Malec and Associates

Emotions are normal. Emotions are necessary. But what happens when our emotions become overwhelming or unmanageable? Usually, we aren’t concerned about having strong positive emotions; joy, excitement, happiness, but when our emotions are the “negative” ones, we end up having more unpleasant consequences. Anger is one of those emotions that gets a bad rap. Even though anger is normal and at times necessary, it can be misused or even inappropriate.

Anger is supposed to be the emotion we feel when something has occurred or is occurring that is “unfair”. It alerts us to pay attention to a situation. Anger is like the ringing of a bell to “pay attention”. Once we are aware that something is unfair, anger is no longer necessary. Now we need to be clear-headed and move into problem-solving. Usually, it is a time when we need to be assertive and ask for a change in a situation. For example, we receive a bill for services and notice that we are charged for several items we didn’t ask for. We feel anger. “This is unfair, these charges were unauthorized and not what was asked for”. Now what? We shift into assertiveness and say, “I would like to have these charges removed because they were not authorized.” There is no need to yell, curse, scream or become unhinged. Those are all behaviors, not emotions.  Remember anger is an emotion, NOT a behavior. Aggression is the destructive behavior from the emotion: anger. When we can’t shift from anger to problem-solving, we are “acting out of” our excessive anger. What causes excessive anger?

Excessive anger is really a misplaced emotion. In this case, anger is often thought of as a secondary emotion and an emotion that “sits on top of” two other emotions that a person is really feeling. Those two emotions are: Fear or Sadness. When a person responds to a situation with unwarranted anger, it is often fear or sadness that can’t find a way to be expressed. If a wife says to her husband, she is disappointed because he didn’t help with the kid’s homework and he reacts with anger and uses aggressive language to claim she doesn’t care about him, this isn’t an “unfair” situation. He’s really feeling either fear or sadness. He could be afraid of his failures and afraid of her feeling disappointed in him. He may be feeling sad he let her down. In these situations, a person who struggles with anger problems can learn to ask himself/herself “what am I really feeling, fear or sadness?” Even stopping to ask that question can reduce the feeling of anger significantly.

Emotions help us by giving us information about our experiences. They aren’t to rule us or control us. When they activate unhealthy behaviors, we can reduce those behaviors by asking ourselves some simple questions. This will help us understand ourselves and our emotions better.