Feral Feelings: The Embers of Anger

Dear Feral Feelings, 

Do you have any advice for managing anger? With the news cycle the way it is, I’m feeling pretty damn pissed these days. 

-Furious Fury 

Dear FF, 

You, my friend, are one of 70% of Americans impacted by our news cycle. Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans report that current events are a significant source of daily stress and anxiety. 

News, along with the rest of life, lives in our pockets. It’s all there on our phones, our constant companion. Pictures of your friends’ vacation are sandwiched between images of war and genocide. News of a new ecological disaster pulls you in when you should be checking work emails. It’s a lot to deal with. 

And, at the same time, being informed is incredibly important. Even if you don’t consume any news on your phone, eventually, world events will find you. I recently experienced this myself. 

Last summer, I was lounging at Rocky Brooke Falls with my friends. We were swimming, snacking, and enjoying each other's company when I got an alert of a forest fire just miles from us. Within moments, our easy summer day turned into a mad dash to collect our things and get to the car. We passed through thick plumes of smoke on our way out, fire trucks passing by with their sirens blazing. I sat in the backseat in my wet bathing suit, shocked. And, I was grateful for the warning. 

Stressful or not, being informed is protective. And, paradoxically, the stress of information can cause great harm. Unchecked anger can cause a myriad of health issues, such as high blood pressure, depression, heart attack, stroke and even skin conditions like eczema. Anger is a response to stress, and is quite like a forest fire. It has the potential to nurture life or destroy life, depending on how it burns. 

With anger, the trick is to express it, feel it, and let it mobilize you into action before it overwhelms your body. I wish that were an easy recipe to implement, but it is not. 

There is a huge amount of nuance in how exactly to express, feel, and use anger. Not all expressions of anger are helpful, useful, or safe. Because of this, many have learned to suppress anger for fear of lashing out or out of shame over past episodes of explosive behavior.

Others have developed an adversarial relationship with anger because of how others' anger has affected them. And some folks go in the opposite direction, living their lives ruled by anger, much to their detriment. 

There are endless reasons why most of us have a fraught relationship with being angry or being around the anger of others. 

Anger is a powerful energy, and it takes practice to use it well. If we neglect anger OR center it exclusively, it can burn too hot. If you ignore anger, it has nowhere to go. It becomes trapped and causes overwhelm and shutdown. If you center it too much by overthinking or obsessing, the same will happen. Either way, your system will collapse. The anger will burn you to a crisp if you fall on either side of its knife-like edge. 

It’s important to keep in mind that anger is a bodily response. It’s meant to be this way. Your sympathetic nervous system wakes up in response to a stressor and your body prepares to go into action. Anger is meant to help keep you safe. 

I often hear or read the phrase, “I am entitled to my anger.” Yes, you are entitled to your anger as much as you are entitled to urinating or eating. Whether you believe you are entitled to it or not, anger is a natural, normal aspect of humanity. We all feel it and experience it in our own way. 

You may deserve to be angry, but don’t be so attached to something that can kill you. Many of us are guilty of holding on to anger instead of using it, of keeping it when we could let it go. We feel it’s valid, and we don’t want to dismiss it. Anger is not meant to be a final destination, an island you live on. It is a place you visit on the way to safety, connection, and meaningful action. It is a guest in your forest, and that guest wants you to act. 

So, FF, I think you can practice contained burns in the forest of your being. It takes time and effort, but it is possible to feel anger and let it help you. But first, you need to see your anger as distinct from you. YOU are not angry. You are you. Relating to anger helps you collaborate with it and move forward. This is not the same as managing it. Managing is about overpowering, and anger does not want you to overpower it. It will win, anyway. It wants to work with you. 

Sit with your anger and see what it has to say. See if any other feelings are present with it. Often helplessness and grief come along when anger shows up. Confront the ways you hold on to your anger, and consider why. Ask yourself how you can move into action on behalf of your anger. Join others in community action. Take care of folks who need it. Talk to your friends. Write an angry poem. Cry. Take your anger for a walk. And, be willing to let it leave when another feeling wants to come in. It’ll be there for you later. 

Whatever you do, don’t let it become an endless loop of rumination. Don’t let it fester and make you sick. That helps no one, especially you. 

Your anger is a potent medicine when it can be transmuted. It is powerful, warm, and energetic. Let it burn slowly and easily as you contain and direct it. 

Use the heat anger gives you to create change, FF. There’s no better time than now.