Insights: Healthy and Unhealthy Anger
Anger can be a powerful experience that brings awareness to something within the self, such as fear, anger, clarity, sadness or unprocessed grief. You can express your own anger, or be on the receiving end of someone expressing their anger.
The expression of anger can be healthy or unhealthy.
Healthy anger is a normal and natural emotional response to various situations that provoke frustration, injustice, or a perceived threat to one’s well-being or boundaries. Healthy anger serves as an important tool for maintaining personal and spiritual boundaries, resolving conflicts and advocating for oneself.
Learning to harness and express anger in a healthy way is a valuable skill for emotional well-being and maintaining positive relationships. Holding onto anger merely pushes it down only to explode later, likely as an unhealthy anger.
Unhealthy anger, also referred to as toxic anger, is a negative emotional response with an intense and irrational expression of anger that can be harmful to both the individual experiencing it and those around them. The emotional reaction is often far out of proportion to the situation’s actual significance.
Unhealthy anger, can have a significant negative impact on the people around the individual, especially close family members and friends who may be subjected to verbal or physical abuse. Individuals with unhealthy anger, often externalize blame, holding others responsible for their anger and viewing them as the cause of their problems. This can lead to hostile and confrontational interactions.
How to protect yourself from unhealthy anger
Boundaries and Communication:
Set and maintain clear personal and spiritual boundaries. Communicate and express your feelings, concerns, and boundaries in an assertive, clear, respectful, and non-confrontational manner. Rather than get defensive or ‘be right’, remove yourself from the situation to give space to everyone. Circle back to the conversation when things have settled down.
Use the reference ‘I’ rather than ‘you’. Work on resolving conflicts through open and empathetic communication which includes listening.
Noone wants unhealthy anger coming from them or be on the receiving end of it. Consider couples or family therapy to address underlying issues and to heal.
Find an outlet for your personal anger through writing, drawing, walking, running, or whatever helps you release the excess energy from your personal space. This is especially true when you know you are holding onto anger and haven’t been able to find a way to release it. Find it and express it in an appropriate way that does not cause harm to anyone.
“Our happiness and suffering depend on our own actions, and not our wishes or desires for another.”
Insights: September 2023
By Regina Kaiser
