Anger

There are times when anger has a “how could they” quality that can churn inside until it forms something solid and seemingly immovable, like resentment. It is true that forgiveness works. 

Anger has been a particularly challenging emotion for me. This chapter has been the most difficult for me to write.  Over the years, however, I have learned a lot about anger. I have come to understand its impact on me, and on others, and most importantly, I have developed some skills for managing it when it arises. It is clear that anger is a natural emotion, a feeling that reflects our humanity and mirrors the ways in which we have experienced injury, powerlessness, feeling unsafe, feeling unheard and even feeling frustration. Anger, like any emotion can give us data, information and understanding. Everyone experiences anger and it comes down to what we do with it, how conscious we are of its source, and how it may have been experienced by our Child Selves when we were children. Anger can even be productive; it can reveal hidden truths about our life experiences and our values.

To become conscious of our relationship to anger, it can help to notice what anger feels like in the body; when we are angry, we have a rush of adrenalin, our muscles freeze and stiffen. The reaction to anger in the body can be to fight back, to flee, to avoid, or to crumble. There is such power in anger, and the power is in why we avoid it, what exists behind it, how we express it, and even in why we express it. 

One thing behind most anger is hurt. When someone hurts you, sometimes regardless of the intention, anger can follow. As hard as anger is to admit and express, hurt is often even harder. Anger gives us protection, a strong skin around a vulnerable fruit. Somehow, we can come to believe that anger is strength as long as it is not rage (anger in the extreme that turns violence). We can also come to believe that hurt feelings are a weakness. Weakness is about survival; the message is if we are weak, we will not survive, so anger is often the only surface expression available. 

Unfortunately, the young child is often told, directly or indirectly not to show their hurt (especially males) and also not to express their anger (especially females). In this suppressive reality, any honest expression is thwarted and even demonized. Again, there is a discernable physical discomfort in the body that comes when we are repressing either hurt or anger. In becoming conscious, the physical sensations will be a warning bell. 

Perhaps the parenting of the Child Self requires employing a sort of laboratory approach, an inquiry system without any judgment that probes at the real feelings present in the situation and also existing somewhere in the body.

To the Child Self: 

“Little one, I am thinking you are experiencing being hurt and you are angry. There may not have been a way to express this before, you might think you are not supposed to, or it’s not safe, but it is now. Tell me anything, tell me it all, I have your back.”

To the Child you are raising:

“I have an idea that you are angry. If that is true maybe you are hurt, too. It is hard to figure that out sometimes. Where in your body do you feel the anger? What does your body want to do with that feeling? We will find a way to do that, and then the anger will be heard, and maybe, if you are hurt too, that will be heard as well. As long as you don’t hurt anyone it is better to get your feelings out.” 

A divorced father drives his Junior high school kids home twice a week. In the car he says: “One two three, scream!” And they do, a cacophony of feeling, no explanations, no sourcing, just raw feeling. Inevitably everyone starts to laugh. Later, aside, he talks to each of them inviting them to talk more, accepting graciously if they do not want to. 

Anger and the way we express it and deal with it can have an ancestral hook to it. We can inherit how we experience and deal with anger from our families of origin and from our parent’s experiences as well. 

An Ancient Animosity

Holding their fight

was like holding 

a pot that was too big for me. 

It pulled at the muscle

of my forearm.

It was old and crusted,

cast iron,

indestructible.

A coating of oil

along its bottom,

crackled and smoked,

adding a layer

to the black patina.

Tears dropped,

exploded,

racing along the surface, sizzling.

When I grasped at the handle

it branded my flesh.

When it hit the floor

the wood buckled,

breaking along natural seams,

scalding a permanent blister

into the smooth, varnished surface,

forcing my father back,

behind his eyes,

and my mother in retreat

to her bones.

When a child comes home to an angry house, or they are uncertain whether they will find anger, they will think that they caused the anger and that they cannot do anything about it.  This requires the child to hold the ancient animosity, a weight that is too heavy and too dangerous for the young psyche. When you are conscious of the impact of anger on your children, you can tell them the truth. 

It can sound something like this:

“I am angry; it’s not your job to fix it, and you did not do anything wrong. I have other adults to help me work with these feelings and you have helpers, too.”

Alicia bubbled into the kitchen after a particularly fun day in 3rd grade. All was right with the world. Her mom had her head under the sink where something had spilled and needed some mopping up. Alicia chattered on and on about the silly game they played in math, the girls who included her in four square and the bus ride home when the bus driver began to sing. Her mother told her repeatedly to go get her snack and start her homework. At some point her mother’s frustration boiled into anger and she swung her hand and body out from under the sink flicking the wet rag and hitting Alicia on the face. Her busted lip bled and hurt. That morning Alicia’s mother had had an unresolved argument with her husband and a huge betrayal with a friend; her frustration and hurt was bottled up inside her and unconsciously exploded at her child.  After tending to her child and comforting Alicia, her mother could have helped her, and her own Child Self, to understand what happened and how she would deal with it in the future. 

To her Child and To the Child Self: 

“I want to say “stop” to myself in the future before I let my anger explode. I want to ask myself: where is this big feeling going? I will see that I need some help. No way would I ever want to hurt you or anyone else with my anger. I am here to make sure that does not happen again. If there is a place inside me that is angry, hurt, frustrated, I won’t let it hurt anyone, and I will pay attention to it inside myself. I am going to get some help with this and you are not responsible for taking care of it”.

Perhaps I am personally challenged by anger because I am a woman, and in general society does not approve of angry women. Perhaps because I am regretful of how my anger came out in front of my own children when they were young and I did not have the consciousness to say the right thing. Anger is connected to guilt in my family and in my husband’s family of origin, and each of us react differently. In my own nuclear family we resorted, at times, to blaming, denying, projecting, getting silent, creating distance, and holding resentments. Yet, overall, with our own children we did a decent job of being conscious of our anger and tried hard not to turn to personal attacks. I know this because our kids are grown and healthy and have good relationships with the people in their lives. But I could have been more consciousness of my impact on them and I wish I had always had the ability to provide a healthy explanation and an apology.  

When I got angry at my children, I felt guilty about it. I did not want to react to them as my parents did to me. I wish I could have been honest about my anger and told them, “I had a hard day today so when I got angry at you for …. I overreacted. I’m sorry.” And, if appropriate, I would have added, “You still need to clean your toys up”. 

There are times when anger has a “how could they” quality that can churn inside us until it solidifies into something like resentment. Resentment breeds self-righteousness grounded in our disappointment for not getting our needs met. But acting out of self-righteousness when we are hurt or angry causes others to experience blame and feel shame and guilt. When we think that our children ought to show us more respect, offer to clean the kitchen, or call us, it is likely connected to times when we’ve been hurt and disappointed by others. 

In a classroom, a child of five hauls off and punches a classmate. After the injured child is comforted and checked for any damage, the teacher turns to the assailant. 

This is what I teach needs to be said:

“You are angry, that’s what I think, is that right? (A child of five understands what anger is.) Regardless of how the child responds, what they need to hear in that moment is: “I know anger, I have felt it myself, it is a very big feeling; it is ok to be angry about something, and we never hit another person. That’s the rule, no hitting.” Mirror, empathize, and set or restate the boundary. 

The anger of children can be complex; they may have home situations that have injured them, resulting in anger and rage they takeout on others. This is especially true if the Child has no protector, no helper, no container that assures them that they are enough, worthy, and supposed to be here. It is also how anger gets carried into our adult lives. Helping the Child through anger has to be highly individualized. 

The other major source of anger is righteous indignation. The unfair, unkind, unjust realities that infuriate us and fuel our need for action. There is use for righteous anger; it can provide the energy needed to create change. As with anger in general, we have to sort it out, look for its true roots, be sure it is not masking some other kind of hurt or resentment. In the chapter I wrote on Activism to Heal the World, I have attempted to address what to do for the Child and the Child Self with regards to righteous anger. 

What I have come to know about anger now is that all the parties involved, the Adult Self, the Child self and even the Child can easily get caught up in the story behind the anger, the narrative. Though the why of anger can guide us into consciousness that serves us, it is not the feeling in the moment. And we have to give that feeling, however unpleasant, its due. 

©D'vorah Horn 2025. We invite you to share this work, but please do not copy any portion without attribution to D'vorah Horn.