In Praise of Anger
The Pueblo Indians told me that all Americans are crazy, and of course I was somewhat astonished and asked them why. They said, 'Well, they say they think in their heads. No sound man thinks in the head. We think in the heart'.— Carl Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice
When I was younger, I used to think I was a rather logical person (compared to most people). I used to pride myself on my ability to detach from people, places, and things. For some reason, returning to a place didn't affect me emotionally unless someone or something had died. I used to equate emotions with being unable to process logic, unable to reason. Years of observing and seeing people making rash decisions based on emotions made me fall into the trap of emotions = bad; logic = good.
Years of being told to "just control your emotions" led to further anger - anger that had no place to go. I was like a bottle going to pop off anytime.
I had internalised years of flawed thinking.
Over the years, I've learnt that the worst way to deal with emotions is to not acknowledge them.
Emotions like anger are a sign that something somewhere needs your attention. Most people treat emotions like some pain in the ass, when really, it's trying to tell you something. In general psychology, this would be termed as a symptom, but to Jungians, a symptom isn't just a symptom, rather, it's a message that needs to be decoded and understood. This is echoed by a quote I came across:
Your frustration is gifting you the opportunity to be radically honest about what needs aren't being met.
— Ciara 🌹 (@Themagicmuir)
People who do not acknowledge their emotions are the most likely to fall prey to the dark side of emotions. These people hate emotions because they are afraid of it. It scares them; it is the unknown. Many supposedly logical people end up falling prey to the trappings of emotions, simply because by default, humans are not robots; we are emotional beings, regardless of how much emotions we are capable of expressing. The most obvious example is when a very logical man falls in love, he starts doing and saying things that seem very out of character. You know like how Tom behaves when he's "in love".
Those men become Tom.
The intellectual type is afraid of being caught by feelings because his feeling has an archaic quality, and there he is like an archaic man - he is the helpless victim of his emotions. ... If you take a typical intellectual who is terribly afraid of falling in love, you think his fear very foolish. But he is most probably right, because he will very likely make foolish nonsense when he falls in love.
— Carl Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice
In reality, sadness and anger exists in all of us, regardless of how calm and composed we may seem on the outside. In The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out, Brennan Manning mentions that "the temptation of the age is to look good without being good". Many individuals suppress their emotions, anger in particular, out of fear of being the bad guy. As a result, they constrict the very part of them that makes them human. When emotions have nowhere to go, they can stay in the body and manifest in different ways.
Sarno developed the concept of TMS—Tension Myositis Syndrome or Mind-Body Syndrome:
Repressed emotions like anger, fear, and guilt keep the brain on high alert—so it creates pain as a distraction from painful emotions.
The pain is not imaginary. It’s very real.
But, it's caused by a brain under stress and not by damage to the body.
— Kimia Nora (@iamkimianora)
When I was a child, I was repeatedly told not to get angry because apparently, I'd churn up more toxins in my body, which can later cause cancer. It was of course, utter bullshit. On the contrary, according to Gabor Maté, a physician, suppressing ones anger can actually lead to autoimmune diseases and cancer. This view is also mentioned by Jungian analyst, James Hollis, who states that unexpressed anger can turn into illness, depression, or leak out as criticism.
In one of Miley's interviews, she talks about her realisation that her body aches were a result of not allowing herself to feel anger.
Research also shows that women who don't express their feelings with their significant others are four times more likely to die than those who do.
Like physical pain, emotions too must be acknowledged before they spiral out of control. After all, according to Hollis, anger is a reflexive response to the constriction of the soul.
Anger, then, is a reflexive response to the constriction of the soul. As such, it is not only part of the defense system of the psyche, it is a vital intimation which, when tracked, may lead to the soul's healing.
— via @jungianLaura
When you see someone rage, you're not seeing an evil tyrant. You're seeing someone who was denied their anger at some point in their life. You're seeing someone whose emotions were invalidated while they were growing up.
Many of us were taught as children not to get angry or to behave ourselves. Only to realise years later that the very things we were taught were actually pretty harmful if not corrected early on. We can see this in families, where instead of our frustrations and anger going nowhere, it gets passed on to the next generation. Brennan Manning says it best when he said "if we don't learn to transform pain, we'll transfer it". And then we'll wonder why the next generation is "spoilt", "lazy", or even, "angry". The enforcement of good behaviour works only to a certain extent. When we tell people who are angry to chill, to heal, we are denying them of the permission to feel their anger. And what happens? It escalates. These people become more angry.
You can beat a child to submission, but what you're really risking is "a pending outburst of natural/normal emotions". We see this cycle being repeated when children are praised for their good behaviour, while we neglect what they carry on the inside. What then is the result of individuals who were beaten to submission as a child? Many well behaved children who suppressed their anger and frustration end up moving out only to never come home. It is then of no surprise to read and hear about children who never return home to visit their parents or parents who are left in old folk's homes to pine for their children. It's simple, if these individuals were never allowed to express a modicum of emotions while they were growing up, it isn't a surprise when visiting their parents becomes less of a priority. After all, why expect humanity from someone who wasn't allowed to be human?
In the Bible, Jesus didn't tell the people at the temple "Hey brethren, I think it would be great if you could sell your goods elsewhere", no, Jesus flipped those tables. He was ANGRY. Anger isn't always polite, it isn't always expressed according to social decorum, but it is honest. Obviously, I'm not asking you to start flipping tables now, but you get the gist.
"Be happy, be kind" - when taken too far, results in a society that places unrealistic expectations on itself - I should be happy and kind, I should not experience anxiety or anger and so since I can't find a way out of these emotions, I will go to therapy and medicate myself, because something is wrong.
To deny ourselves the privilege of feeling our emotions is to deny our own humanity.