What are you really mad about?

What are you angry about today? What’s got you pissy? What’s really irritating your right now?

Did someone just cut you off in traffic? Did your boss give you a criticism you felt was unfair? Are you in the midst of a conflict with someone you love?

Anger is a fascinating emotion. It springs up quickly and often out of nowhere, blindsiding us with rage and frustration.

It’s a very telling emotion as well.  Anger is the security blanket we often use to cover up our true hurts and fears—fear of loss, worry about the future, fear of a dissolving connection with someone.

So, let’s dig into anger today. Just a little. It’s not easy work because, as women, we are so often socialized to suppress our anger. We are taught that it’s dangerous and damaging to confront our rage.

But I can assure you sweet one, it’s safe there. There’s a lot of really important information to uncover and you can do it. Here are a few journaling prompts to get you started:

1/WHAT ARE YOU ANGRY ABOUT?  Briefly describe the situation in words.

2/HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL? Choose 3-5 emotions that pair up with your anger. Consider: scared, fed up, annoyed, lonely, tired, worried, triggered…any feeling word that resonates with you. I love using this feeling wheel to help. 

3/WHAT ARE YOUR DEEPER FEARS? What are the underlying fears to your anger? For example, if you picked feeling “let down”, what does it mean to be let down by the person/situation you’re mad at? What is the story you tell yourself about being let down? If you picked lonely, what is scary to you about being alone? What does it mean to you to be left alone? And so on.

4/HOW CAN YOU SOFTEN? Now that you know what other emotions your anger represents, how can you soften? How could you replace ineffective forms of communication (i.e. yelling, hanging up the phone, criticizing, silent treatment, etc.) with behaviours that express your deeper, more vulnerable emotions? How can you surrender to this situation and ask for what you need (comfort, a listening ear, patience, etc.)? Who could you go to to vent your anger, clarify your position and diffuse your response before going back to the person/situation that is angering you?

I love talking about anger as you can see in this post. It’s such a valuable and revealing emotion. I’m not interested in talking about ignoring or neutralizing your anger. I’m interested in talking about how to process anger. Anger is such a useful teacher to us. Digging into your anger can fuel effective communication and make it more likely that you get what you want and need. Let me know how your reflections on anger help you in the comments.