What is Anger Trying to Tell You? Тhe meaning of anger and how to work with it.

In nowadays culture, there is a tendency to disapprove or stigmatise anger, perceiving it as a negative and socially undesirable emotion. There’s a possibility to experience shame or guilt, when we are angry, exactly because of these social norms. Consequently, we may feel pressure to suppress or hide our anger, which can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms or a lack of honest communications about important issues.  Gabot Maté, Canadian physician and author,  encourages us to view anger not merely as an unwanted emotion but as a messenger, urging us to explore the underlying emotional landscape, address our wounds, and embark on a path of healing and self-discovery. 1. What is anger? Anger is a natural and complex human emotion which is often characterised by displeasure, irritation, and frustration. It involves physiological and psychological responses. Physiologically, when a person becomes angry, they may experience increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, muscle tension, and the release of stress hormones like adrenaline. Anger often leads to cognitive and behavioural changes too, such as increased focus on the source of anger, a desire to confront, and changes in communication style (such as raised voice or aggressive language).  2. What is anger trying to tell you? Anger never arises out of nowhere. If you feel anger, there is a good reason for it. Often this reason might be hidden from us, meaning it is unconscious. Let’s look at in what situations anger appears and what it wants to tell you:  a) Crossed boundaries Boundaries define the limits and space that we need to feel safe, respected, and in control of our lives. Crossing boundaries might include: invasion of personal space, touching without consent, excessive criticism, emotional manipulation, lying and others.  When someone crosses our boundaries, it can trigger anger as a natural response to protect one’s sense of self and well-being. b) Unmet needs We as human beings have a range of fundamental physiological, emotional and psychological needs – such as shelter, security, intimacy, connection, being heard and others. When those needs are not met, either in childhood or adulthood, it can lead to emotional pain and frustration.  c) Masking deeper emotional wounds and traumas  Anger can often serve as a protector. Just like when animals are wounded they react with aggression, so other animals won’t hurt them. The same goes for us as human beings. As Eckhart Tolle wisely noted, “Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” When we experience unresolved pain or trauma, anger rises as a primal response that attempts to safeguard us from further harm. This protective role of anger, though sometimes uncomfortable or even explosive, serves as a vital signal – a call to action.  3. How to work with our anger?  Often people identify with the anger and are led by it, this can manifest in screaming, being mean, even hitting and fighting. This is called acting-out – because we don’t honestly communicate why we experience anger and instead we show it through some actions. This is not a healthy way to deal with anger since actions like that just feed and support it. Instead, you can work on ways to express your anger in a healthy way. a) Acknowledgment and acceptance As we discussed, anger is a legitimate and natural emotion. Rather than acting out,  bottling up or suppressing it, we encourage you to start by recognising your anger without judging it. You can start noticing where in your body you feel it and what changes occur within you. In this way it will be easier for you to recognise when you have anger and you will create space between you and the anger. Acknowledge the anger as a signal that something within your inner world needs your attention. By accepting that this emotion is part of us, we can start working with it. b) Exploration Take time to understand the source of your anger and explore how it manifests in your life. When you are triggered in a specific situation, you can stop and notice what is provoking it: is it an unmet need? Crossed boundaries? Or do you feel a deeper pain that is rising?  Try to look for the deeper roots of the anger. Оften times anger in the present is being triggered because there is something not resolved in the past and we are projecting it onto the present moment. c) Effective communication Effective communication means to engage in open and honest dialogue with others, particularly when addressing sources of conflict and frustration. Constructive and assertive communication helps convey your feelings without resorting to aggression or passive-aggressiveness, fostering understanding and resolution. d) Setting boundaries  There’s a tendency in relationships not to communicate our boundaries clearly, therefore when the other person crosses them we start ro feel angry and think that “they should know that this is not right”. However, people don’t read minds. Therefore, each of us should look inside and understand what the boundaries are.  Furthermore, some people have the tendency to people-please, meaning they say “yes” even though they want to say “no”. Over time, this often leads to frustration. e) Stress reduction techniques Engaging in physical activities such as exercise or sports can help release some of the energy and tension. Furthermore, practices like mindfulness, meditation, or yoga can assist in calming the mind and regulate the nervous system. These practices help you create further space between your authentic Self and the anger. d) Seek support Consider therapy to help you explore and work through the underlying causes of anger and processing emotional wounds. Therapy,in an individual or group setting, can provide a safe space for you to explore and address the roots of your anger, learn coping strategies, and work towards healthier ways of expressing and managing this intense emotion. By understanding the roots of anger, acknowledging its validity, and expressing it in healthier ways, we can navigate the often turbulent waters of anger with self-awareness and compassion. The goal is not to completely eliminate anger but

What is trauma? Gabor Maté’s perspective.

Trauma – a term that is often used in conversations, podcasts, and posts about mental health and well-being. But even though it’s popular, do we truly understand its meaning?   Commonly, trauma is associated with severe incidents – accidents, abuse, or catastrophic events. The prevailing focus is on the external event, or it is believed that it has to be something big to be significant for the person. This understanding, however, can be limiting to our understanding and overlooking the interplay between our internal experiences and childhood upbringing.   According to Gabor Maté, Canadian physician and author, “Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you.” The word trauma is a Greek word for wound. When you understand that, you can realise that trauma is not the event that inflicted the wound. Therefore the trauma is not the sexual abuse, the trauma is not the war. Trauma is not abandonment. The trauma is not the inability of your parents to see you for who you were. Trauma is the wound that you sustained as a result. Our perception of ourselves and the world is deeply intertwined with how we process and make sense of traumatic events. The impact of trauma can manifest in various ways, affecting one’s self-esteem, beliefs about the world, others and oneself. It can shape our view of relationships, trust, and safety, influencing our behaviours and coping mechanisms. Moreover, the cumulative effect of seemingly small incidents, when combined or experienced chronically, can also contribute to the development of trauma. These experiences may not fit the conventional definition of a traumatic event, yet their ongoing influence on an individual’s internal world can be profound. Maté suggests shifting our gaze from external events to the internal realm, where the true impact of trauma unfolds. It’s a recognition that the emotional wounds are not just a result of the events themselves but rather the profound internal shifts and adaptations that occur.  Aspects of trauma Gabor Maté identifies the following four aspects of trauma:  1. Loss of response flexibility That is the ability to be flexible when something happens. When you’re flexible, you are not reacting – meaning you don’t act automatically or mechanically. Response flexibility is one of the functions of our prefrontal cortex – the part of the human brain that distinguishes us from other animals. The prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in executive functions such as decision-making, problem-solving, self-control, and contributing to emotional regulation and social behaviour. For example if someone cuts you off in traffic if you’re reacting most probably you’ll get mad and say something like:”What an idiot! Can’t he see that I am here? My day is ruined now!”. However, if you have response flexibility and you are responding, you might say: “Oh, this guy must be really stressed today” or simply “I didn’t like that” – but you’re not reacting and this won’t ruin your mood or day. Trauma diminishes your capacity for response flexibility. Traffic is one simple and mundane example, but it can be seen in our relationships with our partners, family, and friends, in work and in many other situations in which we react automatically.  2. Alienation Have you ever had the experience of having a strong gut feeling about something, you ignore it and then you feel kinda sorry about it? According to Gabor Mate, not listening to the gut feelings is actually alienation from the self.  For most of human history, we lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, out there in nature. And creatures who live out there in nature won’t survive long if they don’t listen to their own gut feelings. Even though today we live in a modern civilization, gut feelings are still valid since they’re part of our evolution and nature in general. We were born connected to our gut feelings. And at times something happens that disconnects us from ourselves. Picture a scenario from your childhood where you had a strong gut feeling about a situation, perhaps a discomfort or a sense that something wasn’t right. However, due to external pressures or the influence of authority figures, you were compelled to disregard your intuition and conform to others’ expectations. As a result, you made choices that went against your instincts. Over time, you may notice that this pattern of dismissing your gut feelings persists into adulthood. 3. Constriction Trauma is fundamentally about constriction – it tightens your perspective on the world and you carry a belief about it (often unconscious). For example, it’s one thing to acknowledge that the world can be harsh and another to assert that the world is harsh. Seeing the world with the potential for sorrow and joy shows a broader outlook compared to seeing the world as entirely dreadful.  The essence of trauma lies in its capacity to constrict and narrow. If something bad happens to you, but you are not constricted afterwards, you might have suffered, but you haven’t been traumatised. You’ve been traumatised not when you’ve felt pain, but when after the trauma you are more limited in your view and in your capacities to respond than you were before. 4. Difficulty to be in the present Trauma makes it very difficult to be in the present moment. This happens because the present moment used to be too painful and we’ve learnt that it is not good for us and we don’t want to be in it. It is dissociation from the reality here and now. That’s why our minds involuntarily go to the past, the future, or some distraction – we’ve learned that the present moment is so intolerable. People who have extreme difficulty being in the present moment have psychosis. Their minds create an alternate view of reality to keep them safe. Other people with less severe difficulty being in the present moment are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity (ADHD) – in this case, the mind is jumping from one thing to another, and these