Why You Feel Angry

In conversations this past week, I've noticed many of us are angry.

So I think it's important to take a moment and discuss what anger is for and why it happens.

The emotion of anger occurs when something you care about has been jeopardized or offended. When a boundary has been crossed, when something you value has been taken from you.

It makes sense why we would feel angry.

We don't need a survey to know we are angry. But here is one by Gradus that showcases anger as the predominant emotion resulting from Russia's attack on Ukraine.

Anger is protective. Anger is a survival emotion.

Oftentimes, people come to me with anger and they want to get rid of it.

Anger can feel disturbing. It doesn't fit into our structured lives.

It makes us uncomfortable. It takes us over and disbalances us.

When anger is not acted up it results in agitation and emotional distress.

The reason for this is that all emotions have something we call "action tendencies" in psychology.

Each emotion is linked with subsequent behavior.

Emotions do not exist to ruin our days, they exist to make us act. They help us survive.

Anger is actually designed to promote our survival. It aligns us to our goals and motivates us to solve our problems, and inspires us to support our values and beliefs.

The only real issue with anger is when we don't act on it in a productive manner.

Many of us prefer to try to push our anger down, hoping it will go away.

Yet, this discomfort anger brings is for a reason. It should make you uncomfortable enough to act.

The only way to really defuse anger well is to act in a way that aligns with your values.

Your anger wants you to act. It wants to protect you and the values you hold. It is a warning system that something you care about has been impeded on.

Some of us have forgotten how to act from our anger.

One way to get back to this intuition is to think about how you were as an adolescent.

Personally, I remember spending hours in college writing to Amnesty International, protesting random causes in the quad.

Action from anger came easily then.

It is only over time we have become somewhat jaded to our ability to change the world.

Over time we have learned to become emotionally stable adults. Reading The Atlantic, re-tweeting only the right tweets, discussing world conflict from a philosophical standpoint.

Maybe it's time to become a little less emotionally unstable and use this anger.

What would your 18-year-old self do with this anger? What would you do if you still believed in your ability to change the world?