Buried beneath unmerited anger is unchecked anxiety

Whenever we get close to our anger, and we all get angry, we can notice something rise up within us, and it is well beneath frustration.  It’s unchecked anxiety; a form of it.  In so many ways anxiety resides at levels significantly below our conscious awareness most of the time.

Whenever we deal with someone who has an anger problem — especially the one who gets angry and stays angry, someone we can’t talk down, who cannot seem to regulate their emotions — we may recognise that they’re not in touch with the relational effects of their anxiety to the point of its creating or exacerbating conflict.

Additionally, we can see that they’re not in touch with seeing how their anxiety may be damaging, and they possibly even justify their behaviour, which is then characterised as abusive.

We all face anxiety, just as we all experience anger, and yet none of the anxiety or anger we experience needs to blur into abuse — the damaging of other human beings or the self.

Anxiety, if we are able to connect consciously with it, can be harnessed through the fruit of patience, which is first awareness and then the discipline of telling ourselves, ‘no’.  It’s possible, when we know how, to be mindfully aware that when we are anxious, to then calm ourselves before we begin to hurt others or ourselves.  We can train ourselves (or be trained) to do this; that’s discipleship.

Gaining a relational grasp of the impact of our anxiety on others is a useful thing to do.  I would say by experience that this is the domain of everyone, but men ordinarily have probably more of a problem, given the workings of our minds as men — the way we characteristically think.

I know I’m like many men; a linear thinker.  I can manage one thing at a time in most arenas in life.  There are some things I can multitask in — where I’m extremely capable, comfortable, confident — but most of the time I just get frustrated if there’s too much noise in my head.  Women, I’ve found by experience, are better at regulating their emotions in this area as a general rule.

That moment when I flip into cognitive overload tips me into chaos which becomes anxiety — I cannot control the amount of what’s coming in; I’m overwhelmed.  And if I’m not careful, especially where a hot button is pressed, like a sensitivity, I can easily respond the wrong way.  Now it’s up to me then to contain that moment, or I could potentially begin to abuse others.

People who don’t contain those moments engage in regrettable actions.  The only way to put that right is to apologise, which requires humility, and we can’t do that unless we have capped our anxiety in that moment.

Being aware of our anxiety and owning it as far as our relationships are concerned, we are much better placed to be accountable for our behaviour in terms of our anger.  Prompt and sincere apologies are possible.  And most important of all, we don’t continue to rant, realising that people who rant out of control are scary and inevitably abusive if they can’t control themselves.

Nobody feels safe around a person who can’t control their anger.

The irony with these people is they will blame others in a flash.  Victim blaming is a reprehensible abuse.  It might be okay to get angry, but if we don’t identify the anxiety beneath our anger, we may continue into a rant, and if a person ranting can’t be talked down, there is a crisis of conflict and harm is sure to result.

Photo by Heather M. Edwards on Unsplash