Anger: The Fire That Can Burn or Warm Us
The tools and mindset shifts that helped me stop fearing my anger and start understanding it
Many of us were taught that getting angry is a bad thing. We learned to hide it, suppress it, and sometimes even feel guilty for simply experiencing it.
Not long ago, I had no idea what healthy anger meant or what it looked like.
I am someone who values her space, autonomy, and time. And when I had my son, all of those things became challenged to some extent. I found myself getting angry when he woke me up extra early, when he didn’t listen at all, when he did everything he wasn’t supposed to do. And because kids are wired to do such things — and of course, it is not his fault — I embarked on this journey to learn about anger and boundaries, because I want to model a healthy relationship with anger for him, and I don’t want him to become a victim of my unprocessed emotions.
I learned some techniques for dealing with my son in moments of anger — will share some of them later with you — but I noticed that there was still a lot of anger inside of me that had nothing to do with him, from past and current disappointments, from boundary violations and unexpressed sadness.
This essay is to share with you what I have learned so far about healthy anger and the tools I found most useful.
The Paradox
Anger is probably the most paradoxical emotion there is. Suppressing it can be a cause of greater boundary violations, of injustice, of later negative self-talk, resentment and increased depression and anxiety.
Physiologically, Gabor Mate equates suppressing anger with suppressing the immune system. Researchers studying stress and emotional suppression have found associations between repressed anger and autoimmune diseases such as scleroderma and arthritis. It has also been associated with heightened inflammation, chronic fatigue, reduced lung function, chronic pain and digestive problems.
On the other hand, expressing anger wrongly may cause a lot of harm to others and to ourselves. As we see in household conflicts, road rage, violent attacks overall, or in the outbursts parents experience with their kids and close ones.
We are not naturally taught how to navigate it. Most of us never learned how to express it in a healthy way.
Anger: The Feeling
When I set out to learn about anger, the first thing that opened my eyes was learning that:
Anger is a feeling. Not an action.
And feelings themselves are not dangerous. They need to be allowed and felt.
Violence — usually mistaken for anger — is a totally different thing, and it is an action. It can be an expression of anger, but it is not anger itself.
When this distinction clicks, it opens a door to less shame and more choices.
Anger can also be a secondary emotion. It often appears alongside or on top of a deeper primary feeling such as fear, hurt, shame, sadness, or a sense of injustice. Exploring what sits underneath helps us better express ourselves when needed, and gives room for healing.
What Is Healthy Anger
The definition says:
Healthy anger is an emotion that protects your boundaries, advocates for your needs, and signals injustice without causing harm.
Definitely a very positive definition. It highlights that anger is actually important and needed for our safety and quality of life.
When we feel angry, it is best to acknowledge it first and ask ourselves: Is there another feeling underneath this anger — a primary feeling? If the primary feeling was fear, are we in real danger or was our feeling triggered from an old experience or trauma? Which of my boundaries were just crossed? and then we can choose to either express our anger or regulate & contain it.
But there’s no way to go through these initial steps if we do not know ourselves deeply, if we don’t know our triggers and boundaries. Hence, it is important to sit quietly with ourselves and reflect on our past.
Remember the times you got angry: How did you exactly feel in your body? Why do you think you felt that way? What triggered you? What did you consider as boundary crossing in that situation?
Try to revisit as many past anger incidents as possible and take note of what got you angry and write down your boundaries when you find them.
Writing those down is very helpful, partially because it allows us to understand that our anger has had merit when our boundaries were crossed. It also makes it much easier to forgive ourselves for our past outbursts and to express those boundaries more clearly the next time we need to.
Anger and Kids: Breaking the Cycle
When it comes to my son, what helped a lot was allowing him to feel his feelings and name the feeling for him to help him use his words more.
For example, when he cries because he wants more ice-cream, I let him cry and say , ”Oh, you’re angry because you want more ice cream? It’s ok to be angry.” And I keep the boundary and don’t give him more ice cream. This way he understands that feeling angry is welcome, that I’m not scared or overwhelmed by his big feelings.
The next step is for him to learn to express it in a better way. When he calms down we learn to take deep breaths together to discuss what happened and he can even state his boundaries to me.
In return, when I feel angry in front of him, I try to make it clear that I’m dealing with this the best I can. I take a breath, tell him that I am angry and that I need a moment. Or if I am highly overwhelmed, I try to leave for a minute or two.
Now let’s talk about the tools to express our anger and the ones to contain and regulate it.
The Tools to Express:
1) The Clearing:
A structured conversation where the goal is not to attack, win, or prove yourself right, but to honestly express what is happening inside you.
Before beginning, ask yourself: “Am I trying to clear the air, or am I trying to win a fight?”
If both people agree, set boundaries: choose the time, avoid interrupting, and speak from your own experience using “I” statements. You can start by honestly stating your intention, even if you realize part of you wanted control or validation, because hidden intentions often show up anyway.
Instead of “You never listen to me,” try “I felt unheard when this happened.”
The purpose is understanding, not victory.
2) The Letter:
Write a letter expressing everything you feel. It can be as blame-filled as you want.
Later on, you can read it to a friend if you want and destroy it afterwards to get rid of any residual feelings, or — after permission — you can send it or email it to the person you feel angry with.
3) The Boundary Statement:
After identifying the feeling behind your anger and the boundary that was crossed, turn the anger into clear communication.
The goal is not to blame or punish the other person, but to protect what matters to you.
A helpful structure is:
When ___ happened, I felt ___. I need ___. In the future, I will ___.
For example:
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“When plans change at the last minute without telling me, I feel frustrated because my time matters to me. I need earlier communication. In the future, if I don’t know the plan beforehand, I may choose not to participate.”
Healthy anger does not only say: “You hurt me.”
It also says: “This is what I value, and this is how I will protect it.”
Please note that, contrary to what is usually advised, hitting pillows, screaming, kicking objects with the purpose of releasing rage, only intensifies it, because it recruits more brain circuits into its service and is not a healthy way to process it.
The Tools to Contain & Regulate Anger:
1) RAIN:
Recognize = Acknowledge that you are feeling angry. (Oh, I’m feeling this!)
Allow = Allow the feeling, don’t act on it. Just be with the experience.
Investigate = Ask yourself why you are feeling this way.
Nurture = Respond to yourself with compassion instead of criticism. Offer yourself the understanding you may have needed at the moment the anger appeared. Sometimes anger protects a younger part of us that felt unheard, powerless, or hurt.
2) Meditation and Breath Work:
Meditation has been the most repeated self-help tool I have encountered.
It trains the ability to notice a feeling without immediately reacting to it. Over time, mindfulness practices can strengthen the pause between feeling anger and acting on anger. Instead of “I am angry, therefore I must react,” we learn “I am noticing anger, and I can choose my response.”
Deep breathing that expands the belly rather than the chest also sends a signal to our nervous system to calm down.
3) The Pause:
Delay the reaction.
When anger is intense, the brain is preparing the body for action. Giving yourself even a short pause — walking away, drinking water, breathing, or changing rooms — allows the intensity to decrease so the thinking part of the brain can participate again.
Personally, this one is the hardest for me to apply. Because I think delaying my response is a weakness in the face of injustice and rudeness. I feel the need to reply fast and make the person in front of me stop.
I realize now that I overlooked how stepping away is also a message, a clear rejection of the situation and is also a form of self-respect, control, and choosing a better way to respond.
4) Movement:
Anger creates a state of readiness in the body: increased energy, tension, and a desire to act. Gentle movement, walking, running, dancing, or exercising can help the body move through this activated state and return to calm. The goal is not to attack the anger out of us, but to support our body while the emotion passes.
Anger in Islam:
Most of us know this story:
A man said to the Prophet Muhammed ﷺ:
“Advise me.”
The Prophet said:
“Do not become angry.”
The man repeated his request several times, and the Prophet Muhammed kept saying:
“Do not become angry.”
I’ve always understood this as a direct command to never feel anger. However, when I look deeper into the context, the underlying stories and the other sayings, I find that what is being addressed is not the natural human feeling of anger itself, but allowing anger to control our behavior and lead us into harmful actions, in other words, rage. Which in Arabic also points to the same word as anger.
Even the Prophet Muhammed experienced anger when boundaries were violated or injustice happened, but his anger remained controlled and aligned with his values.
Islam places a lot of focus on the issue of Anger that it may deserve its own essay, but here I’ll share some of the famous tools to deal with anger taught by Islam:
- Seek Refuge: Reciting (I seek refuge in Allah from Satan) “A’udhu billahi min ash-shaytan ir-rajim” to calm the heart. This brings our focus out of the situation and keeps us from impulsive actions.
- Change Posture: If you are standing, sit down; if you are sitting, lie down. The Prophet said, “If any of you becomes angry and he is standing, let him sit down so his anger will go away; if it does not, then let him lie down.” Changing posture interrupts the escalation cycle. Physically lowering yourself from standing to sitting reduces readiness for confrontation and creates a moment of pause before reacting.
- Remain Silent: Refrain from speaking hastily to prevent saying harmful or regretful things.
- Performing wudu (ablution): Wash with cold water (ablution), as the Prophet Muhammed taught that anger comes from fire and is cooled by water
You might notice that these tools do not differ much from the ones shared above, they all focus on preventing rage and acts of violence by controlling, rooting ourselves, and taking a time-out, but Islam adds to it the aspect of looking at a much bigger picture, the one beyond the situation, you, me, and this world. It reminds us that we are rewarded for the anger we control and express in a healthy way, and that we belong to a bigger reality and whatever is in front of us is nothing but an earthly test.
I would like to close with a reminder that anger is a signal. A message that something inside us needs attention.
Sometimes it points to a boundary.
Sometimes to a wound.
Sometimes to something we deeply value.
The goal is not to never feel angry.
The goal is to learn how to listen to anger without letting anger lead.
Thank you for reading this essay until the end, let me know which tool or idea felt intriguing to you, or share with me your methods of dealing with anger.
With kindness,
Salha
References:
- Book: Anger, Boundaries & Safety by Joan S.Peterson
- 6 Healthy Ways to Deal with Anger
- 5 Ways to Manage Your Anger in Islam
- Hadith: “Do Not Become Angry” حديث لا تغضب
- Anger in Islam: Is It a Sin and How to Control it
- Video: Dr. Gabor Maté — How to Process Your Anger and Rage
- Video: Why Anger Can Be Good
