Experts - How to change your thinking about anger : a Hazelden quick guide

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Of all our emotions, anger is the one that has the most taboos restraining its expression and the most erroneous information concerning what it is and how to use it, writes Lorrainne Bilodeau in Responding to Anger: A Workbook. Understanding anger starts with letting go of those taboos.

Following are some of the major myths about anger, contrasted with realities and more useful perspectives.

Reality: Though the ways that we express anger can be constructive or destructive, the fact that we feel anger is neither right nor wrong. Its just inevitable.

Human beings are feeling beings. At almost any given moment, you feel something. If someone who you love dies, you may feel a sadness that deepens into grief, despair, or depression. If youre suddenly laid off from your job, you may feel anxious about your financial survival and your prospects of finding work. And if youve just discovered that your partner has been having an affair, you may feel betrayed and angry. These are all normal reactions.

Remember that words such as good and bad apply only to things that we can control. An immediate flash of anger is not one of those things. Like any other emotion, anger is an instinctive reaction thats based in your body. This internal reaction can spark in a split second. You can feel the flame of rage before you even know whats happening. This emotion can be intense or overwhelming, but that alone does not make it bad.

Weve been taught to condemn anger because we associate it with destructive behaviors. Examples include shouting, slamming doors, hitting people, and throwing objects across a room. Yet these and other aggressive behaviors are only some of the possible ways to express anger. In fact, we can learn to experience and even express anger without being destructive or violent.

Anger and aggression are two different things. Anger is a feeling that takes place inside us. Aggression is a behaviora way of acting out the internal experience of anger. Aggression is not inevitable. With appropriate guidance and practice, we can learn to redirect the energy of anger. We can express anger in nonaggressive ways and even use it to achieve constructive goals.

Unfortunately, many of us are not taught the difference between anger and aggression. You may never hear about this distinction from your family members, friends, teachers, or religious leaders. They forgetor perhaps never learnedthat anger in itself is not evil. Its simply an emotion, and emotions are morally neutral. From a moral standpoint, what matters is not how we feel, but how we express what we feel.

Reality: Anger can serve many useful functions.

All emotions serve a purpose. Guilt sends a signal that our behavior contradicts our values. Fear arouses us to deal with a perceived danger. Loneliness reminds us of our need for human relationships. Anger mobilizes us to protect ourselves.

In fact, anger helped our early ancestors to survive. Back in the days when humans huddled for protection in caves and lived in tribes, they hunted for food. Anger provided a burst of energy and an extra shot of adrenalinea hormone that temporarily increases physical strength, boosts stamina, and numbs pain. Those physical benefits mobilized hunters to defend themselves against wild animals, kill rather than be killed, and go on living for another day.

In addition, humans are territorial. By expressing anger, the members of a clan could signal an intruder that hed violated their property and that they intended to protect it. Today, of course, few of us hunt for food or engage in hand-to-hand combat on a daily basis. We protect our personal property with locks, security systems, and lawyers. Yet anger can still serve us in many ways, such as the following.

Anger conveys information. Anger sends urgent messages about how people interpret events and about what they want. An angry teenager wants your attention. An angry customer wants a refund. An angry employee wants a change in policy.

Anger also alerts us to the depth and power of someones feelings. This is useful information to have, whether it applies to your own emotional life or the emotions of friends, family members, and co-workers.

Its true that anger can distort a message. Someone who is shouting at you is probably too agitated to communicate a complex and subtle message. Youre also likely to react defensively, which makes it hard to listen for the meaning beneath the rage. Yet even when a message is distorted by anger, the message is still being sent.

Anger signals us that theres a problem to solve. If you play a competitive sport and lose a game because the opposing team cheated, then its appropriate for you to feel angry. If someone engages you in a heated conversation and then constantly interrupts you, anger is a natural response. If you feel trapped in a dead-end job, then your anger can mobilize you to change careers. In each case, anger can move us into appropriate actionto point out the cheating, to end the hostile conversation, to find a new job.

Anger points out our most valued beliefs and feelings, and the things that make us feel vulnerable. Because of that, its important to pay attention to our anger.

Anger fuels social change. If you try to vote in an election and are refused a ballot because of your race or ethnic background, anger is justified. If you are sexually abused, then anger is a natural response. If you are harassed by a police officer, then anger is your right.

Anger can focus our attention on injustice and provide the fuel for social change. Without the constructive and legal use of anger, slavery would still exist, women would still be banned from owning property, and children would still be working twelve-hour days in sweatshops.

Anger creates social bonds. When people unite to oppose an injustice, they also create an emotional connection. Its us against them. Shared anger creates a collective will. It enables a group of people to stick together and support each other until their goal is achieved.

Anger fuels personal change. I was counseling a client who had been referred to me because he often experienced angry feelings, Bilodeau recalls in Responding to Anger. One of my first questions had to do with how he expressed

Anger can boost energy and motivate action. This emotional energy is most useful when we direct it toward achieving a constructive goal.