September: Let’s Talk About Anger
Sometimes personal growth is a result of intricate plans and long efforts. Other times, outfitting an old idea with new words triggers an unmistakeable shift in how you think. It only takes a moment to gain awareness that you spend the rest of your life trying to forget. Let’s talk about anger.
I was in the third grade the first time I heard the thought, “You have an anger problem.” Nowadays people respond with disbelief if I speak this truth, not realizing that many of the more-celebrated tenets of my personality were developed through years of masking internal storms. Of all the things society requires of Black men, exhibiting a healthy and complete emotional spectrum is not on the list.
“Of all the things society requires of Black men, exhibiting a healthy and complete emotional spectrum is not on the list.” - EM
Growing up the only real conversations I remember having about emotions were my mom suggesting that being happy was so much easier than being angry, but this has never been my truth—not even today. Now, I recognize that experiencing joy and perceiving life’s beauty are both trainable skills. Increasing your capacity to feel joy and increasing your ability to discern beauty is the real gift of expanding your awareness—of connecting with communities you don’t belong to, of exploring perspectives you don’t agree with, of learning to celebrate things you don’t yet understand. This is the essence of personal growth. Several decades spanned the gap between first hearing the thoughts “Evan, your temper is going to land you in jail” and “Evan, emotions are a compass that guide you to your best self”.
I learned how to look calm long before I knew how to protect my peace. Learning to discern emotions on everyone else’s faces taught me how to hide my own. Learning to use words lessened the urge to use my hands. Self expression took on new meaning, new importance, when I realized that articulating my hurt brought me back into my body, back into a place of logic and reason during moments when rage took over. One of the more powerful things my therapist has taught me is that “you can’t suppress one emotion without suppressing them all.” In my youth not knowing how to express my own pain—from having my racial identity be challenged because of my atypical skin and my articulate speech, from not being chosen by my father, from being chosen last in sports, from feeling broken—unintentionally caused me to suppress my own joy in fear of myself. Now I understand that different emotions require different responses, and that discerning your emotions is a skill that takes practice. Unfortunately, I learned to use “anger” as an umbrella name for all of my negative emotions at a young age, and it took the pain of George Floyd’s murder to recognize this as a problem.
“You can’t dispel monsters that you enjoy playing with” - Unknown
“You can’t dispel monsters that you enjoy playing with”, a borrowed quote. Despite wanting to be free of my temper which was never out of reach, I recognized its utility. Knowing I could hulk out made me feel powerful, like a wolf in sheep’s skin. It afforded me a boldness to be vulnerable and take risks knowing that my angry self would readily burn any bridge that didn’t lead to satisfaction. Earlier this year, I asked my therapist to help with two problems: my relationship with my father and my over-abundance of anger. In one of our September sessions she asked, “Are you clinging to your anger like a safety blanket?” I actually went to exclaim, “No!”, to ridicule the notion, but I could feel it in my body that I would have been lying. This was news to me. That was on a Friday, and the cognitive dissonance sparked by my therapist’s question sat with me like a thick fog. I had grown up believing my temper was inherited from my father and that he might have the secret to overcoming my inner demons. Unfortunately, I was too angry to speak to him for most of my life. I had tried so many affirmations and breathing techniques that I was sure only a therapist could save me. After several days of sitting with the discomfort sparked by her question, a new thought showed up: “Your willingness to be destructive is only helpful when you don’t know that a less-destructive option is possible.” The worst-case scenario only makes sense when you stop believing in better. You don’t need to act on fear when you know you are loved.
The broken perspectives that had boosted my confidence for most of my life no longer felt comfortable or familiar; now they felt incomplete and tainted. Spirituality is the only concept I prioritize over fatherhood, but my kids are older than my spiritual practices and I had not revisited my willingness to be angry since making the decision to be a better version of myself. I had not realized that my acceptance of who I became and what I would do when angered are in direct opposition of my spiritual pursuits. Connecting more deeply with the world increases my capacity for joy and helps me to see beauty in otherwise ugly or dark places. My previous response to anger was to disconnect—both from others and from parts of myself—making life harder, uglier, and less enjoyable.
Emotions are purposeful and vital. People who truly don’t have them are typically seen as problematic at best. Similarly, people who are disconnected from their emotions can become quite dangers. I know from experience. I have benefitted greatly from reframing anger as either “anger the emotion” or “angry behavior”. Anger the emotion serves a critical role in your pursuit of success. Everything you perceive sparks subtle changes in your beliefs and preferences, shifting the boundary of our personal limits in ways we are rarely conscious of. Anger the emotion is your body’s way of exclaiming, “You just stepped on a boundary you didn’t know was there! You are close to discovering something new about yourself! Pause and respond accordingly!” In this way, anger serves as a compass directing you towards a path more aligned with your inner truths.
Anger the emotion becomes problematic when it yields angry behavior, but they are not the same. Angry behavior is a reaction to fear—that you are not enough, that you are not loved, that a better situation isn’t possible, that the Universe won’t intervene on your behalf, that God will forsake you. When you are emotionally reactive you are re-acting out a scene from some previous experience, but you can have a new experience by choosing a different behavior rooted in today’s awareness.What if fear and anger were actually just signaling for you to try something new, to consider a new thought, or to allow the Universe or God or whatever you believe in to orchestrate a more positive outcome?
Each month I write about tiny miracles—moments good luck, excessively-unlikely coincidences, prayers coming true. What is the point of it all if not to serve as proof that there exists a less angry and more loving, less forceful and more fitting solution to any problem evoking your temper? To act on anger is to act on fear, and a love-based decision is always better its fear-based counterpart. I used to believe that I was expressing self-love in moments when I chose angry behavior. Now I recognize I was actually prioritizing my fears. Angry behavior towards others is actually self-destructive as it only creates more proof of my brokenness. Recently my marriage counselor explained that niceness includes everyone except you, whereas kindness considers you too. I have never truly valued niceness in others despite feeling strongly that I wanted to be nicer. “The tenor and tone of my presence is an extension of my worldview, and being nice is a way of honoring my belief that the Universe works in my favor. Being nice to others is a way of experiencing and celebrating my own healing.”—another new thought. To be a nicer person was my New Year’s resolution for more years than not, but it wasn’t until I started to think differently about anger and emotions that I found words I could commit to.
A few weeks ago I was conversing with a Black man who I perceive to be slightly older than myself, and I sensed that he was going to buckle under the weight of the emotions he was withholding. Just before the first tear could escape, he made the most peculiar face: his cheeks and mouth formed the most beautiful, picturesque smile you have ever seen, but his eyes were brimming with tears and immensely pained. When I realized what his facial expression meant, that it reflected years of self-denial and emotional detachment, I was deeply saddened and my heart hurt on his behalf. I don’t usually talk to my wife about my anti-racism work as I like for her to be my escape, but I needed some help escaping the weight that I felt. As I explained the situation it was as if I heard the words, “Emotions are only bad when you fight them.” I abruptly stopped talking, took a deep breath, settled into the couch, and decided to allow myself to actually feel the sadness. What I noticed surprised me.
Sadness was only bad or negative or dark or heavy while I denied the experience my body was yearning for. The moment I actually stopped and allowed the experience of sadness to run through me, I actually appreciated it. The physical sensation was warm and grounding. Most importantly, it afforded me a glimpse into my friend’s emotional experience to a degree that he nor anyone else could ever hope to match with words alone. Emotions create a knowingness that is rooted in my body, and their physicality can be interpreted as a measure of many things—about myself, about my relationships, about life, all of which lead me towards a more joyous reality. While I would never claim to be happy about sadness, I am appreciative of the awareness it grants me. That doesn’t suggest sadness could ever be “worth it”, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It might need to be held off—for example, I found myself feeling sad at work today but I didn’t want to dissolve into tears at my desk. Delaying emotions for a moment can be healthy; delaying them indefinitely is definitely detrimental to your overall wellbeing.
Now when I get angry I remind myself, “There always exists a loving option. You just have to imagine it.” This is a worldview I choose to prioritize as an expression of self-love and self-respect. The memory of who I was yesterday will likely influence how I show up today, and I choose to know myself as a peaceful person. Anger, like all emotions, is a tool with a very specific and vital function. To truly benefit from their utility, you have to actually allow yourself to feel and to then decide what your experience means to you. Oftentimes we lie to ourselves as a means of survival, and no one can tell you that’s wrong or bad. But at some point, you have to learn to tell yourself the truth. At some point, you have to learn to discern your own lies. When you decide to switch from surviving to thriving, learning to discern your emotions and to heed their guidance is how you realize a more honest, more healed, and more wholesome reality.
