What’s your anger telling you?

Anger is a unique emotion. It is a core emotion and a valid emotion, but it is unique to other emotions in that when it arises for us it means that there are other emotions present, too. If you picture an iceberg, there is the part of the iceberg that is above the water that you can see but there is also a whole lot of iceberg below the water that is not visible to us. Anger is like what you see above the water, but below the anger, oftentimes initially outside our vision, are other emotions.

Let’s look at an example.

You are on your way home from work and get stuck in traffic. Your initial response is anger. Underneath could be a variety of things.

• Exhaustion from a long day

• Sadness over missing family and wanting to be home with them

• Bitterness over working a job you aren’t happy with

• Overwhelmed with how much work still needs to get done

• Eagerness to watch your favorite show once you are home

All of this naming will not make the anger go away, in fact, the anger will still be there as well as the other emotions you identify. But, when you can name what else is there you can hold your anger, versus your anger holding you. When you know what you are dealing with you can be in more control over how you respond. How you respond to anger likely looks different than how you respond to sadness. So, if you can identify that sadness is actually underneath your anger then you can respond accordingly.

So, have you been angry lately? Take some time and explore what other emotions may be present.