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I bet you feel a little (or perhaps a huge) negative energy just by reading the word “anger,” don’t you? I do! I’m almost certain I feel that way about that emotion because I grew up seeing anger completely glued to aggression. Actually, until few weeks ago, I wasn’t aware that anger and aggression are two separate entities.
Anger is one of our primary emotions, and like our other emotions, it serves a purpose. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines anger as follows: “A strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism.” So, we can safely say that anger (when used correctly) is a means of protection. When your mind doesn’t like something, it may react with anger as a way to let you know something is wrong.
Obviously, many of us don’t like the feeling of anger because it’s uncomfortable. Well, it has to be like that in order to get our full attention. I was listening to an audiobook a few days ago, and the author mentioned that anger and aggression are two different things, which was a revelation to me. I was under the impression that anger is expressed through aggression, and because that was the only concept I knew, I used to try to suppress my anger. I don’t like aggression of any kind, so I feared becoming aggressive every single time I felt angry.
Just to be clear, by “aggression,” I’m not referring to physical violence against ourselves or others. In psychology, aggression is defined as a range of behaviors that can result in both physical and psychological harm to ourselves, others, or objects in the environment. I needed to read about the two concepts (anger and aggression) to understand that they’re actually two different entities. Because that concept was an eye opener for me, I felt the need to share it here with all of you. Maybe you’re under the same impression I was, and you’ve therefore tried to suppress anger all your life.
The best example I have to explain how I ended up interconnecting the two concepts is my dad. My dad is a perfectionist. He doesn’t like to make mistakes; well, let me correct that. He used to be that way. He learned over the years that mistakes are human beings’ life lessons. Anyway, when I was growing up, I used to see my dad getting angry because of mistakes (his or others), and he would turn verbally aggressive. That was pretty normal for me because it was a daily way of living. When something was wrong, my dad (and eventually all his children) would react with verbal aggression toward everyone and everything. So, at some point in my life, because I didn’t like how it felt, I decided I didn’t want to let anger dominate me. I can see now that it wasn’t anger I wanted to suppress; it was aggression.
I now feel like that wasn’t the smartest decision I ever made in my life because I let many things and many people take advantage of my tendency to suppress anger. In other words, because I completely avoided the feeling of anger, I removed a lot of boundaries. I’m not complaining about my past behavior—I simply didn’t know any better—I’m just sharing how not knowing anger’s purpose can limit us in many ways.
Since I found out the difference between anger and aggression, I’ve been practicing letting anger come up as it is. If I don’t like something, or if I feel something is wrong, I let anger to sit with me and I ask it, “What are you trying to protect me from?” I don’t have a lot of experience with this practice yet because I only recently discovered they were separate concepts, but so far, in my short experience, I really like it. It feels like I’ve given myself a right I denied before, and it’s liberating.
I love to go through this journey called life with this beginner mentality. The older I get, the more I realize I know nothing, and I love that. I read books and listen to podcasts just to confirm how much I don’t know. It’s funny now that I think about it, but I remember the first time I read Socrates’s quote, “I only know I know nothing,” I thought, “Wow, that guy wasted all his life and didn’t learn anything.” Of course, I didn’t get what he meant; I was only nine years old. It only took me 30 more years to get it.
Anger doesn’t need aggression to fully serve you, my friends. You can be angry without the need to harm yourself or others. Let anger show you what bothers you and why, and place your boundaries from there with love and kindness. We are fully equipped with the best team of emotions to live our best lives.
Love,
Irene
