I recently had two conversations with women at inflection points in their careers—women who had 10-15 years of success in their prior fields, and are now considering doing something more entrepreneurial. The part of these conversations I enjoyed the most was listening to the anger of these two women—their feeling that something was not right in the world and needed to be fixed. I found the anger to be magnetic. My main message to the two of them was that whatever they ended up doing next, I wanted them to connect their anger to their work.

This two-part series explores how I think about anger and how it connects to work. This piece discusses the conditions that produce anger in a person. Next week, we’ll talk about how anger is channeled and how we can use it in our work.

What Makes Us Angry?

My general frame regarding emotions is that they are information. For example, if I feel anger, what does that mean? What is my nervous system telling me?

I see anger as coming primarily from one of three sources:

1)      Violation of a boundary

2)      A sense of something being unjust

3)      An expectation that is not met

Violation of a boundary

Anger is a defensive emotion. It is the “fight” in “fight or flight.” The nervous system summons anger when it needs to protect something.

The simplest version of this is the defense of a boundary, typically a boundary that represents safety. Certain wild animals may be generally avoidant of humans, but a mother with cubs or other young offspring can become hyperaggressive if she feels that her children are being threatened.

Boundaries other than personal space can also be violated. An insult violates a boundary that is protecting our ego (incidentally, the less insecure a person, the less likely they are to be provoked by insults—a highly secure person’s ego doesn’t need much protection). I recently hosted a meditation event at my house, and when my guests started discussing other people who might like to come to my events, I felt myself becoming angry. I realized later that “I get to decide who gets to come to my house, and not anyone else” was a boundary that my nervous system wanted to defend.

Sensing or seeing injustice

Witnessing or experiencing injustice makes us angry.

Everyone’s definition of justice is different, which is why people have a hard time seeing eye to eye in political arenas. Whether we agree with someone else’s definition of justice or not, from their perspective, something is happening in the environment that violates their sense of justice or morality. This is also the impulse to defend or protect, but it’s often the desire to defend or protect other people.

I see this form of anger as highly constructive, and the most relevant to finding work in connection with one’s higher purpose. This is the type of anger that can be used as fuel—I imagine that people like Gandhi and MLK felt like this. They felt angry about the state of the world around them and were willing to take extreme personal risks to drive change.

I’ll say more about this next week.

Expectations not being met

When I expect something, or expect a person to behave a certain way and it doesn’t happen, I get angry.

This type of anger gets sparked constantly for us. If I have an appointment with someone at 10, and I show up at 10, and they are late, I may become angry. It’s because implicitly, I expected them to show up when they said they were going to show up. It’s also possible that I don’t become angry, because even though we agreed to meet at 10, deep down I never expected them to be on time because I’m also never on time and as a result I don’t become angry. The difference isn’t the person’s behavior, the difference is my expectation of the person’s behavior.

This type of anger can be problematic, and if we feel it frequently, it’s worth exploring what the unspoken expectations are. The Buddhists say that attachment, or expectation to something happening or being a certain way, is the root cause of all suffering.

In the context of business, this anger also comes up a lot. Entrepreneurs expect customers to like certain things. Investors expect the market to see the facts in a certain way. Managers expect their direct reports to behave in a certain way. Sometimes people communicate what their expectations are, but often times people don’t. They may not even be aware of their expectations. Even more importantly, if there is a hidden expectation, the person that you expect something from may never have agreed to have that expectation placed on them.

Pure and Impure Anger

I want to conclude by saying a few words about the “purity” of anger.

My imagery for this is magma erupting from the earth. When it’s bursting out of the volcano, it’s a bright-yellow orange and is purely liquid. When it cools, it turns a darker color and now has some chunks of solid rock in it, which in my mind look like impurities. When I bring my anger into my work, I want to bring the “pure” version of my anger—the part that feels something in the world is wrong and I want to make it right.

When I do that, I want to filter out the parts that to me feel “impure”—my expectations of what people should and shouldn’t do, or what they should and shouldn’t want. This may not entirely resonate with you but these two forms of anger feel different to me.

Whether this framing makes sense to you or not, I encourage you to spend time with your anger and explore whether any of the three root causes resonate with you. This week’s exercise will provide a guide.

Exercise

Journal on the following or discuss with a friend.

1)      Noticing

What made me angry this week?

Try to connect with the anger you felt, or still feel. Are there words, imagery, sounds, or sensations in the body that come up when you reflect on the anger?

Let yourself feel the sensations, hear the sounds, see the imagery, or read/hear the words.

2)      Inquiry

Does my anger connect to any of the three sources?

Did I feel anger at a person violating my boundaries?

Did I see something unjust, or was I treated unjustly?

Did someone fail to meet my expectation?

3)      Action

Take an action to address your anger.

If my boundary was violated, can I be more clear with others about what my boundaries are?

If a person failed to meet my expectations, can I express my expectations more clearly? Or do I want to let go of the expectation entirely—does the expectation serve me?

If I felt anger at injustice, what would I do to influence the world in a way that it becomes slightly less unjust? Can I take a step in that direction right now?