![]() ![]() While this was helpful for our ancestors, it’s not as helpful for us (unless you’re hiking and encounter a mountain lion!). Your body is preparing for an attack and is using anger as a defense mechanism to protect you. The blood rushes from the front of your brain where logical problem solving occurs and settles in the back of your brain where your flight, fight, freeze response occurs. Your brain kicks into survival mode, your heart rate and blood pressure increases, your pupils dilate, and you might get flushed or hot. While we don’t necessarily have the same predators lurking around our neighborhood today, our brains still operate in the same way, only this time the threat might be your partner yelling, your child throwing a temper tantrum, or someone cutting you off on your way to work. Long ago, our ancestors were faced with real-life threats, such as bears and snakes, and they needed their brain to kick into survival mode instantaneously in order to live. In fact, our brain is triggered into its “survival mode” where we find our fight, flight, freeze response, which in most cases is demonstrated with anger. You see, in moments of anger, our brain sees a threat and is trying to protect us from it. Yep, I said it! Anger is actually a very useful tool that we’ve picked up as humans to protect ourselves. Where Does Anger Come From?Īnger is not bad. Doing so also helps us resolve those emotions quicker than simply responding with the secondary emotion, anger. If we are able to access these primary emotions, then we can communicate them to others, and let go of anger. shame, fear, disappointment, hurt, and loneliness). ![]() Underneath we find our “primary emotions,” the ones that explain where our anger comes from (e.g. Maybe you’ve heard of the expression, “that’s just the tip of the iceberg”? The same is true with anger!Īnger is what is happening on the surface, and if we keep exploring underneath, we might begin to see the larger picture of our emotional experience. When you think of an iceberg, you might immediately visualize a large piece of ice floating on the surface of the water, however, what we often forget is that there is a massive chunk of ice underneath the surface as well. ![]() The problem is that anger is a secondary emotion or an emotion that only shows what is happening on the surface.Īs a therapist, I discuss emotional intelligence and often use the “iceberg analogy” with my clients to talk about anger as a secondary emotion. It is easy to express, and therefore usually the first emotion we show when we are upset about something. Anger is one of the first emotions we learn as a child. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |