No doubt, we are living in trying times. Persistent community health concerns, global political tensions, and shifting economic sands all play a role in our individual and collective sense of safety. Everyone is tense no matter who they voted for in the last election. And everyone has some kind of opinion about everything, big and small. The explosion of social media has turned our phones and computers into non-stop firehoses of those opinions. It seems like it’s getting harder and harder to balance our “need to know” with our emotional health.
What happens when our frustration and worry and anger become full-blown rage? What can we do to cultivate sufficient self-care that we don’t choose violence as a response? More simply put, what are some good ways of managing anger?
What is rage?
Rage is violent, uncontrolled anger, often built up over time, that leads a person to a breaking point.
How can we recognize and manage anger before it turns into rage?
It’s important to have coping strategies to help us navigate difficult times. Let’s look at some common situations that push people to the edge, and how to work through the feelings that accompany them.
Losing Control Over Your Circumstances
Feeling like we’re at the mercy of forces beyond our control can be really overwhelming. The coronavirus pandemic is a classic example of something that took a great deal of personal control out of most people’s hands. It also added a massive amount of uncertainty to our lives. Many people lost loved ones, employment, financial stability, even their long-term health. Feelings of grief and anxiety are certainly common in these circumstances. Those emotions are painful; some people lean into anger to distract themselves from being overcome by other negative emotions.
Losing a job, or getting a challenging medical diagnosis, can also bring on this kind of anger. It’s easy to understand why someone would be angry about any of these outcomes. It’s not always easy to figure out what to do with that anger.
How can we cope with loss of control so that our anger over our circumstances does not turn into rage?
Talk about it with someone you trust. Naming it out loud can help you begin to move the feeling out of your nervous system where it’s currently rattling its saber and causing you to feel bad. Connect with a loved one, friend, or medical professional, and talk about it honestly. Yes, it can be hard to do that. But letting anger continue to build up just allows it to grow and fester. We really can learn to manage anger! And if you can build a strong network of personal support over time, you’ll have those people and resources for getting the emotional support, practical assistance, and a sense of belonging in place when you need them during future challenging times.
Being Bullied
Bullying is unwanted (and often, repeated) aggressive behavior inflicted on a person by another person. Though we may think of bullying as relegated to the schoolyard, bullying can happen anywhere, including in the workplace.
Regardless of where it occurs, bullying is never acceptable. It can cause physical and emotional harm – to the bullied, to the bully themselves, and to those who witness bullying too. Persistent bullying can lead to or worsen feelings of isolation, rejection, exclusion, and despair. It can also exacerbate depression and anxiety, which in turn can contribute to suicidal behavior.
Unsurprisingly, people who are bullied may also act out violently against the person or people who violated them.
Creating a culture of respect – at home, at school, at work, and in the larger society, goes a long way toward reducing bullying, and the violence that can accompany it.
Bullying in the workplace
Many people who are bullied at work wind up quitting or getting fired because they don’t feel safe, they’ve been falsely blamed by their bullies for creating a tense work environment, or they’ve acted out in retaliation for being mistreated.
What can you do to ensure your safety and dignity in the workplace are respected? Take the time to document each encounter. Then report the incidents to your manager and to HR. Let me know you’d like a copy of SACS Consulting’s FREE eBook, “The Dangers of Workplace Bullying,” to give to your boss.
You can find more useful tips for preventing workplace violence and cultivating healthy work environments on my blog. Want to bring a speaker in to your workplace to address this topic? Check out my “Tim’s Talk”s page. I have developed several presentations for business audiences on critical HR topics like this. I’d be delighted to speak to your group.
Money Problems
It often takes a lot of time and effort to create – and maintain financial stability, and not everyone knows how. Whether you’re struggling with unemployment, unproductive beliefs about money, credit card debt, or simply making ends meet, financial stress is a common anger trigger. You may be mad about your circumstances, at yourself, or at the whole world.
Enduring a build-up of frustration from financial woes can make us want to act out in anger to dispel that frustration. How can we best keep anger over money problems from escalating?
Learning to face these feelings instead of running away from them can enhance your sense of empowerment. You may want to start by reviewing your situation to see what choices you may have. Maybe you have options that you’ve been too anxious to consider until now. What IS within your control? Who can help you manage what can be managed?
If debt is an issue, not addressing it can make the debt – and the related stress – even worse. Call your financial institutions to talk about options to reduce your payments and/or interest rate. Credit counseling services can be helpful too, to create a plan to reduce your financial burden – and your stress.
Unexamined Fears
It may surprise you to hear that our fears can contribute to anger. Emotions are always interconnected with other emotions! When we feel happy, we may also feel relaxed, optimistic or empathetic. Similarly, when we feel anxious or frightened we may also feel ashamed, confused, or angry.
Even in circumstances when you know intellectually that you’re safe, this heightened state of emotional alert makes it harder to know what to do next. It’s particularly difficult to assume that we ourselves could possibly be responsible for making ourselves feel that bad! Sometimes it seems to feel better to turn and blame others, so that we don’t have to examine our own emotions too closely.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that often models blaming others for society’s problems. When scapegoating people because of their race, religion, gender, sexuality or nationality (to name just a few examples) becomes an accepted norm, it increases individuals’ sense of righteousness that their blame-throwing and demonization of others is justified. Ironically, taking that stance also amplifies a sense of powerlessness. In turn, this can lead to more blame-throwing, to anger about the increased sense of powerlessness, and sometimes, to acting out on that anger. This “fear of the other” is fueling the current epidemic of hate crimes.
In truth, this terrible outcome of unmanaged fear and anger is entirely preventable. People are not born to be hateful; hate is taught. You might not think your own attempt at managing anger or fear will make a difference to society at large. But it really can.
On a more fundamental level, blaming others for our anger robs us of the opportunity to develop the emotional self-knowledge and skills we need to better handle life’s challenges. That ease is what we’re all really after, right?
Making Positive Changes to Manage Your Emotions
When we start taking responsibility for ourselves and our emotions, we stop the cycle of modeling this reactive behavior for others. When you feel better able to understand your own fears and you work to manage the related emotions and reactions, you will be better equipped to help others to do the same. You can set the good example for your family and friends.
But how do I start?
As uncomfortable as the prospect may feel, examine our darker emotions helps us understand and connect with ourselves better. As we discussed above with loss of control, talking about your feelings with a trusted person is a good place to begin to gain insight into the concerns underlying them. With those insights, we can choose how to respond in a healthier way, rather than react angrily, even when our anger is justifiable. And with time and practice, you can build the emotional resilience to more calmly manage whatever comes your way.
What if I feel so bad for being angry that I am embarrassed to talk about it?
Opening up to others isn’t always easy. You could start by checking in with yourself to see if you’re covering the basics when it comes to your health. Eating nutritiously, getting enough sleep, and moving your body more can help reduce stress. Work on noticing how you feel when you have vs. haven’t had enough sleep, or when you have eaten greasy French fries vs. a baked potato. (No judgment here on your food choices! But YOU are allowed to observe how your choices make you feel, and adjust those choices accordingly.)
If you aren’t able to get more sleep, can you choose activities that help you relax? Different things work for different people; some like a hot bath, some intentionally shun their smartphones for a certain number of hours a day, some go for a walk or listen to soothing music. Relaxation may not fix the things that stress you out, but it can soothe your nervous system enough to enable you to think and act from a place of calm.
When we make basic self-care choices that help us feel more in control of ourselves, we’re building a vocabulary for achieving that emotional resilience I mentioned. Once we’re feeling more emotionally centered, it can be easier to talk to someone else about our feelings. When we reach out for that interpersonal support, we’re building the relationships that help us (and others with whom we’re in relationship) feel more connected.
And when we feel more connected to others we trust, together we can create an environment of understanding that helps us all feel less anxious, frightened, and angry.
At the end of the day, we’re all human beings with some basic common needs. We all need to feel safe, and to feel understood. Yes, it’s natural to feel angry when we feel unsafe or misunderstood. And, we can learn to choose healthier ways to respond.
Want more tips on managing anger?
My book Life Rage is available for purchase. To get a copy, you can email me at timdimoff@gmail.com. I am happy to autograph your copy and mail it to you. Or you can stop by the SACS Consulting & Investigative Services’ office to pick up it up.