The Three Pillars of Anger
Posted on March 20, 2013 by Hugh McGillivray, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
A brief summary of why you are angry.
You may have deeply buried events still bothering you from childhood, and you may have very good reasons for being angry, but at the core of your anger are three facts that cannot be escaped: biology, language and behavior. Biology is chemical responses to stress. Language is how we express our beliefs and behavior is how our beliefs affect the people around us.
A common belief is that anger is an emotion, and a justified reaction to somebody else’s bullshit. The truth is that it is a habit. It’s a behavior that we train ourselves to perform over time, or allow ourselves to be trained to perform. But it’s an easy habit to pick up, let’s be clear. The common belief is that anger is the result of someone else doing something to us, and while this may not be false, it ignores how hard we try to put ourselves in positions where we can be angry again.
Anger supplies a rush of adrenalin, and then a rush of endorphins which become addicting. It makes use of our sympathetic nervous system, the part that makes us flee or fight. You are still able to think up until there is a full-on panic state, but in a panic or even near-panic state thinking is nearly impossible. That activation of the energized state in which you might flee or burst into action physically acts as a reward. Your body doesn’t evaluate motivations of reasons; it only “knows” the physical flood of energy and the potential for action. And then, when the moment subsides, there is the flood of endorphins soothing the body after its energized state. It is a cycle of anger. And, as anyone can see from this, it becomes a conditioned response all too easily.
The thinking and talking that gets you there is something else entirely. The ways and means of getting someone to freak out are too numerous to cover in terms of detailed interactions, but it comes down to putting someone in a state in which they feel like they can’t flee or fight. If you convince a person, virtually any person will do, that this is the situation they will either get mad, or cry. It is really not that hard. If you do this to them repeatedly over time, you will create a disastrous habit. Make a person feel trapped; that’s all there is to it. As most people in the restaurant industry can tell you, this kind of thing is considered a management style. In many marriages, it is considered a necessity of getting through the day.
But it’s the repeated exposure to a feeling of being trapped, and we get there through belief systems which form the basis of our judgments about our selves and others.
