Let’s Talk About Anger

By Lina Esa Öberg

I had a very interesting public talk and workshop session recently about “Emotions, and how to handle emotions effectively”. There was a question from a lady who said that she can’t seem to control her anger. She said that she had a really “short fuse”, meaning little things will make her blow up in anger. She also told me that when she gets angry, she will yell and shout, and that made her feel good! Frankly, I was taken aback when she said that she felt good after her outburst of anger. Then I asked her if she got the message across, and she verily thought she did. I explained to her that when she yells, anyone that she was yelling at will be on a defensive. She can’t seem to comprehend that acting the way she did, will not only affect her, but also others around her negatively. For her, coming to the workshop is probably to get some validation of her reaction of anger, or perhaps a short cut to get rid of anger or her “short fuse”.

So here’s the deal: When it comes to anger, it is an emotion, a signal from your body telling you that something is just not fair. Therefore, it is very important to understand anger, where it comes from, and how it connects within the levels of the mind. After getting this knowledge, what happen next is to get skills about what to do, and how to deal with it. Thereafter, as Bruce Lee once said: “Willing is not enough; we must do. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.”

When something happens that you perceive as just not fair, how do you act and react to make it fair? Most of the time, you do need to communicate to others on what makes you feel that it’s not fair. But in putting the message across, what do you usually do? Do you scream and shout? Do you bang the door and leave? Do you slam your fist on the table? Do you sulk and give them the cold shoulders?

Let’s put this reaction to anger into something more tangible that you can see, like a simple rainbow colour chart, with red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Let’s name this chart the Communication Zone Chart.

Red means any ways of communication by way of verbal or gestures that are physically threatening to others.

Orange means any ways of communication that indicate that you are about to go red like clenching your fists, slamming your fists into something, slamming the door or kicking things.

Yellow means any ways of communication that are emotionally threatening. This includes raising your voice, threatening tone of voice, yell and shout. This includes all words that are threatening, accusing, cursing, anything that is hurtful, vulgar or mean.

So when you are in this Red, Orange or Yellow zone, the other party is not going to be interested in what is being presented to them. In fact they will be busy defending themselves! An essential part of communication is about you wanting to be heard by the other person. Remember, you are in a quest for fairness. But, if you are in the Red, Orange or Yellow zone, you have defeated yourself in your attempt to be heard. The other party is now only concerned about themselves, and defending themselves from you!

On the other hand, the colour at the opposite end of the spectrum is Blue. Blue however, means that there is a failure to communicate! It means that you have not taken an action that is effective enough to communicate your feelings like being silent, being cold, giving the cold shoulders or sulking. So in a sense, Blue is almost as bad as Yellow, Orange or Red.

We need to leave these forms of communication or lack of communication behind and go to the Green zone! Green represents assertiveness, which means communicating your feelings or concerns in a way that does not cause the other person to feel defensive. When you are in the Green zone, your ways of communication helps other people to hear what you are trying to say, so that they are more concerned or likely to be more concerned about you. They are much more likely to want to hear what you are saying to them!

Green ways of communication starts off with words like “I’m feeling….”, or “I’m concerned….”, or “Sometimes I feel hurt when you don’t listen…”, or “I feel ignored when you don’t listen to what I am saying…”. Talk about what is happening that makes you feel that something is just not fair. Most of the time, dealing with normal people, they will be willing to listen and empathize.

The important part is that you are being strategic and effective in your communication. So when you feel that there is something that is just not fair, before it escalates to full blown anger, apply these skills and identify which zone you are in while communicating.

All this can be done, once you understand your mind, your emotions and how it connects! And with that, you can very well handle all your emotions, not just anger, most effectively!