Anger is a popular, "hot" topic, and it is an important one. Anger is perhaps one of the hardest emotions to feel and to work through. (Sadness is the other hard one, and people tend to have a tougher time with one or the other of these feelings. That is, some people can express anger but have a tough time crying; others cry at the drop of a hat, but can’t feel their anger!) But more people often have a really hard time feeling and dealing with their anger, and there are reasons for this.

As children, we were rewarded with love for the behaviors and feelings that our parents wanted to reinforce. So we were loved for being cute, or smart, or funny, or helpful. But very few children indeed were ever told, when they were angry, "You are so assertive and I really appreciate the power of your anger!" Instead, we were messaged that our anger was wrong, inappropriate, and something we would be punished for. We learned not to show our anger as a first step. The second step was that some of us learned not to even GET angry!

If we have a national trait, it may well be hiding our own anger from ourselves. Here is a checklist to help you determine if you are hiding your own anger; any of these is usually a sign of hidden and unexpressed anger:

• Habitual lateness;
• Procrastination in the completion of imposed tasks;
• A liking for sadistic or ironic humor;
• Sarcasm, cynicism or flippancy in conversation;
• Excessive irritability over trifles;
• Over-politeness, constant cheerfulness; an attitude of "grin and bear it;"
• Over-controlled, monotone speaking;
• Frequent sighing (this indicated something is being held down!);
• Smiling when hurt;
• Boredom, apathy, loss of interest in things (yes, boredom = anger!!!);
• Getting tired more easily than usual;
• Getting drowsy at inappropriate times;
• Frequent disturbing or frightening dreams;
• Difficulty falling asleep or sleeping through the night;
• Waking up tired;
• Clenched jaws or grinding teeth, especially when sleeping;
• Facial tics, foot tapping, habitual fist clenching and other unconscious, repetitive physical acts;
• Chronically stiff or sore neck and shoulders;
• Chronic depression (yes, depression=anger!!);
• Stomach ulcers.

This is not about rage. Rage is anger that is out of control and takes over your whole being. This is about the feelings we call "irritation," "annoyance," "getting mad," etc. And these things all have one thing in common: they are considered undesirable at best, sinful or destructive at worst. We are taught to avoid them, to avoid having them, if possible (it isn’t), but certainly to avoid expressing them! Unfortunately, many people go overboard in controlling negative feelings, and they control not only the expression of them, but the awareness of them as well.

But just because you are unaware of being angry does not mean that you are not angry. It is the anger you are unaware of that can do the most damage to you and to your relationships with other people. This is because when it DOES get expressed, it will be expressed in inappropriate ways. Freud once likened anger to the smoke in an old-fashioned wood burning stove. The normal path for the smoke is up the chimney, but if that is blocked, the smoke will leak out of the stove in all sorts of messy ways: around the door, through the grates, etc., choking everyone in the room. Likewise, the normal expression of anger is gross physical movement and/or loud vocal sounds...just watch a red-faced 5-year old sometime! But by age 5 or so, we are taught that such expressions are unacceptable to others and lead to undesirable consequences, such as being whipped or having affection withheld.

We learn to "be nice," which means hiding bad feelings. By adulthood, even verbal expression is curtailed since a civilized person is expected to be "civil." Expression is stifled and to protect ourselves from the unbearable burden of continually carrying unexpressed bad feelings, we go the next step. This is when we convince ourselves that we are not even angry, when we in fact are! Such self-deception is seldom completely successful, however, and the blocked anger "leaks out" in inappropriate ways, some of which have been listed above.

The items in that list are all danger signals that negative feelings have been bottled up inside. It is true that each of them can have other cause than anger (procrastination can be due to, for example, fear of failure), but the presence of any of them is reason enough for you to look within yourself for buried resentments. Since you are human, you will find some. If you are fortunate, you will find few since you will already have learned effective ways of discharging them. If you are like most people, you will need to unlearn some old habits before you can learn new ways of handling "bad" feelings – ways that are constructive rather than destructive.

Getting rid of a lifetime of buried resentments is a major task of psychotherapy. Whether such a process is useful for you should be decided upon in consultation with a professional person. Your immediate concern is to learn some techniques that will help you stop adding to the pile, whatever its depth is right now!

Dealing with your feelings happens all the time, but we can look at the process as if it had three parts: awareness, acceptance and action.

• AWARENESS

Everyone has his or her own particular body signal indicating on-the-spot anger. Look for yours. Perhaps a friend or relative can help you here since they may be aware of your irritation before you are, and may be able to tell you how they know you are upset. Some common signals are: clamming up, blushing, shortness of breath, finger drumming, foot tapping, shaking or twisting, laughing inappropriately, patting the back of your head, clenched jaw or fist, yawning or getting drowsy, breaking eye contact, fidgeting, apologizing unnecessarily, neck, gut or back pain, headaches, elevation in voice pitch. The list goes on and on...find out which are yours!

If you find yourself depressed or blue and don’t know why, think back over the past 24 hours and figured out what angered you. Depression is often the result of suppressed anger. Forget that you are a nice person. Imagine that you are the touchiest, most unreasonable, childish person on earth. When you find the incident, ask yourself why you did not get angry. Chances are you did, and did not know it. Remember what you said and did in that situation. Relive it, and you may see some of your own internal anger signals as well as your own method of discounting your anger.

• ACCEPTANCE

This anger is YOURS. The other person may have said or done something that pushed your anger button, but the anger is yours and so are the other feelings it triggers. You cannot hold someone else responsible for your feelings. Blaming does not help. Nothing the other person does will help unless it is response to something you do.

It is easier to accept your anger if you realize that you do not have to justify any of your feelings. All your feelings are legitimate; you probably cannot justify them and they do not need to be justified! "Should" and "feel" are two words that do not belong together! It is simply not correct to say "I shouldn’t feel this way." Feelings are something that are just there; they are messengers to you from your body about a reaction that you are having on a body level. In fact, it is harmful and even dangerous to worry about what your feelings "should" be! This concern would just get in the way of finding out what your feelings actually are! Knowing what your feelings are is the best preparation for deciding how to handle them.

• ACTION

First of all, stop hiding your anger. Chances are you are not so successful anyway. Anger needs expression. If you have recognized it and accepted it, then you can develop a choice of when, where and how to express it. Society and your own safety prohibit violence. Friendships and other interpersonal relationships make explosive verbal expression self-defeating. What can you do? Simply say, "That makes me angry," or "I do not like it when..." This may not be as satisfying as bashing someone, but it is far more satisfying than doing nothing! In reality, there are few situations when it is in your best interest to delay expression of your anger, and there are no situations when you can afford to delay your awareness or acceptance of your anger.

When you express your anger directly and appropriately, you create the possibility of change, of having your needs met, of getting restitution. Unexpressed anger leaves behind a wake of resentments and bad feelings for everybody concerned, and it keeps you in the victim position as well!

It is very scarey to start to express anger. Many of us have moral positions about it, or we fear rejection. But it is important to start. Pick a safe situation to begin giving feedback in your life, and notice the empowerment you feel!