Justified Anger

To be “angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way -that is, not within everybody's power and is not easy.” The Greek philosopher Aristotle offered that observation more than 2000 years ago.

Justified anger revolves around boundary violations, but sometimes, a proper boundary is never put into place or maintained. In their book Boundaries, Henry Cloud and John Townsend write about how a person’s skin is the first boundary. People who are sexually abused as children are often confused about maintaining that boundary, not realizing that it is appropriate for them to claim ownership.

There are other psychological boundaries we fail to set. Regular violations of that psychological marker make it hard to see things for what they are.

One way to gain clarity is to think about your children. If a boyfriend, boss, etc, treated our child the way they treat us, how would we respond? This is when anger is justified.

Seeing a situation from a different angle—putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes—helps us to work around our distorted boundaries and more clearly see the situation for what it really is.

Stephen Goforth

What to do instead of simply venting about frustrations

There is no consistent empirical support for the common view that putting an emotional experience into words can resolve it. We “equate emotional relief with emotional recovery,” but they’re not the same.

Chatting with friends can bring closure when they help you reconstrue an event, rather than just recount it. What does that look like? Asking why you think the other person acted that way, prodding to see whether there’s anything to be learned from it all, and just generally broadening your perspective to “the grand scheme of things.”

Gail Cornwall & Juli Fraga writing in Slate

Venting reinforces negative emotions

Think of our brain circuitry like hiking trails. The ones that get a lot of traffic get smoother and wider, with brush stomped down and pushed back. The neural pathways that sit fallow grow over, becoming less likely to be used. Kindergarten teachers are thus spot on when they say, “The thoughts you water are the ones that grow.” This is also true for emotions, like resentment, and the ways we respond to them, like venting. The more we vent, the more likely we are to vent in the future. 

Gail Cornwall & Juli Fraga writing in Slate

The Box of Love

Paul’s wife bought Christmas wrapping paper for presents they could not afford. Angry over the purchase, Paul flew into a rage. His three-year-old daughter fled into another room with the paper. She soon returned with a poorly wrapped box. Enraged even more, Paul sent her back to her room sobbing after a harsh spanking for wasting the paper. 

On Christmas day, the little girl brought the same box to Paul, promising it contained her daddy’s gift. Paul’s embarrassment soon turned to anger, when he discovered the box was still empty. But the little girl explained to him that she had not forgotten to add a gift.

“It is full of love and kisses" she had “blown into the box” herself. 

Paul hugged his daughter and asked for forgiveness. He promised to leave his anger and bitterness behind. Paul, a child abuse survivor, kept that box. He used it as a well of affection to draw from when he was hurt or discouraged. 

Paul had seen the best and worst of fatherhood. But that box of love served as a reminder of what being a father can truly mean.

While we do not choose our fathers, we have the opportunity to decide how we will respond to them. As we gather with family this coming Thanksgiving and Christmas, may we reflect the goodness and kindness we have received from the one father who never disappoints and loves unconditionally.

Author unknown 

In the Grip of Bitterness

During my hitch in the Marine Corps, my wife and I rented a studio apartment in San Francisco from a man crippled by a World War 2 injury. Captured at Wake Island and later confined for years in China, he was left partially paralyzed when an enemy solider struck hi with a rifle butt.

When I visited with this landlord, he'd tell me one story after another of how barbarically he'd been treated. With vile language and intense emotion, he spoke of the tortures he'd endured and of his utter hatred for the Japanese. Here was a man who had been horribly wronged-without question. The constant misery and pain he lived with could not be measured. My heart went out to him.

But there was another factor which made his existence even more lamentable. Our landlord had become a bitter man. Even though he was years removed from the war.. even though he had been safely released from the concentration camp and was now able to carry on physically... even though he and his wife owned a lovely dwelling and had a comfortable income, the crippled an was bound by the grip of bitterness. He was still fighting a battle that should have ended years before. In a very real sense, he was still in prison.

His bitterness manifested itself in intense prejudice, an acrid tongue and an everyone's out-to-get-me attitude. I am convinced that he was far more miserable by 1957 than he had been in 1944. There is no torment like the inner torment of an unforgiving spirit. It refuses to be soothed, it refuses to be healed, it refuses to forget.

Chuck Swindoll, Killing Giants: Pulling Thorns

Angry Thoughts

Problems of anger begin as seed thoughts of self-pity, discouragement, jealousy, or some other negative thought. One’s thought life is the key ingredient in behavioral and emotional control; therefore, thoughts prior to and during times of anger are important. Thoughts give emotional feelings prolonged existence and strength, and lend interpretation to vague emotions.

When anger feelings begin, people should “listen” to themselves think. Their minds are constantly making value judgments, decisions, and comparisons. Therefore, there always exists the opportunity to intercept anger by changing these thoughts.

Mark Cosgrove, Counseling for Anger

Slow to Anger

Learning to be slow to anger gives us the time and freedom of mind to decide how we should solve our problems or how we should express our anger. Being slow to anger allows us to respond to conviction, to confess our sins of anger, and to rise above hate to forgive those who have offended us. 

Mark Cosgrove, Counseling for Anger

If you go to bed angry

If you go to sleep after a fight with someone, you may “preserve” those emotions. That’s the finding of researchers at the University of Massachusetts. Scientists showed images (some positive, some negative) to more than 100 people and checked 12 hours later to see which pictures stuck with the subjects. The response changed depending as to whether the person had slept during the 12-hour break or not. Sleeping seemed to protect the emotional response. You can read the details in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Other studies have also support the idea that sleep enhances emotional memories. If you have difficulty sleeping after an upsetting day, it could be your mind’s way of trying to avoid storing that memory. It’s a reminder of the Bible verse that reads, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Eph. 4:26).

Stephen Goforth

Plenty of reason for doubt, anger and sadness

All of us — whatever our natural serotonin level — look around us and see plenty of reason for doubt, anger and sadness. A child dies, a woman is abused, a schoolyard becomes a killing field, a typhoon sweeps away the innocent. If we knew or felt the whole of human suffering, we would drown in despair. By all objective evidence, we are arrogant animals, headed for the extinction that is the way of all things. We imagine that we are like gods, and still drop dead like flies on the windowsill.

The answer to the temptation of nihilism is not an argument — though philosophy can clear away a lot of intellectual foolishness. It is the experience of transcendence we cannot explain, or explain away. It is the fragments of love and meaning that arrive out of the blue — in beauty that leaves a lump in your throat, in the peace and ordered complexity of nature, in the shadow and shimmer of a cathedral, in the unexplained wonder of existence itself. 

Michael Gerson, published in the Washington Post 

The irrational ideas behind anger

According to Albert Ellis, the most common irrational ideas behind anger are the following:

1. I must do well and win the approval of others or else I will rate as a rotten person.

2. Others must treat me considerately and kindly and in precisely the way I want them to treat me.

3. The world and the people in it must arrange conditions under which I live, so that I get everything I want when I want it.

As their anger slows down, people should challenge irrational thoughts with statements such as:

What evidence exists for this? Why can't I stand this noise or this unfairness?

Gary Collins, Counseling and Anger

Kindness in Anger

The hardest time to practice kindness is, of course, during a fight—but this is also the most important time to be kind. Letting contempt and aggression spiral out of control during a conflict can inflict irrevocable damage on a relationship.

“Kindness doesn’t mean that we don’t express our anger,” psychologist Julie Gottman explained, “but the kindness informs how we choose to express the anger. You can throw spears at your partner. Or you can explain why you’re hurt and angry, and that’s the kinder path.”

Emily Esfahani Smith writing in The Atlantic

Slow to Anger

Learning to be slow to anger gives us the time and freedom of mind to decide how we should solve our problems or how we should express our anger. Being slow to anger allows us to respond to conviction, to confess our sins of anger, and rise above hate to forgive those who have offended us.

Gary Collins, Counseling and Anger

What I would change about myself

I always pray that I won't get angry. Because most of the time when I get angry or emotional, I don't make good decisions. People don't remember what you say; they remember how you made them feel. I think I've gotten a little better at that, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Alabama football coach Nick Sabin to ESPN

anger in relationships

No one in a relationship problem is ever totally innocent or totally guilty. With this belief, people can always keep the door open to their own faults without engaging in excessive, guilt-provoking self-incrimination. Holding back anger for even a short time and engaging in self-analysis in private has the effect of tempering the expression of anger. Confession altars our goals from changing others to changing the relationship.

Gary Collins, Counseling and Anger

5 internal contributions to anger

1-Self-esteem

People who try to be self-sufficient are easily frustrated and angered when they see evidence of their dependence on others. They get angry at themselves for needing others and they get angry at other people for “keeping” them in this weakness.

2-Desire for Power in Relationships

Some people feel threatened by the need to give up power in love relationships. For instance, a batterer may use anger to intimidate others in a quest for power. It’s a way to caution the abused person against using their own power. To avoid rousing their anger, spouses end up tiptoeing around the other to avoid confrontation because the price is too high to pay.

3-Desire to be Perfect

Unrealistic standards must be met for the person to feel worthwhile and accepted.

Whenever there is a perceived loss of perfection, the person becomes depressed (angry with themselves) for small failures. The student who gets a B-plus instead of an A, etc. These people also set up high standards for others to achieve and are quickly judgmental. They are hurt by others who do not join them in the quest for perfection. Even though they may be chronic confessors, but growth comes slow because they don’t want to accept their limitations.

4-Guilt

Unresolved guilt can lead to irritability. People have trouble admitting their faults.

5-Rejection

Rejection leaves people feeling hurt and worthless. When significant others disdain our contributions or act as if we are inferior and unimportant we bolster self-esteem by rejecting others ourselves, using the weapons of anger and hostility.  Since it does not heal the relationship or self-esteem, it is a temporary fix. 

Living in Opposition

I've never been around an activist group that didn't turn into an endless series of petty purity tests. I was raised in a church where everyone was looking for more and more inconsequential things to judge each other by..  The natural evolution is toward tighter and tighter criteria for what behavior gets you shunned from the group. The end result is that the central cause can be as pure as the driven snow, and yet the tone will get more and more toxic over time, the members becoming less and less charitable with each other.

You hear experts talk about how extremists get "radicalized." But it really isn't a mystery, and we all form less-murderous versions of this. All it takes is a closed like-minded social circle in which it's considered unacceptable to disagree with the group, and then devote that group to hating something. It doesn't even matter if the thing truly deserves hating -- it still turns toxic. In fact, it works better if it does. "How can you criticize any flaw in our group's behavior when the other side is Nazis! That's literally saying that both sides are the same! The mere existence of pure evil on the other side mathematically means our side is pure good!"

At that point, no criticism is possible and there is nothing to moderate the rage. The rhetoric ratchets higher and higher as each member tries to top each other (to prove their own righteousness by demonstrating they hate the target most), and there is no method for reining it in. Anyone from the inside who takes a moderate tone can be shouted down with accusations of being an enemy sympathizer.

Living purely in opposition to something, rather than for something, hollows you out inside. To be a whole human being, you have to spend your life building something good. 

David Wong writing for Cracked

Both Tough and Tender

In many parts of American society it is considered inappropriate for men to express any emotion save one--anger. When a man learns to express other feelings and not be so concerned whether as to whether others think he is strong or “manly” he takes a major step forward.

Sure, there’s a time and place to "come on strong and take no prisoners." But it's a denial of your humanity to oversimplify, hiding behind a narrow definition of manhood. Men must be both tough and tender. Maturity comes when when we understand which one is appropriate at what time.

Stephen Goforth

Dealing with a moody man

Men are rewarded in our society for ignoring their feelings, except for anger. When emotions overwhelm a man and tightly wrap around his gut, he certainly knows something is wrong--but he will struggle if he attempts to label those feelings or articulate the cause--especially when the emotions are still in play. Lacking control, he looks down on himself with disdain because he believes it's a flaw to be a man without control. As that tight ball of emotion begins to uncurl and subside, as he feels that he's gaining mastery of himself once again, he has the opportunity to gain a handle on defining the emotion he is experiencing.

But if a partner puts a spotlight on those emotions, while he's in that uncomfortable place, the man may try to hide even more. He's not in control of himself and thinks he should be. The spotlight makes that all the more obvious.  If she can restrain herself, it's possible to slowly draw the emotion-averse man out of his cave by building his confidence... by encouraging him to believe that he is able to handle the uncertainty. The passage of time, emotional space, and distractions often provide healing for him... and perspective.

Before the man moves completely away from that raw sensation in his gut, there's a brief period of realization where he can catch an authentic glimpse of himself and his emotional limitations. In that moment he can catch a glimpse of who he is--or go right back to repeat the cycle.

Stephen Goforth