3 radical claims about expressing anger

How do you express your anger? This is a difficult and sensitive topic, especially when we view anger as justified, but it’s something we all must face if we are to communicate like adults, be effective, and get our needs met. In this post, I will explore a radical approach to expressing anger constructively.

This teaching, from Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, has helped me objectify my own anger, expressing it more fully, while also releasing its power over me. It provided a path to remain in dialogue, even with people I disagree with or don’t like.

Warning: This is radical stuff. If you’re not ready to examine yourself, stop reading.

Radical claim #1 - Hurting others is communication

After years of working with individuals and groups in his psychology practice, Dr. Rosenberg came to the understanding that physically and emotionally hurting others is actually an expression of what’s going on inside us when we’re angry.

He suggests that whenever we interact with someone, we are actually requesting something from them in return. We are trying to meet an underlying need but because we’re not able to see or articulate that need, we express our anger with violence.

Radical claim #2 - The cause of anger lies in our thinking, not someone else’s actions

Rosenberg tells the story of working in a youth correctional facility where he stepped in to break up a fight and was hit with a sharp elbow across his nose. He explained that he was so enraged, he could hardly contain himself from hitting the kid back.

The next day, he broke up another fight, got elbowed in the same way, and even though it hurt and he bled much more, he did not have an angry response.

Why?

After reflection on his feeling and needs, he concluded that he had pre-labeled the first youth as a “spoiled brat” even before the fight broke out, and had similarly labeled the second child as a “pathetic creature.”

These stories were the cause of his two different emotional reactions, not the fact that he was elbowed in the nose breaking up a fight.

When we tell ourselves any version of: “He made me so angry” or “You hurt me when you did that,” we relieve ourselves of the responsibility of our emotions and express our anger by blaming or punishing something or someone outside ourselves.

Confusing the stimulus from the cause of our anger is an easy habit to acquire because of the way we have been taught to express ourselves.

“It upsets mommy when you don’t eat all your food.”

“It disappoints me that you’re not coming to my birthday.”

Blaming others for our emotions is part of our language and built into the unseen fabric of our hierarchical societal structures. (When cultures rely on fear and guilt as a way of controlling people, it’s important to trick people into thinking we can make someone else feel a certain way.)

Radical Claim #3 - Anger is life-serving

Rosenberg also tells us that we only have four ways to respond to a negative message: 1) blame others, 2) blame ourselves, 3) sense our feelings and needs, or 4) sense others’ feelings and needs.

Option 3, sensing our own feelings and needs, is the most life-serving because it connects us to the life that is within us.

In other words, when we are angry, something is alive within us, palpable life energy, and it can actually provide us direct access to understand what we need in that present moment.

In another story, Rosenberg asked a prison inmate about the cause of his anger. The inmate said he had made a request of prison officials, who never responded.

Rosenberg then asked the inmate, “When this happened, you felt anger because what?”

“I just told you,” the inmate exclaimed. “I got angry because they didn’t respond to my request!”

It took time, and skilled questioning, for Rosenberg to help the inmate realize that it was the man’s own need for respect that wasn’t being met, which lead to his anger.

Dr. Rosenberg says, “Anger can be valuable if we use it as an alarm clock to wake us up -- to realize we have a need that is not being fulfilled.”

But, what if my anger is justified?

Rosenberg says that learning these lessons often came as a relief to groups who had experienced oppression and discrimination, as they had often been urged to stifle their anger, calm down, and accept the status quo.

Such groups, he said, are wary of approaches that view their righteous indignation as undesirable and needing to be purged.

However, they are often relieved to learn that unlike other forms of communication, Nonviolent Communication does not encourage us to ignore, squash, or swallow anger, but to express the core of our anger fully and wholeheartedly.

Rosenberg says, “If we are truly angry, we would want a much more powerful way [than physical or emotional violence] to fully express ourselves.” We will explore this tomorrow.