Have a Productive Conversation, Even When You’re Angry

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

You’re having an important conversation about something that really matters to you, with somebody who potentially matters even more than that. 

There’s a disagreement, a misunderstanding, or otherwise some kind of a bump in the road, and you start to feel the anger swelling up in your body. Your heart is beating fast. Your hands clench into fists. It’s like there’s a big red ball of anger bouncing around in your core, and it’s begging to find a way out. 

This is a red flag, because you know from past experience that when you let that anger out, you end up saying or doing things you regret. It can feel like the anger itself is the problem, and yet pushing down that anger only leads us into a vicious cycle of repression and instinctual furious acting out.

So how does a therapist handle their anger while still having a productive conversation? How do you hold your anger in one hand while also holding steady and calm in the other? 

Let’s learn about anger, and how to use our skills of self-awareness and communication to process it in a healthy way.

Why Do We Feel Angry? 

Anger is the result of the thoughts in our mind, physical processes in our body, behaviors of our own volition, and our responses to stimuli in our environment. When we feel angry, it’s not any singular one of these factors that’s making us angry; it’s the way they come together. 

Heightened cortisol and testosterone as a result of puberty, medication, transition, or hormonal imbalance can intensify our feelings of anger and make it more difficult to zoom out.

Serotonin imbalance can make it harder for your brain to regulate your feelings and find your sense of calm when you need it. 

Our environment plays a huge part in our emotional world. It can never fully be within our control, and the surprises that it brings can frustrate and overwhelm us at times. 

These factors are mostly out of our control. We cannot always pick our environment, and we certainly cannot pick the brain we were given. But we do have control over our thoughts, despite how it sometimes feels.

Some thoughts are like hot coals that burn our hands and infect us with anger. We started to carry these thoughts to manage those environmental factors that were out of our control. It was comprehensively difficult to handle these issues, and so we developed what we would later learn were unhelpful patterns. 

• Trauma.

• Unmet Needs.

• Disrespected Boundaries.

• It’s The Only Feeling We’re Comfortable With.

How Can We Recognize Anger In Our Bodies? 

Anger is a specific condition with specific symptoms that we can recognize within ourselves and adapt to. When we notice these symptoms, they can put vital context around our thoughts and choices in behavior. We are thinking and doing these things, at least partially, because we are angry. 

Anger can present itself physically as: 

• Tightness in the body, especially the jaw, face, and shoulders. 
• Clenched fists and closed hands. 
• Raised voice, shouting, yelling, and screaming in extreme cases.
• Quieted voice, even total silent shutdown in extreme cases.
• Finger pointing. 
• Crossed arms and closed body language. 
• Throwing, punching, or kicking inanimate objects, to the point of injury in extreme cases.

When Do You Need To Go To Anger Management Counseling? 

Is your anger impacting your ability to live a good life? 

Is work getting difficult or completely interrupted due to your experiences with anger? 

Do you struggle with aggressive speech or behavior when anger overwhelms you?

You, and the people close to you, are the only ones who can judge whether your anger is a problem that needs personal work or whether it’s something you need outside guidance with.

• When your relationships are defined by resentment and the unforgiven past. 
• When anger guides your decision-making to the point that you feel out of control. 
• When you’re ready to handle anger in a new way. 

Then going to cognitive behavioral therapy with an anger specialist could change your life.

How Does A Therapist Help You With Anger Management? 

Research has suggested that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT) is especially effective in managing anger and treating patients who struggle with aggression. 

This is the wisdom our therapist Michael Anthony, has to offer for you and your anger: 

We all get angry!  Anger is a normal experience that we all go through, but what happens when we want to have productive conversation when experiencing anger?  

The name of the game is to regulate your nervous system first.  When we are flooded with anger, our emotions have a tendency to take over consciousness, so be sure to breathe prior.  

When I teach communication skills, I like to lean into empathy and validation as well as being calm and in a space where we feel like we have all the facts.  

Remember that although we may not agree with what the other person is saying, their experience is still very real to them.  In order for both to feel heard, we need to make sure we are accepting of each others’ position.  

When we can remain collaborative rather than combative, we can make solutions rather than “agreeing to disagree.”  Don’t be afraid to take breaks as well if you start to notice anger coming up!

— Michael Anthony, LCSW.

How To Communicate When You Feel Angry

Michael is right! When you’re going into a levelheaded conversation while angry: regulation is the destination, regulation is the journey, regulation is the moment, and regulation is the future. 

To calm ourselves when we feel angry, we can reach for tools like these:

• Zoom out. Don’t be a prisoner of the moment, consider the past and the future. Think about the best case scenario. What would have to happen to get you there? What sort of behavior would you have to model? Where do you want this conversation to have realistically landed when you’re going to sleep tonight? Think about the circumstances that brought you here. What (for good and for bad) are you responsible for? How could you have handled this better in the recent past? What piece of advice do you wish you had followed?

• Slow down. You don’t need to do everything everywhere all at once, least of all when you’re overwhelmed with anger. Stop manically folding the laundry, and loudly putting away all the dishes. If you want to do something to help work through your anger, good! Just do it slowly and actually help yourself calm down.

• Make a plan (with DEAR MAN). There are excellent DBT resources like DEAR MAN that can help you make a detailed plan when you want to have a forward-minded and productive conversation. You are not lost without a map. Other people have crossed this river before and can tell you how to get to the other side. 

• Recognize and validate your own feelings. Your feelings are important. They impact you in a real way, and they deserve to be heard and cared for. But that isn’t someone else’s responsibility. If you do the work of knowing what you feel and what you need, you can rely on others when you need help instead of making them decode your true desires first.

How Can You Regulate Your Nervous System When You’re Angry? 

Ever felt like this?

“There’s no intellectualizing about this, I’m just so angry that all I want to do is scream!

AAAAAGH!!!”

That’s when your anger has reached such an intensity that you’re starting to feel it somatically (that means in your body). This can be extremely treacherous to navigate because your judgment is clouded by anger, and even if you recognize what’s going on, you might not know how to make it better.

What are the tools that a therapist would reach for when anger is overwhelming a patient and they need to stabilize? What are the tools you can reach for to stabilize your anger in hard moments?

• Self-Soothe. Self-soothing is not repressing your anger, it is giving your mind and body a chance to calm down from an elevated emotional state. You are allowed to be angry and also take a relaxing shower. You can disapprove of the way things are going, and still make time for the things that retain your senses.

• Breathe. Breathing is not optional. It is the most promising avenue you have to achieve calmness in any situation. Box breathing, meditation, and yoga are all extensions of the breath that you can use to let go of the anxiety and anger stored in your body.

• Move. Your body is a machine that was designed to go. If you leave your body without use, it becomes a car that hasn’t had a key in the ignition for 20 years. It might turn on, but it’s gonna make some weird noises and you might feel nervous. When you feel angry, if you have the opportunity, exercise before you do anything else.

• Accept. We are limited. There are things that are obviously and incontrovertibly out of our control. That’s where we need radical acceptance; the art of accepting something even when you don’t approve of it. 

How Do Communication Skills Help Us Process Anger? 

Our anger is often directed at the outside world. Our bosses, our partners, our peers, and our families are a part of our lives, and so inevitably they are a part of our anger.

In these situations, we need our skills of empathy and communication to make it through in a healthy way. 

That means respecting the person we’re talking to, even if we’re angry. 

That means respecting ourselves, even if we don’t want to be perceived as angry.

• Identifying and Understanding Ourselves. In the process of communicating with others, we do the invaluable work of putting our prior undefined feelings into words. Sometimes, when something has been put to words and explained, it changes our emotional reaction to it. You are the observer of your own mind, and the act of witnessing it can change the result,

• Setting and Upholding Boundaries. If we have not set or upheld our boundaries, of course we are angry! We have been disrespected by others, and even harder to accept, we have disrespected ourselves by not communicating our true needs. By setting boundaries with clear consequences that we stick to, we won’t feel as resentful over perceived sleights in the past.

• Practicing and Feeling Empathy. To be forgiven, you must first be a forgiver. To get what you need, you must be free and willing to give it to others. Empathy is the medicine that can heal anger from the inside out, but it doesn’t blossom out of nowhere. We all want to live in an empathetic world. The only way we get there is together.

If you’re feeling stuck on your healing journey, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Our intake specialist will take the time to understand your needs and connect you with a therapist who is the right fit. Schedule your free 15-minute consultation.

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.