Anger

Anger is just a cowardly extension of sadness. It’s a lot easier to be angry at someone than it is to tell them you’re hurt.
Tom Gates

We often hide beneath our feelings. We do things because we “feel like it”. We talk about ourselves using comments like “I am angry”. It is as if we are our emotions. Not only that it feels like we have no control over our emotions and so our emotions run our lives. No wonder we feel so out of control. We are behaving like puppets on a string, ruled by emotions we have no control over. But we can learn to control our emotions and make them work for us.

The first step towards controlling anything, including ourselves, is to understand what it is that we are trying to control. We have to understand first of all what we are really feeling. When we feel bad, it could be for all kinds of different reasons which are not at all obvious. Feeling angry has all kinds of emotions behind it, such as sadness, jealousy or envy, a feeling of injustice, and fear. It takes a lot of self-awareness sometimes to figure out the real reason for your anger. But until you do that, it will be impossible to do anything constructive about it.

We don’t usually think of anger as being cowardly. It tends to make us feel powerful. But in reality, anger only strengthens your ego, and not the real you. It is much easier to blame the other person than to question your own feelings and needs. And it takes courage to ask for what you want or need, especially when you feel unlikely to get it. But ultimately being able to tell the other person that you are hurt and what you really want, is the only constructive way to deal with anger. Any other reaction hurts both you and your relationship with them.