Let’s be honest, there is a lot to be angry about. You can be angry at politicians, people who hurt you, the world, family, friends, strangers, co-workers, bosses, God, and even yourself.  Anger itself is not bad or wrong, but it often gets a bad wrap.  People confuse feelings of anger for how people display anger.  Distinguishing between destructive and constructive ways of expressing our anger is a really important skill in taking care of ourselves.

When used in a constructive way, anger can help you heal from trauma and loss, help you be honest with others, and to face pain you may need to deal with.  Anger is destructive when it is used to act out against yourself or others, to give up, or to become bitter. Learning to harness your anger and understand it can feel powerful.  We can harness the energy of anger to take action in the world in order to make things right.

The first important step in developing constructive anger habits is to think of anger as a messenger.  Behind all anger is an unmet need.  Anger is a signal that something is wrong.  It may mean you are not taking care of yourself, that you have sadness to work through, or that something is happening in a relationship or from an event that feels unfair or unjust.  Anger is often a signal of something not being right.  If we ignore it, it can build up, and then come out in a way that is an overreaction to what is actually happening in a moment or we can stuff it down and seethe, eating ourselves up or turning it against ourselves.

An old style view that still persists is that anger needs to be vented.  The solution to anger was to “get it out”.  Research has shown, however, that acts of venting or catharsis actually increased people’s anger, resolving nothing that mattered to change a situation.  People also confuse angry outbursts as effective because people respond to it.  You may get results in the short term when you yell and scream, and you may feel powerful in the moment, but in the longer term it tends to erode and weaken relationships when you are experienced as out of control.  People tend to do and say things they regret, which can never be undone.

Constructive anger can be learned, which is the good news.  The key is listening to your anger as a messenger.  This may mean learning to tolerate the discomfort of the feelings you have when you’re angry.  Rather than actively discharging them, it helps to try to understand your anger and what it is telling you is wrong.  Once you identify what is the source, or the unmet need, then you are really powerful.  You can choose what to do and say about what is happening.  In addition, you can think through another person’s perspective.  Destructive anger tends to be judgemental and selfish.  It is demanding that someone take care of us or put our needs first. Constructive anger recognizes that other people have a point of view, and that we need to clarify a misunderstanding or work through a solution in a mutual way.

I have had the honor of running Anger Management groups for men.  What really struck me was how powerless many of these people felt.  The anger outbursts were reactions to feeling hurt or threatened in some way, and a fight flight response was all that they knew.  It was a really rewarding process to help these men and many made profound changes.  The first step was the hardest, though.  First, they needed to give themselves permission to have needs and to learn how to identify what they were.  Once they were able to take this step, the next step was allowing themselves to be vulnerable enough to ask for what they needed.  It was often so touching to see the results of this new skill:  “If you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need!”