Anger Checklist
A basic checklist to go through to deal with anger.
Sometimes, people around me get angry and do not deal with it. If I am close enough to the person in question, I will share some advice, repeating the same checklist.
Hopefully, that advice can help some of my readers (or people close to them) deal with anger.
1. Recognising we are angry
From the inside, it is not easy to recognise when we are angry.
The reason is that anger is a world-shifting emotion, not a self-shifting one.
For instance, happiness is self-shifting. When we are happy, we feel ourselves changing; we feel much better and can easily tell.
But anger is the opposite. When we are angry, it is not that we see ourselves changing; it is the world that changes. The word becomes much more annoying. It does not feel like we became angry; it feels like someone (or something) is trying to fuck with us and that we should respond in kind.
Many emotions are like this. They are not something we feel about us but a complete shift in how we understand the world.
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Anger is even worse than that. It is self-righteous and self-justifying.
Furthermore, if anger is someone trying to fuck with us, then it is about them. But if we start describing it as an emotion, then it is actually about us. Realising this makes it less about them, and diminishes the anger.
As a result, anger truly resists being described as an emotion caused by the person experiencing it.
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There are two ways to deal with the issue of anger resisting being recognised.
The first is to reflect and meditate on the nature of anger, similar to what I briefly mentioned above. This takes some time, but after a while, it becomes very obvious when we are angry.
Unfortunately, we have limited time on Earth. Not everyone has the time to examine every emotion and become a Zen Master.
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The second way to deal with bypasses introspection and focuses on objective signs instead.
Here are some objective signs of anger:
We raise our voice
We interrupt people when they speak
We insult or are passive-aggressive
We shake, fume and feel a compulsion to not stay still
Our heart accelerates and beats more strongly
Our muscles become more tense
I think armed with this and practice, anyone can start recognising when they are angry.
2. Getting out of the room
When angry, it is very easy to do things we regret later. The first thing I thus recommend is to get out of the room and prevent that. Just excuse yourself and get out of the room.
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Leaving a room requires an excuse. If the room is nice and in good faith, the excuse can be an honest "Sorry, I'm getting angry, and I need to calm down a little.".
Unfortunately, very often, it isn't. In that case, I tend to go for a grosser "Sorry, I'll be right back, but I need to take an urgent shit.".
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After that, I recommend doing whatever helps one calm oneself: breathing exercises, a Duolingo lesson, or watching vocoded cat videos on TikTok. To each their own.
Sometimes, that is enough! We catch the anger early enough, calm down, and can go back to it right after. The next steps are for situations where it isn't enough.
3. Checking if we did anything bad and apologising if we did
It is very easy to do things we regret later when angry. So the second thing I recommend is to check if we have already done one of those. This tends to happen when we realise we are angry too late.
Checking if we did a bad thing is hard on our feelings. Few people like doing bad stuff in a moment of weakness.
Furthermore, there were reasons why we got angry in the first place. We might have been tired or had a terrible day. Someone might have been an angry asshole at us. Once we calm down, those reasons do not disappear. And it hurts even more to think about what we did wrong when we are tired, had a shit day, or someone was an asshole.
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Still, it is important. People will ruminate on the bad things we said and did for a long time. This rumination, possibly triggered by a single action or a single word, can durably change their opinions of us. Noticing this early and apologising cuts this whole thing short and cheaply saves everyone a world of pain.
Furthermore, anger is contagious. Angry situations often involve more than us being angry. In that case, apologising early enough not only lets us save face, it gives the other party an easy way to apologise. Many times (not always lol), after someone followed my advice and apologised, the other party apologised too.
4. Investigating the cause
Once we are calmed down and have apologised, it is good to investigate the cause of our anger.
The cause can be internal, such as being tired, triggered, or having had a bad day. In that case, even though it feels bad or boring, I still recommend investigating it. There is much to learn: How did being tired make us more angry exactly? Do we always experience the same type of anger? Can we notice when we're so stressed that we'll easily get angry?
The cause can be mundane, like a dumb misunderstanding. But if a misunderstanding is strong enough to make us angry, it might be good to quickly figure it out and clear it up.
Finally, the cause can be deeper. For instance, being on the receiving end of a felt injustice, being blocked on something that matters to us, or having a personal boundary violated. Investigating what's up is far more important in those situations, as anger here might be a sign of a more serious problem.
5. Addressing the cause
Emotions are information we get from our minds. They form much more complex information than sensory perception.
Sometimes, our emotions misfire, and there's nothing behind them. We regularly feel emotions for no reason whatsoever—not even tiredness—just random noise.
But usually, they tell us something. And that thing is often worth addressing.
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Once we have investigated the cause of our anger, we can often address it.
When the cause is internal, like having such a shit day that we get angry at everyone, addressing the cause might mean taking time alone to process it rather than interact with people. Or when we’re so tired that we can't deal with minor issues without being annoyed at others. Addressing the cause might mean observing a stricter sleep schedule and not partying or working late whenever.
Or, as examples of external causes, we might consistently get angry at the same person or in the same professional setting. Then addressing the cause might involve avoiding the trigger or working through it.
Conclusion
I orally give this advice often enough that I think it is worth writing in a more complete form.
No conclusion beyond that.
Cheers, and have a nice day :)