About two weeks ago, I began exploring the emotional experience of anger in humans. By identifying primary emotions behind it, my aim was to show that anger is rarely a primary emotion; that it is, therefore, a consequence of another emotional state that has not been acknowledged or been poorly expressed in a person who is now being angry. If you haven’t read the last post, you may read it here.

Today, I explore the general style of thinking that supports the progression and continuity of anger problem, by identifying four sets of fallacies in our ways of thinking: sense of entitlement, the “should mentality”, the fallacy of fairness, and global labeling.

~ entitlement ~

Have you ever wanted something so much that you had come to believe “I ought to have it”? What happens when you are not given that which you desire? The more intense your perceived need for something, the deeper it justifies the claim that someone else must provide for it. The undercurrent mental activity – known as cognitive process – is that if I am entitled to certain things in life, and if I don’t get them, someone is selfishly, deliberately or wickedly leaving me without them.

Let’s not confuse desire with obligation. The fallacy of entitlement is based on the false belief that wanting something very much makes it unacceptable for others to say no. Such demandingness requires that others give up their boundaries and limits because your need and pain must come first. To moderate such extreme levels of demandingness and entitlement, you may want to modify your speech with the following reminders:

· I have my limits and you have your limits.

· I am allowed to want, and he or she is allowed to say no.

· I have the right to say no and so do you.

· My desire doesn’t make it necessary for you to meet it.

~ the should mentality ~

Anger often follows after a judgment based on a set of rules about how people should and should not behave. Those who act according to the rules are right, and those who break the rules are wrong. The conclusion of angry people is that others know and accept their rules but willingly – and even viciously – decide to violate them. There are two problems with this conclusion.

Let’s be real: people with whom we feel angry rarely agree with us! Their perception of the situation leaves them fault-free and even reasonable. Their rules – and not ours – seem to exempt them from the judgments we think they deserve. The second problem with the “should mentality” is that people never do what they should do. Social psychologists have long agreed that we often don’t know why we do what we do, failing to fact-check our intentions behind actions. We tend to do what is reinforcing and rewarding for us to do. We can avoid imposing our values and needs on others and infer their ways of thinking by contemplating on …

· What problems, limitations or fears influence this behavior?

· What needs influence this person to act this way?

· What values or beliefs influence him to act this way?

· Forget the “should mentality”, it only gets us upset.

· People do what they want to do, not what I think they should do.

~ fairness ~

Recall a heated argument when you were called “unfair” and remember how you felt dreadful right away or even inflamed with anger. You felt you are being “more than fair” probably; and you are right! The fairness misconception is that there is some absolute standard of just and correct behavior that people should understand and aspire to. In the context of relationships, this fallacy of fairness can push us to always look out for balancing out what is given with what is received.

This is problematic as there is no mediator to sort through our emotional balance sheets in relationships and that people may not agree on what fairness is because it is a subjective judgment that depends on what each person expects, needs or hopes for from the other. As long as the idea of fairness remains a reflection of one’s beliefs and desires, people can practically call anything fair or unfair. To cope more effectively when feeling unfairly treated, you can use the following disarming as well as inviting strategies in your communications:

· Our needs are equally important. Let us consider both of them.

· Each need is legitimate – we can negotiate.

Also problematic are exaggerating words like terrible and awful as well as generalizing words such as always and never. “You never help” or “this is going to be an awful evening” are magnifications that wind up our sense of anxiety in a state of helplessness. It makes a person feel convinced that “I am innocent and they’re bad”. I recommend letting the following statements replace these extreme analyses:

· Let the facts speak for themselves.

· Accuracy, not exaggeration.

~ global labeling ~

Yes, relying on concrete categories simplifies our life, but it is neither a useful nor effective cognitive strategy in making sense of our life and the world around us. The ways in which anger is produced and regulated in human brain paves the path for labeling others as bad, idiot, selfish, screw-ups, and so on. Also, extreme and absolute categories leave no space for adequate perspective taking and reality testing. This is fuel for anger as it accuses the totality of an individual instead of focusing on a particular deed or manner. Once a person is labeled as completely flawed, it is easy to get angry with them. Try replacing a global way of relating to others with these assertions:

· Be specific (please).

· Do not assume anything, or else check out every assumption.

· I don’t second-guess the motives of others. I ask questions.

During angry situations, it works better to invite problem solving strategies and give up altogether settling scores with your opponent. Fueling the underlying intention for punishing or hurting the other person only proves to be self-destructive and does not resolve the situation. Pain must not be paid back for it to heal. The resolution is found in understanding the feelings behind and the thoughts surrounding the experience of anger. My recommended self-love first-aid is: pause. And ask yourself this liberating question:

“what do I really need/want in this situation?”

In part three, I will provide the Biweekly readers with a step-by-step inner-work guide towards healing from anger.

Thanks for staying this long and see you in a couple of weeks!

Dr. Hessam

In recovery from an anger problem, there are hardships encountered and inevitable setbacks experienced. The reward for hanging through the rough times is the expansion of emotional freedom that prepares an angry person for full human expression.

Anger deserves lots of Self Love! In part one of this Biweekly series, my hope is to shed some light on the nature of underlying mechanisms and emotional experiences that produce and maintain anger in a person. Shame and other primary emotions will be briefly presented. In part two, we learn how anger is sustained in our own psychology as well as in relationships. In part three, I will provide the Biweekly readers with a step-by-step inner-work guide towards healing shame and resolving anger.

Anger, similar to fear, is generated in the emotional processing center of brain, known as the limbic system. This is the primitive part of a more advanced nervous system, known as the neo-cortex. When balanced, together they enable us for advanced rational processing of diverse emotional experiences and be at ease with ourselves. When imbalanced, well, anger becomes a forceful desire for discharge as the limbic system undercuts our access to brain’s more advanced neo-cortex. The outcome disrupts our emotional regulation, accurate judgment and consequential thinking.

To understand anger, therefore, it becomes important to know what primary emotion is behind it that is being avoided, neglected, or defended against. Then in two weeks, we focus on specifically changing our thinking about emotional experiences and the ways in which we label ourselves and others while evaluating and judging them.

Step One:

Read each case below and see for yourself how much space for acceptance and openness you can hold in with honor for each of these primary emotions existing beneath your anger. No matter how painful they are, they are real signals that deserve your loving attention – and not blaming rejection.

Hurt

Consider a scenario wherein a partner, knowingly or unknowingly, expresses something that leads to his partner to feel demeaned. Rather that, assertively sharing her hurt feelings which would mean risking to make herself more vulnerable to him, she may react instead by forgetting to iron his shirt that he needs before his important meeting the morning after – she has found something to attack him with.

Shame

A fuel for lowering or diminishing self-compassion, shame is the central emotion that is distorted when anger is staged at the front. While guilt is when we have done something wrong, shame is when we are something wrong. In high intensity, we hear us say “I hate myself”. Surveys on shame directed at self also confirm that we feel a lot of shame after having been angry. Anger directed at their children has even loving parents report honest feelings of being ashamed of themselves.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a physiological response to perceived stress that is the opposite of relaxation states. It can be a normal and even adaptive part of life – studying for your finals is surely anxiety-provoking which also motivates you – though its excessive presence might mean being in a fight-or-flight state at almost all times. Being excessively uneasy and worried in life is exhausting and can push a person to become angry – in an attempt to reduce excessive frustration experienced internally, we can disown it by projecting it onto an object or person that is available to receive: “I hate this traffic!”

Jealousy

The sparks of jealousy can ignite fierce anger. Its principle triggers are self-judging beliefs that create false self-image based on feelings of insecurity. The story we tell in our mind shape our beliefs about ourselves, others and the world. The insecurity stems from the false image of being “not good enough” that, in turn, creates self-rejection in mind. The emotional consequence is feeling afraid and insecure. Jealousy and anger then partner up to help us get someone else’s attention and control their behavior. We learn this early life: when we were punished, the punisher had our attention.

Embarrassment

Embarrassment is a self-conscious emotion that happens in relation to other people when they observe you noticing yourself with regret. Such an experience alerts us to our failure to uphold positive evaluations from others as well as ourselves. The social context determines whether we experience embarrassment – being exposed in front of siblings versus strangers. In addition and according to spotlight effect, we tend to overestimate how much others are preoccupied with our fault or mistake. Such skewed perception may lead us to interpret their behavior as mockery and travesty, leading to feelings of anger directed at the observers.

Worry

Suppose you are impatiently waiting behind the closed doors wherein a vital surgery is being operated on a loved one. Next things happens, you are not given an answer and feel ignored by the nurse who has just come through the door. How do you feel towards her as her behavior makes her appear not care about you worrying about your loved one inside?

Disappointment

A way in which sadness is experienced is through the emotional reaction to an outcome that does not match up to expectations. Disappointment is the recognition that you didn’t get, don’t have, or will never achieve what you expected. It becomes easier to protest with anger than to experience the sadness about the course of events. Anger based on disappointment allows us to continue idealizing what could have been, but pushes us away from taking personal responsibility or acceptance of the outcome. This emphasis sets us up to anticipate more letdowns in future.

Guilt

Similar to shame, guilt is stimulated by the belief that there is something wrong with us; that we have done wrong, and we should have done differently. After a while, we get tired of feeling guilty so we change the focus to finding faults in others. In doing so, we get angry. Adrenaline starts to rush in our veins and we feel alive and vibrant again. It can convince us that we are in deep connection with life, where in fact we are not even connected with our needs. To our own detriment, the risk of disconnection from what we actually need engenders thoughts and actions that serve nobody.

Frustration

You might have heard the saying “frustration begets anger and anger begets aggression”. Both direct and indirect anger proceed if the feelings of frustration are not tolerated and addressed in healthy ways. Direct aggression is the expression of anger towards the object identified as the source of frustration. Indirect anger resulting from frustration occurs when the object of frustration is too powerful or threatening, leading to displacement: the boss is annoying but too threatening to get angry with; the employee nods in agreement but comes home to kick the dog that has pissed in the living room.

Fear

Fear paves the way for anger for it evaluates a situation to have a high likelihood of negative outcome. So when noticing anger coming up for you, it’s helpful to ask yourself “what am I afraid of? An employer who gets angry with his employee might be afraid of his company poor performance. Similarly, shouting at a driver who seems to neglect your presence on the road might stem from being afraid that your car might get damage.

Sadness

A full expression of sadness allows us to pay authentic tribute to the missing parts of our lives. We miss the chance of accessing the significance of the lost parts by not feeling our sadness. We inquire into the lost value or missing quality when we grant permission to ourselves to kindly and curiously, contain our sadness. This is difficult work as we repel anything unpleasant but it’s the way to reengage in life after loss. Suppressed sadness turns anger inward and against self – a recipe for depression and passive aggression.

So, the next time you notice feelings and sensation of anger you might want to ask yourself:

“What’s behind it?”

I will be back in a couple of weeks!