What if anger is your secret weapon?

(and how to use it to improve your life).

EFFORTLESS LIFE LETTER 36

reading time - 5 minutes

Last week, I had an Open Conversation coaching call with a woman I work with regularly.

She told me about how her work environment was upsetting her.

• she isn’t comfortable being around certain of her work colleagues.

• she sacrifices her personal needs and boundaries to avoid conflict.

• her hard work and contribution rarely seem to be noticed, acknowledged and rewarded.
•  
• she does way too much for the value she gets in return (aka not being paid enough)

When I asked her:

Would you say that “upset” is the right word to describe how you feel?

She stopped for a second and then replied:

No, if I am being blunt and honest, I am angry and actually REALLY pissed off.

Before breaking down in tears.

Acknowledging how she feels and hearing out loud that her work environment affected her self-esteem, self-respect, mental health and relationships way more than she thought was simultaneously a shock and a relief for her.

Instead of looking for a solution to her work environment, we started by addressing the anger she was feeling.

Unfortunately, she is not the only one feeling stuck between wanting to throw everything (and everyone) out the window and having to put a smiling face on so that she can keep paying the bills at the end of the month.

Little did she know that the anger she didn’t want to feel and accept for so long, was the key to the solution she spent all this time looking for.

The big problem with denying anger.

It doesn’t take a genius to observe that anger is one of the most repressed emotions in our society.

This comes from our collective need to maintain a sense of perceived peace and harmony within the environment we live in for the sake of our individual and collective survival.

That’s why at the dinner table with the family, we all avoid addressing the elephant in the room, although we know how much healthier it would be to finally talk about it.

Anger also leads to conflict, and right now, most of us have no idea how to address, express and create space to disagree and honestly confront someone in an understanding, compassionate and polite way.

So what do you do?

You swallow the tears of anger when they come up, quickly go to the bathroom to calm yourself down, convince yourself that you are overreacting and find a way to cope with the situation you are currently facing.

Anger isn’t the only emotion our society is very uncomfortable with. Right now, we still resist feeling, fully expressing and sharing any emotions in general.

Ask yourself, when is the last time you have been fully vulnerable and raw with someone?

Have you ever let go of the need to say things a certain way?

Have you ever allowed your heart to speak freely?

As the words you speak transform into a story, one emotion after the other gently comes up to support and remind you of the honest impact a person, a situation, or an experience had on you.

At the end of your story, you always feel lighter than at the start.

You might not have found an immediate solution to your pain or struggle, but what hurt you has now been revealed, which means that it now deserves to be fully taken care of.

A different perspective on anger.

Anger is part of life and part of the human experience.

It’s not a better or worse emotion than any other emotion.

It’s just an emotion in charge to teach you something.

The feeling of love, for example, teaches you that you are drawn to, attracted to and want to be close to something or someone.

It’s through recognising that emotion within yourself that you realise the positive impact it has on you.

Well the feeling of anger isn’t any different.

It’s coming up to teach you that you are trying to protect yourself from something because your physical, mental or emotional self perceives to be under attack.

This actually teaches us two beautiful things about you:

1. the emotion of anger is trying to act in your best interest and not against you
2.  if something needs to be protected, it means that it has value and matters.

The person the anger is trying to protect is you. Your anger is trying to protect your body, needs, values, dreams and desires because you matter.

Anger is a very powerful emotion that pulls you out of victimhood and powerlessness.

It’s the first emotion you need to allow yourself to feel if you want to improve a situation or relationship.

It’s time to change.

So what should you do next time the emotion of anger comes up?

You create space for it.

• Don’t push it away by swallowing your tears.
• Don’t “work it out” through an intense training session.
• Don’t eat it, smoke it, drink it or scroll it away with distractions.

Just get angry and fully go for it.

In the case of our coaching call, what this person needed was to vocalise everything she wanted to tell her boss and work colleagues upfront and without any filter.

I also invited her to let her body speak without needing to feel any kind of judgement or shame towards the way she was expressing herself physically, verbally and emotionally.

I witnessed a woman slamming her fist on the table, fiercely looking into my eyes as she freely insulted one person she was working with after the other.

She actually ended up laughing (and I laughed with her) as she realised how relieving it is to allow herself to go through all these stages of anger and how much more powerful and in control she now feels regarding the work situation she is facing.

Getting angry without having to hold back on what her body and heart wanted to say made her realise how important she was to herself.

How willing she was to protect and speak up for someone who deserves to be treated better, respected and valued.

This carved the path out for the boundaries she is ABSOLUTELY NOT willing to sacrifice anymore and the conditions she isn't willing to accept.

We identified the people, actions and situations she commonly would feel powerless towards and practiced some “ready to go” phrases she could use next time a situation like this presents itself (because it will).

As she goes through the experience of politely pushing back and asserting her boundaries in her work environment, she will gradually gain the confidence to start choosing herself more often and unapologetically teach people how she expects to be treated and respected.

So next time you can feel the emotion of anger coming up, I hope you can allow it to transform you in the same powerful way it has changed this courageous woman I work with.

I will see you in next week’s letter,

Until then, take care.

Oli.

P.S. When you are ready to explore and embrace your emotions in the way my client did, you can book an Open Conversation call with me, enrol in the CHOOSING ME Self-love course or sign up for my free Emotional Minimalism course where you will learn to start healing your relationship with yourself.