Anger is a secondary emotion and it covers up hurt, fear, or shame. Or all three at once.
The angrier a person feels the more he/she is covering up. This is incongruent, as often the anger seems out of proportion to the event. When a person explodes in anger it is rarely the spontaneous event it appears, it is usually that many small things have added up and the stress of being 'nice' has reached its capacity.
Many men don't realize how angry they are toward women. Starting with mothers and teachers who ask impossible things of them, and did not give them the support and appreciation they needed to become fully functioning males with robust self-esteem. The less self-worth a man has the more violent he becomes when angry.
Men often to say to women in exasperation "what do you want from me?" when the real question should be "what do I want from you?"
Most anger, especially the anger that is the same argument over and over between people, is in effect a power struggle with neither side listening to the other. When winning the argument or gaining power is the main goal, people will fall back on some very destructive ways to get their point across.
Men (or women) who haven't learned the fine art of expressing anger in a healthy or good way will use crude four letter words designed to get attention and express raw frustration. It is like using a sledge hammer to kill a bug. Raw frustration that comes out in rancid, foul language kills the spirit of everyone who hears it regardless of whether they are the target of it or not. Children who grew up in homes where adults talked to each other with violent, nasty expressions filled with contempt and disdain take this into their adult lives and pass it on to their own families. Having been emotionally deadened early in life, they have no comprehension of the effect they are having on the people around them. In fact, they talk to themselves in the same degrading manner. This kind of discrediting self-talk leads to shame and humiliation that is passed off to others and sometimes projected on others.
Anger is handled in many harmful ways because people as a rule are not taught that it is a necessary and healthy emotion. Many people have such an injunction against being angry themselves, that they have learned how to make other people act out their anger. They then get to be the 'nice' one, or the innocent one, which leads to victimhood.
Most anger is a power struggle. The less power a person feels he has, the more aggressive he will be. The need to control and dominate people is a deep-seated need to make people predictable, and stems from a need to survive free-floating fear and anxiety, based on early childhood abuse when nothing was predictable or certain.
All adults are made of several different personalities, a mom, a dad, a child, a mature adult; the strongest personality pops out when anger occurs and runs the show.
In a paradoxical fashion angry people are often exploitive and their hostility comes from feeling exploited.
Evelyn Leite has spent over 25 years working with her clients to deal with grief and loss, anxiety, and other feelings that underlie anger. She founded Living with Solutions in 1989 to help people learn how to help themselves.
How many times have you said to yourself or someone that you care about "for Peteâs sake stop talking about it and just do it?" Or how many times have you beat yourself up because you have been planning to do something for days, weeks, or even months or years and you just never quite get to it. There is always a perfectly good excuse to put off the things you tell yourself that you will get to someday. You know, that book you want to write. Those dance lessons you want to take. The college degree you intend to finish. The weight you want to lose. The trip you want to take. The person you would like to ask out on a date. The things you would like to say to your spouse. The umbilical cord you would like to cut with your children. The new job you'd like to look for. The present job you would like to quit. The honest talk you would like to have with someone you care about. The things you would like to say to someone who has hurt you. The move you would like make to another neighborhood, city, or state. The will you keep telling yourself you will write soon.
What is stopping you? What is it that keeps us from saying the things we want to say and doing the things we want to do? Thinking about a thing is not the same as doing it, although sometimes we can trick our minds into thinking that we are doing something by telling ourselves tomorrow, next year, next time -- and relaxing into the certainty that you will be doing something soon.
What stops you from taking some action?
You can take control of your life and be all that you want to be. Much depends on your attitude, your habits, and your desire. Do you look at life as a problem or as an adventure? Do you have habits that sabotage your best efforts? Do you see yourself as a victim or do you see yourself as a survivor? Do you automatically harbor negative thoughts and pessimistically see your troubles as burdens? Or do you optimistically see your problems as challenges to be conquered? Are you faithful? Are your accomplishments all that you are capable of? Do you dwell on past failures? Do you have dreams for your future? Are you numbing your self with alcohol or drugs including anti-depressants, sleeping medications or some other compulsion?
Take a really good look at yourself. Do you really want to know what is holding you back from doing the things you want to do with your life? Do a bold and courageous inventory of your life, your assets and your shortcomings.
Evelyn Leite, MHR, LPC, is a counselor and trainer with over 25 years of experience helping clients take charge of their lives and overcome grief, trauma, loss, vicitimization, abuse, chemical dependency and more. She has also authored a number of other books and articles on dealing with addiction, abuse, grief and codependency.
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