian. The rest of population might be better or worse balancing their anger.

Dr. Ephrem Fernandez and his team at University of Texas have researched anger for a long time and came out with an idea of an ‘angry personality’ that finds its expression in 6 different types of anger. There is so much more to anger and reading about it can be very educational. The team also developed some tools and a scale in order to help these angry personalities who want to be in touch with their anger, not at its service.

Someone might ask: How do I connect to my anger? I do I manage my anger?

You need to get to understand it and know it first. We are all unique beings and we feel angry because of diverse things are not right in our opinion. We have distinct perceptions of what is wrong. What makes me angry – doesn’t have to make my partner or neighbor angry. Sharing something that works for my anger e.g. : feel it, contain it, express it in a safe way, let go and move on – it might not work for others. It might make them laugh, or worse: it make make them angry! It happens because there is not one formula on how to manage anger and I believe everybody should develop their own formula. A passive aggressive person would need to balance their anger in a separate way than a constantly angry person or someone who ‘never’ felt it. Good luck!

Below please find a link to a highly recommended meditation: The 'do no harm and take no s... practice'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6chvht8l4s    - Thank you Jean!!

I also recommend a great, heart warming movie for all the family: 'Inside Out' by Pete Docter (2015), enjoy!