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Key points
- Anger is our teacher and shows what is important to us.
- Anger can point toward our deepest needs and values.
- Anger challenges the status quo and pushes us to make the wrong right.
Anger is powerful. When it flares up, it can take control of our body, our thoughts, our senses, and our actions. We temporarily lose our discernment and judgment, regaining these only after our anger has subsided—often when it’s too late. When we are angry, we may lose our poise and dignity. It’s as if anger consumes us or takes us hostage, overwhelming our best intentions.
It’s natural to view anger as a huge problem. Many think of anger as negative, bad, or dangerous. But what if there is another way of seeing it?
Anger is a natural response to threat, injustice, abuse, and oppression. It wakes us up and motivates us to take action to protect ourselves and other people. Anger can point toward our deepest needs and values. It can be a force of good.
Here are 6 ways anger can actually be a gift:
1. Anger connects you with what is important to you.
Things that may have been bothering you or problems that may have been just under the radar in your mind come to light thanks to anger. Your anger “demands” your attention and requires you to open up an inner dialogue between you and the challenges you are facing. It helps you gain clarity about what’s really important to you and what changes are required. You feel anger because something matters to you. Anger shows you what is important to you. It orients you toward fulfilling your needs and goals.
2. Anger's major purposes are survival and personal transformation.
Anger serves two interrelated purposes. The first is protective; it is largely concerned with survival and security. This aspect of anger is a function of the more primitive, evolutionarily “older” emotional brain. You can think of protective anger as largely unconscious or built-in. When you react from protective anger, your actions will probably be directed externally. The nature of protective anger is to scan the environment for threat; this is why it is instinctually focused outwardly.
The second major purpose of anger is personal growth and transformation. It is the more deliberate, conscious, recently evolved part of the brain—the neocortex—that allows you to moderate your anger and learn from it to better yourself. While protective anger is immediate and works below the level of consciousness, the utilization of anger for the purpose of healing and personal development requires conscious and deliberate effort. Protective anger is raw; transformative anger is refined. Transformative anger promotes personal growth and enhances resiliency and strength.
3. Anger points to your triggers.
While anger's tendency is to focus your attention outward, what makes anger really effective is using it to help you focus inward. One of anger’s gifts is that it can shed a light on your inner world. If you keep an anger diary and analyze your anger incidents, you will be able to find the pattern that will certainly be there. Do you become angry when you are avoided, rejected, or disrespected? When are you pressed for time or under pressure? When you have been manipulated, taken advantage of, or misunderstood? Notice your pattern and explore both the outer and the inner cause of your anger. That knowledge will make you realize your triggers and also help you figure out how to overcome your triggers to achieve a life that is less reactive—a more mindful and peaceful life.
4. Anger is your teacher.
Anger is a valuable teacher. In fact, all experiences and emotions in life are teachers in some way, pushing you to learn and improve. They are designed to aid your personal growth and the evolution of your consciousness. When you find yourself angry and upset, it can feel as if you are at the end of your resources, as if you have reached your limit. While this barrier seems real, there is always the option to dig deeper, to find what lies beneath your anger. When you do so, you will find additional resources that expand your capability, allowing you to overcome the challenge and move forward to meet your full potential. The key is to recognize the opportunity for growth. The key is to see anger as a teacher.
5. Anger protects your boundary.
Anger can help you understand where your boundaries are and when they have been violated. Anger indicates that what you possess is intrinsically valuable and that those who abuse you, disrespect you, or take your time, generosity, or love for granted either do not belong in your world or must be communicated to that they crossed your boundaries.
In addition, anger pushes you to reset your boundaries and restore your sense of self. It gives you the motivation and energy to protect yourself and respond effectively to others. If necessary, anger can help you enforce your boundaries. It serves as a protective purpose and prevents you from being manipulated, taken advantage of, or victimized. Without anger, you would have no shield to protect your boundaries.
6. Anger challenges the status quo.
This is one of anger’s greatest gifts. When channeled appropriately, it can ignite a sense of urgency, motivating teams to challenge the status quo and push boundaries. The change that may have seemed too difficult to even contemplate becomes possible given the power of your anger. In fact, throughout history, a lot of the changes the world has made have come about with the help of anger. If you simply react in anger, you’ll probably end up causing more problems than you solve, but if you explore your anger, both its outer focus and its inner origins, you can make beneficial changes that you might not even have dreamed possible.
