Mind Matters with Kyle MacDonald: Is anger a bad emotion?

ADVICE

Q. I saw a "meme" online that said, "Each time you resist acting on your anger, you're actually rewiring your brain to be calmer and more compassionate." Is that true?

A. At the risk of making some people angry, yes. And no. Anger is one of the trickiest emotions to deal with, in part because it gets such a bad rap. Most people confuse the emotion of anger with its worst behaviours, namely aggression and violence.

It would also be great if the solution was as simple as this meme suggests.

On the other side of the coin is the idea of catharsis - or "letting it out". While that also has some problems with it - again because of its simplicity - it is also not without its place.

So when to do which? Be more calm, or let it out?

Well, the first step is to identify what the problem actually is. Are you a person who struggles to feel anger in the first place? Is it an unfamiliar emotion to you? Or are you someone who struggles to express anger, feeling it but keeping it locked inside like a burning pool of molten resentment?

Or are you someone who frequently loses control and expresses their anger through words or violence in ways that causes problems for you, and those around you?

If it's the last one, then without doubt, practising not acting on your anger is the aim.

However, if its either of other two problems, then the opposite may be true. I don't think anger is bad, or toxic. It's a part of our emotional arsenal and is necessary for overcoming obstacles, protecting ourselves and fighting for what we believe in.

Calm and compassionate is not as simple as an absence of anger. In fact, using anger to stand up for ourselves in the face of aggression or injustice may be deeply compassionate.

Then there's the paradox of martial arts - and the fact that in my experience people who train in, and embrace the spirit of, martial arts are less likely to be violent. Why? Well there's likely many answers. As someone who has never donned a gi, I may be ruffling feathers.

But what I do know is that practising behaviour in a disciplined manner doesn't always reinforce it or cause it to be more likely.

Sometimes it also brings it under more deliberate and conscious control. To put it another way, deliberately practising the actions of fighting can lead to less-impulsive fighting behaviour.

So, in short as with most of these things, when you ask a therapist a simple question, you get, "Well, it depends." It actually does. But there is one problem with anger that is clear-cut.

Don't live there. When we think of people who really do have a problem with being angry, it's generally because they feel too much of it and, like any feeling, actually, that is a problem. Anger becomes toxic when it festers.

So if you do find yourself getting stuck, then by all means do something - hit a punch bag, go for a run or sit calmly and practise mindfulness. Do whatever works, really. But notice the problem isn't the anger, in the same way it isn't the fear, the sadness or any of the other emotions that can at times feel problematic.

The problem is the way we can all get in the way of the natural process of our feelings coming and going.