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by Randall Johnson, MA
Probably the number one reason people do not manage their negative
emotions successfully is that they deny the very existence of the emotions.
Nothing in us so defiles and destroys the beauty and the glory of
living as do emotions; nothing so elevates, purifies, enriches, and strengthens
life, as do emotions. Through our emotions we can have the worst, or the
best; we can descend to the lowest depths, or we can rise to the highest
heights.
So states Norman Wright on the complexity of our emotions. Whether we
like it or not, we are emotional creatures. God has made us that way.
In fact, God, too, has feelings and moods. Scripture is full of references
to God's emotional reactions.
Positive emotional memories of fun, of pleasure, of love bring a richness
and a vitality to our life. They give our life depth and meaning. However,
negative emotional memories spawned by moments of pain, of rejection,
of loss distract us from the joy of life and burden our lives and our
souls to sometimes an overwhelming degree. This article is about one of
those negative emotions: the emotion of anger.
Anger in and of itself is not negative. Actually anger is an important
and significant emotion, especially for Christians. By definition, anger
is an emotion of intense displeasure, frustration, a reflexive result
of being troubled, hurt, or pained. Anger is energy-an energy to resist
and fight against these feelings of displeasure and unhappiness. Therefore,
anger has a positive use in that it fights injustice, and we can use it
as an energy for our own survival when feeling threatened or attacked.
We use this energy to create change in our own personal lives as well
as in the world around us. As Dr. J.H. Jowett said, "The Holy Spirit
makes us capable of healthy heat, and it inspires the fire within us.
The Holy Spirit never creates a character that is lukewarm, neutral or
indifferent." Therefore, be angry , Christians, for it is needed
to fight injustice and sin.
We can also use anger negatively and destructively. Rather than focusing
on injustice, negative anger is directed at people. It motivates us to
hate, despise, scorn, ridicule, tease, humiliate, criticize, scold, irritate,
and offend. People use anger negatively when they attack other people
verbally or physically with the energy of these intense feelings.
Far too many Christians are incapable of managing their anger successfully.
The people in their lives-their spouses, their children, their friends-are
wounded by their destructive and unhealthy behavior. Healthy people, spiritual
people do not try to blunt or deaden their emotional lives. Rather they
work to understand how to manage their negative feelings and to learn
new ways to express themselves without creating hurt and destruction in
their relationships.
Probably the number one reason people do not manage their negative emotions
successfully is that they deny the very existence of the emotions. No
one likes to admit they are angry. Quite often they deny being angry,
but they might admit to feeling frustrated, griped, fed-up, sore, troubled,
exasperated, hurt, or annoyed. But they are not angry.
How wrong they are. These are labels for anger. We need to accept and
acknowledge them. We will be unsuccessful in expressing these feelings
in a healthy way if we continue to deny them.
Often it helps to acknowledge the sources of these negative emotions
and to understand what truly creates the feeling of anger and displeasure
in our lives. Deprivation may be the number one source of negative emotions.
When we feel deprived, when we can't get what we want, when we can't be
what we want, when we can't do what we want, we become angry. The loss
created by deprivation becomes a spawning bed for these negative emotions.
Secondly, physical and emotional pain creates feelings of anger. What
are you like when you're feeling sick and you have a headache or your
back is acting up again? Aren't you a bit irritable, touchy, or cross?
If the significant relationships of your life are not fruitful and nurturing,
doesn't it frustrate you and cause you to be provoked and angry? The people
who come to my office and share their life stories with me tell me these
things are true.
Fear also makes us angry. Fear and anxiety have a paralyzing effect on
us. We are frozen and afraid to move. Because of the uncomfortableness
of this experience, we often transform our fear into anger. Because anger
is an energy, we are then able to free ourselves from our dilemma. One
example might be if a woman fears her husband is cheating on her, but
does nothing. Not until she becomes angry does she confront him and possibly
bring a resolution to her pain. But people misread our behavior and do
not realize that we are more afraid than angry.
Children are marvelous at this transformation. Far too often parents
try to control the child's angry behavior without realizing how scared
the child may be about what is happening in his or her life. For example,
a child whose parents are divorcing may act very aggressively and angrily,
but in reality is more scared than mad.
Finally, stress causes anger. Stress-that relentless sense of pressure
and expectation that is fostered in our lives and won't go away. It continues
to build. Day by day, feelings of hostility and anger grow as we fight
this never-ending demand to meet the expectations of others and ourselves.
Take a moment for yourself and acknowledge that you, too, might be angry.
Look at your life and sort out the sources of anger that may exist for
you. You will not be alone. All of us must deal with this ever-present
emotion.
There are four ways people manage their negative emotions. Although we
all use these methods to some degree or another, the extent to which we
isolate ourselves to one method of anger expression is the degree to which
we have the capability of being unhealthy or to create unhealthy relationships.
One common way we manage our negative emotions is through suppression.
We suppress our anger by keeping the lid on it and by keeping our mouth
shut. We know we are angry, but we are not going to let the anger out.
There are certainly moments in life when suppression is crucial and needed.
Far too often people who have not been able to suppress their anger at
important moments produce destructive results. Teens are often guilty
of this. They impulsively mouth-off to their coaches, teachers, or parents
and create greater trouble for themselves. Instead, they should linger
with their hurt and anger, sort it out, and talk about it later.
However, there is also danger in resorting to suppression as your only
way to manage negative emotions. The first danger is that people who suppress
their emotions have a tendency to pick on secondary targets. It is the
proverbial "I couldn't yell at my boss, so I came home and kicked
the dog." How many of our families are reaping the negative harvest
of misdirected and misplaced anger-anger that was stuffed and swallowed
and later released on spouses, children, and friends. Too many people
are victims of misdirected and misplaced anger.
The second result of an overuse of suppression is guilt. Because we know
we're angry but are afraid or realize there are restrictions about feeling
angry at parents, at God, or at the church, we swallow our negative feelings.
Yet we feel guilty with their existence. Many people suffer depression
as the result of frozen feelings of guilt over swallowed anger. Suppression
is OK, but only in limited amounts.
A second form of managing our negative emotions is through expression-that
burst of feeling and action that comes with tempers and explosions. We
express our negative emotions by venting them verbally and acting them
out physically. We slam doors, throw tools, and scream at children, all
the while saying "we feel better" when we've released our anger.
It may be true that venting creates a relief, but not for the victim.
The victim is left with hurt feelings, destroyed confidence, and fearful
expectations of the next blowup. Impulsive outbursts of negative emotions
are destructive and dangerous.
The third style of managing negative emotions is repression. Repression
is denying anger. It is burying the anger so deep that we, ourselves,
forget about its existence. When we do this, anger becomes an unconscious
force in our life. It begins to work on us from the inside, often without
our awareness. I would suggest two pictures for remembering the effects
of repressing negative emotions.
One is the Beach Ball Syndrome. Picture yourself at the lake with one
of those large, plastic, multicolored beach balls. The beach ball represents
our negative emotions, and we are extremely embarrassed that everyone
at the beach can see these emotions. To not embarrass ourselves and to
save face, we quickly run out in the water and bury our beach ball below
the water. Now these beach balls are buoyant. But with the right amount
of force and the right amount of balance, we can get that ball under the
water, lock in our elbows, and keep it there. At that moment, we look
like everyone else. We are smiling and talking. All is right with the
world. Until. Someone distracts us from this balance of the hidden beach
ball under the water and just for an instant we shift our hands or our
elbows, hardly even noticeable to us. But at that very moment, the delicate
balance has been disturbed, and we all know what happens next.
The ball comes rushing to the surface, explodes through the water, and
clobbers the poor souls next to us. They never knew what hit them. Sometimes
that beach ball comes rushing up and hits us, and we feel overwhelmed
and incapacitated almost immediately. We feel like this because we have
stored and hidden these negative emotions for so long even we had forgotten
them. It is also important to remember that when that beach ball comes
to the surface, it is propelled by its own power. We no longer have control
of it. People who use repression as a way to deal with their negative
emotions run the risk of-at any moment-being a victim to a powerful, emotional
force in their life that often feels overwhelming and incapacitating.
The second picture about repression has to do with my house. I own an
old house in Holland that has almost no insulation. Come winter, the snows
fall and the heat rushing through my roof melts the snow, and the water
winds its way down to the eaves. But when this melted snow reaches the
eave, it forms into thick, long icicles and an ice ridge. It runs the
length of my house.
Once that ice forms, the remaining melted snow comes down the roof, but
has no way to be released. It lies there on my roof day upon day, week
upon week. And it doesn't matter how good a roof I have, sooner or later
that melted snow seeps through the roof and into my house. The damage
begins. Windows warp, ceilings get stained, and rafters rot. Repressed
negative emotions cause the same damage.
When we block them up by refusing to express them or talk about them,
they begin to seep their way into our lives, into our thoughts, and into
our attitudes. We become warped human beings. The damage is done from
the inside. Our personalities and perspectives become negative, bitter,
and crusty. And all this is because we didn't know how or we were afraid
to deal with our negative emotions in a direct and open way. Repression
can be costly to us and our loved ones.
Finally, we can deal with our negative emotions through confession.
To confess the existence of anger, jealousy, or frustration means we begin
to put our feelings into words instead of into actions. We can talk
out our feelings rather than act out our feelings. We can label
them and begin to discuss them. When we begin to talk about our feelings,
we are better able to control them and manage our behavior. Confession
of feelings allows us to decrease the intensity of the feeling, decrease
the duration the negative feeling intrudes in our life, and decrease the
frequency with which that feeling keeps coming back in our life creating
distress.
Talk about your feelings-especially the negative ones. Do so with regularity
and confidence. Communication is the life-blood of all relationships.
Far too many relationships are spoiled by hidden feelings and attitudes.
Scripture tells us to put away all anger, malice, and rancor. This means
we are to talk through our negative emotions with our loved one and find
resolutions and solutions to our problems, thereby living more effectively
and spiritually.
Anger is not to be hidden or feared. It is positive in that it aids us
in fighting injustice and in creating change. But it is negative if it
is directed at people or hidden and stored in our lives. Don't be a reactor
with your feelings in which you act them out and display them negatively.
Become a responder in which you disclose and reveal your emotions to one
another.
As Ephesians 4:15 (LB) suggests, "We will lovingly follow the truth
at all times-speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly-and so become
more and more in every way like Christ."
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