The Iceberg Of Emotions

[Abstract]

Anger is an action, which is made up of many other emotions. When you understand the emotions that trigger anger, you can help yourself to control those smaller emotions, which in turn controls your anger. There is no miracle cure for anger control – only your self control and understanding of the situations.


Three main components to self analysis:

Your current emotional response
What is blocking your true emotions
Your actual true emotions felt
Now #3 you’re not going to know likely just yet, though the idea is to work from the top down, thus you will understand why you are failing to show, feel or talk about your true emotions.

Anthony (or anyone else who is in the know!), I wondered if you can explain to me how not being able to feel anger fits into this? I can't quite fit that in this concept of emotion.

I have been told how important it is for me to feel it and have worked hard and made much progress and although I don't like it I see the need of it for a healthy life. I also suppose it is all there and just focused inwards.

 

[anthony]

I don't know if you 'have' to feel anger, to be perfectly honest. As long as you're not in denial about it, I don't believe all people get angry, to be perfectly honest. I've met people who simply don't get provoked... it doesn't mean they don't feel things, they just don't get angry. They discuss everything without anger.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Thank you for this. I had fear trigger my rage from before. Which would start a shame/guilt/self hatred cycle, not a good way to handle rage. I took an anger management group/class and I learned so much. I do not want to dump on myself anymore so I have learned how to manage my anger. Staying calm produces greater results, I have learned. I am finally growing again.

 

[Abstract]

I don't know if you 'have' to feel anger, to be perfectly honest. As long as you're not in denial about it,

Thank you for answering Anthony.

I guess there are some of us who grow up in an environment where anger is not a possibility and as such the emotion appears to just not be there. But what I have found is that it is there in some form but aimed at me instead of anyone else.

But if anger is only an action then I get confused.

What I have learned is that the role of anger healthily expressed is an indicator of someone stepping on my boundaries. Of a sign that I need to put a boundary in place or self protect in some way. I was totally unable to do either as would always go into zombie mode so finding my anger has helped enormously in helping me protect myself. It is difficult to be assertive when you feel nothing and are just disconnected.


But then again I can see how for many with PTSD (or not) anger is a default and they have little understanding of the underlying feelings and also feel they are under threat or their boundaries are being stepped on because of PTSD rather than reality. Those of us without tend to maybe feel shame or fear instead.

I think the difficulty for those of us who have had anger knocked out of us so to speak is to stop turning everything in our ourselves and blaming ourselves for everything.

Still getting myself confused though as I then go back to the whole " anger is just an anger" thing and get stumped. :confused:

 

[Cliff.P]

Anger is an action, which is made up of many other emotions. When you understand the emotions that trigger anger, you can help yourself to control those smaller emotions, which in turn controls your anger. There is no miracle cure for anger control – only your self control and understanding of the situations.

Thank you for posting this... Your right anger can not just be by it self, there had to be a cause. I have the anger pretty much held down to where I can just smile so nobody thinks Iam upset. But it sucks you can tell people how you really feel. I think my anger comes mostly from grief, guilt, an male pride.

 

[anthony]

Anger does come more easily to us males... females have an emotional ability males don't.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I really appreciate this thread. I finally took a anger management class which helped me tremendously but it did not cover the emotions behind the anger. This explains so much to me.

I agree that to react badly when in anger mode is a choice.

One of my abusers was my dad and he beat us kids regularly. He would line us up from the oldest, me to the youngest and tell us to grab our ankles. Then he would beat us one at a time.

He called it his temper problem but he was making choices to do that to us. My sister is the same way. They never got help or took responsibility for their rage.

We live in an age where there is so much rage such as road rage and people get hurt and killed now.

I believe these kinds of people feel like victims and blame anything on anything else now.

Thank you Anthony and everyone else that posted.

It will help me in the future to always look for the underlying feelings when I feel anything strongly.

 

[anthony]

Reopened for relevance.

 

[Changing4Best]

I have been experiencing being picked on, or bullied, and then speaking out against this, only to then get "the silent treatment" by one of my bullies and the other one has resorted to picking on my client, instead of me now. I assume, to get even with me for having spoken out against being teased. We all got a lecture about how a person has the right to ride the Senior Center bus or attend the Senior Center without being teased as a result of my speaking up, so of course, they cannot pick on me directly now.

Your thread here hits on and fits how I am feeling about all this to a tee. As I was reading it, I could really see what is happening in my head and in my life, just from looking at the diagrams even.

Thanks for posting this! I think I need to reread it often, because so many things in life come up that cause some kind of anger in me, like resentment for instance. And yeh, I have felt so many other emotions and have even gotten physically sick, because of the above mentioned situation. Sure, I could say that I just caught this illness I have, but I strongly believe that when we get sick, stuff like you wrote about here is at the base of it.

 

[Friday]

While I very much agree that emotions are often built up of other emotions, what I have never understood is the concept that the only emotion which is not "allowed" to be a base level emotion is anger.

If other emotions are allowed to have both simple & complex forms, why not anger?

Why it matters to me : Simple things are harder for me to deal with than complex things.

Complex things can be broken down to their component pieces, and are made far more manageable. Complex anger? Has about a thousand different handles attached to it. Simple anger? Sourceless rage? Doesn't give me anything to hold onto. Nothing to break down.

Its vexing >.<

 

[anthony]

Anger is not an emotion, in actuality. Anger is a response. People confuse anger with feeling angry, but you "are" angry, you do not "feel" angry. You "are" angry because you "feel" (betrayed, frustrated, upset, etc).

Anger is an emotional response. This is very much part of the problem in helping people with anger. They convince themselves they feel angry, yet when you really go digging, you help them discover actual emotions that are providing them the response of anger they experience / exert upon others in behaviour.

 

[Heather]

@anthony you said that there are certain people you know that don't get angry, that they don't allow themselves to be provoked.

How do they do that? Do these people go right to the underlying emotion?