I Second The Emotion: Dealing with Anger & Fear

Recognize the title of this post? It’s a line from a song by Motown great, Smokey Robinson - - it seemed to fit the topic of this post. Thanks, Smokey!

So what are emotions? They are tools of the mind and they are neither positive or negative. They just are. It’s how we acknowledge, manage and express them that make them helpful or unhelpful. I learned this the hard way over years of being told I was too emotional. This typically came from men (bosses and husbands) and more often than not, when I was expressing clearly and directly how I was feeling and what I needed or wanted.

Emotions can be short-lived, such as a flash of anger at someone who ignores you, or long-lasting, such as grief over the loss of a loved one. Dealing with strong emotions, short-lived or long-term can be challenging. Victoria Moran in her book Age Like a Yogi, wrote, “Sometimes things look bad and feel worse. We need to recognize the situation before we can transform it, accept it or employ some hybrid of the two.” True that!!

I think the best way we can do this is to experience an emotion while we’re having it, figure out how our body reacts to it, and consciously choose how we’ll behave (or not) in response to the emotion and the situation we’re facing. Later on, depending on our experience, we may need to unearth the true source of the emotion and gain clarity on why we felt what we felt in the way we felt it. That’s another way of saying we need to face, trace, embrace and sometimes replace an unhelpful reaction to any emotion that keeps us from being self-aware, healed and whole. 

The ability to understand our emotions is important especially during unsettling times. Globally, our world is dealing with gradual warming, terrorism, the refugee crisis, divisive politics and wars. Personally, each and every one of us has our own life issues to deal with. They can range from relationships, family dysfunction, health problems, financial issues and a wide variety of the other ups and downs of living on the planet. As a result, many of us experience strong emotions. Two of the strongest, in my opinion, are anger and fear. Gaining even a small measure of emotional stability depends on understanding the relationship between these two emotions. 

​Anger can be described as a reaction to situations in which we see red, get seething mad, become fit to be tied, or hot under the collar. Anger can leave us feeling irritated, annoyed, frustrated, hateful or full of rage. In terms of the fight/flight response to stress, anger is the fight response – pushing us to fight our way out of whatever is happening. 

Fear is an uncomfortable feeling that can make us shake like a leaf, give us butterflies or knots in the tummy, or leave us shaking in our boots. Fear results from something we recognize, or perceive as an immediate danger or threat. Fear can leave us feeling confused, insecure, anxious, frightened, panicked, or terrified. In terms of the fight/flight response to stress, fear is the flight response – pushing us to get as far away from the situation as possible.

Anger and fear can, and often do, exist in us at the same time as a result of the same experience. Often it’s anger that masks fear, but sometimes the fear is felt first and masks the anger. 

When we understand how these two emotions work together, we can unmask the anger and the fear to face the cause and find better responses to whatever set us off in the first place. 

For example, when my car suddenly broke down on the highway, my reaction was clear and direct. First came anger in the form of frustration, irritation and annoyance as in, “Oh, (fill in your favorite swear word). Why now! I don’t need this! Stupid (fill in your next favorite one or two swear words) car.”

Close on the heels of this reaction, came insecurity, anxiety and fear as in, “No one’s here to help me. I’m alone. How am I going to get out of this? It’s probably going to cost a lot of money (fill in your favorite string of swear words).” 

When I calmed myself down, I walked off the next exit, found a gas station, had my car towed and a broken fan belt replaced. This was an unpredictable, short-term event in which I experienced anger first and then the fear that came right along with it. 

The same anger/fear or fear/anger play of emotions (depending on which rises first for you) can surface from a challenge to a predictable long-term situation. For example, I’ve inherited a strong core belief from the women in my family that independence and personal financial responsibility are important. And if you are going to be in relationship with others, adhering to agreed upon commitments, especially around money, is non-negotiable. So, of course, I’ve been tested on that many times and in many ways. 

One of the most memorable was during my second marriage. We’d agreed on how our finances would be handled but my husband consistently broke our rules. This led to discussions, which led to arguments, which led to a final angry outburst in which I suddenly connected my anger to a deep-seated fear of financial ruin, that would leave me broke, helpless and dependent. 

Realistically, there was no way that would happen unless the whole country went into a 1930’s-like depression. After all, I had my own bank account, sound financial investments and a rainy day fund. 

It took a while to get to the bottom of why I reacted that way, but once I ‘got’ it, I recognized my reaction as a clear F.E.A.R. In the book Creating on Purpose, Anodea Judith, describes F.E.A.R. as a perceived fear, a False Event Appearing Real. That’s what my reaction was - - a perceived fear based on a long-term core belief that I had to adhere to any agreement I made and that changes were non-negotiable. That F.E.A.R. was  - - no surprise - - connected by an umbilical cord to my anger. Once I ‘got’ that, I was able to face it, trace it, embrace it and replace it with clear boundaries and healthier responses when our agreed upon rules were ignored and it became clear that an honest re-negotiation was not in the cards.

Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s because I’m now happily single, or maybe it’s my self-care practices, but these days, my anger/fear stews are fewer, slower to reach the boiling point when they do occur and easier to reduce to a simmer when I find myself in the middle of them. My advice (not that you asked) is to remember this helpful guideline as you work to understand, manage and deal with your emotions:
​
“Never let your emotions rule, but always let them testify.”  ~Robert Brault

---

---