Anger is scary. Especially if it is extreme anger–better known as rage.

Anger is saying to the jerk who cuts you off in traffic, “You freaking moron!” Rage is chasing him down and running him off the road with your car, or trying to. Or it’s following him into a parking lot then beating him up as he gets out of his car. It happens every day. Rage.

On the anger spectrum, annoyance is the least extreme, anger the mid-range and rage the ultimate extreme. Rage can’t be controlled by our thoughts. Rage usually lasts until a threat is removed or the person under rage is incapacitated in some fashion. In most cases it’s when the threat is removed, or perceived to have been removed. People in a true rage are as unable to control their feelings and actions as someone on drugs because they too, literally are on drugs–hormones and chemicals their body produces in response to a severe threat.

Why? Because rage was designed to protect us. It’s a chemical reaction related to our lizard brain. It’s pure instinct and nature. When a threat to us or our loved ones is perceived, large amounts of epinephrine are released and the body reverts to a more primal instinct, and our strength can double or triple in response to an immediate threat. People can’t think clearly in this state of mind. They’re incapable of it. Nature intended it that way as a survival mechanism. The brain only processes one idea at a time and that idea is “SURVIVE.” It is motivated by emotions rather than intellectual goals, and seeks only to survive–fight or flight. Threaten harm to a child and the mother will flip into a rage and God save you if she can get her hands on you. If you believe your life is on the line, it’s very easy to slip from anger into rage.

Anger, on the other hand, we can control, to a greater extent because anger is caused by our thoughts. Seth Godin wrote about anger and creativity today. He asked:

Is your anger killing your art?

It’s rare to find a consistently creative or insightful person who is also an angry person.*

They can’t occupy the same space, and if your anger moves in, generosity and creativity often move out. It’s difficult to use revenge or animus to fuel great work.

Ironically, when you decide to teach someone a lesson they richly deserve, you often end up strangling the very source you were counting on.

(*Angry is not the same as being a jerk. For some reason, there are plenty of creative jerks-I think because they mistakenly believe that being a jerk is a useful way for some people to wrestle with their lizard brains).

I tend to agree and to disagree with him on this. For the past week or more…more really, I’ve felt a lot of anger. Being particularly fluent in sarcasm, the language of angry people, means I’m not the only one who suffers from my anger. So do those around me. I could not write. I could not communicate effectively. I did little more than sit with my anger. It’s an old anger, a childhood wound oozing its pain.

General, nebulous, “can’t put my finger on it,” anger is almost always related to old wounds. And it’s crippling. Thinking about the sexually molesting pastor of my childhood and the lives he destroyed, including my own, moves me to rage. There’s a laundry list of childhood abuses that I’ve chipped away at for years. The anger not only moves me to rage, it paralyzes my creativity. Many of my clients experience the same pain, the same inability to be creative as Seth describes. When I work with them, their anger and pain is both my anger and pain in the sense we share a history of abuse; but it is not my anger or pain in the sense that I feel it to the degree that it keeps me from helping them write about it.

I experience the same blocks they do when I write about the pain and the past, because it is my pain. That is the part I agree with Seth on. I disagree with the part where he says “It’s rare to find a consistently creative or insightful person who is also an angry person.” I think it’s more accurate to say, “It’s rare to find a consistently creative or insightful person who manages their anger well enough to utilize it in their work.”

Science has shown in SOME people anger enhances their creativity. I’ve found it to both enhance and derail mine. What I’ve learned for myself about making anger work for you rather than against you:

Feel it. Don’t try to stuff it or self-medicate it away. It’s an emotion. Let it wash through you and expend itself. Go for a walk, sit with it. Lie down and do a body scan to see where it is in your body. Acknowledge it, get to know it, try to be aware, to feel and to experience it without necessarily acting on it.

Don’t act directly on it. You can write the letter, but don’t send it. Journal it, but don’t share it with anyone but a therapist or truly safe and trusted friend. You can scream and curse at the top of your lungs in your room or car where no one else can hear you, but don’t direct it toward anyone (including pets).

Process it. Processing anger means finding a way to release or burn up the various hormones and chemicals your body releases when you’re angry. Paint. Run. Work out. Do a bunch of sit-ups. Hit a punching bag. Beat your bed with a plastic baseball bat. I have a friend with very clean rugs because when she is angry she hangs her rugs over a clothesline and beats them with an old fashioned rug beater…a lot. Helps her immensely.

Communicate it. This is controversial, but I think letting people know you’re angry about something and need your space, or need their help or understanding, can be helpful. You don’t have to scream or rant and rave. A simple, “I’ feeling really angry right now and this isn’t a good time for me to talk, go to lunch, hang out, whatever. I’d be happy to revisit your request when I’m not feeling so strongly about this other thing.” You don’t even have to share that you’re angry, or if you do, you don’t have to share what you’re angry about, or why. Just setting a boundary about your feelings and what you need at the time is all you need.

Many people are afraid of their own anger so any mention of the word anger will frighten them and they’ll avoid you or be frightened of you. Their emotions are their responsibility, not yours (or mine), so they’re entitled to flee. But you don’t have to feel guilty or shamed or responsible for that. I sure don’t!! Don’t yell at people, but do communicate in some way. I tend to lapse into sarcasm and aggression to push people away who keep annoying me when I’ve asked them to STOP, or go away. People who continue to violate your boundaries to get their own needs met are unsafe people who you would be wise to reconsider engaging with.

Give your anger a limit, a deadline. I allowed myself a week to stew and steam and piss and moan. It’s usually just a day or a few hours, but I was majorly angry with myself and needed more time to process things. Now it’s at a manageable level and I’m writing. If you annoy me now I’ll just ignore you. It’s a boundary thing and a tactic highly approved of by my therapist and other boundary experts. If someone keeps wanting things from you, tell them no, keep telling them no, and then if they can’t respect that, ignore them. No means no. Inappropriate is inappropriate. And, boundaries are boundaries.

Now. Back to work!