Quick Peek: Part of understanding what we’re so angry about, is to take a look at the two emotions from where all other emotions originate. Next, read a short story of an example of uncontrolled anger and how it was defused. We will look at a possible antidote to anger, find out why anger is so prevalent in today’s world and finally, present you with a new formula to disable anger.
Where Does Anger Originate?
Some time ago, I was told that there are only two original emotions; Fear and Love. How can that be? There are so many more emotions!
To help you further grasp this concept, imagine a tall tree. Fear and Love are the strong roots that anchor the tree into the earth. Following this, we have the various branches, blossoms, needles or leafs to represent the many other emotions that carry the original seeds of Fear and Love. As an example, if you feel thankful, peaceful, joyful, content or caring, we can understand how the root of these feelings are based in Love. In contrast, feelings of insecurity, embarrassment, rejection, helplessness, shame or anxiety, have their origins based in Fear.
It’s intriguing to entertain the thought that, in our society, demonstrating feelings stemming from Love are acceptable, such as a couple holding hands, a little girl comforting another child who fell down, two people hugging as they meet up in the restaurant for lunch. On the other hand, allowing others to see our Fear, is embarrassing, shameful, and we could be considered as ‘weak’. Therefore, Anger, regarded as a ‘strong’ emotion, is often used to smother Fear and/or intimidate an enemy or accuser. Most often, we are not conscious that this is what we are doing.
A Story to Help Us in Understanding What We’re So Angry About
A protest march was taking place in the downtown core of a middle-sized city. The energy of both ‘for’ and ‘against’ the hot topic of contention was palpably high. Most protestors carried signs and joined in the chants with enthusiastic vigour. An obvious physical division parted the two groups as the ‘for’ and ‘against’ kept to their own side of the wide street.
The ability to peacefully protest is a cherished freedom in many countries, however, around the world, the ‘peaceful’ aspect seems to have become less evident as more anger replaces it.
A woman I’ll call Lena is chanting a slogan on her side of the street. She is waving her sign and doing everything she can to call attention to her side of the protest. As caught up as she is, she wanders closer to the opposite side of the street where she stumbles into a man I’ll call Michael. His reaction is instant and volatile! Michael, spraying saliva, screams curses just inches from Lena’s face. He calls Lena vile names, belittles her and threatens her. She has a choice to make. Lena can retaliate in kind, or she can defuse the situation.
Lena’s Choice
Lena chooses the following words, “Sir, I don’t know who or what caused you such emotional pain that you felt the need to publicly and verbally abuse a person whom you don’t even know. But, I do understand and take no offence.” With that, she gently placed her hand on his arm, smiled and returned to her side of the street.
Lena is a bright lady! She didn’t need to know why he was angry, she had an understanding of what we’re so angry about. She de-escalated Michael’s anger with just a few words delivered calmly and kindly. As for Michael? His puzzled expression and open, silent mouth indicated stunned confusion, not anger. Lena gave him food for thought! Within a few seconds, she was respectful, acknowledged his pain, showed him where he was wrong, then forgave and let it go.
Lena did not tell Michael he was ‘scared’. After all, we know he was already fiercely protecting himself with Anger and we know that Anger is used to disguise Fear-based emotions. Michael didn’t need to be reminded that he was ‘scared’, but what he didn’t recognize is that he was in emotional Pain. Keeping one’s fears hidden is both painful and exhausting. We keep thinking of all the painful repercussions of our fear being exposed. Human beings have good imaginations and we can create a dozen possibilities when, in reality, only one could occur or maybe nothing at all would occur.
Knowledge Note: Telling a story is one of the best teaching methods to help people in understanding what we’re so angry about as well as hundreds of other theories, facts, ideas.
Taking A Further Look at Emotional Pain
In our story, Lena said to Michael she didn’t know who or what caused his Emotional Pain, enough so that he felt the need to verbally abuse her, a total stranger. Lena knows that two angry people acting out will only escalate the situation, therefore she chose behaviour opposite to Michael’s.
Emotional pain is suffering. We suffered a loss of some kind: love, money, job, friendship, physical ability, pet, esteem, treasured object, a home, etc. There are hundreds of ways to experience loss and when we do, even just once, we have learned to Fear it. With that comes Worry and a litany of other emotions: disappointment, frustration, helplessness, depression, unworthiness and on and on. Every one of these adds to more emotional pain we desperately try to hide.
This is where Anger comes in. We have felt helpless far too long and Anger looks like strength. It looks like power! Therefore, Anger allows a person who is suffering emotional pain to once more have some sense of control over his/her life. Anger is a weapon of intimidation. It drives most people away from the perpetrator because they now feel Fear. So Fear begets more Fear.
Anger is protective armour from the lances of emotional pain.
An angry person is a hurting person.
Is There an Antidote to Anger?
Is There an Antidote to Anger?Formula: Fear of Loss > Emotional Pain > Worry > more Fear > Helplessness > Anger
Going back to the two main roots of our tree, one being Fear, the other Love and both having the offshoots of many other emotions that grow from each category, the question arises, is there an herbicide to Anger? I, for one, hope not. Knocking out one poison with another poison makes no sense to me. So let’s look for an antidote to the poison, instead.
A good clue is to return to Lena and Michael’s exchange during the protest march. You see, Lena has the antidote. Rather than trying to kill Michael’s anger with her retaliatory Anger, she used the antidote of Love. Understand, Lena didn’t ‘love’ Michael, the person. After all, she didn’t know him. But she has Love for all Mankind. So, she acknowledged his pain, said she ‘understood’ and took no offence, smiled and gently touched his arm before walking away.
Yes, Love is the antidote to Fear, as it is for every other poisonous emotion in the Fear realm.
What will you do the next time someone spouts Anger at you? Perhaps have a rehearsal in your mind. It pays to be prepared. Simply remember that Anger is pain; the person is hurting.
Understanding What We’re So Angry About in Today’s World
Now that we understand anger’s source a bit better, let’s look at why it seems to have grown exponentially throughout our world. It appears we are rife with hair-trigger anger everywhere.
Following our Formula, that would mean:
- there is an increase in Fear of Loss, leading to
- more Emotional Pain, leading to
- more Worry, leading to
- more Fear, leading to
- more Helplessness, leading to
- more Anger
There are many more emotions that could fit into this lineup, such as anxiety, frustration, shame, depression, confusion, etc.
At the time of this writing, we are just about two years post the Covid pandemic. Thinking about the magnitude and variety of worldwide Loss experienced by millions of people is staggering! Add the growing warnings and implications of global, environmental changes resulting in record-breaking weather phenomenons, tidal changes and firestorms wreaking damage previously unheard. The trickledown Fears and Losses from these two occurrences alone are overwhelming without the addition of each individual’s personal life event.
Both of these events have thousands of reasons people felt fear of loss, emotional pain, worry, increased fear and helplessness leading to such a storage of unvented anger. In fact, I have a theory: people found reasons not to be vaccinated against Covid. Why? Because this gave them a feeling of some control over their lives during a time when people around the world were feeling hugely hopeless and helpless. Whatever the reason for their choice, it made sense to them. This wasn’t wise for the protection of all, but, the awareness of the words, “I feel helpless and I want some control over my life” is subconscious. People acted out on the subconscious level, and were unaware of it.
Knowledge Note: 97% of our brain is made up of the subconscious mind, 3% by the conscious mind. This is great material when it comes to learning and understanding what we’re so angry about.
A New Formula to Disable Anger
So, when you do something as innocuous as forgetting to use your car’s turn signal causing another inconvenienced driver to give you the proverbial finger along with shouted obscenities, you can either react in kind or de-escalate with a smile and a wave. It is the thoughtful thing to do with a person who is hurting.
Love is: kindness, patience, listening, gratitude, nurturing, thoughtfulness, amusement, joy, creativity, hope, appreciation, trust, respect, delight, play, peace.
New Formula: Love > thoughtful > gratitude > patient > kind > hope > peace > more Love
Helping to disable Fear and Anger is our job now. We can help to heal rather than increase the anguish in our world. It isn’t difficult, it costs nothing, it makes you feel good. The energy of Love is the Healer we all need to feel and bestow upon others.
Just this little piece of knowledge, should take you quite a distance when it comes to understanding what we’re so angry about.
In Closing
While listening to this uplifting audio and watching this peaceful video, you could find yourself dwelling on more of those love-related emotions.
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