What is Anger?
Anger Management
August 12, 2021
What is Anger – Anger – deceptive, quiet, nasty, exploding. Anger comes with many faces, but none of them are helpful or healthy in the long run.
Anger is an emotional response to a situation. For some people it can come as quite explosive, and even be gone almost as quickly as it came. For others it seethes at a much deeper level. It can result in resentment, and nastiness. Both styles at their worst can result in violence, including verbal and physical abuse.
At the core, there are actually considered to be four reasons for anger. Almost all anger will be the result of one of the cores. Let’s look a little closer at each.
Injustice – this anger is in response to a feeling that things are unfair or unjust. As children we often cite this as a reason for a negative behaviour. As we grow, we may still have these feelings even if we don’t verbalise it as often. In the workplace this may be feeling passed over for a project or promotion, or someone taking credit for our work. In the home it may be a feeling that everything becomes one person’s job (yours) and there maybe a feeling that others don’t contribute enough.
Criticism – anger can often be a response to criticism, either direct or implied. It is often hard to hear when someone questions or discredits us or our work.
Rules – when someone breaks ‘our’ rules. We all have a set of rules we live by, our rules that we have created over a lifetime, which have been influenced by many people in our live. Some of these include being kind to others, giving way in traffic, or chewing with our mouth closed. Some are more individual, like not using short hand in texts, or making sure the house is tidy before bed. Anger can spring up when people don’t follow our rules, often as frustration or annoyance.
Blocked – when I am prevented from doing something I wanted to do. This is a common issue, and one which can promote quick burst anger. It’s not about a spoilt brat behaviour, but as we become adults we feel that we have a sense of our own destiny, and when we are prevented from doing this it often feels like someone is taking away our power to influence this.
Now that you can identify what is contributing to your anger, then you can start to work on it. For hint and tips for dealing with anger, read here.
Anger is an emotional response to a situation. For some people it can come as quite explosive, and even be gone almost as quickly as it came. For others it seethes at a much deeper level. It can result in resentment, and nastiness. Both styles at their worst can result in violence, including verbal and physical abuse.
At the core, there are actually considered to be four reasons for anger. Almost all anger will be the result of one of the cores. Let’s look a little closer at each.
Injustice – this anger is in response to a feeling that things are unfair or unjust. As children we often cite this as a reason for a negative behaviour. As we grow, we may still have these feelings even if we don’t verbalise it as often. In the workplace this may be feeling passed over for a project or promotion, or someone taking credit for our work. In the home it may be a feeling that everything becomes one person’s job (yours) and there maybe a feeling that others don’t contribute enough.
Criticism – anger can often be a response to criticism, either direct or implied. It is often hard to hear when someone questions or discredits us or our work.
Rules – when someone breaks ‘our’ rules. We all have a set of rules we live by, our rules that we have created over a lifetime, which have been influenced by many people in our live. Some of these include being kind to others, giving way in traffic, or chewing with our mouth closed. Some are more individual, like not using short hand in texts, or making sure the house is tidy before bed. Anger can spring up when people don’t follow our rules, often as frustration or annoyance.
Blocked – when I am prevented from doing something I wanted to do. This is a common issue, and one which can promote quick burst anger. It’s not about a spoilt brat behaviour, but as we become adults we feel that we have a sense of our own destiny, and when we are prevented from doing this it often feels like someone is taking away our power to influence this.
Now that you can identify what is contributing to your anger, then you can start to work on it. For hint and tips for dealing with anger, read here.
