3 steps to unlocking the positive potential of (suppressed) anger

In the world of feelings, anger has a bad reputation: it is probably the number one taboo emotion. But actually, we can turn the force behind our anger to our advantage if we don’t fight or deny it, but get in touch with it. Here are three steps to do so, whether you feel your anger is sometimes controlling you or if you think you might be suppressing it.

1. Identify what you feel

Become aware. When you feel anger, just stop for a moment and ask yourself: what do you feel? Where in your body do you feel it? Is it really anger or maybe something else? Do you feel anger in the moment or did it take a while before it surfaced? What additional emotions do you feel?

Do not judge your feelings. Don’t think about whether it is good or bad. See it as a kind of exploration. We have emotions for a reason: try to discover what this emotion is telling you. Is your anger caused by a deeper emotion, like hurt or fear? Or do you use it as a defense mechanism to avoid feeling powerless?

A Swedish research visualized in the below image that anger manifests itself mainly in the head and upper body, and specifically the hands. When we get angry, we get full of energy, our hands burn to do something, and even our feet start to itch!

You might instead – like me – notice anger as a tight feeling in your abdomen. This could be a sign that you are suppressing your anger – not allowing it to come out. In the above image, this area of the body is associated with negative emotions including fear, disgust, anxiety, and shame. You can ask yourself if you actually feel one of those emotions, or if one of those relates to your denial of anger. Are you maybe ashamed that you feel anger?

2. Learn about the positive sides of anger

Asian philosophies see anger as a misuse of a powerful ‘fire energy’ that originates in the belly center or abdomen: a life-affirming force that represents strength, courage, confidence, and action. This idea is supported by modern science. A Harvard research that addressed the effects of anger on a person, states that “anger does not follow many of the typical patterns associated with negative emotions.”

A very short summary would be to say that anger sparks optimism. People who are angry experience optimism about their ability to influence and control their future, have optimistic expectations about conquering obstacles, optimistic perceptions of risks and even memories, a lower estimate of the importance and impact of negative events, and a more positive sense of self.

Optimism is not the same as positivity: positivity is acceptance of how things are, while optimism is about the future. Passive versus active. Through triggering forward reflection, optimism gives angry people energy and motivation to change things, it makes them action-oriented, and they become quicker to take decisions and risks.

Do that sound like qualities you could need more of? You might be suppressing your anger. Or do you feel that anger sometimes controls you instead of you benefiting from its strengths? You need to learn how to turn anger into a force for good.

By controlling your anger or by turning your sadness or resentment into anger, you move from being a victim to being an agent. Anger helps you to assert your autonomy and your boundaries. Anger has active transformative power. It might feel like a destructive power, and it is – but sometimes things need to be shaken to move forward. In Hinduism, there are three main Gods: the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer. All three are needed to keep things moving.

3. Practices to deal with it

Whether you want to control your anger or wake your suppressed anger up, here are three things you can do to tap into its positive energy.

I. Write it out
Sit down and commit to five minutes of writing reasons why you are angry. I am angry because of X, I am angry because of Y. Don’t stop before the five minutes are over. The longer you force yourself to continue writing, the deeper reasons you might find.

If you don’t know where to start, try one of the following: I am angry because I cannot control my anger; I am angry with myself for hurting others with my anger. Or: I am angry because I don’t know how express my anger; I am angry because I should have asserted my anger in that situation.

II. Awareness through mindfulness and meditation
Get more in touch with your anger through for example breathing exercises, mindfulness, and meditation. Welcome the feeling when it comes up; acknowledge and accept it. Be curious to find out what lesson it wants to teach you.

The book Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett introduces the acronym RULER for dealing with your emotions: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating. Basically this means gathering information about what you feel, naming it appropriately (anger, rage, resentment, and frustration are all different), and then learning how to live with it in a productive way.

III. Movement and exercise
Anger is an emotion that comes from and is expressed through the body. Exercise is one anger management technique that can channel excess energy into something that doesn’t have the risk to harm others. But also if you suppress your anger, you can use exercise to ‘wake it up’. Maybe you do not allow yourself to express (and even feel) anger, but you might find out that it can feel really good to force it out through a sprint! And moreover: exercise will help you to get more in touch with your body in general, which is vital for any spiritual work.

The image above the article is a detail of the painting Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel (1847).