Harnessing the usefulness of healthy anger
Creation and destruction potential
Unpopular opinion: Anger can be healthy, helpful and is sometimes even necessary.
A few months ago, I experienced a strong episode of such precise, aligned anger that it felt like an energy orgasm for me. This anger was unlike anything that I’ve ever experienced before in my life — either on the expressing or receiving end. It moved through quickly and cleanly without leaving even a tiny trace of guilt or regret or shame. It did exactly what it needed to do, accurately, without wasting a single ounce of energy. This experience was so novel to me that when I later recounted the encounter to friends, it replayed like a miracle in my mind.
We’ve all been told to play nice, go with the flow, or embrace love and light. Taken too far, this can lead to bypassing, shaming, or suppressing negative emotions.
Anger is natural part of the human experience. Denying anger doesn’t make it disappear. It also doesn’t allow us to harness its raw potential. All it does is force this energy underground. Yet not all expressions of anger are created equal.
There are many toxic displays of anger in the world. This is mostly what we see dramatized in media: verbal aggression, or even acts of physical violence.
Lacking consciousness, anger is a weapon of indiscriminate heat-seeking destruction. As an intense eruption of unmastered energy, without intent, it harms in its desperate need to clean out an overstocked storehouse of hatred and contempt.
When we witness instances of unhealthy anger, they often seem extreme or senseless or wasteful. This anger is tragic in its futility. It looks like we’re trying to convert or convince another, usually unsuccessfully.
But if we categorize and dismiss anger is being “bad” then we are missing a potent element in the manifestation equation.
Anger is instinctual information. It carries a message of visceral, pre-cognitive intelligence. If we tune into anger carefully, it highlights for us what is helpful and harmful in our immediate environment.
As a survival signal, anger lets us know what we like and don’t like; what is okay and what is not okay. It helps draw boundaries to support thriving, while removing threats that detract from our well-being.
Anger informs us about necessary boundaries, and once it’s digested, it can also provide inspiration for our creative direction.
Anger enables us to move towards what we desire, rather than moving away from what we fear. It’s what psychologists would refer to as a “motivator for positive approach.” Key word here: positive. To harness the usefulness of anger, we must use it as wand of creation and not as weapon of destruction.
Some key differences between unhealthy and healthy anger:
Unhealthy anger: destructive quality, fighting against what it wants to end
Healthy anger: constructive quality, fighting for what it desires to initiate
Unhealthy anger: disempowered victim mentality blaming others for the past
Healthy anger: empowered creator mentality, taking ownership of the future
Unhealthy anger: fixated on moral righteousness, sense of superiority
Healthy anger: focused on right action, assumes self-responsibility
Unhealthy anger: orientation of contempt, trying to control others
Healthy anger: orientation of compassion, striving for self-mastery
Unhealthy anger usually feels extremely personal. Part of the trick of turning this into healthy anger, is seeing the triggering person or situation as the representative of something more universal. With felt compassion for the individuals involved in a story of dynamic tension, we can take the activation of a particular situation and channel it into collective benefit.
The basic alchemical transmutation equation of anger might be summed up by the following internal monologue:
This shit is not okay. I see that reality is not the way I want it to be, and that makes me angry. Believing in the essential innocence of those who have angered me, I can contribute to shaping the world in ways that are more aligned with me (my values, hopes, desires).
That moment when we are in the visceral rejection of an undesirable aspect of present day reality then becomes the rocket fuel for positive change.
Anger marks a turning point. It’s easy to get lost here, but to be useful, we have to improve our navigation. When we stop being victimized by past events, and own our power to create the future, that is when anger’s impulse to destroy one “bad egg” becomes the drive to build for the good of all.
We can use the fire of anger to brew a cauldron of beautiful possibilities, rather than to ignite the dynamite of festering resentments.
The potential for expressions of anger to look unattractive or feel uncomfortable is not what makes it unhealthy. It is unhealthy when it is ineffective and destructive. Healthy anger is effective and creative.
To express aligned anger, it requires us to take an honest look at our shadows. We must pass through compassion for those who have harmed or wronged us, and see how we have done (or might do) the same. We must take full responsibility for our experience, instead of casting blame. If there’s any residual victim mentality remaining in our psyche, it leaves us at high risk of lashing out in anger, and thus perpetuating aggression or oppression.
The world needs true leaders to rise now. We need to see more of the deliberate, directed, devotional anger of adult consciousness, in action. No more disappointed children screaming at each other, throwing tantrums.
We need more constructive anger to power-up positive change.
If you feel angry about all the crazy shit that’s going on in the world, great. Humanity is in a serious survival crisis now, so trust that that anger is visceral intelligence trying to get us to move our assets and make things right. For all of our sakes, please harness the activation energy of that anger. Get focused. Get moving.
In my cauldron currently, there are upcoming courses and retreat offerings for purpose-aligned leadership. Subscribe to my newsletter for email updates.
