Hamish and Kyle discuss anger, and what you can do to feel better.
Video / NZ Herald
In this web series, psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald and Nutters Club co-host Hamish Coleman-Ross look at mental health and how to navigate some of the more challenging parts of modern life. Today they ask: Is it okay to be angry?
I'm angry. What about? Well it depends, but usually it's in response to the action of someone else.
However, sometimes when I feel this emotion I wonder if everything's okay with me.
Increasingly I've noticed that being "angry" seems to get a bad wrap and is viewed as something that should be avoided, a warning sign that not all is well with you. So when it comes to a well-balanced mental state, is there any room to accommodate anger?
Anger is as much a natural emotion as happiness, sadness or fear, yet even the way we refer to understanding it gives it a negative connotation. We talk about "anger management", as a problem that needs to be managed, but the detail is both more encouraging as well as practical.
"Anger is a very healthy and necessary emotion", says psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald.
"It helps us overcome challenges in our life as well as being a natural form of protecting ourselves."
Psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald and Nutters Club co-host Hamish Coleman-Ross. Photo / NZME
Kyle's professional appraisal makes anger almost sound like a super power, a source of strength and focus. But like all things that carry any source of power, there's things to be careful of.
It's when we get stuck in our anger that it becomes hard for us to move out of it, the most visible sign of this is our behaviour. The behaviour following the feeling of anger is the best way to see if you or someone you know has learnt how to self-regulate the emotion.
One time, and I might add I'm not very proud of this at all, I kicked a hole in a door while angry. It was a manifestation of aggression and whatever valid reasons I had for the initial emotion, they were now lost with the consequence of replacing the door my reality. I knew there had to be a better way.
Every time I feel that same level of anger now, I give myself space from others. Whether it's the garden, a walk round the block, or even one time the other end of a 10m yacht (that was trying), I give myself space to calm down and be able to validate the reasons I got angry in the first place.
"This is the important part", Kyle assures me. "There will be genuine things in our life and our relationships that make us angry . When we can take the time to calm we can identify what those are and we can address them."
Anger, it turns out, is an indicator that we're struggling with something bigger. When we take the time to look at the cause you'll usually find pain, upset or hurt. No one deserves to suffer under those emotions so next time your angry give yourself space and time to ask, what about?
• You can hear Kyle MacDonald and Hamish Coleman-Ross on The Nutters Club, 11pm Sundays on Newstalk ZB.
