Adapted from Ep 54: Understanding Anger of the Untrigger Yourself podcast hosted by Vivir founders Dr. Peter Hercules, M.D. and Katrina Hercules
Someone cuts you off in traffic. A coworker brushes you off in a meeting. A stranger uses the wrong tone of voice. Before you can think, your heart is pounding and your words are sharper than you meant them to be. Later, you wish you had handled it differently.
Anger is something everyone knows. Many people see it as strength, or as the only thing that gets them moving. This article looks at what anger really is, why it hits so hard, why it so often hides deeper pain, and how to respond in a way that protects you without costing you your peace.
Anger Usually Starts With Feeling Treated Unfairly
Anger most often shows up as a reaction to being treated unfairly, dismissively, or without consideration. It tends to point at something or someone. It can be aimed at ourselves, too.
"It's typically a sense that I've been treated unfairly by somebody. That's the basis of it."
Anger is also an aggressive state. It is the fight side of the fight-or-flight response.
"Somebody has crossed my line in some form or other. And so the idea is I push that person off to the other side of the line."
Many people see anger as useful, even admirable. Leaders who show no anger can seem uncaring. But the cost is worth a closer look.
Anger Is a Triggered Response
A triggered response is built for speed. It evolved to protect us from predators and other sudden dangers, when there was no time to reason. In that state, we react to the past as if it were the present.
"The triggered response does not involve the prefrontal cortex, the rational part of our mind, so we're not using reason."
"We are essentially reliving a past trauma in a present day situation. So we're not confronting reality."
Add a negative emotional state, and the outcome is predictable.
"The decisions that we typically make when we're in a state of anger are retrospectively at least, usually not good decisions."
The Stoics described anger as a temporary form of insanity. Looking back at moments of anger, most of us can see how clouded our thinking was, even when our point had some merit.
Anger Is Often a Second Layer
Anger can feel like the whole story. Often it is not. Underneath it, there is usually hurt. An unfair or dismissive act can press on an old wound, especially feelings of worthlessness that began in early life, when we did not get the love and attention we needed. When that happens, the reaction is not really about the present moment.
"Anger is a second level of response. I'm angry because this person's dismissive, unfair treatment of me has reactivated my feelings of worthlessness and hurt."
"This person has poked a wound within me. And so, of course, that hurts a lot. So I will instinctively push back against them."
The size of the reaction tells us something. The deeper the wound, the bigger the response. People who carry more pain from neglect or abuse tend to react more intensely to smaller slights. And someone who is already stretched thin has less room for one more thing.
"If you're barely hanging in there and then just one more thing happens, this will be the day that you lose it."
Why Anger Feels Safer Than Hurt
Sadness and hurt feel exposed. Anger feels strong. It lets us be in distress while staying on the offense, without showing vulnerability.
Culture makes this even more likely, especially for men. Many societies have long praised the warrior and treated fear and sadness as unmanly. Anger becomes one of the few emotions that is widely accepted.
"That type of aggression is really mainly a sign of weakness in almost every case. People who use aggressive approaches are really revealing their absence of any real power in a situation."
Glorifying the most aggressive people misses what is really going on, and violence in particular is a sign of running out of options.
"What they're showing is how wounded they are."
"Violence is by definition a statement of impotence. I'm down to physical force to make a statement here. That's the only thing I've got left."
Why It Can Feel Like a Matter of Survival
Some anger is wildly out of proportion. People get into fights over a lane change or a tone of voice. Part of the reason is that, at the deepest level, a non-affirming message can feel like a threat to survival.
A small child who does not get nurturing is in real danger. When that old pain is triggered, the body responds as if the danger were real again.
"If I am not being given affirmation as a young child, that equals annihilation."
"It's perceived by the individual unconsciously as a mortal threat. So therefore they are willing to pull off to the side of the road and beat each other up if necessary."
Seen this way, the urge to hit back makes a kind of sense. It is an attempt to make sure the hurt never happens again, either by destroying the threat or by teaching a lesson so it is not repeated. That does not make it wise. It makes it understandable.
Self-Worth Changes the Response
When we do not need someone else's approval to feel okay, a slight loses much of its power. We can still set a limit. We just do it calmly.
"If I don't carry that pain around within me any longer, then somebody cut me off in traffic. That's not great. They should be careful. But I will not see this as an existential threat."
"I'm not trying to prove my value to you. I'm just trying to get your foot off mine."
This also changes how we see the person who treated us badly. They may be ignorant, uncaring or damaged. We can protect ourselves and still hold some compassion for them.
"We shouldn't be trying to destroy each other. We should be trying to figure out how to get along."
A saying often credited to Gandhi makes the point: "An eye for an eye makes everybody blind."
Self-worth even offers a measure of protection. People who want to cause harm tend to pick on those who seem vulnerable. Someone with real confidence is harder to destabilize.
What to Do in the Moment, and After
Boundaries matter. It is reasonable to speak up when treated unfairly. The question is the state of mind we do it from. In the moment, the practical goal is simply not to act.
"Anger will essentially always cloud your thinking and get a poorer result."
"Do not act if you can help it in that situation. Count to 10, take some breaths, walk away. And then wait until you have calmed down."
Afterward, look underneath.
"Get to the root of the issue, which will usually be a low self-worth issue within you, work that through, and then you'll come up with a much better solution."
Even those who work on this for years still slip. Feeling a surge of anger after being falsely accused, raising your voice, then catching it and walking away is real progress. So is being a little disappointed in yourself and wanting to do better next time.
Anger also takes a physical toll. Sharp spikes in heart rate and blood pressure are not good for the body.
“But Doesn't Anger Get Me Moving?”
Some people only take action once they are angry. That can feel like proof that anger is useful. It may be true in a very limited sense. But it also points to something worth examining.
"The discomfort has to be so severe that only when it gets so bad and anger blows up to that degree do I actually kick into action."
If anger is the only thing that gets us moving, then something else is blocking us. And whatever we do in anger, we could probably have done better without it. It is a poor strategy for living.
Getting Beyond Anger
Anger will happen. Everyone gets angry. But it is not a fixed trait. We can grow past it.
"If we are working on our emotional fitness, we're going to find ourselves being less and less angry and more and more compassionate, even to people who are crossing our line."
Healing old hurt means we can still draw lines, and we can do it calmly and clearly. It also means we no longer add to the hostility around us.
"Your best protection from harm in a general sense is to enhance your level of self-worth, enhance your level of self-confidence. And by virtue of that, everything in your life will change in a positive direction."
There is also something larger at stake. Each time we meet unkindness without anger, we show that another way is possible.
"We don't have to stay in this very unevolved, unwise, immature, wounded state. We can do better."
Listen to the full conversation – Ep. 54: Understanding Anger – on the Untrigger Yourself podcast.
