Anger is an action emotion in your life story

Use anger to relive and recreate uncomfortable truths in your life story. Anger is your super tool as a writer, as it kickstarts action and behaviour and masks many other emotions.

DEFINITION OF ANGER

The traditional definition of anger is a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism.

You could hear the anger in his voice.

She found it hard to control her anger.

His mind had teemed with a hundred hurts and angers.

ANGER IS AN ACTION EMOTION WHICH DRIVES CHARACTERS

When we feel anger, we believe that someone or something else is to blame for an unfair or unjust situation, and that something can be done to resolve the problem.

Anger is an action emotion – we want to do something when we feel it and when we’re on the receiving end of it. Angry feelings can vary in intensity, from mild irritation to annoyance, to fury and rage.

In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown discusses the physiological and emotional toll anger takes. 

“Anger is a full-contact emotion. Because it activates our nervous system and can hijack our thoughts and behaviours, it can take a real toll on our physical and mental health. Researchers explain that regulating and coping with anger, rather than holding on to or expressing chronic anger, is crucial for the health of our brain (it reduces psychiatric problems) and other organs in the body.” Our propensity for anger and aggression is partially hereditary – again think how anger impacted your life story.

ANGER, CONTEMPT, DISGUST, DEHUMANIZATION, HATE, SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

Brown believes that anger is a secondary emotion that often conceals emotions that are harder to recognise. This is very valuable when you write. Narratives of anger unfolds into stories of betrayal, fear, grief, injustice, shame, vulnerability, and other emotions.

WHAT LIES BEHIND ANGER?

Brown lists the following emotions which may hide behind anger: “Loneliness and rejection / fear and anxiety / frustration / confusion / isolation, sadness, hurt and grief / guilt and shame / jealousy / outrage at injustice / helplessness / overwhelming stress / humiliation / embarrassment / and depression.”

As writers these tools are invaluable in developing your characters and their actions. Think and feel deeply into yourself, simulate the physiological sensations that arise and use them when you write.

ANGER IN ACTION – THE STORY OF NATHANIEL JULIES

Sometimes owning our pain and bearing witness to struggle means getting angry.  

Anger is a powerful catalyst but a life-sucking companion. A catalyst sparks change; it is not the change.

Change was sparked when 16-year-old Nathaniel Julies, with Down syndrome, was brutally shot in Eldorado Park in 2020. The story of an individual sparked a collective anger.

In her review of the book Coloured: How Classification became Culture by Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel, Leonie Wagner writes that colouredness comes with anger.

The death of Nathaniel Julies in Eldorado Park, shot by a police officer, “became the centre of a story with roots in a term laden with historical weight: ’coloured’”. It sparked the hashtag “ColouredLivesMatter” and became a call for justice, “not just for Julies, but for every ‘not black enough, not white enough’ soul that had ever felt the sting of being overlooked and marginalised.”

This is a brilliant example of collective anger, made palpable by recording the story of an individual person, in this case Nathaniel Julies.

ANGER IS AN ACTION EMOTION IN YOUR LIFE STORY

Anger is a catalyst. Holding on to it will make us exhausted and sick. Internalizing anger will take away our joy and spirit; externalising anger will make us less effective in our attempts to create change and forge connection, says Brown.

Use anger to relive and recreate uncomfortable truths in your life story. Express your story in writing and transform anger into something useful: courage, love, change, compassion, justice.

Remember that, as an author coach, I am here to assist and guide you with this process!