I want to introduce you to someone special.
She’s been with me a long time. Since birth, in fact. We’ve both changed a lot in the last 32 years. We learned about Right and Wrong, Good and Bad. I’d like to say we’ve grown, although sometimes it’s hard to see.
I call her Rabbia, and she is my anger.
I have been a communication teacher for over a decade now. In the last few years my focus has centered on conflict and polarization. As you have probably noticed, many people in the world are currently not getting along.
I noticed something interesting in doing this work. People were learning all sorts of communication skills — reflective listening, curiosity, empathy — yet in the moment, when tempers were high, it all went out the window. They couldn’t remember skills they’d learned ten minutes ago. It was like they became a different person.
They became their rage.
In that self they would say and do things that their everyday self could not even imagine. They would insult, accuse, stonewall, and disappear. Some would become hyper-rational; others, consumed with their emotions. When they came down it was like a hangover. “I’m sorry,” they would say. “I was just so angry.” Like people who had taken one drink too many, they would say, “I never meant to get flooded. I’ll be different next time.”
Every single person I know is prone to this. Yes, even you. There are few cultures on earth where anger is either fully integrated or fully suppressed. Yet somehow, every time we get angry, we believe that it is just an anomaly. “I’m never like this, I swear,” we say.
We may only be “like this” one percent of the time. But for many of our loved ones, that one percent is ninety-nine percent of the problem they have with us.
Why don’t we develop a relationship with our anger?
Why don’t we see it, consider it, talk to it, and inhabit it? Not as an occasional anomaly, but a recurring companion? A self with whom we can form a relationship, and invite others to do the same?
Those Be Fightin’ Words
The other day, I got into an argument with one of my primary collaborators. We are both communication nerds. You think of a system, we probably know it. You name a course, Kaela’s probably taken it and I’ve read the book.
But our anger selves are aggressive beings. Both of us are prone to quick escalation. We armor up at the slightest sense of mistrust, and it can be hard to shake us from our views.
In this case, I wanted to move ahead on a piece of a project we were jointly working on. It seemed to me like a reasonable request. I had time. I had energy. She was busy for a couple of days. Why not? I didn’t even ask her for permission; I just asked for feedback on the part I’d started working on.
Kaela…didn’t take that well. To her, it seemed like I was breaking an agreement I’d made to wait for joint decision-making before working on the project.
Since this was a new collaboration, she wanted me to wait for her before taking any big steps on the project. She got heated, and so did I. “This isn’t a major step!” I said, completely disregarding her perspective. “You aren’t respecting our agreement, and are going to make decisions without me!” she said, not checking if I was open to hearing a no on the decision.
This continued until “fuck yous” started coming down the thread, at which point we (luckily) realized that I was overly triggered by situational factors not having to do with her, and stopped the conversation. At that point I had chain-smoked two cigarettes and was shaking with rage. I had to ask myself — could we keep working together?
Introducing: My Anger
When conflict happens, a lot goes on in the body. Our heart rate goes up. Our blood pressure drops. Activity decreases in the parts of our brain that handle planning, organization, and impulse control. We can’t think straight or imagine the other person’s perspective. Most of our activity is in our hindbrain, in the areas that control fear and aggression, so we basically regress into angry lizards. Yet we still expect ourselves to respond like rational human beings.
What would it look like if — instead of pretending that we will be reasonable when the rage hits — we introduced our anger selves at the start of projects or relationships?
I might say, “Hi, I’m Sara. When I get angry I pretend that I’m not. I’ll become reasonable-sounding, ask you a lot of questions, and reflect what I think I hear. But underneath I’m a boiling pot of resentment, and I’ll be holding strongly to my view of you as a Bad Person who has done Bad Things. If you don’t give me space to express myself, I’ll either start shouting my views, crying, or give up and get small. The one thing I don’t know how to do is be vulnerable about what I’m feeling or why something hurts.”
Then the other person could ask, “Sara, when you’re angry, what do you need?”
I would say, “I need you to ask about the story I’m making up. Or if you can’t do that, remind us to take a pause from the argument so I can reflect on it myself.”
Being able to name this anger self, and what it needs, takes work. It can be hard to see this part of ourselves. It may even take asking others about how we seem and what actions they see us take when we’re angry. Then we can ask ourselves, “Why do I do those things? What has worked for me in de-escalating, and/or having productive conflict?” I only know Rabbia because I have taken a lot of time (and therapy) considering her.
What our anger self needs, and how it shows up, may differ from relationship to relationship. Our anger strategies have to align with the other person’s, or they won’t function.
If my partner’s anger self shouts and curses when upset, they may not be able to ask me about the story I’m making up. We might need to find a different meeting point between our angers: perhaps him working to de-escalate first, or perhaps me actually letting out my own rage and shouting back, so the feeling burns away like flash paper. Then we can discuss the instigating problem later on.*
*Interestingly, my husband and I have hit on this relationship between our anger selves. I had to do a ton of work to be comfortable getting openly, verbally angry with him. But it now burns away the anger quickly. The fight leaves little relational residue because we know not to take the other’s words seriously until they calm down. We caveat to our classes, “At some point, you’re going to see Mom and Dad fight. It’s going to look scary, but it’s very efficient for us!”
Working Towards Resolution
With Kaela, here was the aftermath:
A few days after our conflict, we got on the phone and talked about what had happened. We broke the conflict down, and made some agreements around how and when we would take action on our project. We also talked about our anger selves.
We introduced them. Each of our anger selves had a name: Rabbia and Tabitha. We talked about how old we feel when we’re in conflict (both of us somewhere around our teen years). We talked about what we need when conflict occurs.
Both of us calm down when a pause is asked for, so we settled on the idea of having a safeword that would stop the conflict if it got too heated. We also decided that whoever asks for the pause will say how long they want it to last for, and that it won’t last for more than a day.
We discussed some unknowns. How could I help Kaela know that I’m on her side, and be on the same team even in those moments of conflict? How could she help me feel commitment to our relationship, as well as freedom to express myself creatively? We didn’t have answers to these things yet, but have named them as open questions we now get to explore.
Lastly, we discussed one more piece. Vulnerability.
I struggle with this a lot in conflict. It feels very unsafe to share my honest, unguarded emotions and needs when I’m upset. But Kaela will de-escalate immediately when true vulnerability is shared. In fact, that had been the turning point in our previous conflict: I finally realized and said that I was extra aggro because my dad was dying, and asked for her to drop the collaboration for that moment and just be my friend. Instant shift; she softened, and was there for me in a profound and lovely way.
We realized that this is a growth edge for me, one we could practice in our relationship. We agreed that I would try to practice vulnerability even when angry, and she would try to remind me to do it.
Now we have both an easy, possible tool to use (ask for a pause), some unknowns to explore, and a growth edge (vulnerability) to work on.
This makes our next conflict feel kind of exciting to me. What will we discover this time?
The End…or is it?
In closing, I want to say that I firmly believe conflict is a good thing.
It is essential for releasing energy. It makes us honest. It helps us set boundaries, empowers us, and clarifies what matters. It is a peak experience that can bond relationships closer, if we handle it well.
Most of all, anger is inevitable. We might as well start enjoying it instead of resenting it, or we’ll end up in pain a lot of our life.
The first step on this path is to develop a relationship with our anger self, and to help this self develop relationships with others. We will do a lot better in conflict if we understand what these selves need, and how to negotiate those needs. (As Kaela said, on proofreading this, “Find out what you are actually thirsty for before drinking the blood of the innocent victims of your rage. Half the time you slit somebody’s throat and then are like “oh shit, I actually just wanted orange juice” 😂)
The second step might be to take our class on the Art of Difficult Conversations, coming up on November 30th-January 18th ;)
We’ll spend 8 weeks exploring various aspects of conflict, including power and status, self-regulation, preparing for difficult conversations, connection tools, and more. It’s a jam-packed course, and if you don’t like it we’ll give your money back. If you fight us for it.*
To better conflict,
Sara Ness
*kidding. You just have to ask. Whether or not you join the course, follow this account for more conflict and communication articles!
