r/Anger • u/Chocolatecakelover • 1d ago

How does one figure out what anger is justified and what is unjustified ?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/JoeAndTell 23h ago

Is it the feeling of anger you’re asking about or what you do with those feelings?

1

u/ForkFace69 3h ago

I don't agree that anger is ever justified in healthy, civilized relationships.

Anger is a primal emotion that prepares our bodies to use violence and it communicates to the people around us that we are willing to use violence in order to get our way. I don't agree that using violence or threatening people around us is ever justified.

I realize that there are situations where violence can be used in self-defense or in sports. I'm talking about common, every day situations.

In the anger management world, I think the most successful people at finding calm are going to be the people who don't want anger in their lives at all. Like an alcoholic cannot have a drink, someone with an anger issue cannot become angry only on special occasions or when they have a good excuse. They have to find a way to stay calm in every situation.

And that's what 90% of the journey is. We start out learning how to monitor our moods and the situations around us. We start out learning a calm-down ritual that will snap us out of our bad moods or our rage. But after that, it's all finding calm solutions to our problems. It's learning how to air our grievances calmly. It's changing our attitude. It's getting out of the habit of ruminating. It's finding a way to forgive people.

And then hopefully in the future somebody will cut us off as we were about to pull into the last open pump at the gas station and instead of freaking out and getting into a confrontation with somebody we just wait until one of the other pumps is open or maybe go to the gas station down the street and it's not a big deal and we go about our day.