The connection between fear and anger
A couple of months ago, I had a really difficult moment in my personal life.
I had a conversation with someone I really love, and it went very poorly. It was just a really tough moment between us, and I wasn't proud of how I acted or responded. I had a temper, and I said things I didn't mean.
Even though the dust settled soon after our conversation and we quickly recovered from that moment together, I continued to think about the way I showed up and wonder what caused me to act the way I did. I didn't feel like myself. I wasn’t acting like the person I really want to be. Why had I gone to such an extreme?
Luckily, I had a therapy session that week (I love therapy!), so I asked my therapist to help me unpack my response.
Through our conversation, she helped me see that anger is often rooted in fear. It’s like an iceberg: Anger is what we see and feel on the outside, but below the surface is fear. It turns out that in this conversation with my loved one, I was scared of losing or jeopardizing our relationship, which is what caused me to respond with anger.
I never want to repeat that experience, so I asked my therapist if we could explore how I might approach the situation differently if I ever find myself in a similar dynamic in the future. And what she shared with me is that the best thing I can do is remove myself from the situation, buy myself some time, and really think about what my values-based decision should be.
I had never thought about using values to guide a personal conversation like this one. I think and talk about values all the time when it comes to leadership and work, but I never thought to stop and reflect on my values in moments when I might be triggered personally and not thinking rationally. It makes perfect sense, though: Centering myself in my values has helped me countless times in difficult situations that have come up in my work and leadership, so of course it would help me here.
When I think back to that particular conversation, I know that if I had just left the room and taken five or ten minutes to myself to really think about my values and how I should respond, I would have had a totally different interaction that day with a totally different outcome.
This was an incredibly important lesson for me, and it’s something that I want to keep in mind as I go forward, especially in my personal life. But I’ve also thought about how this lesson can help in a professional setting. For example, when someone gives you feedback and you feel yourself wanting to respond in anger, take a moment to pause, remove yourself, and look to your values to help you show up better in that situation. Any time you feel your emotions exceeding the moment, take a moment to align your behavior with that of the person you want to be.
Fear and anger are deeply human emotions. Instead of letting them get the better of us, we can acknowledge them, accept them, and remind ourselves that we don’t have to let them dictate our actions. Instead, we can act with our values in mind so that we can show up as the people we truly want to be.
Big hugs,
